LA Venture: How Magnify Ventures' Julie Wroblewski Wants to Transform Tech for Families
In this episode of LA Venture, Julie Wroblewski talks about starting Magnify Ventures and helping modern families.
Wroblewski worked with Melinda French Gates to start Pivotal Ventures. For Wroblewski, it was her dream job as she got to lead venture capital investment strategy for five years. One of the focus areas at Pivotal was around caregiving innovation and American family homes.
Wroblewski cites a report from one of Magnify's partners that estimates the care economy at $648 billion in the United States, already larger than the pharmaceutical market. Wroblewski's fund is writing up to $2.5 million checks into companies that will transform life, work and care for modern families.
"I started to see what I thought was a very exciting and still overlooked category of investment in venture capital around the care economy, and family-focused technology and was also seeing a lot of flow and founders," said Wroblewski.
As an investor, she is particularly interested in tools like household optimization that help families be both more efficient and joyful. She also wants to let parents know they don't have to be experts. Technology can help give them access to what they need, when they need it.
"Technology is moving closer into our lives all the time and solving increasingly human, complex, difficult problems, including, how we care for and manage care for children and our loved ones--the things that are most personal to us," said Wroblewski.
"We've seen such a wave of technology innovation in the workplace. You know, we now use so many different tools to help increase our productivity at work, to improve our health and well being in some cases in the workplace," she added. "And I think we haven't yet seen the same sort of investment in innovation move into some areas of family life and household management. And so I think that that's going to change."
dot.LA Audience Engagement Intern Joshua Letona contributed to this post.
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How Blockchain-Based Folio Hopes to Solve the Art World's 'Big Problem''
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern 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.
For Joey Primiani, designing a new NFT marketplace is just the latest stop in what’s been a long and fascinating trip through the world of tech.
After stints at Google and Cortex and a gig developing Lady Gaga’s online fan community, Primiani, together with business partner Mirko Kiefer, unveiled his latest venture this week: Folio, a social network that offers artists a platform and tools to showcase their NFT creations.
Billing itself as the “first mobile NFT marketplace and social network,” Los Angeles-based Folio is an invite-only community allowing artists to promote their work, collaborate with other artists and connect with NFT collectors. The platform, which is accessible via iOS app or web browser, is meant to act as both a digital portfolio for artists and a tool allowing collectors to search and discover digital art. Artists decide what price they want to sell their art for, and Folio takes a cut of every work sold.
Primiani told dot.LA that the idea was motivated by the difficulties those in the NFT art community can face when accessing various online platforms, such as setting up and logging in through digital wallets like MetaMask.
“The onboarding experience is a pain point for a lot of artists that we really want to solve,” he said. “We want to make that an easier experience so that more people can use it.”
Primiani first interned at Google in 2009, where he helped design the Silicon Valley giant’s search products, and later worked as a designer at the Google Labs tech incubator. From there, he went on to work with Lady Gaga to create LittleMonsters.com, a social network for the singer’s devoted fan following. It was his work with the renowned entertainer that turned Primiani onto the idea of creating a marketplace of his own—particularly one focused on showcasing LGBTQ+ and underrepresented artists, which is a focus of Folio’s.
“The big problem in the art world previously was that a lot of people were making art for the galleries, and now they're actually making it directly for the fans and the consumers,” he said.
Primiani’s dream came closer to fruition after he connected via Twitter with Mirko Kiefer, an engineer and blockchain entrepreneur. After some workshopping, they officially—and quietly—created Folio in 2020. The platform was in private beta testing in recent months, during which time the founders were completing a Web3-focused residency at L.A.’s Launch House accelerator. (Creatives such as Pol Kurucz, Zigor, and Marc Hemeon had access to the beta product.)
“We really wanted to be one of the first to really nail that experience, because it's so new and platforms couldn't handle a lot of the demand that was happening,” Primiani said.
Folio and its small five-person team is still in its pre-seed stages and has bootstrapped all of its funding to this point. Primiani said any new funding will go toward hiring both in L.A. and remotely, and to grow and scale the company.
“I think we're only at like 5% of what's possible,” Primiani said of the blockchain-enabled internet known as Web3. “It kind of feels like the internet in the ‘90s, where it's like the wild West and anything's possible.”
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern 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.
Introducing 'Moves': Our New Weekly Recap of Job Changes in LA Tech
This is the first installment of Moves—a weekly feature highlighting job and career changes around the Los Angeles and Southern California tech ecosystem.
Moves is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here. And if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing sharmineh@dot.LA.
Anne Devine and Rose Rogers have joined electric vehicle battery manufacturer Romeo Power as chief operating officer and chief people officer, respectively. Devine arrives from auto parts maker UGN, while Rogers previously worked at aerospace components manufacturer Ducommun.
Rob Leff has joined content technology platform Nativo as chief financial officer. Leff previously held the same role at media measurement startup VideoAmp.
Alex Morrison has joined Pearpop, which helps creators collaborate with social media platforms, as chief marketing officer. Morrison joins the startup from advertising agency Grey West, where he served as global partner and president.
Soo Hong has joined fintech startup Sunbit as chief people officer. Hong previously led people and talent operations at National Veterinary Associates, WeWork and Tinder.
Evelyn Krasnow has joined furniture rental startup Fernish as its new chief marketing officer; she has previously held positions at Bird, Seedling and Berkin. The company has also hired Jorge Montoya as vice president of operations; John Praino as the vice president of partnerships; Sydni Gethner as head of sales; and Tessa Peshke as head of multifamily.
Evan Fitzpatrick and Rajiv Makhijani have been appointed to new roles at audit, risk and compliance platform AuditBoard. Fitzpatrick joins as senior vice president of AuditBoard’s CrossComply product from Bain Capital, while Makhijani was promoted from within and will serve as AuditBoard’s senior vice president of emerging products.
Marketing firm Gimbal | true[X] has appointed Lauri Baker as its senior vice president of partnership strategy. Baker joins from Pause Commercials, where she served as partner and chief operating officer.
Marina del Rey-based venture capital firm Fifth Wall has hired Virginia Drennen, Clay McFarlane and Gaby Yo to vice president positions in value creation, real estate technology and the investment team, respectively. Fifth Wall has also hired Sarah Liu as partner of real estate technology, Cedric Char as senior associate of climate technology, and Mike Foell as the senior finance manager. Oliver Harrison will serve as the company’s new senior associate of Europe, MIchael New will serve as the principle of capital formation and G.M. Nicholas Vik will become a partner and head of strategy.
Stefanie Schwartz has joined creator-focused video distributor Jellysmack as global head of platform partnerships. Schwartz was most recently executive vice president and general manager of Viacom Digital Studios.
Jeff Holland has joined electric vehicle manufacturer VinFast as director of communications. He previously served as director of global communications for Karma Automotive.
Ryan Pollreisz has joined video game developer Imagendary Studios as studio manager. He arrives from Sony Pictures Imageworks, where he served as vice president of artist management.
Ready, Set, Food!, a startup that helps prevent children from developing food allergies, has hired Laura Michelson as senior director of brand marketing and Emily Peltzer as vice president of manufacturing and operations. Michelson joins from cannabis company PLUS while Peltzer arrives from flower retailer The Bouqs Company.
Shipment Tracking Startup Route Claims Unicorn Status After $200 Million Funding Round
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Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.
Ecommerce shipment tracking startup Route—which is based in the “Silicon Slopes” hotbed surrounding Salt Lake City but has a growing presence in Los Angeles—is now claiming unicorn status after raising $200 million in new funding at a $1.25 billion valuation.
Route co-founder and CEO Evan Walker told Forbes that a “London-based investment firm” led its latest funding round, while declining to name the firm due to a nondisclosure agreement. Other investors in the round included L.A.-based Riot Ventures, Madrona Venture Group and Eldridge. The new funding takes Route’s total capital raised to $291 million, Forbes reported, with Walker noting that he remains “by far the biggest majority stockholder” in the company.
Though online sales aren’t growing like they were at the height of coronavirus lockdown restrictions, Route has continued to benefit from the overall trend towards ecommerce. According to Forbes, its annual revenues more than doubled in 2021, to around $80 million.
Though Route’s package-tracking app is free for consumers, the startup makes money by selling shipping, insurance and marketing software to online retailers. Founded in 2018, the company has attracted more than 11,000 merchant clients and tracked more than 175 million packages.
Of Route’s roughly 450-person staff, approximately 40 are based out of its Santa Monica office. Walker said the firm is looking to ramp up its recruiting of tech talent on the West Coast, while a Route spokesperson told dot.LA that it “plans to grow pretty rapidly throughout this year across all departments.”
Do you know something we should know about L.A. tech or venture capital? Reach out securely via Signal: +1 917 434 4978.
Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.