

Get in the KNOW
on LA Startups & Tech
X
Illustration by Ian Hurley
What Are LA’s Hottest Startups of 2022? See Who VCs Picked in dot.LA’s Annual Survey
Harri Weber
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.
In Los Angeles—like the startup environment at large—venture funding and valuations skyrocketed in 2021, even as the coronavirus pandemic continued to surge and supply chain issues rattled the economy. The result was a startup ecosystem that continued to build on its momentum, with no shortage of companies raising private capital at billion-dollar-plus unicorn valuations.
In order to gauge the local startup scene and who’s leading the proverbial pack, we asked more than 30 leading L.A.-based investors for their take on the hottest firms in the region. They responded with more than two dozen venture-backed companies; three startups, in particular, rose above the rest as repeat nominees, while we've organized the rest by their amount of capital raised as of January, according to data from PitchBook. (We also asked VCs not to pick any of their own portfolio companies, and vetted the list to ensure they stuck to that rule.)
Without further ado, here are the 26 L.A. startups that VCs have their eyes on in 2022.
1. Whatnot ($225.4 million raised)
Whatnot was the name most often on the minds of L.A. venture investors—understandably, given its prolific fundraising year. Whatnot raised some $220 million across three separate funding rounds in 2021, on the way to a $1.5 billion valuation.
The Marina del Rey-based livestream shopping platform was founded by former GOAT product manager Logan Head and ex-Googler Grant LaFontaine. The startup made its name by providing a live auction platform for buying and selling collectables like rare Pokémon cards, and has since expanded into sports memorabilia, sneakers and apparel.
2. Boulevard ($40.3 million raised)
Boulevard’s backers include Santa Monica-based early-stage VC firm Bonfire Ventures, which focuses on B2B software startups. The Downtown-based company fits nicely within that thesis; Boulevard builds booking and payment software for salons and spas. The firm has worked with prominent brands such as Toni & Guy and HeyDay.
3. GOAT ($492.7 million)
GOAT launched in 2015 as a marketplace to help sneakerheads authenticate used Air Jordans and other collectible shoes. It has since grown at a prolific rate, expanding into apparel and accessories and exceeding $2 billion in merchandise sales in 2020. The startup sealed a $195 million funding round last summer that more than doubled its valuation, to $3.7 billion.
The Best of the Rest
VideoAmp ($578.6 raised)
Nielsen competitor VideoAmp gathers data on who's watching what across streaming services, traditional TV and social apps like YouTube. The company positions itself as an alternative to so-called "legacy" systems like Nielsen, which it says are "fragmented, riddled with complexity and inaccurate." In addition to venture funding, its total funding figure includes more than $165 million in debt financing.
Mythical Games ($269.4 million raised)
Seizing on the NFT craze, Mythical Games is building a platform that powers the growing realm of “play-to-earn games.” Backed by NBA legend Michael Jordan and Andreessen Horowitz, the Sherman Oaks-based startup’s partners include game publishers Abstraction, Creative Mobile and CCG Lab.
FloQast ($202 million raised)
FloQast founder Michael Whitmire says he got a “no” from more than 100 investors in the process of raising a seed round. Today, the accounting software company is considered a unicorn.
Nacelle ($70.8 million raised)
Nacelle produces docuseries, books, comedy albums and podcasts. The media company’s efforts include the Netflix travel series “Down To Earth with Zac Efron.”
Wave ($66 million raised)
A platform for virtual concerts, Wave has hosted performances by artists including Justin Bieber, Tinashe and The Weeknd. The company says it has raised $66 million to date from the likes of Warner Music and Tencent.
Papaya ($65.2 million raised)
Sherman Oaks-based Papaya looks to make it easier to pay “any” bill—from hospital bills to parking tickets—via its mobile app.
LeaseLock ($63.2 million raised)
Based in Marina del Rey, LeaseLock says it’s on a mission to eliminate security deposits for apartment renters.
Emotive ($58.1 million raised)
Emotive sells text message-focused marketing tools to ecommerce firms like underwear brand Parade and men's grooming company Beardbrand.
Dray Alliance ($55 million raised)
Based in Long Beach, Dray says its mission is to “modernize the logistics and trucking industry.” Its partners include Danish shipping company Maersk and toy maker Mattel.
Coco ($43 million raised)
Coco makes small pink robots on wheels (you may have seen them around town) that deliver food via a remote pilot. Its investors include Y Combinator and Silicon Valley Bank.
HiveWatch ($25 million raised)
HiveWatch develops physical security software. Its investors include former Twitter executive Dick Costollo and NBA star Steph Curry’s Penny Jar Capital.
Popshop ($24.5 million raised)
Whatnot competitor Popshop is betting that live-shopping is the future of ecommerce. The West Hollywood-based firm focuses on collectables such as trading cards and anime merchandise.
First Resonance ($19.4 million raised)
Founded by former SpaceX engineer Karan Talati, First Resonance runs a software platform for makers of electric cars and aerospace technology. Its clients include Santa Cruz-based air taxi company Joby Aviation and Alameda-based rocket company Astra.
Open Raven ($19 million raised)
Founded by Crowdstrike and Microsoft alums, Open Raven aims to protect user data. The cybersecurity firm’s investors include Kleiner Perkins and Upfront Ventures.
Fourthwall ($17 million raised)
When an actor faces the camera and speaks directly to the audience, it’s known as “breaking the fourth wall.” Named after the trope, Venice-based Fourthwall offers a website builder that’s designed for content creators.
The Non Fungible Token Company ($15 million raised)
The Non Fungible Token Company creates NFTs for musicians under the name Unblocked. Its investors include Jay Z’s Marcy Venture Partners and Shawn Mendez.
Safe Health Systems ($15 million raised)
Backed by Mayo Clinic Ventures, Safe Health develops telehealth software and offers tools for enterprises to launch their own health care apps.
Intro ($11.6 million raised)
Intro’s app lets you book video calls with experts—from celebrity stylists, to astrologists, to investors.
DASH Systems ($8.5 million raised)
With the tagline “Land the package, not the plane,” DASH Systems is a Hawthorne-based shipping company that builds hardware and software for automated airdrops.
Ettitude ($3.5 million raised)
With a focus on sustainability, Ettitude is a direct-to-consumer brand that sells bedding, bathroom textiles and sleepwear.
Afterparty ($3 million raised)
Along similar lines as Unblocked, Afterparty creates NFTs for artists and content creators such as Clay Perry and Tropix.
Heart to Heart ($0.75 million raised)
Heart to Heart is an audio-focused dating app that “lets you listen to the story behind the pictures in a profile.” Precursor Ventures led the pre-seed funding round.
Frigg (undisclosed)
Frigg makes hair and beauty products that contain cannabinoids such as CBD. The Valley Village-based company raised an undisclosed seed round in August.
From Your Site Articles
- The Early-Stage Startups in LA Set to Take Off in 2021 - dot.LA ›
- Los Angeles Startups Closed a Record Number of Deals in Q3 - dot.LA ›
- dot.LA's Map of Startups in Los Angeles - dot.LA ›
- The Hottest LA Startups of 2020 - dot.LA ›
- Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator Launches Green Loan Fund - dot.LA ›
- dot.LA's Guide on L.A. Flight Startups Overair, Archer Aviation - dot.LA ›
- Here Are LA’s Hottest Startups for 2023 - dot.LA ›
- Nobody Studios Plans to Build 100 Startups in Five Years - dot.LA ›
- From GameTree to Sota — Ukrainian Founders Call LA Home - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Harri Weber
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.
PR Firm Carter Agency Allegedly Scammed Hundreds of Influencers Out of Brand Deals
08:00 AM | December 01, 2022
Andria Moore
Influencer Niké Ojekunle was surprised when a young content creator reached out to ask her about her experience working with The Carter Agency. The content creator had apparently seen Ojekunle’s name on the agency’s roster and wanted to know how helpful they’d been in helping her navigate brand deals.
The problem was, Ojekunle, who has nearly half a million followers on TikTok, had never heard of The Carter Agency, let alone worked with them. So she sent them an email inquiring about why the agency had listed her name as one of their influencers.
She received a response from a person by the name of Ben Popkin who claimed to be the CEO of The Carter Agency that lists Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Prada as just a few of their “strategic partners.”
In the email, Popkin explained to Ojekunle that he had previously worked with her through a different PR agency and apologized for the mix-up. Then he pivoted to a new proposition: he could help her get two $5,000 brand partnership deals. Ojekunle agreed to the details of the agreement and completed two campaigns with Popkin as the middleman. A few weeks later, Popkin reached out again. This time it was with an offer from Clinique—a skincare brand Ojekunle had worked with in the past.
“In June, he wrote me and said Clinique offered me two campaigns for $1,900,” Ojekunle says. “I’ve been with Clinique for six years. Clinique knows not to put anything in front of me for less than $6,000.”
Not interested in lowering her standard rate for a product campaign, Ojekunle declined the deal and informed Popkin she no longer needed his assistance.
In subsequent months, however, Ojekunle noticed something was wrong: similar to the situation with Clinique, brands that had previously offered her campaigns worth thousands of dollars were offering her campaigns at significantly lower rates.
One of those brands was Naturiu, a skincare company run by Susan Yara, a friend of Ojekunle. When Ojekunle reached out to learn more about why the offer had been significantly lower than their past partnership deals, Yara informed Ojekunle, she too had never spoken to Popkin and was unaware any such offer had been issued.
The malpractice of influencer agencies has, of late, been well reported. In 2020, talent management firm Influences, came under fire over claims the company did not pay its clients. According to the New York Times, the firm owed dozens of creators thousands of dollars from brand deals. One of those influencers claimed the company withheld $23,683.82 from her. Influences' former owner is currently suing the New York Times over defamation.
In July, influencer Liv Reese called out Creative Culture Agency for not paying her after she made a video for one of the company’s advertising campaigns. According to its private Instagram page, Creative Culture Agency is “no longer available.”
And in 2020, 13 influencers paid talent management firm IQ Advantage a $299 deposit when they first signed with the company. But when IQ Advantage failed to secure them brand deals, the deposit was never returned and eight months later, once all the money had been collected, IQ Advantage conveniently shut down.
But Ojekunle’s experience with The Carter Agency shows signs of a different offense. “He’s [Popkin] telling the brand that he’s representing me, then he’s telling me he’s representing the brands,” Ojekunle says. “It's a very violating feeling and a very vulnerable feeling. You ask yourself, ‘how was I so stupid’ over and over.”
According to OpenCorporates.com, The Carter Agency LLC is registered to a person by the name of Josh Popkin — a former social media star who faced public backlash in 2020 after pouring cereal in a New York City subway as part of a prank. Ojekunle suspects Popkin took on a fake name (Ben Popkin) when reaching out to her in order to distance himself from his controversial reputation. The Carter Agency has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Like so many influencers who find themselves victims of unethical behavior, Ojekunle took her allegations straight to TikTok. In the first of five videos, the influencer claims that Popkin was not only pretending to be her manager, but had also been operating under a pseudonym.
@specsandblazers Ben Carter = Ben Popkin = Josh Popkin. Carter Agency = Malibu Marketing Group = Jesse GreenSpun. A Complete Scam! #carteragency #benpopkin #joshpopkin #scammers
Jessy Grossman, co-founder of Women In Influencer Marketing, wasn’t surprised when people shared Ojekunle’s video in the company’s private Facebook group. She says reports of the Carter Agency’s misconduct had begun circling among the members as early as February—Ojekunle’s video was further evidence.
Soon after, Grossman began connecting with other influencers who were impacted by the company. And in recent weeks, ever since Ojekunle posted her videos, many brand managers have reached out to Grossman with claims that, despite Carter’s previous push to hire his influencers, he has since ceased all contact.
Grossman believes The Carter Agency is specifically targeting TikTokers not only because of the platform’s success but also because many of them are teens.
“Some are young and think that having management is the path to ‘making it,’” Grossman says. “You have to know the right questions to ask and industry standards, otherwise anyone can claim to be legitimate since there’s no regulatory body.”
Looking back on the low offers she had been accepting from brands, Ojekunle now believes Popkin was attempting to pocket the difference after sending only a portion of what the brands were really offering her.
“It was a predatory and well-calculated thing that he did,” Ojekunle says.
In total, The Carter Agency’s actions have affected more than 130 influencers, including those signed to Popkin’s company and those who he falsely claimed to represent. Ojekunle also claims The Carter Agency has potentially jeopardized nearly $60,000 in brand deals by pretending to represent her. She’s currently pursuing a civil lawsuit and has opened up a criminal investigation into the company.
“I have been doing this for 10 years, and I have built a name for myself,” Ojekunle says. “I'm not scared of him.”
From Your Site Articles
- How LA’s Beauty Brands Found Positive LoopHoles in an Imperfect Recycling System ›
- Talent Agency Endeavor Reprises Its IPO, with a Role for Elon Musk ›
- Brands Are Reevaluating Influencer Deals Following Kanye West’s Fallout ›
- Celebrities Are Facing Legal Ramifications From NFT Endorsements ›
- How To Protect Yourself From the Latest Venmo Transaction Scam ›
- The Stats Are Clear — Gen Z Swears By Influencer Marketing - dot.LA ›
- Brands Love 'Synthetic Influencers' But Do Audiences Care? - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read moreShow less
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
'We’re Running Out of Ore on Earth': Astroforge Targets April for Test Asteroid Refining Mission
02:00 AM | February 13, 2023
Photo: Astroforge
One of the most-used elements in industrial work on Earth is disappearing.
Popular for industrial use because of its resistance to corrosion and heat, platinum sells for over $1,000 an ounce and is in everything from wedding bands to medical devices to a number of auto parts.
And retrieving what little of the element does remain, will only exacerbate the ongoing climate crisis – resource extraction was the source of half the world’s carbon emissions and 80% of its biodiversity loss in 2019 and that number has likely only risen.
The problem’s been known for awhile; back in 2016 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology predicted demand would outpace supply of platinum and palladium. At that time, the college estimated we’d run out of platinum by 2050, a mere 27 years from now.
There’s also the issue that what platinum remains is in the hands of powers adversarial to the U.S.
Russia accounts for up to 30% of the world’s palladium supply, and up to 10% of its platinum, and its war in Ukraine has pushed export prices higher. MIT also estimated that China, another stockpiler of industrial metals, could stop selling its platinum stores to the greater globe as soon as 2034.
So what is there to do?
The answer could lie thousands of miles from our planet, in deep space, according to Astroforge CEO and former Virgin Orbit veteran Matt Gialich. Gialich is certain that in the near future, it’ll be commonplace for companies to operate refineries in space that can sort and send back elements crucial for construction on earth.
“We know that these concentrations are super high in space,” Gialich said. He said Astroforge is starting with platinum metals, but it does have “a future roadmap that’s much, much bigger than that,” but wouldn’t share more about what other materials the company hopes to mine in space. It’s reminiscent of the old California Gold Rush – the minute you tell someone there’s platinum in them there asteroids, others with means will want to rush in first.
Astroforge is developing technology to mine and refine minerals in deep space. The company will face a vital test in its mission to mine asteroids for minerals this April, when it tests its in-space refinery technology for the first time.
In particular, Astroforge is looking at retrieving palladium and platinum from asteroids. The shrinking store of these metals makes it easier to understand why going to space to mine more might not be such a far-fetched plan.
Gialich pointed out the emissions problem and noted, “part of that is platinum group mining… not all, but a big part of it. When it comes to mining metals, there’s just no way to solve that; you can do things to reduce it, but we’re running out of ore on the earth as we continuously mine.”
He noted that a while ago, it wasn’t feasible to undertake these sorts of missions, but said that mission price continues to drop as more companies enter the private space race and offer rideshare missions for lower and lower costs.
“As we continue to run out of ore and as access to space becomes cheaper, we think we're actually past the inflection point of when this makes more economic sense to do,” Gialich said.
But, it’ll take a lot of cash and crafty partnerships – NASA spent $800 million to retrieve only 60 grams during a similar project. Two other space mining firms, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, were bought out before reaching their goals. This is why Astroforge raised $13 million in May, but it’ll likely need much more than that for future missions and anticipates future fundraises. Gialich wouldn’t disclose if Astroforge has any customers signed up for future missions or to buy space ore yet.
This upcoming mission in April will see Astroforge’s small in-orbit refinery hitch a ride to space on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, in partnership with British small satellite launcher OrbAstro. The plan is to test the refinery capabilities in space first by supplying the refinery with an “asteroid-like material” (so, a rock, but not an asteroid) that the tech will then vaporize and sort into its elemental components while in orbit. It’s a vital test of if the refinery can function in space, and if all succeeds, a critical part towards Gialich’s overall mission – becoming the first company to successfully mine asteroids.
“We have gone to asteroids before,” Gialich said. “We've landed on them, we've taken samples from them, we’ve done every step of the way, scientifically, multiple times. We just haven’t added that refining piece in, but that is actually very simple. You can prove that out on Earth, there’s not a big difference [in space].”
And Gialich really, really wants to be first. After all, whoever is,will have their pick of lucrative contracts as other private and public players rush in to gather up their share of the valuable asteroid minerals. NASA is leading a mission to explore an asteroid that some have joked could be worth $10 quintillion.
“We’re going to be the first commercial company to explore that frontier,” he promised. “There’s enough space out there for a ton of companies to exist and be successful. We’re still going to do it first.”
That, of course, remains to be seen. The SpaceX launch doesn’t yet have a window open. But when it does, it’ll be a crucial test of Astroforge’s system. And, it could eventually lead to an overhaul of our centuries-old mining system that might very well one day help the planet. At least, that’s Gialich’s overall goal.
“We’re going to save the planet, and to save the planet we need to have big, audacious ideas that really solve a critical problem we have on Earth, and we have a resource problem on Earth,” Gialich said. “Now that we’re a globalized world, there’s nowhere else to grow. There’s not an option here, this has to be done.”
Read moreShow less
Samson Amore
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la
RELATEDTRENDING
LA TECH JOBS