
Get in the KNOW
on LA Startups & Tech
XHow Lab Launch Aims to Make It Easier for Biotech Startups to Find Space
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.

Llewellyn Cox is making a WeWork for bioscience professionals.
In a building along a hip arts district in Atwater Village, the molecular biologist and venture investor will open his next no-strings-attached lab space where he hopes startups can plant their roots in Los Angeles and help create therapeutics that save lives.
For $4,600 a month, a biotech startup can access a university-grade lab created by Lab Launch, which Cox founded in 2014. The company broke ground on the project Tuesday.
While the concept isn't new, there are few of these lab locations available in Los Angeles. Cox is part of a small group of life science professionals that are trying to bolster the region's biotech economy and prevent budding talent from straying to hubs in San Diego, Boston or San Francisco.
"The way to really build an economy is to start companies and grow companies and keep them here and hire people from here," Cox said. "And that was always a challenge when we were first starting."
Unlike tech upstarts that have humble beginnings in cramped garages or dingy basements, biotech startups need expensive lab equipment to store samples and dispose of biohazard disposal, not to mention cumbersome permitting. The upfront costs can be daunting and often deter would-be entrepreneurs, funneling them into larger companies or university incubators that might take over some patent ownership.
Cox's answer is Lab Launch.
"In the absence of all external incubators, you basically have to jump seat-first into the commercial real estate market while starting up a company, or try to sublease an industrial space in the middle of nowhere and build your own lab, and these are really hard things to do," Cox said.
Lab space at Lab Launch's Monrovia location
Courtesy of Lab Launch
Stephanie Hsieh runs one of the region's largest trade organizations for life science professionals, but when she first arrived in Los Angeles two decades ago, she couldn't even find a lab to lease for Meditope. The cancer therapeutics startup that she helmed needed a lab where it could store samples and experiment with new therapies. The options were limited, and she moved the company's development to San Diego where there was ample infrastructure in which to innovate.
"I joke that we innovated here and then it moved to San Diego or the Bay Area because there was no reason for it to stick here," said Hsieh, of who heads the Los Angeles' office for Biocom, a San Diego-based trade organization that represents more than 1,400 life science companies.
Los Angeles has thousands of square feet of lab space, much of it backed by universities, private companies and venture capital firms, adding up to thousands of square footage.
Westlake Village BioPartners recently built out a 30,000-square-foot lab space in its new incubator campus in Thousand Oaks for budding startups to use. UCLA's Magnify, a short-term lab space that houses startups, prioritizes companies in which UCLA has intellectual property.
But Lab Launch doesn't look for a stake in the company. These rentable spaces allow startups to maintain independence and control over their intellectual property. And Cox argues it gives the bioscience industry much needed infrastructure.
In 2019, the industry generated $44.2 billion in economic activity, according to a report by Biocom. And the county also received a fourth of all funding the National Institutes of Health allocated to California that year, more than any other county in the state.
"There is a significant opportunity with bioscience to expand L.A.'s innovation economy, nurture homegrown talent and contribute to the long-term economic health of the community and city at-large," said Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has spearheaded efforts to build more facilities for the industry.
At the Atwater Crossing Arts and Innovation complex, not far from the Los Angeles River, Lab Launch's 11,000-square-foot space is under construction. It will provide six private lab units ranging from 800 to 3,500 square feet and can be further subdivided based on how many companies join. The labs are near a cluster of hospitals in Silver Lake like Children's Hospital and Kaiser Permanente, a metro stop and a slew of restaurants and coffee shops.
Created by scientists and entrepreneurs, Lab Launch's first space opened in seven years ago in Monrovia. The 11,000-square-foot lab space provides a place where startups can collaborate and experiment. The facility comes with ultra pure water (a common ingredient in the pharmaceutical industry) and freezers made to store samples.
The most common clients are small research and manufacturing organizations that contract with other, often larger, pharmaceutical or biotech companies and focus on specific niche verticals, like creating a singular pharma ingredient over and over again and only need a bit of lab space to do so. These organizations make the development and manufacturing part of biotech and pharmaceuticals cheaper.
KorvaLabs was one of the first companies at Lab Launch's Monrovia facility in 2015 to develop and test performance-enhancing drugs. The company stayed for two years before growing out of it and into another facility in San Dimas. It later worked with and was bought out by COVID-testing company Curative during the pandemic.
"Having these kind of established professionals around makes it a much more supportive and creative environment for those high growth startup companies that need help wherever they can get it," Cox said.
Hsieh already sees it happening.
"Just in the last five years, I'll say we've just seen explosive acceleration and growth," Hsieh said.
- The COVID-19 Crisis is Creating a New Biotech Culture in L.A. - dot.LA ›
- Can LA County's New Fund Get Local Biotech Startups to Stick ... ›
- The Labs Tasked with Making LA's COVID Testing Mandate Work - dot.LA ›
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.
TikTok’s Latest Ad Strategy: Let Brands Crowdsource Creators
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.
TikTok’s newest advertising program will allow brands to crowdsource content from creators.
Branded Mission, which the Culver City-based video-sharing app announced Wednesday, is currently being beta-tested. The program lets brands release briefs containing specific creative directions—such as incorporating a specific hashtag, visual effect or audio—with the goal of procuring videos that will become promoted ads. Creators with at least 1,000 followers will be compensated with cash payments if the content performs well.
Creators participating in the “authentic branded content” program, as TikTok described it, can choose which brand initiatives they wish to participate in—with each Branded Mission “page” highlighting details like how much money a creator could potentially receive for participating. TikTok told Business Insider that it’s testing various payment models, including a first-come, first-serve model as well as “boosted traffic” compensation.
“Creators are at the center of creativity, culture and entertainment on TikTok,” the social media firm said in a statement. “With Branded Mission, we're excited to bring even more creators into the branded content ecosystem and explore ways to reward emerging and established creators.”
TikTok’s previous advertising strategies have relied on creators with large followings, with the recently announced TikTok Pulse targeting users with at least 100,000 followers. Branded Mission, on the other hand, gives creators with smaller platforms a chance to make more revenue beyond programs like TikTok’s Creator 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.
Greater Good Health Raises $10 Million To Fix America’s Doctor Shortage
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
The pandemic highlighted what’s been a growing trend for years: Medical students are prioritizing high-paying specialty fields over primary care, leading to a shortage of primary care doctors who take care of a patient’s day-to-day health concerns. These physicians are a cornerstone of preventative health care, which when addressed can lower health care costs for patients, insurers and the government. But there’s a massive shortage of doctors all over the country, and the pipeline for primary care physicians is even weaker.
One local startup is offering a possible answer to this supply squeeze: nurse practitioners.
On Wednesday, Manhattan Beach-based Greater Good Health unveiled a $10 million Series A funding round led by LRVHealth, which adds to the startup’s $3 million seed round last year. The company employs nurse practitioners and pairs them with doctor’s offices and medical clinics; this allows nurse practitioners to take on patients who would otherwise have to wait weeks, or even months, to see a doctor.
“This access and equity issue is just going to become more pervasive if we don't do things to help people gain more access,” Greater Good founder and CEO Sylvia Hastanan told dot.LA. “We need more providers to offer more patients appointments and access to their time to take care of their needs. And in order to do that, we really need to think about the workforce.”
There has been a growing movement in the medical industry to use nurse practitioners in place of increasingly scarce primary care physicians. California passed a law in 2020 that will widen the scope of nurse practitioners and allow them to operate without a supervising physician by 2023. Amid a shortage of doctors, there’s also the question of what will become of the largest and longest-living elderly population in recent history, Baby Boomers. Public health officials are already scrambling for ways to take care of this aging demographic’s myriad health needs while also addressing the general population.
“By the time you and I get old enough where we need primary care providers to help us with our ailments and chronic conditions, there aren't [going to be] enough of them,” Hastanan said. “And/or there just isn't going to be enough support for those nurse practitioners to really thrive in that way. And I worry about what our system will look like.”
Nurse practitioners function much like doctors do—they can monitor vitals, diagnose patients, and, in some cases, prescribe medication (though usually under the supervision of a doctor). Nurse practitioners need to get either a master’s degree or higher in nursing and complete thousands of hours of work in a clinical setting. All told, it usually takes six-to-eight years to become a nurse practitioner, compared to 10-to-15 years to become a practicing physician.
Greater Good Health’s platform puts nurse practitioners in often years-long care settings where they manage patients—most of whom are chronically ill, high-risk patients that need to be seen regularly and thoroughly. This allows them to follow up more carefully on patients they have managed for years, instead of catching up on a new patient’s history and treating them in the moment. Patients, meanwhile, don’t have to see a rotating door of clinicians and can talk to a provider they already have an established rapport with.
The one-year-old startup will use the funding to provide learning and development opportunities for its nurse practitioners and also connect them with each other through virtual support groups. Burnout has been an issue across health care during the pandemic, spurring an exodus of nursing and support staff and leaving health care facilities woefully understaffed. Greater Good hopes that keeping nurse practitioners in more stable, years-long care situations and offering them career development opportunities will help retain them and keep them in the workforce longer.
“We want them to be well-rounded and balanced both in work and life, and we see that returns us healthier, more engaged and ready nurse practitioners,” Hastanan said.
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
Plus Capital Partner Amanda Groves on Celebrity Equity Investments
On this episode of the L.A. Venture podcast, Amanda Groves talks about how PLUS Capital advises celebrity investors and why more high-profile individuals are choosing to invest instead of endorse.
As a partner at PLUS, Groves works with over 70 artists and athletes, helping to guide their investment strategies. PLUS advises their talent roster to combine their financial capital with their social capital and focus on five investment areas: the future of work, future of education, health and wellness, the conscious consumer and sustainability.
“The idea is if we can leverage these people who have incredible audiences—and influence over that audience—in the world of venture capital, you'd be able to help make those businesses move forward faster,” Groves said.
PLUS works to create celebrity partnerships by identifying each client’s passions and finding companies that align with them, Groves said. From there, the venture firm can reach out to prospective partners from its many contacts and can help evaluate businesses that approach its clients. Recently, PLUS paired actress Nina Dobrev with the candy company SmartSweets after she had told them about her love for its snacks.
Celebrity entrepreneurship has shifted quite a bit in recent years, Groves said. While celebrities are paid for endorsements, Groves said investing allows them to gain equity from the growth of companies that benefit from their work.
“Like in movies, for example, where they're earning a residual along the way, they thought, ‘You know, if we're going to partner with these brands and create a tremendous amount of enterprise value, we should be able to capture some of the upside that we're generating, too’,” she said.
Partnering in this way also allows her clients to work with a wider range of brands, including small brands that often can’t afford to spend millions on endorsements. Investing allows high-profile individuals to represent brands they care about, Groves said.
“The last piece of the puzzle was a drive towards authenticity,” Groves said. “A lot of these high-profile artists and athletes are not interested, once they've achieved some sort of level of success, in partnering with brands that they don't personally align with.”
Hear the full episode by clicking on the playhead above, and listen to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.