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Since its launch three years ago, Coloft has been a major player in the LA tech community’s growth. Founder Avesta Rasouli has seen countless companies through their infant stages and Coloft has even been called the “mom and pop institution” of LA startups.
A few current Coloft companies helped to shed light on Coloft’s reputation by sharing their Coloft experiences and their own growth plans for the next several months. Here are three Colofters you need to look out for:
12Twenty: provides universities with applications so that they can easily collect and organize graduates’ employment and salary data. Schools pay a yearly subscription so that they don’t have to manually collect info using Survey Monkey and Excel spreadsheets.
Why they do what they do: There is increased government pressure on universities to provide employment data to prospective and current students; to facilitate this, 12Twenty gives easy access to students who want to check out their school’s alumni data, too. “All of us have been through a number of universities,” CEO Kenny Berlin said. “We thought the way things were happening was really backwards.”
Funding status: 12 Twenty’s last round was about a year ago and Berlin said the team is considering raising another round early or mid-2014. “Not because we need it so much, but just to keep the growth going,” Berlin said. “There are a lot of opportunities that we are seeing and we don’t want to slow down on that.”
Their take on Coloft: They’ve been here since August 2012 and Berlin said they don’t want to leave! “The community is awesome,” he said. “We get so much value out of being here, so as long as they’ll have us, we’ll stay.”
Look out for them this summer because: they are hiring! With a ultimate goal of becoming a billion dollar exit, 12Twenty is looking for top talent in development, marketing, operations and sales. “Our big step right now is making sure we don’t mess things up, so we need really smart people to execute,” Berlin said. “We really believe in the LA startup community: we know those people are here.”
Pogoseat: is an enterprise ticketing solution that works with teams and venues to enhance the fan experience. On the fan side, they are a mobile app that provides fans with the opportunity to upgrade seats during a live event.
Why they do it: Founder Evan Owens was at a Washington Nationals game was unable to move seats, even though he offered to pay more. “It was born at that moment,” Max Lebovitz, VP of Marketing said. In 2012, Evan and his team started building out the product, launched in beta with Stanford and subsequently went live with the Golden State Warriors in November.
Coloft works for them because: the Pogoseat team is actually split with four businesspeople in LA and four techies in San Francisco. So they needed a flexible environment where the team could mingle with other entrepreneurs, Lebovitz said.
Keep your eyes on them because: they have funding momentum! The team just graduated from incubator AngelPad in San Francisco, which helped them to connect with potential investors. They are currently going through a seed round and look to raise Series A funding in about a year.
TestMax: develops comprehensive test prep courses that are available on mobile device platforms.
Why they do it: In 2009, the TestMax team noticed a monopoly in the test prep industry. “The most popular course charged $4,000 for a stack of books and the ‘in-class’ option did not even include live instruction,” COO Sina Mobasser said.
Funding status: Bootstrapped.
Keep your eyes on them this summer because: they are releasing a new iOS app, SATMax, this week! “We are extremely excited about SATMax, as it increases the market of test takers for courses we provide from 200,000 to over 3,000,000,” Mobasser said. “TestMax will release an ACT course later this year.”
Why Coloft: The connections the TestMax team has made at Coloft led them to adding Tyler Crowley and Jason Nazar to their advisory board and also gave them the opportunities to present at LA Demo Day and LAUNCH Education & Kids. “Each and every Colofter seems more willing to help than the next,” Mobasser said. “Coloft allows its members to draw on the strengths of others in the community making for a truly unique entrepreneurial work space.”
