LA-Based Startup Gemist Gets Backing from De Beers for Its DTC Jewelry App
Francesca Billington
Francesca Billington is a dot.LA editorial intern. She's previously reported for KCRW, the Santa Monica Daily Press and local publications in New Jersey. Before joining dot.LA, she was a communications fellow at an environmental science research center in Sri Lanka. She graduated from Princeton in 2019 with a degree in anthropology.
Online jewelry retailer Gemist announced it's received financial backing from De Beers Group Ventures, among other firms, to grow its "try-and-buy" model, which allows customers to design and test out pieces from home.
Founded in 2019 by CEO Madeline Fraser, the L.A.-based startup allows shoppers to customize rings and earrings on the website and wear them for up to two weeks before deciding to keep, tweak or send back their creations.
The recent seven-figure raise comes from both venture funds and strategic corporate partners like De Beers, a diamond company that shares Gemist's commitment to sustainability and ethically-sourced diamonds, Fraser said.
"We look at this as a corporate investment but really a partnership," she said. "We're going to be working together in more ways than just an investor-founder relationship as we grow."
Fraser got the idea for Gemist after designing her own engagement ring in 2018. At the time, jewelry seemed to her like one of the few industries that hadn't yet embraced customization options for online shoppers.
While the startup launched for bridal consumers, Fraser quickly realized the demand was broader. She introduced casual rings and earrings, and hinted to dot.LA that necklaces might be next.
The 29-year-old founder says her company will focus on scaling its digital platform and expanding the at-home try-on program. As COVID changes in-person shopping, Fraser hopes to bring customers a memorable retail experience from home. Retail isn't dead, she says. It just needs some reinvigorating.
"We're actually bringing the retail store to the consumer," Fraser said. "That's something I assume a ton of in-person retailers wish that they could do."
Since March, Gemist says they've seen an 80% jump in customers trying out their try-on plan.
"Retail isn't going to stay the same," Fraser said. "It's going to innovate, it's going to change. And that, I think, requires intimate connection with consumers — something people will actually come out of the house for."
With this deal, De Beers Group Executive Vice-President of Consumer and Brands Stephen Lussier will join the Gemist board.
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Minutes into filling out my absentee ballot last week, I was momentarily distracted by my dog Seamus. A moment later, I realized in horror that I was filling in the wrong bubble — accidentally voting "no" on a ballot measure that I meant to vote "yes" on.
It was only a few ink marks, but it was noticeable enough. Trying to fix my mistake, I darkly and fully filled in the correct circle and then, as if testifying to an error on a check, put my initials next to the one I wanted.
Then I worried. As a reporter who has previously covered election security for years, I went on a mini-quest trying to understand how a small mistake can have larger repercussions.
As Los Angeles County's 5.6 million registered voters all receive ballots at home for the first time, I knew my experience could not be unique. But I wondered, would my vote count? Or would my entire ballot now be discarded?
<p>There are reasons enough to worry about mail-in-ballots counting, even without the appearance of fake ballot boxes and the unfounded rhetoric that has filled the nation's airwaves over the last months. After all, much of the information I found online told me to notify a poll worker if I made an error. Alas, no poll worker at home.</p><p>"I don't think your experience is unique, and it's exacerbated by how big L.A. is," said Eddie Perez, election administration and technology expert with the nonpartisan, nonprofit <a href="https://www.osetfoundation.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OSET Institute</a>. "These experiences are happening across the country [as] many voters are voting by mail the first time and they don't know what to do. It's a microcosm of all of this change."</p><p>Part of the problem was that I didn't receive my sample ballot beforehand and so didn't engage in the practice round I typically do. Worse though, the instructions that came with my ballot said nothing about what to do if you accidentally make the wrong choice. The only advice is to call a phone number or go online and request a new ballot. Does that mean the whole thing won't count? But it was such a small mistake.</p><p>"That's a failing right there, the fact that they didn't include it on the instruction sheet," said Perez, who previously worked for Hart Intercivic, voting technology company, and has made thousands of ballots in his career. He noted that in Colorado, the instructions for how to correct a mistake are on the ballot instructions.</p><p>I called the phone number, but couldn't get through to a person. I then sent an email to a recommended public address asking if my ballot was "spoilt" and if I needed a new one.</p><p>Then, for hours into the night and through early the next morning I searched the vastness of the internet for an answer.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUxMjgwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODEyMTM1NH0.eGBNQueLJopk_XhIaWqmpFPgnsHuEk1qVeQmRMH-DY4/image.jpg?width=980" id="3663d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3a4af8f33f024f411c8cfef27e2678a1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
My distractingly sweet dog, Seamus.
Photo by Tami Abdollah
<p>Someone <a href="https://www.kvue.com/article/news/investigations/defenders/can-i-correct-a-mistake-on-my-mail-in-ballot-with-wite-out/269-3f248b3a-ee4d-41ec-94bd-a0af4a8670d3" target="_blank">asked about whether you could use whiteout</a> to blot out the mistaken choice. The consensus online seemed to be "no" that the ballot could seem tampered with. One <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-opinions-are-local/wp/2018/01/02/its-an-invalid-ballot-period/" target="_blank">Washington Post opinion article from 2018</a> argued that any efforts to rectify a ballot should invalidate it entirely. <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11840343/how-to-make-sure-your-mail-in-ballot-isnt-rejected-in-california#mistake" target="_blank">Another recent article by KQED said</a> that you should put a line or X through the wrong choice and that would be fine. Sadly, I'd already made a different mark by the proper choice. I read <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/4-common-mistakes-that-could-get-your-mail-in-ballot-rejected-and-how-to-make-sure-your-vote-is-counted-11601579628" target="_blank">stray marks can also be a problem</a> and invalidate the ballot. Are initials considered stray marks?</p><p>Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, empathized, noting that "vote by mail shifts the responsibility of getting it right from poll worker to a voter, and that's a big change. It's not insignificant" or easy, and the rules usually differ between counties.<br></p><p>The next morning I called the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's helpline and was connected to a worker whose garbled voice seemed to match my emotions. I presented my dilemma.</p>
<p>"Hmmm it doesn't say anything about that here," the worker told me. "I'll have to put you on hold."<br/></p><p>After several more minutes of terrible hold music, she told me her connection was bad because she was working from home, and she would call me back. It didn't happen.</p><p>When I called the registrar's office back, I was told there was a 35 minute wait for a human being.</p><p>The worker who called me back told me that the specific measure I improperly filled out would not get counted, but the remainder of my votes should. I asked if my initials would present as stray marks and invalidate my ballot, and she said it shouldn't.</p><p>Over the course of those two days, I wondered if it was best to get the ballot sent in early even if one measure didn't count, or if I should just go vote early in-person.</p><p>Because Los Angeles County ballots go through an optical scanner, I wondered whether a human being would review the ballot or if any discrepancy is tossed. There is little reporting about how the county handles mail-in ballots, especially at scale. Is there a human being who reviews the process? A bipartisan team? How technically savvy is the scanner and what exactly can it differentiate?</p><p>The registrar's office never replied to repeated official calls and emails for answers to those questions.</p><p>Perez, the elections expert, told me that in his experience a mistake should not invalidate the entire ballot and that most modern digital scanning technology "should flag contests with questionable marks and present them to human reviewers" who can discern the voter's intent and make sure it's properly recorded.</p><p>Both Perez and Alexander also introduced another potential wrinkle I had not even thought about: In some states having personally identifiable information on a ballot — possibly like my initials — could invalidate the ballot because state laws could see that personal information as a violation of the secrecy of the ballot. Ack!</p><p>Perez said part of the problem with mail-in ballots is that unlike the traditional Election Day infrastructure, unless election officials make proactive efforts to provide more details, there is less knowledge about how votes are processed and counted when they are mailed in.</p><p>"It places a really big burden on the election officials [to] have resources to answer all these questions," Perez said. "How are you ensuring you have good factual information and you're passing it to all the worker bees you just hired?"</p><p>Neither Perez nor Alexander could say for sure what would happen with my initials on the ballot. Both thought it <em>should </em>probably be fine, but perhaps it would violate vote secrecy.</p><p>"You stumped the band," said Alexander, who added she was considering updating their own FAQ for voters.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUxMjgxNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NjQzNTgwOX0.SiflyT6B6FbAoPLrIrMVk01oeGw7_HIsZS7b4jQc7Lc/image.jpg?width=980" id="ef35d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="54ab7d5c08029f153009ed6bc7ef15cd" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption focus-visible" data-focus-visible-added="" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">My sadly imperfect ballot.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo by Tami Abdollah</small></p><p>There are many more ways to make a mistake when mailing in your ballot, in one fashion or another. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/a45421048cd89938df7c882891a97db5" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported</a> this summer that "more than 100,000 mail-in ballots were rejected by California election officials during the March presidential primary." Among those were 27,525 which didn't have a signature or didn't have a signature match the one on record. A friend of mine was one of those, and she trekked out to vote early and in-person because she couldn't recall what her on-file signature looked like.<br/></p><p>I had no issues with my signature, it's been the same for decades, but I felt a little bereft over my supremely non high-tech problem. I continued to cull through the interwebs.</p><p>It was only much later, after searching diligently online by various keywords, that I stumbled upon a seemingly definitive answer in the latest version of <a href="https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/uniform-vote-counting-standards" target="_blank">California's Uniform Vote Counting Standards</a>. It turns out, whiteout, check marks, X marks and even writing "no" or "yes" can help confirm the vote you meant to cast. It's unclear what the optical scanner can do or whether the county has a human involved in the process though. And there was, sadly, nothing about whether initialing a choice would invalidate the secrecy of my ballot or be considered an invalid "random marking."</p><p>My angst was alleviated when the decision was taken out of my hands. The registrar's office emailed me back, and without answering my question about if the ballot would have been counted, they told me a new one would arrive in five days.</p><p>The reply did open up a whole new line of unanswered questions. I mean, is the existence of a second ballot invalidating? I emailed back: "What happens to my old ballot? How do I get rid of it?"</p><p>(The first ballot is automatically suspended to issue a second one, I later learned. And you can tear it up or put it through a paper shredder.)</p><p>And still, the question remains — what if I had mailed in that ballot.</p><p>Alexander also went down the rabbit hole with me, emailing me on a Saturday morning that she "woke up annoyed by our collective inability to answer" the question. She dug around and found that a <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120SB183" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2011 California law known as the "Doodle Law"</a> would have likely been applied in my case. <a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0151-0200/sb_183_cfa_20110824_171242_asm_floor.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">It states</a> that rather than reject a ballot that is marked in a way to identify a voter, that election workers separate and duplicate the ballot (without the problematic identifier) like for other defective ballots, before running it through the scanner.</p><p>So there it is, my vote would have probably counted if I had mailed in my ballot. But now I'll be sending a brand new on instead. In the end, it's clear that the state and local authorities have tried and are trying their best to ensure that all mail-in ballots count regardless of very normal human mistakes (see <a href="https://dot.la/voting-by-mail-tips-how-to-avoid-pitfalls-2648194341.html" target="_blank">this sidebar</a> on how to up those chances).</p><p>But my takeaway lesson from all this is that it's probably <a href="https://dot.la/voting-by-mail-tips-how-to-avoid-pitfalls-2648194341.html" target="_blank">best not to make a mistake in the first place</a> when voting by mail, oh, and maybe put your dog in a separate room while you vote.</p><p><em>___</em></p><p><em>Hit me up if you have any other election and voting-related questions. My DMs are open on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Twitter @latams</em></a><em> You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.</em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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As Central Valley Farmlands Suffer Fire and Drought, a New Vertical Farm Is Sprouting — in Compton
Oct 21 2020
Tech agricultural unicorn Plenty is gearing up to hire 50 full-time employees to run a new vertical farm monitored by robots in Compton.
The farm, which will open in 2021, will grow leafy greens and Driscoll's branded strawberries, showcasing Plenty's indoor hydroponic farming. CEO and co-founder Matt Barnard says it's more efficient than traditional farming, which is weather-sensitive and requires large plots of land.
<p>"We're severely straining our environment," said Barnard, a former tech executive who grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. "Plenty farms aren't vulnerable to nature's threats, such as storms, flooding, heat, pests and pathogens the way outdoor farms are."</p><p>And they're unlike the popular images of commercial farms that stretch acre after acre of a single crop. Plenty's farm grows up instead of out. </p><p>Green walls of lettuce and arugula grow on vertically stacked beds, using less than 5% of the water required for traditional agriculture and less than 1% of the space. Since shelter-in-place began, the company has shipped out two to three times more food every week. </p><p>The San Francisco-based startup will get a boost from the $140 million Series D round it announced last week, led by Softbank, along with berry grower Driscoll's Inc., to establish its second facility. Their first farm was on Google's Mountain View campus, where the company tested hundreds of crop varieties before stocking stores with greens in the Bay Area. </p><p>The Compton facility will help Plenty supply 431 Albertsons-owned grocery stores with strawberries and greens across the state — including Safeway, Vons and Pavilions — in a deal struck this summer.</p><h2>Moving to Compton</h2><p>Barnard's team looked at over 180 site options across L.A. before settling on a location in Compton, which he calls "a perfect spot" because of the city's agricultural <a href="https://laist.com/2020/10/06/plenty_vertical_farm_compton_agriculture_technology_ag-tech_of_the_future_might_be_in_compton_warehouse_robots.php" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">history</a> that harks back centuries and is evident in Richland Farms, a still-rural area. He was also interested in the high density of households lacking access to healthy food. </p><p>The 50 new positions for growers, technicians, logistics and operations managers at the Compton farm will be posted by the end of the month, spokesperson Jane Gideon said. </p><p>The move down to L.A. is likely the first in a series of new farms Plenty is planning to build. What began in late 2018 as a line of boxed produce sold in Bay Area grocery chains can now be found in retailers such as Whole Foods. </p><p>For an industry that didn't exist seven years ago, vertical farming is thriving, Dickson Despommier, professor emeritus of Public and Environmental Health at Columbia University told dot.LA. He coined the term vertical farm in 1999.</p><p>"In Los Angeles, you don't have to go too far to get into the fire zone and once you're there you realize that it used to be farmland," Despommier said. "The Central Valley of California is doomed. And by the way, how do you think they're trying to put out those fires? They're using water that would ordinarily be used for irrigation." </p><p>He said that not everyone is sold on the idea of growing food inside. Part of the marketing challenge for companies like Plenty is reassuring consumers and buyers that their produce is just as healthy (if not moreso) as traditionally grown produce. </p><p>"They think that farming outdoors is natural and farming indoors is unnatural," he said. </p><p>Still, it's catching on. </p><p>On Tuesday, BrightFarms, which also grows produce in hydroponic farms and sells it in retailers like Kroger and Walmart, announced a $100 million raise this week. The New York-based company is currently developing three new farms in North Carolina, Massachusetts and Texas, they said in a statement.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU0NTQ1Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDY1MzQ3OH0.hFlBaDNRVg6N1wpyVauLTQwDs79vRZZpK8zpNONe41U/image.jpg?width=980" id="feb8f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1c7eb880ec6a44b145818bbdb86cae3c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
</p><p>The first company Despommier heard of that was growing food indoors was Newark-based AeroFarms, which was funded by investors including Goldman Sachs as well as the city of Newark, which saw it as a hiring opportunity for its residents. A similar social mission defines Vertical Harvest in Jackson, Wyoming, a company that hires employees with developmental disabilities such as Down Syndrome and Autism.<br/></p><h2>The Indoor Model </h2><p>Plenty wants to churn out accessible produce that also tastes better, a way of encouraging consumers to buy more because it's "the most desirable option."</p><p>"One of the missions of Plenty is to move the world from a calorie-rich diet to a nutrient-rich one," Barnard said. "That means more plants that taste amazing." </p><p>The components that determine flavor in crops include light, climate, water and stress, Barnard said, which the agricultural industry can't manipulate simultaneously on outdoor farms.</p><p>"Now that we can control things like light and climate recipes, we have the privilege to control flavor," he said. "We view our competition as all the stuff in the middle of the store — highly processed foods with lots of sugar." </p><p>Back at Plenty's first farm, employees would walk the produce to the Google cafe to ask chefs for instant feedback on fresh arugula and bok choy. The startup now owns a research farm in Laramie, Wyoming, where scientists test plant varieties and growing conditions, and a production farm in South San Francisco.</p><p>Their line of pesticide-free produce like baby kale and lettuce mixes are ready to eat out of the box because human hands don't touch them. Even though robots and sensors manage daily tasks like watering plants and purifying the facility air, Plenty hasn't cut out human work. </p><p>A 4.5 ounce box of Plenty greens sells for $4.99 on Instacart, and prices will remain consistent as products are stocked in the organic sections of grocery stores across the state.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU0NTQ1OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDgyMzg5NX0.Cnr_Oa2ZpAi8i7OYvqURdNretlYezD2C9jzQBLh-DO0/image.jpg?width=980" id="4d141" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9b4eac3437b848d76b5d0bdbdc9cd739" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
</p><p>The company went with Albertsons in hopes of reaching the largest number of consumers in California. The retail giant <a href="https://investor.albertsonscompanies.com/news/press-release/2020/Albertsons-Companies-Inc.-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results/default.aspx" target="_blank">reported</a> this week that business in its retail stores rose 13.8% during its second quarter, which ended on September 12.<br/></p><p>Like most of its competitors, Plenty only sells leafy greens at the moment. But that will change with the Compton farm, which will grow strawberries as well.</p><p>Plenty and Driscolls have begun early stages of research and development for their strawberries at an indoor farm in Wyoming. Testing will be completed before the companies roll out their production in Compton, senior VP of Global R&D at Driscoll's Scott Komar said. </p><p>He added that his company, now an investor of Plenty, backs the startup for two reasons: the promise of "controlled growing environments" and the chance to move fruit production to underserved locations. </p><p>"These opportunities go beyond berries," Komar said. </p>
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