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XBig Stories that Shook the Tech World in 2021
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.

The pandemic raged on in 2021, forcing Californians to grapple with lockdowns and troubling variants while tech giants pushed their return to offices in perpetuity. Through it all, tech’s boom time largely carried on as startups notched new fundraising records, thanks in no small part to blockchain hype, NFTs and web3.
Yet the exuberance was measured by weak IPOs, political pressure, and roaring demands from workers at Activision Blizzard, Netflix and Amazon, which altogether offered a taste of accountability for leaders in the industry. These and other key stories defined a whirlwind year for big tech and startups alike.
1. Tech Workers Speak Out
Netflix Employees, Counterprotesters Clash in Tense Walk-Out\u00a0Over Dave Chappelle Special
Samson Amore
Through severalwalkouts and an open letter calling for CEO Bobby Kotick’s resignation, Activision Blizzard employees repeatedly pressed the game maker in the second half of the year over its handling of reports of gender inequality, harassment, and retaliation.
Workers urged the company to address its "frat boy" culture and end forced arbitration, while the “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush” publisher warned employees to “consider the consequences” of unionizing.
At Netflix, workers and counter protestors clashed over an incendiary stand-up special from Dave Chappelle. GLAAD, the LGBTQ advocacy group, criticized the multi-million dollar production, saying “Chappelle’s brand has become synonymous with ridiculing trans people and other marginalized communities.” In response to criticism, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said Netflix has a "strong belief that content on screen doesn't directly translate to real-world harm."
Meanwhile, Amazon faced protests across 22 countries this year over its wages, taxes, and impact on the planet. In Los Angeles, progressive advocacy groups Courage California and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy hosted a virtual town hall for Amazon workers over its warehouse policies on Cyber Monday.
2. Streaming Shakes Up Hollywood
In the movie business, organized workers challenged Netflix, Apple, Disney, and Amazon over a contract that sets pay and quality-of-life standards for tens of thousands of behind-the-scenes crew members.
The standoff nearly ground production to a halt in Hollywood, and came as streaming giants won big at the Academy Awards and the Emmys. Ultimately, the crew members’ union (the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) narrowly passed a new three-year deal, but not by popular vote, indicating an appetite for pushback in the years to come.
3. Political Pressure Ramps Up
It was a banner year for congressional committees and hearings, although few if any national laws targeting tech came to pass thanks to a deadlocked Congress.
Leaders at Facebook and Google defended their practices while lawmakers probed their role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. And Santa Monica-based Snap, TikTok and YouTube fielded questions on social media drug sales and child safety issues while distancing themselves from Facebook.
However, California instituted a number of laws aimed in part at tech, including a rule requiring warehouses to disclose productivity quotas and new protections for workers who speak out about discrimination and harassment. Plus, a state judge ruled California’s gig worker law Prop. 22 unconstitutional, though the battle over the ballot initiative is far from over.
4. Billionaires Touch Space
Wearing a cowboy hat, Jeff Bezos gets a welcome-back hug while crewmate Oliver Daemen, the world's youngest spacefarer, is helped out of the New Shepard capsule.
Billionaires Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Shift4 Payments founder Jared Isaacman literally reached for the stars this year in rockets produced by SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.
The events launched a new era of private space travel, and raised questions over who gets to go to space, who pays for it, and the environmental cost of our interstellar dreams.
Elon Musk’s personal space travel plans, however, remain a mystery.
5. EVs Get Their Moment
As extreme weather hammered the globe, investors plowed funds into climate tech — a vast sector featuring experimental carbon capture machines, electric bikes and scooters, hydrogen cars, heat pumps and everything in between.
Electric vehicles in particular stole the show this year as public investors sent Tesla’s and Rivian’s market caps into the stratosphere. Though Rivian’s stock has since cooled off amid supply issues, at its height it topped the market caps of GM, Ford and Volkswagen while reporting little to no revenue.
A major infrastructure bill pushed by the Biden Administration could also rev up electric car sales. If it passes next year, it could give consumers a tax break on the cars and accelerate the development of a nationwide charging network.
6. Mega Deals: the New Normal
Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash
Whether we’re in a tech bubble or not, this year startup valuations and deal counts soared as outside cash poured into the scene. In October, Pitchbook released a report counting 600 mega-deals (funding rounds of at least $100 million) this year in the U.S. alone — 138% more than it saw in the entirety of 2019. The data firm attributed the jump in part to a surge of funding from hedge funds and other non-traditional investors.
While many reports on the final quarter of the year are due out in January, seed deals hit new highs in L.A. during the first half of 2021. The pattern continued in the third quarter, mirroring the global trend. Among the driving forces was Web3, a term encompassing everything from speculative blockchain tech and cryptocurrencies to NFT-landen mobile games.
7. Tech Races to Go Public -- and Stumbles
Apple, Microsoft, Google and plenty of other major tech stocks surged this year, but most newcomers to the public market stumbled in 2021. From their debuts, investment app Robinhood’s stock dropped 45% to about $19 per share, salad maker Sweetgreen slipped about 43% to nearly $28 per share, wine subscription company Winc fell around 60% to $4.81 per share, and scooter giant Bird declined about 10% to 7.47 per share (all as of December 17).
Many tech firms went public (or at least announced plans to do so) through special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. These shell companies have risen in popularity in recent years as vehicles to take businesses public, typically speedier and at a lower upfront cost than a traditional IPO. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission has scrutinized the practice and cautioned investors about the risks involved in such deals, which typically perform worse than traditional IPOs.
That doesn’t mean SPACs will disappear in 2022. A number of tech firms are poised to go public via SPACs, including fraud prevention firm TeleSign and digital banking company Dave, and United Talent Agency recently launched its own gaming-focused SPAC on the Nasdaq.
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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.
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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).
- Vamstar Raises $9.5M For Its Medical Supply Chain Platform - 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.