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XA New Hyperlocal Dating App Is Launching in LA
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.

Dating in Los Angeles can be just as bad as the city’s traffic and air quality. L.A. Dating—a localized meet-up tool for singles that focuses on making neighborhood connections—is hoping to change that.
“L.A. is the premier dating app city,” City Dating App founder Ben Mussi said, referring to L.A.’s status as the birthplace of Tinder and a wave of newer imitators. “So it was a natural fit for us.”
Los Angeles is the third city to host Mussi’s hyperlocal app, created by the former Boeing IT manager in 2019 in response to his own frustrations with the city’s dating scene.
L.A. Dating app founder Ben Mussi.
Photo courtesy of City Dating App
“I saw dating websites pop up when I was a teenager and they had such a stigma behind them,” Mussi told dot.LA. He launched the self-funded Seattle Dating in September 2019 as his own tech-driven spin on finding partners for lonely hearts. Unlike traditional dating websites that allocate distance in terms of miles, the filters on Mussi’s app focus on matching singles up within their neighborhoods.
But soon after launch, Mussi noticed something interesting: the Seattle app was a huge hit for traveling non-locals, with traffic coming from a neighboring city in Washington. Four months later, Portland Dating went live. Since their launch, Seattle Dating and Portland Dating have collective been downloaded by more than 100,000 users and generated 18 million swipes, 800,000 chats and 170,000 matches.
Image from L.A. Dating
Beyond their hyperlocal focus, there are other features that set Mussi’s City Dating apps apart from larger rivals like Tinder, Bumble, OkCupid and Grindr. They also boast scheduled matching, where a user’s profile indicates which days of the week they are available to meet up. “No other app has copied us that I know of yet,” Mussi said of the feature.
While the City Dating apps are free, there are in-app purchases that users can buy such as profile verification ($4.99) and a Pro account ($21.99 per month), which allows an unlimited number of likes per day and 20-minute date-coaching sessions.
But by far the most unique function of Mussi’s dating apps are its “bans,” a feature created to ensure the geography of its clients. Before users can complete the sign-up process, City Dating’s AI system takes five to 10 minutes to detect whether someone is downloading the app outside of its given city. Other users can also report any non-locals they see, with City Dating quick to remove them.
Mussi takes pride in the app’s ability to spot scammers. “We’ve got a lot of security around detecting VPN use and can really target our security to make sure that you're geographically within where you should be to use this app,” he said. (The use of VPNs is very prevalent in dating apps, as they allow users to hide their exact locations and make it easier for scammers outside the country to target U.S. users.) Since 2019, Mussi claims his apps have banned over 10,000 scammers, fake accounts and non-locals users.
On Sunday, L.A. Dating will launch a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of crowdfunding $8,900 to back its rollout. Mussi plans to have the app’s Los Angeles iteration up and running in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store by July.
“There's so much loneliness that is pervasive in the world right now,” Mussi said. “To be focusing on something that helps that unnecessary problem in the world is amazing.”
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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.
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This Week in ‘Raises’: Improvado Hauls $22M, Clearlake Launches $14B Fund
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
This week in “Raises”: A pair of Web3 platforms for gamers landed funding, as did a Manhattan Beach medical startup looking to bolster primary care via nurse practitioners. Meanwhile, a Santa Monica-based investment firm launched its seventh fund with more than $14 billion in dry powder.
Venture Capital
Improvado, a marketing data aggregation platform, raised $22 million in a Series A funding round led by Updata Partners.
Web3 gaming platform FreshCut raised $15 million in funding led by Galaxy Interactive, Animoca Brands and Republic Crypto.
Medical startup Greater Good Health raised $10 million in a funding round led by LRVHealth.
Joystick, a Web3 platform for gamers and creators, raised $8 million in seed funding.
Open source data protection company CipherMode Labs raised $6.7 million in seed funding led by Innovation Endeavors .
Mobile phone charging network ChargeFUZE raised $5 million in seed funding led by Beverly Pacific, TR Ventures, VA2, Jason Goldberg and Al Weiss.
Polygon, a startup aiming to better diagnose children with learning disabilities, raised $4.2 million in seed and pre-seed funding led by Spark Capital and Pear VC.
Pique, a virtual women's sexual health clinic, raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by Maveron.
Psudo, a sneaker startup that utilizes recycled water bottles and 3D sublimation printing to create its shoes, raised $3 million in a seed funding round led by SternAegis Ventures.
Funds
Santa Monica-based investment firm Clearlake Capital Group raised $14.1 billion for its seventh flagship fund.
Raises is dot.LA’s weekly feature highlighting venture capital funding news across Southern California’s tech and startup ecosystem. Please send fundraising news to Kristin Snyder (kristinsnyder@dot.la).Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
LA Tech ‘Moves’: New Head of Originals at Snap, New President at FaZe Clan
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
“Moves”, our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, 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 O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.
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FaZe Clan brought on Zach Katz as the gaming and media company’s new president and chief operating officer. Katz was previously the chief executive officer of the music tech investment fund Raised in Space Enterprises.
TikTok brand factory LINK Agency promoted Dustin Poteet to chief creative officer. Poteet was previously creative director at the firm.
Livestream shopping platform Talkshoplive hired Tradesy co-founder John Hall as its chief technology officer. Universal Music Group Nashville's former vice president of digital marketing, Tony Grotticelli, also joins the company as vice president of marketing.
Anjuli Millan will take over as head of original content at Snap after three years of overseeing production for the division.
Tech and media company Blavity hired Nikki Crump as general manager of agency. Crump joins the company from Burrell Communications Group.
O'Neil Digital Solutions, which provides customer communications and experience management for the health care industry, hired Eric Ramsey as national account sales executive. Ramsey joins from T/O Printing.
Investment firm Cresset Partners named Tammy Funasaki as managing director of business development. Funasaki previously served as head of investor relations for Breakwater Management.
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Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Snapchat’s New Controls Could Let Parents See Their Kids’ Friend Lists
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Snapchat is preparing to roll out enhanced parental controls that would allow parents to see who their teenagers are chatting with on the social media app, according to screenshots of the upcoming feature.
Snap’s parental controls.
Courtesy of Watchful.
Snapchat is planning to introduce Family Center, which would allow parents to see who their children are friends with on the app and who they’ve messaged within the last seven days, according to screenshots provided by Watchful, a product intelligence company. Parents would also be able help their kids report abuse or harassment.
The parental controls are still subject to change before finally launching publicly, as the Family Center screenshots—which were first reported by TechCrunch—reflect features that are still under development.
Santa Monica-based Snap and other social media giants have faced mounting criticism for not doing more to protect their younger users—some of whom have been bullied, sold deadly drugs and sexually exploited on their platforms. State attorneys general have urged Snap and Culver City-based TikTok to strengthen their parental controls, with both companies’ apps especially popular among teens.
A Snap spokesperson declined to comment on Friday. Previously, Snap representatives have told dot.LA that the company is developing tools that will provide parents with more insight into how their children are engaging on Snapchat and allow them to report troubling content.
Yet Snap’s approach to parental controls could still give teens some privacy, as parents wouldn’t be able to read the actual content of their kids’ conversations, according to TechCrunch. (The Family Center screenshots seen by dot.LA do not detail whether parents can see those conversations).
In addition, teenage users would first have to accept an invitation from their parents to join the in-app Family Center before those parents can begin monitoring their social media activity, TechCrunch reported.
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.