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XMeet the Space Startups That Make Up SCALE Aerospace Ventures' Inaugural Cohort

A jet designer that aims to make supersonic flight available to the masses, a durable 3-D printer maker and a company trying to improve post-disaster and space communication are among SCALE Aerospace Ventures' 2021 accelerator cohort.
Eight aerospace companies that are working on next-frontier technologies were tapped for the 13-week virtual program that kicks off on Monday, May 10. A joint partnership of UCLA and Starburst Aerospace, the accelerator is designed to help pre-seed and seed stage aerospace startups find their market fit, develop products, and secure funding through mentorship and workshops.
"We often see many of the new ideas that truly propel the aerospace and defense industries forward come from young startups," said Francois Chopard, founder and CEO of Starburst Aerospace."We believe in this new cohort and are looking forward to the cutting-edge innovation that will develop from this collaboration."
Starburst runs multiple aerospace accelerators all over the world in cities like Paris and Tel Aviv.
It is no surprise that Starburst is investing in Los Angeles, known to many as the aerospace capital of the world, consisting of more than 25 aerospace companies including SpaceX. Earlier this year, the U.S. Space Force announced it would establish its acquisitions and technology division in the Los Angeles area this summer.
This program was granted $1.4 million by the U.S. Economic Development Administration to develop SCALE Aerospace Ventures.
Here are the startups slated to join the accelerator this summer:
Atomus logo
Atomus
With a team originating from University of Southern California, Atomus works to protect companies from cyberattacks when they share technical data packages for manufacturing. The startup's technology is already being used by the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Innovation Unit.
Exosonic logo
Exosonic
Loud sonic booms from supersonic aircraft prevent passenger planes from traveling at supersonic speed. Exosonic has developed a low-boom supersonic jet capable of carrying 70 passengers, transforming commercial aviation while remaining conscious of its carbon footprint.
Craitor logo
Craitor
The company's 3D printing system is designed to withstand extreme temperatures and water, unlike competitors. Craitor's capabilities made it attractive to the U.S. Marine Corp, which is working with the company on the development through units at Camp Pendleton, Twenty Nine Palms. It is also working with the Navy through the San Diego Naval Base.
Rebel Space Technologies Logo
Rebel Space Technologies
Headquartered in Long Beach, the startup provides secure radio communication in difficult environments such as space or post-disaster. Rebel Space Technologies leverages AI software and advanced signal analysis.
Rhoman Aerospace Logo
Rhoman Aerospace
Los Angeles-based Rhoman Aerospace is developing flight control software for drones. The software aims to increase traditional flight time and provide safety measures that will help open doors for commercial scale drone operations.
Black Arrow Logo
Black Arrow
Black Arrow: This startup focuses on creating more options for companies utilizing data labeling and calibration so they no longer have to rely solely on manual labeling by in-house or international labeling teams.
Axion Ray
Axion Ray
This startup is currently in stealth mode, but according to AngelList, it develops "AI to accelerate engineering of next-gen & electric automotive/aerospace vehicles."
Metaspectral
This startup applies photo compression technology to spectral images, which captures light across the electromagnetic spectrum. Metaspectral's technology compresses these large images down to as little as 30% of their original size, which makes the evaluation of the images and data more efficient.
Editor's note: This story has been updated. An earlier version incorrectly stated Techstars is affiliated with Starburst.
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Outlander VC’s Paige Craig on Investing Early and Identifying Intelligent Leaders
On this episode of the LA Venture Podcast, Outlander VC founder and Managing Partner Paige Craig discusses how he pivoted from working in the defense industry to investing early in major companies like Wish, Scale and Gusto.
Craig’s entrepreneurial journey is unique, to say the least.
Following his time in the Marine Corps and in national security, Craig said he saw an opportunity building capabilities for the U.S. following its 2003 invasion of Iraq. But with little fundraising success, he had to find his own way into the industry and his own competitive advantage. He traveled to the Middle East, posed as a CNN reporter and found his way into Baghdad.
“I can’t even tell you the shit we went through,” he said. During his time in Iraq, Craig said his Lincoln Group closed deals in the Middle East focused on gathering special intelligence, running unconventional operations aided by technology and creating other military capabilities.
“I endorsed every mission we took,” he said, “ and I can stand behind all of them if they ever get released and declassified someday.”
Craig eventually sold the company to multibillion-dollar defense contractor Constellis.
“I took my money, but more importantly, my lessons learned about how to create something from nothing and I started angel investing back in 2009,” Craig said.
His unique business background informs his approach to investing. Understanding company founders as people—particularly through his method of observing human characteristics linked to vision, intelligence, character and execution—helps investors understand their businesses.
“Everything comes down to identifying very unique people—the outlanders,” he said. “We are looking for extremely unique people who are highly inclined to build fast growing, highly scalable tech companies, when most of the world around them is saying, ‘fuck you’.”
Many investors mistakenly think they know how to run the companies they help fund, Craig said. But by identifying founders with both emotional and intellectual intelligence early on, he said he focuses instead on fostering leadership skills and developing the next generation of talent.
“These people reminded me of me several years back, where they're under-resourced [and] no one believes in them,” he said. “They're taking on huge missions that mean everything to them, and I just saw all these psychological parallels to what I went through. And I was like, ‘Look, I can't tell you how to develop a server farm, but what I can tell you how to do is how to lead people.’”
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.
Click the link above to hear the full episode, and subscribe to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Vamstar Raises $9.5M To Boost Its Medical Supply Chain Platform
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.
In early March 2020, as the world stood on the precipice of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization warned countries around the globe of a pending medical equipment shortage. Sure enough, in a matter of weeks—as coronavirus case numbers and deaths skyrocketed and much of the world sheltered in place—face masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment (PPE) became scarce, as suppliers jacked up prices and individuals hoarded what had become a precious resource.
Hospitals were not exempt from this, with many slow to source and provide PPE and other medical devices to clinicians dealing with influx of patients—many of whom were severely ill and dying.
“People died because hospitals did not have the right product to treat them,” according to Praful Mehta, the co-founder and CEO of supply chain startup Vamstar. “This is a supply chain challenge.”
Vamstar—a Los Angeles- and London-based venture which runs an AI-enabled sourcing and procurement platform for medical supplies and pharmaceuticals—announced a new $9.5 million funding round Wednesday that should help it address such inefficiencies in the health care supply chain. The Series A round was led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and the Dutch Founders Fund, who were joined by existing investors BTOV Partners and Antler.
Vamstar launched in 2019 and has since onboarded 86,000 hospitals and clinics in more than 80 countries to its platform—an all-in-one B2B marketplace that connects them with the medical suppliers and pharmaceutical companies who can provide the goods they need. The platform deploys machine learning to more efficiently connect buyers with suppliers based on what they need, how much they need and how soon they need it.
It also helps suppliers predict, based on buyer queries, how much they will need to stock up on certain items, which could help mitigate shortages in the future. Buyers, in turn, are alerted to stock up on goods before prices are predicted to increase. According to Mehta, buyers on Vamstar’s platform are able to procure the medical equipment they need in one-quarter the usual time, on average.
“There is the need for a solution that is networked, that is connected, that makes health care a complete ecosystem,” Mehta said. “There's a lot of talk about the health care ecosystem, [that] it's one unit—but actually it's not, it's highly fragmented.”
The pandemic brought to light the medical supply chain’s worst-case scenario: If a medical buyer needs to source a device, drug or supply whose local distributor has been depleted, it must then contact several other suppliers who are selling it at varying prices, prolonging the buying process.
“[Buyers] had to scan the market locally, regionally, nationally and internationally because, with what happened with COVID, your local sources of supplies were completely exhausted, which is often the case in healthcare,” Mehta said.
The new funding will go toward further developing Vamstar’s platform to make the transaction process quicker and more intuitive for both buyers and sellers, according to the company.
Vamstar is one of several startups tackling the fragmented health care supply chain. Others include Switzerland-based Hystrix Medical, which also operates a B2B marketplace for medical products, and Illinois-based Hybrent, which works closely with hospitals to source medical equipment.
“These problems that we are addressing in our industry have been problems for a very long time,” Mehta noted. “It's just that COVID exposed those problems to the public; it just highlighted the inefficiencies of the supply chain. And what we saw as a result of that was a massive loss of life.”
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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.
E-Bike Startup Wheels Agrees To Sell Business to Micromobility Firm Helbiz
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He 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 at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
West Hollywood-based electric bicycle-sharing startup Wheels has agreed to sell its business to micromobility firm Helbiz, the companies announced Tuesday.
Helbiz said it has signed a letter of intent to acquire Wheels for an undisclosed sum, with the transaction expected to close by the end of this year.
Wheels was launched in 2018 by brothers Jonathan and Joshua Viner, the former co-founders of dog-walking startup Wag. The dockless e-bike provider, which has raised roughly $100 million in funding to date, has 8,000 vehicles deployed across 12 markets including Los Angeles, New York, Austin and Honolulu.
Wheels has particularly built up its presence in its hometown; the company says it is the “only operator across the four permitted markets of metropolitan Los Angeles”—those being the cities of L.A., Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Culver City.
New York-based Helbiz currently operates in more than 35 cities across the U.S. and Italy, according to its website, with plans to expand to France and Serbia. Helbiz—which manages a fleet of electric scooters, bicycles and mopeds—was launched in 2015 by Italian-American entrepreneur Salvatore Palella and went public in a SPAC deal last August.
The merger comes after Wheels inked a deal with Helbiz in January to supply the company with 2,500 of its sit-down e-bikes in the U.S. and Italy.
“From a strategic perspective, this acquisition is expected to double [Helbiz’s] revenue, expand the cities served, enhance margins and reduce costs,” Palella said in a statement. “Our focus is to adapt and grow with profitability at the core of every decision. This acquisition makes us even more confident in our ability to achieve that goal in the next 18 months.”
Helbiz reported net losses exceeding $19 million in the quarter ended March 31, on revenues of just $3.3 million.
“Our businesses are complementary in really powerful ways,” Wheels CEO Marco McCottry said in a statement. “There is minimal overlap of city permits, and we believe the combination of our businesses can create a uniquely diversified mobility offering that generates compelling synergies across a large footprint.”
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Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He 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 at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him