Consumer Data Company Retina Scores $2.5 million

Rachel Uranga

Rachel Uranga is dot.LA's Managing Editor, News. She is a former Mexico-based market correspondent at Reuters and has worked for several Southern California news outlets, including the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Los Angeles Daily News. She has covered everything from IPOs to immigration. Uranga is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and California State University Northridge. A Los Angeles native, she lives with her husband, son and their felines.

Consumer Data Company Retina Scores $2.5 million
Courtesy of Retina

Retina, a Santa Monica startup that provides e-commerce companies like Dollar Shave Club and Madison Reed predictions of consumer behavior based on algorithms, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $2.5 million in funding led by Crosscut Ventures.


The backend platform helps business predict shopping habits by using what it says is "next-gen algorithms" and will use the funds to grow its reach and expand products. Since its inception, the company has pulled in $5 million in venture capital.

Data on shoppers and their long-term buying habits are especially vaunted in the e-commerce world where there's an intense fight for repeat customers as the retail industry sees radical change. Brick-and-mortar stores like Macy's, which announced on Tuesday it would close 125 stores in low-tier malls, are struggling to compete as shoppers migrate online.

Retina's founder Michael Greenberg also created fundraising tool ScaleFunder.

Courtesy Retina

The changes in the retail industry nearly toppled Forever 21. The company, known for fast fashion, was pummeled by online rivals like Revolve and others. After filing for bankruptcy, the company this week entered a tentative $81 million deal to sell its assets to a consortium including mall owners.

But even as malls, the traditional hub for commerce, have emptied out, the high-price of acquiring and keeping customers online has been a challenge for retailers. Smaller companies that aren't as well funded are at a disadvantage when competing with giants like Amazon.

Retina hopes to fill in those gaps. It recently launched an app on Shopify, the e-commerce platform used by many online sellers. The three-year old company was founded by Michael Greenberg, who also created fundraising tool ScaleFunder.

"There's a cataclysm happening at the intersection of e-commerce and retail," Greenberg said. "Companies like mine are trying to help other businesses trying to compete with the sort of data science and technical prowess of Amazon."

Greenberg said customers are willing to provide companies data "if they get more personalized experience with less friction" in the transaction.

"Not all customers are created equal and, in fact, a majority of them are poison for the business," Greenberg said in an announcement. "Retina determines which customers will spend more as soon as they make their first purchase, not six months from now."

Crosscut Ventures managing partner Rick Smith said in a statement that technology's return on investment was "unmatched in the industry."

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What Is ‘Embodied Audio?’ And Can It Help Professional Sports Teams Fill Their Stadiums?

Samson Amore

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.

What Is ‘Embodied Audio?’ And Can It Help Professional Sports Teams Fill Their Stadiums?
Photo: Edge Sound Research

In 2020, the Minnesota Twins experimented with a new technology that brought fans the ability to physically feel the sounds they were hearing in the stadium in the back of their seats as part of a new immersive way to experience baseball.

The tech was made by Riverside-based startup Edge Sound Research, which built a mobile lounge – basically, a small seating section equipped with its technology and on wheels to travel around the stadium – for Twins fans to experience what it calls “embodied audio” around Target field. It was a bid on the Twins’ part to keep fans more engaged during the game, and Edge Sound Research CEO Valtteri Salomaki said the Twins were impressed.

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https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la

LA Venture: B Capital’s Howard Morgan on What To Look For in Potential Founders

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow 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.

LA Venture: B Capital’s Howard Morgan on What To Look For in Potential Founders
Provided by LAV

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, B Capital Group General Partner and Chair Howard Morgan discusses his thoughts on early stage investing and the importance of company ownership.


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Mullen Automotive Pays Millions to Settle Lawsuit with Qiantu

David Shultz

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.

Mullen Automotive Pays Millions to Settle Lawsuit with Qiantu
Image Courtesy of Mullen Automotive

Like a zombie from the grave, Mullen Automotive’s electric sports car grift lives once more. Earlier this week, the Southern Californian company announced that it had resolved its contract disputes with Chinese manufacturer Qiantu and would begin to “re-design” and “re-engineer” the DragonFLY K50 platform for sale in the United States.

On the surface (or if you just read the press release) this would seem to be excellent news for the Californian EV startup. But the saga of the Mullen/Qiantu partnership is long, and in the context of their shared history, the deal’s terms look considerably less favorable for Mullen.

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