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XMenlo Microsystems Raises $150 Million to Build Smaller, Smarter Electronic Switches

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Menlo Microsystems, an Irvine-based maker of electronic switches, has raised $150 million in new funding as it looks to expand its domestic manufacturing capabilities, the company announced Wednesday.
The Series C round was led by Palo Alto-based Vertical Venture Partners and Paris-based Future Shape, which is headed by Apple alum (and iPod and iPhone co-inventor) Tony Fadell. Fidelity, DBL Partners and Adage Capital Management were also new investors in the round, which takes Menlo Micro’s total funding to $225 million.
Menlo Micro's Ideal Switch.
Image courtesy of Menlo Micro
The cornerstone of Menlo Micro’s business is its patented Ideal Switch: a smart device component that can divert an electrical circuit from one conductor to another and can be used in everything from lights and computer keyboards to fans and thermostats. The company pitches the Ideal Switch as enabling circuits to be 100 times smaller and 100 times more efficient across industries including medicine, aerospace and defense, telecommunications and consumer electronics.
While switches may not seem like the most exciting solution to our current energy crisis, their collective power could be a huge disruptor to the energy market. If the 1 billion ceiling fans used worldwide swapped their existing controllers with an Ideal Switch, according to company's marketing materials, it would save enough energy to take 17 power plants off the grid.
Menlo Micro also cites a study by Adroit Market Research that underscores the need for a switch swap. “The global electrification market is experiencing tremendous growth, projected to reach $128 billion by 2028,” according to Dallas-based Adroit. If the Ideal Switch were to replace all of the world’s aging electrical relay technology, all industrial processes could save a total of $7 trillion in operating costs by 2050, Adroit stated.
Menlo Micro CEO Russ Garcia.Image courtesy of Menlo Micro
Menlo Micro CEO Russ Garcia said the new funding “will enable us to expand our manufacturing in the U.S. and accelerate the development of our power roadmap to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges.”
Formed in 2016 after being spun off from GE Ventures (the venture capital arm of General Electric), Menlo Micro plans to scale up its manufacturing in the not-too-distant future. The company said it is exploring possible manufacturing locations in California, New York, Texas and Florida, but has not disclosed a timeline for selecting a manufacturing site.
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Once on the Verge of Bankruptcy, Canoo Show Signs of Righting the Ship
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Canoo is a goofy name for a company. Particularly one that makes a goofy looking electric van. But the market wants what the market wants. And the market wants goofy-looking vans, apparently.
Yesterday Canoo announced they’d secured a binding contract to deliver 9,300 of its “lifestyle delivery vans” to Kingbee Rentals, a Utah-based van rental company. The fact that the new deal with Kingbee is binding, is a huge win for Canoo. Despite the large numbers for some of its former deals, many of the van-maker’s contracts were only partially binding. If Kingbee is happy with the initial delivery, the deal also includes the option to double the size of the order to 9,300.
Canoo, which got its start in the L.A. area before moving its headquarters to Arkansas, the binding deal is the latest in a string of large orders that might just help the company avoid bankruptcy. Earlier this year retail giant Walmart ordered 10,000 of the same vehicle. And last week Zeeba, another fleet-as-a-service rental company, put in an order for 5,000 units. Though the deal with Zeeba was only 50% binding (2,500 vans), it still marks a considerable shift in the company's future prospects. Before the Zeeba deal only 17% of Canoo’s total potential $1 billion in contracts had been binding, according to reporting by Electrek.
Still, the startup has posted losses in excess of $100 million in Q1 and Q2 of 2022, and its latest financial guidance cast considerable doubt on the company’s ability to remain solvent. As of August 8th, executives reported that the company only had $33.8 million in cash remaining, and its stock price reached an all time low of $1.28 on October 14th.
There’s no word yet on when delivery may take place, but the company’s stock has rebounded nearly 16% since the deal was announced. Stay tuned.
- Canoo Will Build Its Electric Vehicles At Two New Plants In 2022 ... ›
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- Canoo Leaves Los Angeles for Arkansas, Oklahoma - dot.LA ›
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Mountain Lion P-22 Gets the AR Treatment With New Snapchat Lens
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.
By 2025, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will span 10 freeway lanes, providing wild animals with safe passage through Agoura Hills.
But until then, a new Snapchat filter will give Angelenos a sneak peek at what will one day be the largest wildlife bridge in the world.
Built by Snap Lens Network partner InCitu, the Wildlife Crossing AR experience, will make a 3D rendering of the bridge along with facts about the construction plans and local wildlife species. Intending to give mountain lions and other animals a path to safely cross the 101 Freeway, the Wildlife Crossing began construction in September.
First proposed in 2015 by the National Wildlife Federation, Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation donated $25 million to help kickstart construction. The $90 million project seeks to protect California’s mountain lions—at least four have been killed along the 101 this year. Not to mention, California’s freeway system is also a threat to the species’ genetic diversity and could lead to their extinction. The crossing, set to cause between 38 and 40 freeway closures, will feature an expansive nursery meant to attract local animals.
In the meantime, the lens will provide information about the project’s structural design choices and the importance of wildlife genetic diversity. Furthermore, the lens will reveal how the crossing is built to protect wildlife—complete with 3D models of mountain lions, mule deer and desert cottontails.
Snapchat users worldwide can learn about the Los Angeles initiative while local users can see the AR bridge crossing the 101 freeway.
The tech will also highlight P-22, the city’s most famous feline resident. The mountain lion’s exploits crossing the 405 and 101 freeways have inspired songs and murals, with the AR filter being the latest art dedicated to the local celebrity.
Still, this isn’t Snapchat’s first time bringing augmented elements to the streets of Los Angeles. Snapchat partnered with LACMA to create site-specific AR filters, highlighting the history behind local landmarks such as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. And users can also build their own AR filters to animate their neighborhoods. The La Brea Tar Pits uses Snapchat’s AR lenses to bring long-extinct animals to life.
From local filters to big shopping initiatives, one thing is clear, Snapchat is betting big on AR to engage its daily users and entice brands. In that way, the social media company hopes AR can help keep both P-22 and its user base alive.
- Snap Reaches $35M Settlement on Its Use of Biometric Data - dot.LA ›
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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.
Meet the LA-Based Space Companies Bringing Ikea's Model To the Stars
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
No longer content with terrestrial life, a new cohort of CEOs in Los Angeles have turned their focus to the stars, with the ambitious goal of launching space stations that could host tourists alongside astronauts and researchers.
“I've always thought it was really important that people move off the planet and out into the solar system,” Vast Space CEO and founder Jed McCaleb told dot.LA. “There's just way more resources and energy available up there. And also it provides a frontier, and I think that’s important for our collective psyche.”
McCaleb, a billionaire thanks to his prior ventures co-founding cryptocurrencies Ripple and Stellar Lumens, launched Vast Space last year, with the belief that it can be the first company to create a space station for commercial customers that simulates gravity in space.
Why artificial gravity? For starters, the negative health effects zero gravity can have on spacefarers are myriad, including muscle shrinkage, cardiovascular deconditioning and blood loss. Not to mention, simulated gravity in space could ease the transition to low Earth orbit for consumers; allowing them to experience the cool, floaty part of zero G while eliminating the need for full astronaut training.
But Vast is hardly the only company eyeing space tourism. Another is Fontana-based Orbital Assembly, which plans to create luxury hotels in space. According to Chief Operating Officer Tim Alatorre, Orbital Assembly is gearing up for its first launch, which will carry a small portion of Orbital’s first Pioneer space station for research use by 2025. Alatorre told dot.LA “once we've proved that the station is safe, then at that point, we will bring tourists on.”
Alatorre likened the quest to become a space hotelier to the expansion of the American railroads, when transport companies opened up hotels to encourage travel.
“That's why we're focusing on [tourism], because we see that as a step to that larger vision of having thousands of people really living in space, whether it's in [low Earth orbit] or the moon, or Mars,” he added.
Each company plans to rotate parts of the space station to replicate gravity. Basically, spinning the station’s mechanics in opposite directions (roughly one revolution every minute and a half) creates enough centrifugal force to allow the station to remain facing the sun and mimics gravity.
According to McCaleb, Vast plans to have artificial gravity in parts of the station where people eat, bathe, work and sleep, but a central area where passengers can indulge in the zero-gravity experience temporarily. The El Segundo-based company’s plan is to assemble everything on the ground, prior to launch, since in-space construction is still in its infancy. Once there’s more of a demand for in-space construction, McCaleb said other companies could contract Vast to build and launch facilities for them.
“What we're building is an orbital machine shop, essentially, where you can design your thing on the ground, ship it up to the station, like an IKEA-style thing where we can snap it together for you,” McCaleb explained.
McCaleb said he is his company’s sole funder. He wouldn’t tell dot.LA how much he’s invested into Vast, or how much he expects the endeavor to cost. That said, for comparison rival company Orbital Assembly’s CEO Rhonda Stevenson told dot.LA last June the company at the time estimated it would need $200 million to launch by 2023.
McCaleb said he was aware of Orbital Assembly and “a handful” of other competing firms but claimed, “there’s no one else that’s actually trying to do it seriously.” He told dot.LA that initially, Vast won’t target a high-end consumer, but will focus on selling space station access to governments or private companies. Vast wouldn’t provide further details about a target launch date.
“We’re definitely not building some sort of luxury space hotel,” McCaleb claimed. “I think some of the first customers will hopefully be NASA and other national astronaut programs,” he added, hinting at partnerships with other governments.
Tarek Waked, an aerospace investor and founding partner at Type One Ventures, said he’s skeptical.
“Vast claims to be the first gravity-enabled station. I think they won’t be the first to [do] it,” he said, pointing to older companies like Gravitics and its competitor Axiom Space, which is based in Houston and debuted in 2016.
As things currently stand, however, Vast appears better-funded than Orbital Assembly. Orbital has only raised $2.4 million to date. But Alatorre said his company is in the process of raising another round, though he wouldn’t disclose details.
Neither space station project will be possible without launch partners, though. SpaceX’s upcoming Starship rocket and Boeing’s Starliner are two developing projects that could help Vast and Orbital launch both people and cargo to space.
“Elon [Musk] is talking about getting payloads to space for about one to $200 a kilogram, which would be game changing,” Alatorre said. “If we can get people to space for even a million dollars a seat that really starts to open up that market, and that's going to be really transformative.”
According to David Barnhart, director of USC’s Space Engineering Research Center, the real question is twofold.
“Can any of this be done at a cost level that allows a commercial company to make any profit, even if it's only billionaires that can do it?” He asked. And furthermore, once the technology is up and running, how many civilians will take the risk?
- Orbital Assembly's Quest to Build Hotels in Space - dot.LA ›
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- Los Angeles Space Tech News - dot.LA ›
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.