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XWhat's Trending on Streaming? The Queue App Will Tell You.
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.

For a long time, Garrett Rothstein couldn’t shake the idea that people waste so much time figuring out what show or movie is available on which platform.
Even as he was working at Quibi, the splashy-but-ill-fated mobile streaming app, the thought gnawed at him. But the 32-year-old kept that thought—and the underlying ambition to create a service that simplifies the binge-watch process—at bay, content to stay focused on his day job in ad sales at Quibi.
But then, in October 2020, Quibi suddenly went bust, and Rothstein found himself with all the time in the world.
“Having that unemployment kind of forced upon me, I don't like using the word ‘fate’ but it felt like it was presented in front of me,” he said. “It was an opportunity that I should take advantage of.”
Garrett Rothstein, co-founder of Queue.
Now, a year later, that opportunity is finally seeing the light of day. Last week, Rothstein and Spencer Rascoff (who also co-founded dot.LA) debuted Queue, the new social watch list app that wants to cut down on time wasted searching for a show to binge.
The Los Angeles-based startup allows users to look up any movie or show, see where it’s streaming, and start watching.
“The streaming world has become so fragmented, with so many different streaming services constantly popping up,” Rothstein said. “And so in Queue, we want to replace that messy Notes app in your phone that most people tend to keep track of what it is that they want to watch.”
According to Leichtman Research Group, Inc, 78% of the U.S. population uses one or more of the top streaming services - Netflix, AmazonPrime, and Hulu. Even though on Netflix alone, there are 5,800 content titles, 39% of people still have a difficult time trying to decide what to watch next.
Rothstein spent most of his professional career working in consumer startups. He had some notable stints at Snap and Bird before going to work in ad sales at Quibi, a streaming service that shut down in October 2020, just six months after launching.
While there are other platforms like Letterboxd and Cinetrak trying to solve the “what to watch” problem, Queue is leaning on real recommendations from real friends. “We believe that the people that know you the best are given the right to provide the best recommendation and those are your real friends from real life, and that's who we want to connect you with,” Rothstein said.
Queue has a variety of features that increase user engagement in the app. Aside from the watch list, Queue has also gamified the experience by including badges where users can unlock them by watching different genres. Like other platforms, Queue has a social feed that shows a reverse chronological list of what your friends are watching and queuing.
In the user’s queue, the tab is divided into three categories: “all titles,” “out now,” and “coming soon.”
Each user also has an IQ score visible on their profile which continues to grow the more shows and movies you watch. Similar to Netflix, Queue's discover page is updated daily and shows each user the top 10 trending titles of all the major platforms including what’s in theaters.
With over 40 streaming services, on demand channels, and movie theater availability on the app, content at the user’s disposal. On average, people take up to 9.4 minutes to decide what to watch next according to Nielsen, an information and technology services provider.
“Instead of having the consumer bounce around from Netflix then to Hulu then Prime to see what's hot on each of those platforms,” Rothstein said. “You can see everything in one very clean view on Queue.”
Once you mark things as watched, Queue will automatically populate your social feed and allow the user to see what their friends and family are watching.
“We know that most people turn to their friends when they're looking for recommendations on what it is that they want to watch next,” Rothstein said.
Even though the app is free, Queue collects affiliate marketing fees. If users subscribe to streaming platforms due to titles they have seen on the app, Queue will also receive an affiliate commission from that purchase.
While monetization is key to a successful company, Rothstein said, “Right now we're really heads down on growing our user base, working on retention and making sure we're shipping a world class product.”
Queue is only available for iPhone users, but will be available in the Google Play store in 2022. Currently, the app only displays U.S. titles as the startup is focused on the U.S. market, but Rothstein said they are looking at having International availability in the future.Correction: An earlier version of this post misspelled Garrett Rothstein's first name.
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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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California Debates Data Privacy as SCOTUS Allows Abortion Bans
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 United States Supreme Court called a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks constitutional on Friday, overturning the country’s founding abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court also upheld that there cannot be any restriction on how far into a pregnancy abortion can be banned.
When Politico first broke the news months before SCOTUS’s final ruling, a slew of bills entered Congress to protect data privacy and prevent the sale of data, which can be triangulated to see if a person has had an abortion or if they are seeking an abortion and have historically been used by antiabortion individuals who would collect this information during their free time.
Democratic lawmakers led by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo called on Google to stop collecting location data. The chair of the Federal Trade Commission has long voiced plans for the agency to prevent data collection. A week after the news, California Assembly passed A.B. 2091, a law that would prevent insurance companies and medical providers from sharing information in abortion-related cases (the state Senate is scheduled to deliberate on it in five days).
These scattered bills attempt to do what health privacy laws do not. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, was established in 1996 when the Internet was still young and most people carried flip phones. The act declared health institutions were not allowed to share or disclose patients’ health information. Google, Apple and a slew of fertility and health apps are not covered under HIPAA, and fertility app data can be subpoenaed by law enforcement.
California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (or CMIA), goes further than HIPAA by encompassing apps that store medical information under the broader umbrella of health institutions that include insurance companies and medical providers. And several how-tos on protecting data privacy during Roe v. Wade have been published in the hours of the announcement.
But reproductive rights organizations say data privacy alone cannot fix the problem. According to reproductive health policy think tank Guttmacher Institute, the closest state with abortion access to 1.3 million out-of-state women of reproductive age is California. One report from the UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law and Policy estimates as many as 9,400 people will travel to Los Angeles County every year to get abortions, and that number will grow as more states criminalize abortions.
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.
LA Tech ‘Moves’: Adtech Firm OpenX Lures New SVP, Getlabs and DISQO Tap New VPs
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.
“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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Advertising technology company OpenX Technologies appointed Geoff Wolinetz as senior vice president of demand platforms. Wolinetz was most recently senior vice president of growth at Chalice Custom Algorithms.
Remote health care infrastructure provider Getlabs hired Jaime LaFontaine as its vice president of business development. L.A.-based LaFontaine was previously director of business development for Alto Pharmacy.
Customer experience platform DISQO tapped Andrew Duke as its vice president of product, consumer applications. Duke previously served as Oracle’s senior director of strategy and product.
Media company Wheelhouse DNA named Michael Senzer as senior manager of Additive Creative, its newly launched digital talent management division. Senzer was previously vice president of business development at TalentX Entertainment.
Fintech lending platform Camino Financial hired Dana Rainford as vice president of people and talent. Rainford previously served as head of human resources at Westwood Financial.
Kourtney Day returned to entertainment company Jim Henson’s Creature Shop as senior director of business development. Day mostly recently served as business development manager for themed entertainment at Solomon Group.
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.
This Week in ‘Raises’: Miracle Miles Lands $100M, Fintech Startup Tapcheck Hauls $20M
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.
In this week’s edition of “Raises”: An L.A.-based footwear company closed $100 million to boost its expansion into the global market, while there were Series A raises for local fintech, biotech and space startups.
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Venture Capital
Miracle Miles Group, an L.A.-based footwear company, raised a $100 million Series A funding round co-led by IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital China.
Deno, a San Diego-based software development startup, raised a $21 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital.
Tapcheck, an L.A.-based financial wellness startup that helps workers access their paycheck before payday, raised a $20 million Series A funding round led by PeakSpan Capital.
Gemelli Biotech, an L.A.- and Raleigh, N.C.-based biotech startup focused on gastrointestinal diseases, raised a $19 million Series A financing round led by Blue Ox Healthcare Partners.
Epsilon3, an L.A.-based space operations software startup, raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by Lux Capital.
Global Premier Fertility, an Irvine-based fertility company, raised an $11 million Series C funding round led by Triangle Capital Corporation.
Vamstar, an L.A.- and London-based medical supply chain platform, raised a $9.5 million Series A funding round co-led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and Dutch Founders Fund.
System 9, an L.A.-based digital asset market-making firm focused on the crypto altcoin market, raised a $5.7 million Series A funding round led by Capital6 Eagle.
Myria, an L.A.-based online marketplace of luxury goods and services, raised a $4.3 million seed round from Y Combinator, Backend Capital, Cathexis Ventures and other angel investors.
Binarly, an L.A.-based firmware cybersecurity company, raised a $3.6 million seed round from WestWave Capital and Acrobator Ventures.
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 Decerry Donato (decerrydonato@dot.la).
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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.