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LA Tech Week: NFT Cocktails, Sushi and Networking
Andrew Fiouzi
Andrew Fiouzi is an editor at dot.LA. He was previously a features writer at MEL Magazine where he covered masculinity, tech and true crime. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Long Reads and Vice, among other publications.
Roughly 13 hours after venture capital kingmaker Andreessen Horowitz announced plans to invest $350 million into WeWork founder Adam Neumann’s new residential real estate company, a handful of fedoras are floating through a room of mostly 20-something startup founders, influencers and tech people hoping to rub shoulders with their angel. I’m at L.A. Tech Week’s opening night mixer at Famecast’s creator brand accelerator studio in Santa Monica.
The event—which is hosted by Zeal Reserve, 99 Ventures and Moonshots Capital, among others—is one of the final get-togethers in a day packed with nearly 40 others. Some of which included: an investor breakfast at Hermès, a lunch and fireside chat about the state of the climate hosted by venture capital investment company Blue Bear Capital, a number of crypto-centered happy hours and a yacht cruise.
Upon entering the Famecast studio, 400-some-odd guests step onto a red carpet where they pose for photos in front of a white background littered with names of the companies hosting one of L.A. Tech Week’s notoriously-difficult-to-get-into events: The running joke on Twitter is that L.A. Tech Week events are “harder to get into than Harvard.” Which, based on the number of people at the cafe meetup earlier in the day, who tell me their registration was either denied or “pending approval,” appears, at least anecdotally, to be true.
Inside Famecast’s West L.A. warehouse space, neon lights bounce off red brick walls. In the front of the house a few startup founders and people who are “looking for a side hustle,” are sitting in chairs suspended to the ceiling and huddled around a floating conference table covered in yellow, purple and red cans of rosé. To the left, an installation of sorts featuring forward-facing chrome, human-shaped heads wearing headphones. Between the make-shift sushi bar and the bathroom, a woman is selling Bluetooth audio sunglasses for $100 less than the glasses typically retail.
As you make your way to the back of the warehouse, a DJ with shortly cropped bleach hair wearing white sunglasses is spinning records in front of a projector screen illuminated with a miasma of familiar NFT characters. Yes, there’s an ape. And yes, it’s of the Yacht-Club variety. Throughout the night, I’ll hear people tell me that the project they’re working on is either an NFT or “like an NFT.”
One such individual is Alec Joseph, a musical artist and the co-creator of Conscious Cups which brands itself as, “a society of used coffee cups, awoken by radioactive mycelia in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” The project appears, to me at least, to be a clever way for Joseph to promote his upcoming single “Conscious Cups.” The way it works is that people who purchase one of Joseph’s NFTs will have access to an exclusive Discord channel where they can connect and contribute to the project. Per Conscious Cups’ LinkedIn profile, holders of Conscious Cups NFTs will have the opportunity to get their profile pictures featured in one of Joseph’s upcoming music videos.
For better or worse, however, the room isn’t exclusively made up of web3 people. Ann Chan, a former product manager at Meta is the founder of Berry, a frictionless drop-in audio chat app for remote teams that need to discuss and resolve issues. Chan, who I met earlier at the L.A. Tech Week cafe meetup, is at the mixer to network and meet other founders who might be interested in using Berry as they test and develop the product. When I run into her towards the end of the evening, she tells me she’s struggled to meet founders with large enough teams—which is something she needs since her app is geared toward teams that have enough people to be naturally plagued by conflicts in their schedules.
Yet another non-web3 project is Roman and John Cresto’s Empire ECommerce — a one-stop, automated service provider for marketplace e-commerce stores. In layman's terms, they use machine learning to help people set up and automate their Amazon stores. When I ask Empire’s CEO Roman Cresto to give me his thoughts about the mixer he seems satisfied with the turnout before adding, “apparently Addison Rae’s dad is here.”
According to Ace Westwick, chief marketing officer at Zeal Reserve — an algorithmically powered crypto investment fund—the idea behind the mixer was to create an environment where investors, founders and people in tech can come together and have a good time. It helps, he quips, that they have enough booze to keep the “400-person crowd fully sedated for the entire night.” To his credit, several other people who I meet echo Westwick’s sentiment. They tell me that unlike Silicon Valley networking events, where everyone is just exchanging business cards and trying to differentiate between the posers and the money people, this L.A. Tech Week event is more like a party.
Sam Borghese, CEO and co-founder of Zeal Reserve and a professor at UCLA introduces me to Mack Abbott who works in public relations. “This is Mack,” he says. “She wants to be famous.” Borghese, who’s been featured in Bloomberg asks Abbott, what he needs to do to be featured in Forbes 30 under 30. According to Abott, there are two different ways: 1) Go to a bunch of tech conferences and schmooze with reporters, editors and expert judges who decide on these sorts of things. 2) Write a check for $30,000. Neither avenue appears to appeal to Borghese.
As the evening winds down in Santa Monica and the first day of L.A. Tech Week is almost nearly in the books, there’s an undeniable enthusiasm for the promises of an entire week of networking opportunities. With most of L.A. Tech Week’s events all but full, there’s no doubt that as the week progresses, attendees are sure to add to their list of Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections. I’ve made a handful of new LinkedIn connections myself.
While I watch waves of attendees wait for the Ubers that will take them to their hotels or their homes, I’m struck by the words of the bouncer at the beginning of the night. I asked him, while he was scanning my QR code, why he was using two different phones. First, he said something about iPhones and Androids before he stopped himself, laughed, shook his head and told me, “Technology is weird these days. But it’s cool.”
Can’t argue with that.
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Andrew Fiouzi
Andrew Fiouzi is an editor at dot.LA. He was previously a features writer at MEL Magazine where he covered masculinity, tech and true crime. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Long Reads and Vice, among other publications.
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
Collectors, a Santa Ana-based company that lets collectors buy, sell and authenticate sports trading cards, rare coins and more online, has raised $100 million in new funding and rolled out a corporate rebrand that consolidates its various offerings onto one website.
The funding values the company at $4.3 billion, it said Wednesday. Collectors said it raised the capital from “existing investors”—namely, an investment group led by CEO Nat Turner, D1 Capital Partners, Cohen Private Ventures and TCG Capital Management that acquired the company last year for a reported $850 million, according to Axios. The investment group also included athletes such as NBA star Kevin Durant, NFL great Larry Fitzgerald and former U.S. Open tennis champion Andy Roddick.
Collectors—which claimed it has grown its revenues “by over 100% year-on-year” and is now profitable—said the new funding “will be used to grow the business further and invest in new technology that further improves the experience for hobbyists.”
The company, formerly known as Collectors Universe, also unveiled a rebrand that will see all of its offerings—including authentication and grading services, marketplace and auction sites, and research tools—combined and found on its Collectors.com website.
“Our vision has always been to reinvest via technology and capacity expansion into our brands and simplify the collecting experience through innovation,” said Collectors CEO Nat Turner in a statement. “We’re going to continue focusing on improving the customer experience and providing the trusted tools that every collector needs.”
Initially founded in 1986 as Professional Coin Grading Service, Collectors’ brands now include Professional Sports Authenticator, Professional Coin Grading Service, WATA, Goldin, CollectorsCorner and Card Ladder. In addition to its Southern California headquarters, the company has offices in New York, Seattle, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Paris.
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Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
🔦 Spotlight
Hello Los Angeles!
We talk a lot about AI in L.A., usually in the context of streaming platforms that “recommend” a movie you regret watching or apps that let you swap your face onto a Marvel poster. But the most interesting AI stories here aren’t gimmicks; they’re rewiring the hidden machinery of massive, slow moving industries. And this week, that spotlight falls on…lawyers.
LawPro.ai, a Los Angeles based legal tech startup, just closed a priced seed round led by Scopus Ventures to bring AI deeper into the world of injury claims. Their new “Case Assistant” isn’t about flashy automation, it’s about instantly surfacing case insights, cutting down endless hours of drafting, and helping law firms run with the precision of a Formula 1 pit crew.
Here’s why this matters: the legal industry has been one of the last holdouts when it comes to adopting tech that actually speeds things up. Now, with AI making its way from the red carpet to the courtroom, we’re watching the early stages of a shift that could change how justice is delivered in real time. In L.A., we’ve already seen AI startups shaking up entertainment, aerospace, and healthcare. Legal might be next.
And if LawPro.ai pulls it off, you might not just get a faster verdict, you might see the ripple effect across an industry that has spent decades charging by the hour. In other words, the billable clock might finally start running in our favor.
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
- Equatic, a company using a patented seawater electrolysis process to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide while producing green hydrogen, has raised $11.6M in a Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Temasek Trust’s Catalytic Capital for Climate and Health (C3H) and Singapore-based Kibo Invest, and the capital will support the engineering, commercialization, and construction of its first 100‑kilotonne carbon removal facility, as well as broader manufacturing and technological development. - learn more
- SetPoint Medical has secured $140M in private financing, comprising a $25M second tranche of its Series C round and a $115M Series D round co-led by Elevage Medical Technologies and Ally Bridge Group. The funds will be used to launch and scale commercialization of the FDA approved SetPoint System, a pioneering neuroimmune modulation implant that targets the vagus nerve to treat moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, as well as to advance development of therapies for other autoimmune conditions. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- Bonfire Ventures participated in Topline Pro’s $27M Series B funding round to help the company scale its AI driven platform for local home service businesses. Topline Pro provides tools for plumbers, landscapers, painters, and other service providers to manage websites, marketing, CRM, payments, and more, enabling them to operate as scalable, autonomous enterprises. The new funding will be used to enhance its AI agent suite and expand onboarding, customer success, and product development capabilities to deliver greater ROI for small businesses. - learn more
- B Capital participated in Isaac Health’s $10.5M Series A funding round, backing the company’s mission to expand access to brain health and dementia care. Isaac Health provides virtual and in-home services nationwide and will use the funds to enhance its AI-driven screening tools, strengthen its technology platform, and grow partnerships with health systems and payers. - learn more
- Bold Capital Partners joined a $44M Series C financing round for Gameto, a clinical stage biotech company developing stem cell derived reproductive therapies. The new funding, which brings Gameto’s total capital raised to approximately $127M, will support completion of its pivotal Phase 3 trial of Fertilo, an iPSC derived egg maturation therapy, and the company’s global regulatory filings and commercialization efforts. - learn more
- M13 led a seed round that raised $8.5M for Mako, a New York based AI startup focused on automating GPU code optimization. Mako’s platform lets developers write in familiar high level languages while its AI intelligently generates and continuously tunes low level GPU kernels, yielding faster performance, cost savings, and compatibility across hardware like NVIDIA, AMD, and Tenstorrent. The fresh funding will be used to expand the engineering team, deepen hardware support, and bring Mako’s performance tools to a broader audience in AI, graphics, simulation, and scientific computing. - learn more
- Rebel Fund participated in a $9M Series A round for Chowdeck, a profitable Nigerian food delivery startup aiming to build Africa’s next super app for food, groceries, and essentials. With this capital, Chowdeck plans to roll out its quick commerce strategy, powered by a network of dark stores and hyper local logistics, to speed up delivery across Nigeria and Ghana. - learn more
LA Exits
- Mayweather Boxing + Fitness has been acquired by Giant Ideas, LLC, alongside KickHouse, and will be combined with the company’s flagship brand Legends Boxing to form the largest skill based boutique fitness network with more than 70 studios worldwide. Rather than focusing solely on rapid expansion, the unified brands will prioritize operational excellence, franchisee success, and community driven skill development. - learn more
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