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As The LA Tech Scene Heats Up, Accelerator Amplify Raises $8 Million

[Philip Lelyveld comment; congratulations to Paul, Oded, and the team.]

The accelerator, which is the brainchild of Greycroft venture partner and former William Morris exec Paul Bricault, Oded Noy, Richard Wolpert and Jeff Solomon, has backed 26 companies with its first fund, resulting in 3 exits and more than $30 million in additional seed and Series A funds raised. Bricault tells me that Amplify has aimed to differentiate itself from the growing sea of accelerators in a number of ways.

First, Amplify doesn’t have set classes/semesters. The accelerator accepts applications from founders and startups on a rolling basis. This is beneficial to startups for a number of reasons, he explains. First, because development process for startups differs (i.e. enterprise vs. gaming), having a set three-month-long program doesn’t necessarily work for all companies. Another benefit to not having classes is that not every startup is fundraising at the same time, and this creates a more collegial atmosphere among founders because most of them are not competing for investors. In fact, Bricault has observed that founders tend to share information and contacts more freely when it comes to investors.

The second differentiating aspect of Amplify is not having set terms/financing for all startups joining the program. Not each startup gets the same amount of cash for the same amount of equity (i.e. $50,000 for 6 percent of the company). “Not all companies are created equally,” Bricault says. Bricault and Solomon will take into account how far along the startup is, the quality of the team, customers and more when accepting and financing a startup. And he adds that, increasingly, companies come to the program having already developed and/or launched a product, so the traditional accelerator terms don’t necessarily fit. Amplify has also brought on a CTO, a director of investments and a business development exec to help startups with raising money, marketing and more.

Bricault says this approach has paid off for the founders themselves. Out of the first 26 companies, 24 raised seed rounds over the past two years, including Stack Social, Bitium, and Battlefy. Many are raising their Series A rounds at the moment, he adds. The three exits mentioned above include Look.io to LivePerson, Shipmate to Cruiseline.com, and Kingmaker to Joyus.

See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/15/as-the-la-tech-scene-heats-up-accelerator-amplify-raises-8-million/