After taking last year off due to the pandemic, the Upfront Summit—the blowout venture capital conference staged by Santa Monica-based venture firm Upfront Ventures—was back with a bang this week. Many of Southern California's largest investors and technologists rubbed elbows with Hollywood A-listers to discuss the future of their industries, and the merging of worlds of technology, business and entertainment. dot.LA's Samson Amore was there to cover the events.
At This Week's Upfront Summit on Startups and Tech
Celebs including Issa Rae, Paris Hilton and Laura Dern spoke at the Upfront Summit about how they became major investors.
Film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg addressed the elephant in the room: the failure of his mobile streaming startup Quibi.
The producer behind films “Tick, Tick… Boom!” and “8 Mile” shared secrets about his creative process at this week’s Upfront Summit.
Bessemer’s Elliott Robinson addresses why venture capital is still so white – and how to fix it.
Online sneaker and apparel marketplace GOAT has big plans to dominate the worldwide luxury apparel market.
Andreessen Horowitz’s Andrew Chen on why the VC firm missed out on gaming and online dating.
Here’s What Happened in LA’s Entertainment Tech World This Week 🍿
Following in the footsteps of its competitors, Disney Plus is adding a cheaper, ad supported tier later this year.
The gaming studio behind PlayStation hit “Journey” is onto its next major project: a virtual theme park.
Next Games is joining the Netflix family after producing mobile games inspired by “Stranger Things” and “The Walking Dead.”
With a new round of funding, DNABlock hopes to give creators the ability to build 3D avatars, animations and NFTs without any technical experience.
A new survey finds that many Americans will likely ditch a digital service this year due to cost.
Produced by startup AmazeVR, musician Megan Thee Stallion is launching a virtual reality concert tour for 10 cities in the U.S.
📱Social Media and Content Creators
Nine bipartisan attorneys general are investigating TikTok for content policies that could potentially harm young users’ mental health.
TikTok and services like it are regularly minting a new brand of celebrity from everyday users. We took a look at some of those who broke out in February.
In a move to stay competitive, TikTok is increasing the maximum video length from 3 to 10 minutes.
Transportation Tech 🚗
After a backlash to its announcement that it would be hiking its evs up to 20% – even for preorders, Rivian is backing down.
It’s not a production model, it's not even available for pre-order, but Faraday Future is making its first step towards entering the auto market.
Raises and $$ 💰
After a successful first and second fund, M13 is doubling down on Web3 with its new $400 million fund.
This new raise will help insurtech platform Counterpart grow and provide small businesses with protections against harassment claims.
Proptech-focused venture capital firm Fifth Wall pulled the plug on its $150 million plan to take a real estate tech firm public via an SPAC.
🎧 Listen Up
On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, M13 co-founder Carter Reum talks about the firm's new $400 million fund and how he aims to create a different kind of venture firm.
Also...
Los Angeles startups have tapped Ukraine for its deep tech talent, and now many of them are scrambling to keep their workers safe.
On the heels of a record year for SoCal startups, more than 30 leading Los Angeles-based investors shared with dot.LA which local VCs impressed them most.