New Silicon Beach venture capital firm Tylt Lab raises $20 million

Tylt Lab, a new Santa Monica venture capital firm, has raised $20 million for early-stage start-ups in Silicon Beach.

The fund will support local entrepreneurs through seed to series A investments, Tylt said, estimating that this year it will be making 12 to 15 investments ranging from $50,000 to $2 million.

The company said it focuses on “businesses disruptive to their industries,” which include lifestyle products, mobile platforms and services, home automation, software-oriented transactions, consumer goods, clean tech, e-healthcare and entertainment.

“We believe that the local start-up ecosystem has finally reached a critical mass in Los Angeles -- specifically in the Silicon Beach area -- and our fund intends to be in the middle of all the action,” Gerard Casale, a Tylt partner, said in a statement. “We are finding great companies here in SoCal.”

L.A. entrepreneurs Casale and Rami Rostami founded the fund and built Tylt’s management team. The two have been privately investing in companies together since 2008.

Tylt said it has already made two seed-stage investments, in shipping logistics firm Cargomatic and ticketing company Pogoseat.

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