TenOneTen Ventures Raises $18 Million Seed Fund

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Seed investment firm TenOneTen Ventures of Century City has closed an $18 million fund.

The fund is TenOneTen’s first and is focused on seed investments in data-centric tech startups. The venture firm has been investing in tech companies since 2013, but only today formally closed its fundraising.

TenOneTen is co-founded by David Waxman, founder of privacy company Firefly, and Gil Elbaz, chief executive of location-data company Factual of Century City. In addition to Waxman, TenOneTen has one other full-time employee, with Elbaz serving as a part-time adviser.

The seed fund is focused on technology-heavy startups that use data to transform industries where people have traditionally gone by their gut.

“Industries that are changing, that are getting more analytical,” Waxman said.

Some companies in TenOneTen’s portfolio include location-based mobile advertising firm NearWoo of Santa Monica, and on-demand valet service Carbon, which is headquartered in San Francisco.

Waxman said that advertising, health care, commercial real estate and sports companies are all particularly interesting to TenOneTen. The firm aims to invest in 20 to 30 such companies over the next two years, typically in seed rounds between $250,000 and $750,000.

While TenOneTen is not exclusively focused on L.A. startups, Waxman said the region’s growing number of businesses means the fund will likely make significant investments locally.

“The quality of the companies, the quality of the founders keeps growing,” he said.

And while startup equity prices have risen across the board, L.A. startups appear to remain a bargain.

“The prices have definitely gone up steadily for the last three or four years,” said Waxman. Yet, “There are still reasonable prices to be found, most often outside the Bay Area,” he added.

Technology reporter Garrett Reim can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @garrettreim for the latest in L.A. tech news.

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