Monday, June 24, 2013
IVP: We Love LA, So We Invested In Snapchat
A lot of heads turned Monday after Venice-based Snapchat, the instant-photo messaging service known for its self destructing chats, announced a huge, $60M round at a huge valuation. Why did lead investor IVP invest in what most local investors shied away from? Among the reasons given in a blog post from IVP, defending its investment in Snapchat: the firm loves LA. In its post, giving a number of its reasons for the investment, IVP said that "We Love LA", citing the success of LA's JAMDAT Mobile, the mobile gaming firm which went public and was eventually acquired by Electronic Arts--which was founded by Mitch Lasky, who sits on Snapchat's board and is a partner at Benchmark. Los Angeles hasn't had a huge success with highly valued companies--the last firm to be in that position was Viddy, which had to recap the firm earlier this year after failing to live up to those valuations.