Building on its successful early track record of matching Series-A ready companies with qualified investors, including two companies that recently closed a combined $18M, the Alliance for SoCal Innovation (“Alliance”) is expanding the SoCal Venture Pipeline program brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank. It will now include seed-stage startups raising $1M+ of institutional capital. This program expansion allows more committed diverse SoCal founders to connect with investors.
Dedicated to helping SoCal startups
The SoCal Venture Pipeline brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank initially launched with a focus on startups seeking Series A rounds (starting at +$4M). Several recent trends in the funding landscape prompted the program’s expansion. The most notable trends were the increase in the size of average early-stage investments, the increase in overall dollars invested at the early stage and the move of later-stage investors into early-stage investment.
“Recent funding trends have led us to conclude that we can better serve great SoCal entrepreneurs earlier in the venture funding cycle. Helping founders at an earlier stage will enable us to strategically advance more founders who have historically struggled to access institutional venture capital,” said Andy Wilson, Executive Director of the Alliance.
The program will now open to applications from SoCal-based tech startups raising $1M or more of institutional seed capital. The program builds on the success of its Series A focus and will continue to accept Series A-ready companies. Thus far, the SoCal Venture Pipeline has helped 13 companies, with two receiving over $18M+ of combined funding.
How the pipeline program assists entrepreneurs
Additionally, the expansion of the program will help provide access to funding to more women and minority entrepreneurs. Too often, these groups have struggled to secure funding at earlier stages. One of the original goals of the program was to help underrepresented founders access capital. By accepting earlier stage companies, SoCal Venture Pipeline brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank will be able to do so. Additional support for the program is provided by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and KPPB.
“Southern California is ripe with talented founders, and now, through the expansion of the SoCal Venture Pipeline program, we can help more founders at this crucial early stage in a company’s lifecycle,” said LA-based DeMarcus Williams, Managing Director, Early Stage Tech for Silicon Valley Bank.
The goal of the program is to continue to create pathways to funding access for great entrepreneurs. This will drive job growth, economic prosperity and a stronger SoCal innovation ecosystem.
Venture Pipeline program guidelines
The guidelines for tech startups for the Venture Pipeline program are:
- Based in Southern California
- Dedicated team of 2 or more
- For Seed Stage: raising $1M+ of institutional capital; have already raised at least $250K through angel funding and/or friends/family AND/OR have a product in market and demonstrated customer traction along with potentially early revenue generation
- For Series A: raising institutional capital of $4M+ of institutional capital with a scalable business model
For SoCal-based tech startups that meet the guidelines above, apply now.
About The Alliance for Southern California Innovation
The Alliance for Southern California Innovation (the “Alliance”) is a not-for-profit formed in 2017 that has successfully brought together the heft of Southern California’s top research institutions, local business leaders and world-class advisors to focus on bridging critical gaps in the SoCal innovation ecosystem. The goal of the Alliance is to engage and unify SoCal’s compelling diversity of talent, ideas and perspectives. Doing so will optimize the conditions for the region’s innovators to bring breakthroughs to the world.
About Silicon Valley Bank
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) helps innovative companies and investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB provides targeted financial services and expertise through its offices in innovation centers around the world. Three of its SoCal offices are in Santa Monica, San Diego and Irvine. With commercial, international and private banking services, SVB helps address the unique needs of innovators.
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