Amplify LA closed $8 million in funding last week, the Venice-based accelerator’s largest round yet. The funds will support current and future portfolio companies with follow-on funding, which will help Amplify “fulfill our own prophecy,” Oded Noy, co-founder and chief technologist said.
Emphasizing the support of companies at different stages, the Amplify team is “not necessarily going to invest more on Day 1” for new portfolio companies, but will have a more wiggle room to further support already successful portfolio companies.
“We are a rolling start; we look for the perfect timing for the perfect company that we can help,” Noy said. “We want a larger capacity to help those companies that are more successful and have a larger return for our investors.”
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Amplify has seen some major successes since it was launched in 2011 by managing director Paul Bricault and executive director Jeff Solomon: their roughly 25 companies raised about $30 million in outside funding and three of them exited. Right now, a few current portfolio companies Noy said he is particularly excited about include Bitium, RadPad, The Kive Company, Mover.io and MapSense.
Committed to building LA success stories, this LA accelerator is backed by LA investors Karlin Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Siemer Ventures in this round, bringing Amplify’s total amount raised to $12 million. An LA-centric support system like this is becoming more and more common, Noy said.
“It has become more evident that the ecosystem in LA is maturing,” Noy said. “The number of companies that we’re getting that aren’t first-timers, that have track records, makes it much easier within the ecosystem to create that level of support. It takes a village.”
And by “village” Noy doesn’t just mean Amplify’s founding team and mentors: “It’s not just about Amplify, it’s about community,” he said.
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