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XWatch: How Women Can Build Confidence in a Virtual World
Annie Burford is dot.LA's director of events. She's an event marketing pro with over ten years of experience producing innovative corporate events, activations and summits for tech startups to Fortune 500 companies. Annie has produced over 200 programs in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City working most recently for a China-based investment bank heading the CEC Capital Tech & Media Summit, formally the Siemer Summit.

The latest edition of our dot.LA Convenes series, devoted to empowering women in tech, focused on "Building Confidence in a Virtual World."
dot.LA Convenes: Building Confidence in a Virtual Worldyoutu.be
As movements such as Times Up and Me Too gain in popularity, examples of women using their voices in the workplace have taken center stage. With all this attention on these issues, why is it that we still struggle with self assurance to stand up for ourselves? Why is it more difficult to find the same confidence our male counterparts easily exude in workplace interactions — especially in male-dominated industries like tech?
Challenges around self-censorship have only increased during the pandemic with financial security at stake and working from home making it more difficult to have authentic interactions. We seek to foster an honest dialogue and discuss specific strategies to combat them.
Esports One COO and Co-Founder Sharon Winter, Vurbl Media Co-founder, CEO Audra Everett Gold, and Valence Head of Partnerships Victoria Tinsley held in in-depth discussion on the topic, led by dot.LA Chief Host & Correspondent Kelly O'Grady.
Victoria Tinsley, head of partnerships at Valence
Victoria Tinsley, Head of Partnerships at Valence
Victoria Tinsley is the Head of Partnerships at Valence, a new tech platform and community incubated by Upfront Ventures focused on connecting Black professionals with mentorship, career opportunities and capital. The company's mission is to unlock the global combined power of Black professionals to create massive economic wealth and social progress that impacts current and future generations. Valence was founded in January 2019 and has a thriving membership of thousands of Black leaders across the nation. Valence also partners with a variety of organizations such as PledgeLA, Netflix, Facebook, USC, The Gathering Spot and Silicon Valley Bank.
Prior to joining Valence, Victoria served on the marketing senior leadership team at AAA as vice president, consumer insights & data analytics. In this role, she led the analytics center of excellence that supported four divisions (Insurance, Membership, Travel, A3 Labs) representing over $4 billion in annual revenue.
A traditionally trained CPG marketer, Victoria also previously worked at General Mills managing product development and marketing strategy for the Annie's Homegrown, Immaculate Baking Company and Pillsbury brands. Prior to earning her MBA at the Michigan Ross School of Business, Victoria held a variety of marketing roles during her 7 years at Active Network, a tech startup that had a successful $1 billion IPO and sale.
Audra Everett Gold, co-founder and CEO at Vurbl Media
Audra Everett Gold, Co-founder and CEO at Vurbl Media
Audra Gold has dedicated her entire career to building first to market and scaled mass media digital products. Her passion for product management and her ability to identify new and emerging product trends has led to her reputation for developing novel, cutting-edge products across gaming, streaming video, digital media, enterprise SaaS platforms, in various business verticals.
Today, as the founder of Product N, a product management consulting and recruitment firm, Audra and her team work with early-stage ventured funded start-ups in various verticals to create, launch and grow their digital products. The team also works in partnership with the VC firm Alpha Edison, helping AE portfolio companies in need of product management expertise to either create, expand or pivot their digital product lines.
Prior to Product N, Audra has spent years leading Product teams at Rubicon Project, The Mighty, Pluto TV, Fourthwall Studios and Defy Media (formerly Break Media). She also held senior product roles at WeddingChannel/TheKnot, Viviendi Universal's online division, and IGN.com.
Sharon WInter, COO and co-founder of Esports One
Sharon Winter, COO and Co-Founder of Esports One
Sharon Winter is the COO and Co-Founder of Esports One, the first all-in-one all-in-one fantasy esports platform with real-time predictive data. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Sharon previously worked at IBM's Watson division before becoming CEO and Founder of Hotpoint App, a CRM and data company for the entertainment and hospitality industries with over 2500 clients from Live Nation, Patron, Hakkasan, Wynn, and others.
Sharon has experience building community-centered products within data-rich platforms. She's on the mission of bringing esports to the Olympics by bridging the gap between esports and sports, and the endemics and non-endemics of the gaming world.
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Annie Burford is dot.LA's director of events. She's an event marketing pro with over ten years of experience producing innovative corporate events, activations and summits for tech startups to Fortune 500 companies. Annie has produced over 200 programs in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City working most recently for a China-based investment bank heading the CEC Capital Tech & Media Summit, formally the Siemer Summit.
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‘It’s the Single Biggest Lever’: How Fifth Wall Aims To Fund a Climate Revolution in Real Estate
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
Fifth Wall, a Los Angeles-based venture capital group, has closed a half-billion-dollar fund to decarbonize the property industry. The new money brings the group’s total managed investments to just north of $3 billion. It will be used to “invest in anything and everything to decarbonize the real estate industry,” says Brendan Wallace, co-founder and managing partner at Fifth Wall.
The real estate industry is vast, and its contribution to climate change is well documented. A recent McKinsey study estimates “[r]eal estate drives approximately 39 percent of total global emissions.” Transportation, by comparison, is responsible for around 27%.
“It's the single biggest lever the world can turn on mitigating climate change,” says Wallace. “However, as a category, it's pretty systemically under-invested in from climate venture capital funds. “Only about 6%, historically, of climate venture capital has gone into real estate-related technologies.”
Fifth Wall wants to change that by bringing together some of the biggest real estate owners—names like Marriot, Hilton and British Land—and investing their money into technologies that will help decarbonize the industry.
Fifth Wall’s portfolio includes everything from companies that make more efficient HVAC motors to carbon negative cement. The group also has financial stakes in heat pump and green hydrogen companies. There’s software of all sorts to invest in: regulatory compliance, fintech and industrial internet of things (IoT) technology that can support a real estate and construction economy that tracks carbon.
Wallace says the sheer scope of the real estate market combined with new interest in climate conscious investments helped create a demand for new fintech products that can track emissions and provide financial products that bake carbon costs into savings. “The U.S. commercial and residential real estate market is bigger than the U.S. stock market. It's the single biggest capital market on Earth,” says Wallace. “The allocators to that market are overwhelmingly saying ‘We will preferentially deploy capital to low or no carbon footprint real estate.’ So THE cost of capital has dramatically changed for lower carbon footprint real estate.”
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David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
This Week in ‘Raises’: Whatnot Gets a $260M Boost, Fifth Wall Closes a $500M Fund
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
The three-year-old livestream shopping platform secured over $200 million in fresh funding to expand beyond collectibles, while Marina del Rey-based Fifth Wall closed a half-billion-dollar fund aimed at companies bringing carbon neutral technology to real estate.
Venture Capital
Whatnot, a Marina del Rey-based live shopping platform, raised a $260 million Series D funding round co-led by DST Global and CapitalG.
Divergent, a Torrance-based motor vehicle manufacturing company leveraging 3D printing technology, received a $60 million venture loan led by Horizon Technology Finance Corp. Bridge Bank, and a $20 million line of credit from Western Alliance Bank.
Flip, an Inglewood-based social and live ecommerce platform that uses a TikTok-like discovery system, raised a $60 million Series B funding round led by WestCap.
San Diego-based synthetic biology startup Persephone Biosciences, raised a $15 million seed funding round co-led by First Bight Ventures and Propel Bio Partners.
Agoura Hills-based AI platform Cynthia.io, raised a $10 million seed funding round led by New York City based CMT Portfolio Advisors.
Ghost, a Los Angeles-based inventory distribution marketplace, raised a $13 million Series A funding round led by Union Square Ventures.
Fairplay, a Los Angeles-based software company that uses AI to reduce "algorithmic bias" in lending for people of color and women, raised a $10 million Series A funding round led by Nyca Partners.
San Diego-based crypto investments services company OnrampInvest, raised $7 million in a Series A funding round co-led by JAM FINTOP and EJF Capital LLC.
MELON, a Los Angeles-based metaverse startup that’s in charge of major music events on Roblox, raised a $5 million seed round from Crush Ventures, Gaingels, Comcast Spectacor, and former Roblox CFO Matt Finick.
Santa Monica-based Perelel, a women’s vitamin subscription-based company, raised a $4.7 million seed funding round led by Unilever Ventures.
Funds
Marina del Rey-based Fifth Wallraised $500 million for its first climate fund, focused on technologies aimed at decarbonizing the real estate industry.
Manhattan Beach-based B Capital Groupclosed a $250 million early-stage fund focused on digitizing large, traditional industries such as health care and finance.
Tech Coast Angels’ Los Angeles Fund (TCA LA), an Irvine-based venture capital and private equity firm, raised an undisclosed amount for its third fund aimed at a large range of startups based in the L.A. area.
Raises is dot.LA’s weekly feature highlighting venture capital funding news across Southern California’s tech and startup ecosystem. Please send fundraising news to Decerry Donato (decerrydonato@dot.la).
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Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
Here's What To Expect At LA Tech Week
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
LA Tech Week—a weeklong showcase of the region’s growing startup ecosystem—is coming this August.
The seven-day series of events, from Aug. 15 through Aug. 21, is a chance for the Los Angeles startup community to network, share insights and pitch themselves to investors. It comes a year after hundreds of people gathered for a similar event that allowed the L.A. tech community—often in the shadow of Silicon Valley—to flex its muscles.
From fireside chats with prominent founders to a panel on aerospace, here are some highlights from the roughly 30 events happening during LA Tech Week, including one hosted by dot.LA.
DoorDash’s Founding Story: Stanley Tang, a cofounder and chief product officer of delivery giant DoorDash, speaks with Pear VC's founding managing partner, Pejman Nozad. They'll discuss how to grow a tech company from seed stage all the way to an initial public offering. Aug. 19 at 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Santa Monica.
The Founders Guide to LA: A presentation from dot.LA cofounder and executive chairman Spencer Rascoff, who co-founded Zillow and served as the real estate marketplace firm’s CEO. Aug. 16 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Brentwood.
Time To Build: Los Angeles: Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) hosts a discussion on how L.A. can maintain its momentum as one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in the U.S. Featured speakers include a16z general partners Connie Chan and Andrew Chen, as well as Grant Lafontaine, the cofounder and CEO of shopping marketplace Whatnot. Aug. 19 from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Santa Monica.
How to Build Successful Startups in Difficult Industries: Leaders from Southern California’s healthcare and aerospace startups gather for panels and networking opportunities. Hosted by TechStars, the event includes speakers from the U.S. Space Force, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, Applied VR and University of California Irvine. Aug. 15 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Culver City.
LA Tech Week Demo Day: Early stage startups from the L.A. area pitch a panel of judges including a16z’s Andrew Chen and Nikita Bier, who co-founded the Facebook-acquired social media app tbh. Inside a room of 100 tech leaders in a Beverly Hills mansion, the pitch contest is run by demo day events platform Stonks and live-in accelerator Launch House. Aug. 17 from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. in Beverly Hills.
Registration information and a full list of LA Tech Week events can be found here.
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.