
Get in the KNOW
on LA Startups & Tech
X
Elevation Ventures Is Raising $50M for a Climate-Focused Tech Fund in SoCal
Interest in electric cars is spiking as gas prices rise to their highest prices in years, but supply chain headaches and the lack of infrastructure such as charging stations are keeping the demand pent up. And, the longer-term effects on power grids will mean there will be lots to upgrade, even after the transition to cleaner technology, like electric vehicles, comes online.
Elevation Ventures, a new climate-focused venture firm in Orange County, is raising a $50 million fund to focus on technology that can provide new products and services. The fund will target seed-stage companies in SoCal, though it might also invest in a few Series A funding rounds. Check sizes will range from $500,000 to $3 million.
Elevation has partnered with two local organizations with deep roots in O.C.: business incubator Octane and Sustain SoCal, a network of professionals focused on clean tech development.
A VC Built By Consortium
Elevation Ventures Managing Partner Neal Rickner is an Orange County native who recently moved back to the area from Silicon Valley, where he was the COO of Makani Technologies, a company that developed airborne wind turbines. It was acquired by Google in 2013, and then eventually shut down by Alphabet, Google's parent company.
Elevation Ventures Managing Partner Neal Rickner.
Image courtesy of Neal Rickner
He also worked with what’s known as “X,” (formerly Google X), a research and development facility founded by Google, which now operates as a subsidiary of Alphabet.
”I’ve been through the ringer...up there,” he said. “I learned the best I could from the best innovators in the world."
But it wasn’t until Rickner did some serious reflection in 2020, that he decided to move back to Orange County. He had some informal conversations with members from Aliso Viejo-based Octane’s team in 2017, but it didn’t coalesce until 2020. Octane acted as the catalyst and facilitator, bringing in Sustain Socal. Elevation Ventures was formed.
Octane already has a track record in investing. In 2016, it partnered with Visionary Ventures, a VC firm that backs ophthalmology and aesthetic startups, which have a strong presence in Orange County.
The organization has both for-profit and nonprofit branches and serves SoCal’s general technology and medical technology ecosystems—connecting people, resources and capital. One of its initiatives is a four-month accelerator program called LaunchPad that gives local founders access to a slew of advisors and resources.
Sustain SoCal is a hub of climate, sustainability and environmental experts, with a presence at UC Irvine’s innovation center, The Cove. The network comprises thousands of experts; most have been involved with clean tech and/or climate tech for 20 years or more.
Elevation expects to make 15 to 20 investments from this first fund, over the next two to three years, Rickner said. Even before the first close of the first fund, expected this summer, Elevation is already writing checks through a type of investing known as a special purpose vehicle. Typically set up as an LLC or limited partnership company, SPVs make a single investment into just one company.
Rickner, Octane CEO Bill Carpou and Sustain SoCal CEO Scott Kitcher put together a mission statement for their new venture firm in the fall.
”The three of us bring together the core ingredients for a VC fund to succeed,” he said. “And, we complement each other well. We have different networks and skill sets, but we’re mission-aligned and collectively-aligned.”
The team hopes to raise around $20 million by the summer. It’s raised just over $10 million so far, Rickner said.
“The first commitments are all from SoCal and know Octane or SoCal well,” Rickner said, adding that they’re targeting high net-worth individuals and family offices.
Elevation recently also brought on longtime climate technology investor Rachel Payne and former Seeder Clean Energy co-founder Alex Shoer.
Early Investments
Elevation’s first investment, for which it raised more than $1 million, was in Los Angeles-based Veloce Energy. The startup runs a software platform and installation system to enhance the move to a decentralized, distributed energy grid that enables anyone to trade electricity on its networks.
Rickner said companies like Veloce can accelerate the shift to these decentralized power systems “faster and cheaper” than enormous electricity providers.
In late April, the firm made its second investment (also through an SPV) in Carbon Collective.
The Alameda-based startup enables employees to use their retirement funds to fight climate change by divesting from companies that contribute to climate change and to re-invest in companies working to combat the climate crisis.
“Venture deals move quickly,” Rickner said, in explaining why he opted to raise money quickly via SPV rather than waiting for the fund to close. “These first two deals were great opportunities. We had special access, and we didn't want to pass them up.”
Rickner declined to disclose the amount of either investment.
Photo by Tyler Casey on Unsplash
Next Industrial Revolution
It wasn’t an easy decision to leave Silicon Valley.
“Part of the allure for me was [the opportunity to] work on something I’ve been passionate about for a long time,” Rickner said.
He credits the pandemic and lockdowns that followed with inspiring him, like many others, to reflect on what was important.
“A lot of people woke up and decided we had to take better care of our environment, that climate change was happening,” he added. ”When you take time, you realize there are more floods and fires and extreme events, and it became personal to a lot of folks."
Elevation will have plenty of opportunities to invest close to home, Rickner noted. Orange County is home to some of the biggest names in electric vehicles, including electric pickup truck maker Rivian Automotive, which is headquartered in Irvine.
But it will also have local competition. Laguna Beach-based Keiki Capital launched in 2017 to invest in climate tech startups at the pre-seed and seed level.
Rickner sees the time we’re living in as a transition into the next industrial revolution—and he sees opportunities.
“90% of the world economy, as measured by country GDP, has committed to net zero,” he said, referring to several nations’ pledges to move to power sources that are carbon neutral.
More than half of the world’s corporate and financial institutions, as measured by revenue and assets under management, have committed to a net-zero approach, he added.
“The previous industrial revolutions produced many billionaires,” Rickner said. “And this one will do the same.”
- Top Los Angeles Clean Tech Companies of 2021 - dot.LA ›
- LA's Clean Tech Startups Tackle Climate Change - dot.LA ›
- Los Angeles Clean Tech Startup News - dot.LA ›
Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.
Starting today, Glendale’s most meme-able outdoor mall, The Americana at Brand, will be home to the Amazon Style store—the ecommerce giant’s first foray into brick-and-mortar apparel retail. We got an early sneak peak inside the new digs (located on the corner with Sprinkles Cupcakes, next to H&M and the Apple store) and were able to try out some of its tech-enabled features, which—as ever with Amazon—seek to make the act of shopping as easy as possible.
1. It’s Bigger Than It Looks—Even From the Inside
The floor is massive—laying out original products from Amazon’s own apparel lines alongside name brands like Theory, Adidas and Calvin Klein, as well as several other lines that have up until now only existed online. But the actual store is much larger than the two floors that most customers will only ever see.
Amazon Style is just the front—the homepage, if you will—behind which a large warehouse facility keeps a gigantic surplus of inventory. A floor-to-ceiling glass window on the main floor gives shoppers just a peak behind the scenes, as employees help load industrial-sized elevators with racks of goods to send upstairs to the dressing rooms.
2. Online Shopping IRL
When perusing the store’s bouquet of cottagecore maxi dresses, Kendall & Kylie blazers and, yes, a whole section dedicated to Y2K apparel, one doesn’t just pick an item off the rack and take it with you while you shop. Instead, each rack has a barcode that you can scan via the Amazon Shopping app, which has your sizes pre-loaded from previous purchases. (You can opt for a different size if you choose.) That cues an AI-enabled algorithm to start searching through the store’s warehoused catalog and zip the desired item over to the second floor, where the dressing room provides its own glimpse into the future of shopping.
The store also boasts a version of The Drop, an Amazon staple that allows online customers to shop entire influencer-curated collections for a 30-hour flash window.
3. Changing Stations of the Future—Today
Your phone also acts as your keycard to get into your personal dressing room. To prevent waiting, you are put in a virtual cue the moment you scan your first item; should the Amazon app prompt that your room is ready while you’re still shopping, a tap of your screen allows you to hold your spot in the queue while freeing up the room for someone else. (And if your phone dies while you’re waiting, Amazon says a Style employee on the floor will be happy to help you keep your place in line, or hook you up with a charge.)
Amazon Style’s dressing rooms offer a tech-enabled twist to trying on clothes.Image by Joshua Letona
The changing room is like its own parlor trick. Designed to look like a walk-in closet, one wall has a full-length mirror and a giant touchscreen while another has all the clothes you scanned in your style and size preference. Expect to see a few surprises in there, as Amazon’s algorithm picks out other stuff you might want to try on based on your picks. It would be spooky if it wasn’t so convenient—an IRL mashup of the online retailer’s “Recommended Based on Your Purchases” and “Frequently Bought Together” features.
If an item doesn’t fit quite right or you want to see how a skirt looks in blue instead of black, just tap the touchscreen to request a variant. Or an entirely new outfit, as the screen makes available everything in the facility. Then just bring it down to checkout—perhaps the wildest part of this ride.
4. Palming the Bucks
Checking out of Amazon Style’s flagship store is what really blew my mind—although apparently it’s because I haven’t been to one of the Amazon Go, Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods locations where cashless checkouts have been an option in select stores since 2020.
I assumed you could just walk out the door with your purchase, because I watch "Saturday Night Live" sketches for news. While the Go payment option isn't available at Amazon Style, there are several checkout options to keep the experience as frictionless and non-cumbersome as possible.
One way is to take the clothes you want out of the dressing room and go directly to Amazon’s palm-enabled checkout kiosks. That’s right: Register on the spot for an Amazon One account, and you need merely to wave your hand over a little black device that reads your palm and charges your on-file payment method. It’s super convenient for everyone except $10 boardwalk psychics, who just may be put out of business by such technology.
For the more traditional set, you still have the option of paying via credit card or cash.
Shoppers can check out of Amazon Style with the wave of a palm.
Image by Joshua Letona
5. Supply & Demand & Return
Amazon Style’s brick-and-mortar location opens up a variety of new ways to shop, return and exchange clothing. For instance, you can order a load of clothes online and pick them up in the store; anything you don’t want can be returned in the store without you ever having to print a shipping label.
See something you like but don’t have time to try it on? Just scan the barcode, pick it up at the front of the store and pay on your way out without ever going into a dressing room.
The Amazon Shopping app also boasts a Deals feature, which automatically sorts for the best price on items to help customers either save money (or believe they are).
While Glendale is home to the only Style store so far, Amazon isn’t ruling out more locations. With fewer retailers able to afford rents on America’s main strips and shopping malls, Amazon’s resources—and its unique position at the intersection of tech and retail—make it easy to envision more Style stores on the horizon.
Drew Grant is dot.LA's Senior Editor. She's a media veteran with over 15-plus years covering entertainment and local journalism. During her tenure at The New York Observer, she founded one of their most popular verticals, tvDownload, and transitioned from generalist to Senior Editor of Entertainment and Culture, overseeing a freelance contributor network and ushering in the paper's redesign. More recently, she was Senior Editor of Special Projects at Collider, a writer for RottenTomatoes streaming series on Peacock and a consulting editor at RealClearLife, Ranker and GritDaily. You can find her across all social media platforms as @Videodrew and send tips to drew@dot.la.
At Electrify Expo 2022, Cars Aren't the Only EVs Sparking Interest
“If you get the chance, make sure to test drive a Toyota.”
I’m walking down a row of booths at Electrify Expo at the Long Beach Convention Center on a hot June day. I thank the red-shirted brand ambassador and scurry towards the nearest e-scooter.
Sorry, Toyota. I’m not here for the cars.
Electrify Expo—the biggest outdoor electric vehicle festival in the U.S.—took place this past weekend and e-scooters, e-bikes and other micro EVs took center stage.
At an event focused on electrification, more than half of the companies represented were in the micromobility space. And there’s a good reason for that.
According to industry leaders, electrification means significant room for growth in the market as American consumers emerge from the dark years of the pandemic and seek out more active and eco-friendly modes of transportation.
Only 6% of bikes sold in the U.S. are e-bikes, compared to a rate of 17% in Europe and 50% in the Netherlands, said Claudia Wasko, vice president and general manager of Bosch eBike Systems, at the event’s Industry Day.
“Last year, 2021, in Europe, almost 6 million e-bikes have been sold; just in Germany, 2 million e-bikes have been sold. And in the US, not even 1 million. But this shows us the huge potential we still have,” she said.
Industry speakers also praised European countries for their adoption of comprehensive micromobility infrastructure.
“If you drive around Los Angeles… you'd have a tough time being on an electric bike or an electric scooter or even one of our mopeds, that can hit speeds of 60 miles an hour,” said Joseph Constanty, director of global strategy at Niu. “You still feel out of place when a huge Ford Ranger F-150 comes riding up right next to you and you're dwarfed by it. It's an infrastructure problem.”
Companies are banking on a cultural shift as Americans get out of their cars and onto an e-bike, moped or e-scooter.
Jesse Lapin, chief operating officer of Magnum Bikes, suggested that it’s less of a shift and more of a return. Americans ride their bikes as children and then abandon them in the garage as soon as they turn 16. However, driving itself might be going out of style; millennials are driving less than their elders and Gen Z is in no rush to get in the driver’s seat (of a car). And who can blame them? Gas prices have hit record highs with no sign of relief on the horizon.
What are they gonna do, take the bus? JackRabbit Mobility is hoping they take a micro e-bike instead, with a 24 pound, 20 mile-per-hour device marketed to college students and other casual riders. But why stop with one? Lapin sees the future American garage filled with not one, but two e-bikes as the market diversifies.
“E-bikes truly are the best way to communicate and to connect people with other people, people with places, people with views. It's the best way to visit national parks; it's the best way to get out there and connect with yourself,” he said.
And there’s one other advantage to micromobility: It’s hella fun. And with a looming recession and two years and counting into a pandemic, American adults with disposable income just want eco-friendly toys that go zoom. Or at least that’s what the industry is banking on.
It’s true: When I’m flying around the test track on an e-bike and I hit the throttle, getting that coveted 28-miles-per-hour, I feel like a kid again.
Provide a mode of transportation that you can charge from the comfort of your one-bedroom apartment, one that’s fun, good for the environment and lets you fly past stopped rush hour traffic on Venice Boulevard?
Cars could never.
- Xos Trucks Launches Mobile Charging Stations for Fleets - dot.LA ›
- Electrify America Invests $200M in Southern California - dot.LA ›
- Users With Disabilities Can Rent Bird Scooters in Long Beach - dot.LA ›