November, 2021

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Density & the Future of Real Estate

Both Sides of the Table

Nearly six years ago, I was thrilled to invest in Andrew Farah and the team at Density when they had a vision for building anonymous tracking of how people use office buildings, rentals and other public spaces. And today, as the company announces their latest funding round of $125M at a $1B+ valuation , I’m still thrilled to back Density as they are growing massively with customers like Uber, Shopify, Delta, and Cisco, among many others.

News 249
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Open Blends Mindfulness With Tech

L.A. Business Journal

After years of working with major companies and startups in the busy tech ecosystem of San Francisco, Raed Khawaja needed to take a deep breath.

Startup 304
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AKUA lands $3.2M to turn kelp into burgers

TechCrunch LA

The global meat substitute market was valued at $4.51 billion two years ago and is expected to double by 2027, attracting startups, like alternative meat food tech company AKUA , that aim to solidify a prominent place in the up-and-coming industry. Former technology journalist Courtney Boyd Myers co-founded AKUA with Matthew Lebo five years ago after seeking out a career where she could leave a legacy and fulfill her mission of reversing climate change.

Startup 191
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ViaCyte Names General Counsel

socalTECH

San Diego-based ViaCyte, a clinical-stage regenerative medicine company, said today that it has named Marty Lorenzo as General Counsel. Lorenzo previously was Vice President Legal Affairs and Assistant Corporate Secretary at Petco. Lorenzo also previously served at DLA Piper, Mintz Levin, and Kilpatrick Townsend. The company says its first product candidates are being developed as potential long-term treatments for patients with type 1 diabetes to achieve glucose control targets and reduce the r

San Diego 201
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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

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Recognize your five critical business risks.

Berkonomics

If you could predict a crisis within your business before its occurrence, wouldn’t you move to prevent or reduce its impact? Making such predictions is a skill that can be developed, and here’s one method of doing so. First let’s eliminate external risks for this conversation. Of course, there are external risks that cannot be controlled or predicted but can be planned for as well – natural disasters, sudden political or economic events that rattle the entire economy, and more.

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6 Leadership Skills Every Entrepreneur Must Acquire

Startup Professionals Musings

Starting and building a company is all about leadership – formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. Yet the image of leadership in business is at an all-time low, according to national leadership experts, considering the political debacles, recent business scandals, and executive fraud cases.

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$588M Sixth Street Viaduct Replacement Project Passes Key Milestone

L.A. Business Journal

It may be the largest construction project in Los Angeles history, but until recently, construction work related to the Sixth Street Viaduct replacement bridge had mainly been a local affair, rarely intruding on Angelenos’ larger consciousness.

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Shareholders approve Bird-SPAC merger, stock promptly falls

TechCrunch LA

Shares of Switchback II Corporation are off more than 14% in morning trading today, appearing to sell off sharply in the wake of news that the blank-check company’s merger with scooter company Bird has been approved by shareholders. Shares of the SPAC were off as far as 20% before recovering. dot.LA first spotted the vote news ; Bird is based in the Los Angeles metropolitan agglomeration.

News 148
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Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Shows Off Capsule Design

socalTECH

Playa Vista-based transportation technology developer Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is showing off what it calls its "completed hyperloop capsule passenger experience", which it designed in conjunction with design firm ICONA Design Group. The design--which only exists on paper and fancy rendered graphics--will be installed in the company's first commercial passenger prototype, according to the company.

Design 195
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What can go wrong with your business growth?

Berkonomics

So, your business has begun to take off. You’ve figured out your channels of distribution, pricing model and how to support your growing list of customers. Don’t be alarmed by this next statement. That’s relatively easy. You can be the one to develop a product or service, promote it, and support it when you are a small operation. But what if you need to repeat the process of positioning, selling, and supporting your product ten thousand or more times as often as you do today?

Class 156
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10 Signs That You Should Avoid Starting A New Venture

Startup Professionals Musings

People who get stressed managing their own lives don’t make good entrepreneurs. Small businesses require multi-tasking, work prioritization, and decision-making, with no assistants or help from specialists. That’s why Fortune 500 executives usually don’t survive as startup CEOs. First you have to learn to accept total responsibility for things that happen to your business, just like you are responsible for everything in your personal life.

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Latest Post-COVID Trends in the Telecom Sector

Southern California Edison Blog

Although the bulk of the COVID-19 pandemic has passed, lingering effects in the form of ongoing remote work and network usage will continue to influence how telecom operators operate. At the start of the pandemic, reliance on in-home data usage spiked by up to 18 percent compared to pre-pandemic times, and average daily data usage rates exceeded 16.6GB.

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United Airlines Opens $352 Million Hangar Facility at LAX

L.A. Business Journal

A lot of focus on the $14 billion makeover of Los Angeles International Airport has been on improvements that passengers will see, but new facilities are also emerging behind the scenes.

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Precellerator Program Virtual Demo Day

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, November 4, 2021 --.

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Huckleberry Connects With $12.5M For Baby Sleep Advice App

socalTECH

Irvine-based Huckleberry, a developer of an artificial intelligence-driven app which helps parents with pediatric sleep advice, says it has raised $12.5M in a Series A funding. The funding was led by Morningside Ventures and also included Spero Ventures and Tamarisc VC. The company says the round brings its total raised to $16M. Huckleberry's app provides advice to new parents on how to manage the sleep patterns for newborns and even older children.

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Premature scaling can kill your business.

Berkonomics

Here’s a lesson from experience. Venture capitalists sometimes make an error in directing their portfolio company CEOs to push resources to the limit and scale the business to immense size quickly, all to seize market share. The logic in this is simple: once a company has market share, other issues can be sorted out to monetize the market, make the company profitable, scoop up wavering competitors, or even sell the company to a larger firm looking for a large customer base.

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8 Expectations To Check Your Entrepreneur Motivation

Startup Professionals Musings

Until the recession a decade ago, market research indicated that as many as 90 percent of the roughly 20 million American small business owners were motivated more by lifestyle than growth and money. More recently, the desire for extra income has become the key driver in new startups, according to the popular press. It seems that more people are focused on money today.

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Addressing Cyber Security Threats in the Telecom Industry

Southern California Edison Blog

Telecom operators face a variety of security-related vulnerabilities stemming from the overall complexity of their infrastructure, supply chain problems, network misconfigurations, and privacy concerns. To prevent expensive downtime, interrupted service, and stolen data, carriers should identify and address potential network infrastructure vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit.

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Coco Delivers Big Results With Small Robots

L.A. Business Journal

Last summer, Cyan Robotics Inc., better known as Coco, was just Brad Squicciarini, Zach Rash and a robot on the streets of Santa Monica.

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Tech And Remote Work: Four Things You Need To Know About Tech Salaries

AllTopStartups

In 2021, the new normal has forced organizations to implement new strategies and policies. Tech professionals are in-demand and have helped organizations to survive. Working remotely might seem very attractive… The post Tech And Remote Work: Four Things You Need To Know About Tech Salaries appeared first on AllTopStartups.

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Neurophth Gains $60M For Gene Therapy Efforts

socalTECH

San Diego-based Neurophth, a gene therapy company, has raised $60M in a Series C funding round, the company said today. The funding was co-led by CMG-SDIC Capital and Sequoia Capital China, and also included Sunshine Insurance and China Merchant Bank International Capital. According to the company, the funding will go towards its lead clinical program, enrich R&D pipeline and programs through business development and continue to expand the its gene therapy manufacturing platform.

San Diego 182
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Five ways to make and execute a great plan

Berkonomics

It is all about execution. Waiting over a year to see results is too long, since your chance of mid-course correction is greatly reduced. To make the point, Harvard’s Robert Kaplan believes that less than 10% of corporate strategies are effectively executed. Ouch! If that is true, we are tolerant bunch. We carefully plan in long, dedicated sessions each year or so, then draw up a series of goals, strategies, tactics, objectives, targets, or whatever we want to name them.

Resource 156
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10 Tips On Due Diligence On Any Startup Funding Offer

Startup Professionals Musings

Some aspiring entrepreneurs are so desperate for funding, or naïve, that they ignore the obvious signs of scams and rip-offs on the Internet, praying for a windfall. One would think that with all the sad stories and tools published over the past twenty years, this problem would be behind us. But people are still begging for more technology or laws, often to protect them from themselves.

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HiveWatch Makes Security Scalable

L.A. Business Journal

With a decade of experience in technology and law enforcement, Ryan Schonfeld knows a thing or two about security.

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EV-Maker VinFast Moves to Playa Vista, Plans US Expansion

L.A. Business Journal

Last week was a busy one for VinFast. The EV-maker, a subsidiary of Vietnam-based VinFast Trading and Service Co., moved into a 15,000-square-foot space in Playa Vista to set up its U.S. headquarters.

Services 246
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SunGreen Integrates Energy Management With Solar Installation for Commercial Customers

L.A. Business Journal

When it launched 12 years ago as a solar panel installation spin-off business, Pasadena-based SunGreen Systems Inc.could have tried to compete with major players in the residential solar rooftop market.

Customer 246
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Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck Shares Why He Keeps Things Complex

L.A. Business Journal

Peter Beck realized space flight was his dream while looking at the night sky as a toddler with his dad.

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EVgo Doubles Market Value to $4.7B, Partners With GM and Uber

L.A. Business Journal

EVgo Inc.’s market value doubled to about $4.7 billion over the last couple of weeks with investors reacting positively to the Sawtelle-based EV charging station network’s quarterly results along with news of expanded collaboration with General Motors Co. and Uber Technologies Inc.

Marketing 244
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Into the Metaverse

L.A. Business Journal

The “metaverse” is currently one of the hottest topics in tech — particularly since social media giant Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta Platforms Inc.

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Whatnot Sees Livestream Success

L.A. Business Journal

When Roger Caneda discovered Whatnot Inc. in January, selling trading cards was just a side hustle.

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LA’s Greentech Industry is Growing

L.A. Business Journal

From zero-emission transportation to clean energy, L.A.’s environmental technology industry has boomed in recent years.

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LA’s Greentech Industry on the Rise

L.A. Business Journal

From zero-emission transportation to clean energy, L.A.’s environmental technology industry has boomed in recent years.

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Tetra Tech Reports Record Fiscal Year Earnings, Wins Part of $110M Contract

L.A. Business Journal

Pasadena-based Tetra Tech Inc. — the largest engineering and infrastructure services firm in Los Angeles County now that AECOM has departed for Dallas — reported record fiscal 2021 earnings on Nov. 17.

Report 130
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Snap Stock Falls 22% After Announcing $1B Third Quarter Earnings

L.A. Business Journal

Snap Inc. announced earnings of more than $1 billion for the third quarter in its quarterly report on Oct. 21, but new Apple Inc. data collection rules and the company’s acknowledgment of supply chain issues that carry industrywide repercussions prompted its stock prices to fall.

Pricing 130
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TrueCar Sales Fall Amid Supply Chain Shortages

L.A. Business Journal

Santa Monica-based automotive technology platform TrueCar Inc.’s sales tumbled as supply chain issues rocked the company, according to its third quarter earnings report.

Truecar 130
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QLess Acquired By Private Equity Investor

socalTECH

Pasadena-based QLess, which develops software for managing virtual customer waiting lines, said on Tuesday evening that it has been acquired by Palisades Growth Capital, along with a syndicate of un-identified family offices. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. QLess powers virtual check-ins for virtual lines, where people can check in and receive SMS updates about wait times.

Equity 140