Los Angeles County is cementing its position as the nation's center of the electric vehicle industry, where some 118,000 jobs working on everything from car design to better batteries.
The Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. said Monday, in its study on the industry, that L.A. controls 43% of California's massive EV industry. The growth helps the state compete with Michigan in what the LAEDC is calling a "hometown industry."
Looking ahead, economists predict the state's goal to have five million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 will help the state create more jobs. The LAEDC projects the number Californians working in the EV industry will rise from 275,000 in 2018 to 312,000 by 2023.
"There's no other ecosystem like this in the U.S., and we need to protect, support and build good policy to ensure this ecosystem thrives and continues to create great jobs," said Judy Kruger, Senior Director of Industry Development at the LAEDC.
The report, which was funded from a sponsorship by Southern California Edison and others, also highlighted that the jobs pay well. The average annual wage for EV workers hit $80,900 in 2018, well above the average annual wage of $60,400 across all industries.
LAEDC
Though, the region's transition into the modern-day Detroit of the electric vehicle world has not come without risk.
Of the six main EV companies operating in L.A., three of them have filed for bankruptcy protection in recent years: Mid City-based Coda Automotive in 2013, Torrance-based Fisker Automotive in 2013, and Irvine-based Karma Automotive in 2014.
Some formerly failed companies have revitalized themselves and come under new ownership. Karma, for instance, was bought for $150 million by Chinese auto-parts maker Wanxiang Group in 2014, and its Karma Revero GT is expected to hit roads this year.
Data provider Pitchbook said in a report last year that it expects the total market for plug-in hybrid and battery powered electric vehicles to exceed $440 billion in 2025, up from $95 billion through the first half of 2019. This would result in an increase in electric vehicle market penetration to roughly 11% of new car sales in 2025 from about 2% through the first six months of last year. "We expect this to be driven by a continuation in declining battery manufacturing costs increasing affordability," according to the report. "The development of charging infrastructure and the entrance of major automakers into the market will in turn increase consumer awareness and drive electric vehicle adoption."
"Clean energy investments, including electrifying transportation, mean thousands of stable, good-paying jobs across the value chain—from skilled and craft to high-tech and innovation positions—for Southern Californians," said Michael Backstrom, managing director of Energy and Environmental Policy for Southern California Edison.
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The new funds bring the total Inspectiv has raised to $16.6 million since its 2018 launch. Founder and chairman Joseph Melika told dot.LA the company’s recent growth has largely been steered by the pandemic as companies put a higher value on data security.
The heightened need for better security, according to Melika, is due to recent changes in how people work. “Just people, frankly, getting distracted,” he said, has made some businesses more vulnerable to hackers.
“They’re working remotely, their laptops are from home [with] no firewall,” he said, adding that has left a lot of systems potentially exposed to hacks.
Inspectiv’s risk management platform runs autonomously 24/7 and is constantly scanning for threats, Melika said. The software isn’t just run on A.I., it's also combined with a network of security researchers. Melika said part of Inspectiv’s intelligence comes from the input of thousands of researchers.
Once it finds a threat, the software alerts Inspectiv, whose vulnerability spot-checkers verify it and identify it to the client. Then, Inspectiv scans its other clients for the same threat, or similar invasions that could be lurking. There’s also the potential for the software to review backup files, in case a company wants to make sure no older resolved threats spring back to life.
Melika pointed out several current Inspectiv clients using its software are local, including GoGuardian, maternal care company Mahmee and Minehut, a platform for people to host custom “Minecraft” servers.
The funding round was led by StepStone Group, among a suite of existing Inspectiv investors including Westwood-based Fika Ventures, San Francisco’s Freestyle Capital and Santa Monica-based Mucker Capital.
CEO Ryan Disraeli (left) and Founder and Chairman Joseph Melika (right)
Courtesy of Inspectiv
Inspectiv also announced a leadership transition this week alongside several new hires – former CEO and co-founder of fraud prevention service Telesign Ryan Disraeli will take the reins as CEO of Inspectiv, while Melika will remain on board as the company’s board chairman.
“Inspectiv is really helping secure the internet, and that was something that personally I could get passionate about,” Disraeli said. “To be able to work with a team of people that we brought in that also has that security background, but also experience scaling up organizations was a pretty exciting opportunity.”
The company also hired Karen Nguyen as chief revenue officer, Ray Espinoza as chief information security officer and Ross Hendrickson to be vice president of engineering. Disraeli said the Inspectiv team is currently 22 people but the company is “adding aggressively to that number” by expanding its product development team.
Disraeli wouldn’t disclose revenues but told dot.LA he’s confident he can grow Inspectiv quickly.
“There's a lot of companies raising money that don't have customers and don't have real growth,” Disraeli said. “This is a company that has real customers that are growing and growing with us.”
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