Who To Watch Among LA's Booming Ecommerce Startups

Sarah Favot

Favot is an award-winning journalist and adjunct instructor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She previously was an investigative and data reporter at national education news site The 74 and local news site LA School Report. She's also worked at the Los Angeles Daily News. She was a Livingston Award finalist in 2011 and holds a Master's degree in journalism from Boston University and BA from the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada.

Who To Watch Among LA's Booming Ecommerce Startups
Image by Markus Mainka/ Shutterstock

Ecommerce companies are some of Los Angeles hottest startups.

Companies like GOAT, an online marketplace for sneakerheads, are reeling in cash in a white-hot market. GOAT raised $195 million in a late-stage funding round in June, more than doubling its valuation to $3.7 billion. Tapcart, a Shopify-based mobile app, raised $50 million in a Series B funding round also in June. Popshop Live, a livestream shopping platform, announced a Series A round of funding in July that valued the company at $100 million. Italic, an online retailer that sells luxury goods at cost, had a $26.9 million infusion of cash through an early stage funding round in April.


Venture capitalists poured $384 million into ecommerce companies so far this year, according to PitchBook data, with more money being spent so far in 2021 than all of 2020.

In Los Angeles, where there has always been a healthy amount of ecommerce startups, there's an emerging new evolution with more innovation in the marketplace, investors say.

We asked the region's top VCs in our dot.LA sentiment survey to identify the top L.A.-based ecommerce companies. Here's what they told us, ordered by how often each was mentioned.

GOAT

GOAT

Founded in 2015, GOAT has ascended the ranks of L.A.'s startup scene. GOAT hit unicorn status in late 2020, and just about doubled its valuation to $3.7 billion by June this year.

The marketplace platform lets shoe collectors sell and resell shoes and other luxury items. The company sold over $2 billion in merchandise in 2020.

Started by a pair of sneakerheads from UCLA, the company has become a leader in the rising industry of sneaker sales that is projected to rise from $2 billion in global worth to around $30 billion by 2030.

Tapcart

Tapcart

Founded in 2017, Santa Monica-based Tapcart is hoping to ride the wave of online and mobile ecommerce. Its software allows companies to transition Shopify-based stores into mobile apps, and boasts features that drive customer retention.

Tapcart raised $50 million in June. Founded by Eric Netsch and Sina Mobasser, apps created using the SaaS-based service processed over $1.2 billion in sales over the past year.

"The pandemic really just reassured the path that the world was already on," Netsch has told dot.LA. "We knew that mobile was taking the world by storm far before the pandemic happened."

Popshop LIve

Popshop Live

A sudden shift in pandemic-related restrictions lured companies to Popshop's livestreaming platform, allowing Popshop to reach a $100 million valuation by July.

Popshop's app allows stores to livestream from their websites and promote their product. Sales are made directly through the app. The company took inspiration from the Chinese market, where livestream vending platforms was successful, and is hoping the model translates to the U.S. market.

Petra Griffith, managing director of Wedbush Ventures, said she named Popshop Live as one of the most interesting ecommerce companies (that she does not invest in) because of its dynamic founder, Danielle Li.

"I think a lot about commerce and the future of commerce," she said. "You see the popularity in Asia, [where you] have influencers and video and live interaction, kind of like a live QVC that you can interact with is I think is really compelling."

Parachute

Launched in 2014 as an online-only, direct-to-consumer brand, Parachute began as a high-end bedding company. Since then it has expanded into other home goods products and has opened brick-and-mortar stores across the U.S., including one in Venice and another in Silver Lake.

Ariel Kaye, founder and CEO, launched Parachute's first mattress line in 2019, and the company has created a following among millennials with its bedding and bath linens made from high-quality materials.

Kaye said Parachute's home goods products fared "extremely well" during the pandemic as people spent money to "refresh" or redecorate their living spaces or moved into new homes.

"As a digitally native brand, we were able to meet our customers where they are. We have been very lucky to connect with new and existing customers to offer products as well as services designed to help them enjoy their home," Kaye said in an email.

Italic

Founded in 2018, Italic is a subscription based, direct-from-manufacturer company. The Los Angeles-based startup partners with manufacturers that work with big-name luxury brands to offer the same type of goods without the cost of branding.

CEO Jeremy Cai said he doesn't see Italic as a traditional ecommerce company because it takes nearly no inventory risk, but rather makes money when customers buy products, using that to pay the manufacturer and taking a cut of it. He said the business is more oriented toward technology, operations and product development, rather than sales and marketing.

"I think the excitement around our business is that we're fundamentally doing something different from a business standpoint and that we have pretty deep customer loyalty," Cai said.

While Italic is membership based, Cai said the company plans to allow customers who aren't members to make purchases later this year.

"In my mind, the future is really like a bifurcation of value-driven shopping and branded shopping," he said. "What we're mostly focused on is driving value on the product side to the customer."


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Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow 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.

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Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

The Near Miss Apocalypse: Predictions for Post SVB Collapse
Evan Xie

The historic Silicon Valley Bank collapse dominated headlines recently, and the tech and financial communities have only just started processing the aftermath. The 48-hour breakdown was both historic and a few inches away from economically catastrophic, and thanks to the swift moves of the FDIC, complete disaster was avoided.

But it’s still been disruptive. SVB was the banking partner for nearly half of U.S. venture-backed technology and healthcare companies that listed on stock markets in 2022, making it one of the biggest lenders for early-stage startups. The aftershocks of SVB’s breakdown spread just as far and fast as the main event: the close of Signature Bank just two days later, major market volatility, other banking crises at Credit Suisse, tech industry troubles, and much more.

In the days since, things have settled slightly, and the world’s fingers are crossed that depositors are comforted enough and confident enough to avoid another bank run. It’s good news, but we aren’t out of the woods yet. Now that we know the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history could be looming around any corner, how does that change the ways startups do business?

Level, Set, Go

Before we get into what could happen, it’s smart to level-set about how we got here. (And for an introductory primer, this short podcast can help.)

  • The government 100% did the right thing by assuring depositors that they will be made whole. The FDIC swooped in, steadied the ship, and made sure people had the money they needed when they needed it.
  • Some have called this a ‘bailout', but it’s not for two reasons. 1) SVB shareholders and creditors will be wiped out and 2) taxpayer money is not being used to do any bailing.
  • Remember: depositors are not creditors. When companies and people put money into their accounts at SVB, they had every reason to expect that it would be there when they needed to withdraw it. They weren’t loaning the money to SVB (as a creditor would), they were depositing money into their own account at SVB for safekeeping.
  • People who say “depositors took a risk by having more than the FDIC insured $250K limit” are, ahem, a bit misguided. (I’m being polite). The truth is that $250K is not that much money for a company, especially of the size and scale of some of SVB's major customers.

Here’s where I think we should go from here.

The Short Term

While SVB’s failure didn’t launch us over the precipice, many people are rightfully feeling very nervous being this close to the edge.

Looking out to the next few weeks, I predict we’ll see venture funding slow way down. It’s been chilly out there recently, but it’s going to be ice cold, piggybacking on the already struggling tech landscape. Writing new checks will take a backseat to checking in on existing investments. VCs will need to assess where their cash is and where their portfolio companies stand, and likewise startups are going to have to start thinking hard about what it means to be lean and extend runway. Hopefully this only lasts a few weeks and the wheels of the machine start turning again before summer.

If there is a positive take on the SVB wreckage, it’s that the Fed will likely slow down the rate of increases. I’d predict a 25, maybe even 0, basis-point increase next week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a rate cut later this year.

Whither venture debt?

Prior to SVB’s failure, it was very common for a startup to have enough cash at SVB for one year of runway, plus a venture debt line for an additional another year. SVB profited from this by charging interest plus warrants and requiring banking exclusivity. It was part and parcel of how they did business, and since they’ve transitioned from success story to cautionary tale, expect to see new regulations prohibiting banks from requiring customer exclusivity in exchange for additional services.

In the immediate term, companies who had venture debt lines with SVB are trying to decide whether to put their cash back in SVB in order to access that venture debt. The whole situation is surreal, since just a few days ago these same companies were scrambling to pull their money out of SVB, and now they are considering returning. There are conflicting reports, but it appears that SVB is allowing these companies to keep a second banking relationship with another bank (so no more exclusivity), but at least half of their cash must be with SVB.

For startups choosing not to access that venture debt line, now trying to figure out how to operate without venture debt (aka less hiring, less spending, less growth), they’re in for challenging times ahead. To fill that funding gap, maybe we’ll see more private lenders step in and provide venture debt as a product. If that is the case, I suspect terms will be tougher and many VCs will recommend against it for their companies.

Another prediction: audit committees of boards will come into play much earlier than they often do now. Given the ever larger seed and Series A/B rounds, it wasn’t uncommon to see startups that had raised $100M+ and had 200+ employees before an audit committee was formed. I suspect these will now be formed upfront and have a much bigger role to play in early stages.

Silver Lining

The good news: the world isn’t ending and won’t in the near future (at least, not because of this). Yes, things will be different and it will take some time to settle into a post-SVB startup environment, but with change comes adaptation. And with adaptation comes innovation, which is what startups are all about.

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Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow 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.

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