Monday, February 11, 2013

Karlin Ventures Sets Up Community Office Hours

Are you an entrepreneur looking for a sympathetic ear from a local venture capitalist on your idea? Karlin Ventures, one of the newest venture capital funds to emerge in the Los Angeles area, said today that it has launched a new "community hour" with Santa Monica's ROC, where the venture capital investment will help provide feedback on startup ideas and chat with companies. Karlin said its will be holding office hours every Thursday, starting February 21st, at ROC Santa Monica, as part of an effort to help aspiring entrepeneurs. Karlin's TX Zhuo said that the long term vision is for other LA investors and successful entrepreneurs to participate.

Office hours are not entirely new to Southern California's venture capital community--the Tech Coast Angels was holding monthly "Entrepreneur Mixers" last year for similar reasons, and Okapi Venture Capital also had been holding office hours in Orange County over the past couple of years--however, the practice hasn't been all that common considering the large imbalance in entrepreneurs (many) to capital sources (few) in the region.

Zhuo explained that the firm is launching the community hours, because he found that entrepreneurs, especially those that don't go through accelerators, "don't have an avenue to get feedback and support from investors or mentors without compromising their funding chances in the future. "

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