This week's virtual pitch showcase featured three emerging eCommerce startups founded in Southern California: Mi Terro, ettitude and Aptitud. FabFitFun Co-CEO and Co-Founder Michael Broukhim joined angel investor Spencer Rascoff for the discussion. dot.LA's Chief Host and Correspondent Kelly O'Grady emceed the event.
Watch below and subscribe to our newsletter and Youtube channel to get notified about our next event.
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Copy of dot.LA Virtual Pitch Showcase: eCommerce</small>
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<strong><a href="https://www.miterro.com/pages/about" target="_blank">Mi Terro</a> </strong>is the world's only biotechnology company that rescues food waste and re-engineers it into sustainable fibers that can be used for fashion, medical, and packaging industries. Through their patent-pending technology, they have created the world's first sustainable apparel line made from excess milk. They are also creating food packaging film made from whey. They are replacing petroleum-based materials with protein-based materials made from food waste. Mi Terro is redefining the circular economy in which everything begins with food waste and ends as recyclable or biodegradable.<br/>
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<a href="http://www.ettitude.com" target="_blank"><strong>ettitude</strong></a> is a female-founded LA-based sustainable lifestyle brand offering home essentials that are soft on your skin and gentle on our planet. Using their proprietary CleanBamboo™ fabrics, ettitude's bedding,sleepwear, and bath range are as soft as silk, as breathable as linen, and at the price of cotton.<br/>
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<strong><a href="https://aptitud.co/password" target="_blank">Aptitud</a> </strong>(meaning "fitness" in Spanish) was created to enhance the home workout experience. Aptitud was founded by Arielle, Audra, and Riley during the COVID-19 pandemic. As workout junkies, we shared a passion for working out together and living a fit lifestyle. Transitioning from gyms and bootcamps to working out at our homes, we experienced the challenge of finding fashion-forward, elite fitness accessories. We have curated and hand-picked the most exclusive, high-quality fitness products to enhance your home workout lifestyle. Aptitud is more than just a fitness retail company, it is a community of women from all walks of life striving for health and wellness. IG & TikTok: <a href="http://aptitud.co/" target="_blank">aptitud.co</a>
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M13, named after one of the brightest star clusters in the Northern Sky, has considerable star wattage of its own and is decidedly the most L.A. of all the L.A venture capital firms.
Co-founders Carter and Courtney Reum together boast around 170,000 Instagram followers and in more normal times frequently post pictures with celebrities at parties or from their travels around the world. Carter has been linked to dating Paris Hilton, who was interviewed by Courtney onstage at the Upfront Summit in January. Sir Richard Branson is a limited partner in the firm as is Arianna Huffington.
But, now that glitz appears on hold as the brothers grapple with a pandemic that hit right as the Santa Monica early-stage consumer technology firm was in the midst of deploying the $175 million in its second fund. COVID-19 has hurt consumer companies especially hard, including once high-flying brands in M13's portfolio like Bird, FabFitFun, and ClassPass (M13 is also an investor in dot.LA.)
<p>But Carter, 39, says he is intent on finding opportunities in how consumer behavior is changing and intends to raise a third fund next year. "Capital will be harder to get," he said. "We're hopeful that a premium will be put on what we bring to the table."</p><p>The brothers founded M13 in 2016 <a href="https://www.bevnet.com/spirits/2016/luxco-acquire-veev-spirits" target="_blank">after they sold their spirits business</a>, Veev, for a hefty multiple to a St. Louis beverage conglomerate. They built a reputation of putting in very long hours and expect the same from their employees. And they also share the same enviable resume: Columbia undergrad followed by Harvard Business School topped by a brief investment banking career at Goldman Sachs.</p><p>They are also relentlessly polished and on-message. When asked during a February office visit to describe the last time they disagreed about something, they looked at each other and there was a long pause. They were never able to come up with an answer.</p><p>Before coronavirus, M13's warehouse-chic Santa Monica headquarters was a bustling hive of activity, filled with people scurrying from meeting to meeting. The firm also has an office in New York a few blocks away from Gramercy Park and a partner, Gautum Gupta, based in San Francisco. </p><p>But on March 12th, all the offices closed and workers went home, connected only by Zoom, Slack, and telephones. Before focusing on business, Carter said it was essential to make sure employees had what they needed to adapt to the new reality.</p><p>"We said we didn't want to talk about anything related to work until we had the people thing settled," Carter said. </p><p>He said it was important to realize the uniqueness of the situation. Many employees are preoccupied with worrying about loved ones and are filled with anxiety. Some know multiple people who have died. </p><p>"This is different from running a remote culture when things are great," he said.</p><p>M13 set up a #CoronaCare slack channel focused on how to take care of people during the crisis. Carter says it's more important than ever for leaders to be very clear about what they expect and to formalize processes because it is impossible to walk over and chat with someone at their desk.</p><p>"You have to get in the habit when you finish a call with someone where you agree on next steps," he said.</p><p>M13 prides itself on its culture and the Reums still want to maintain it as much as possible when everyone is working remotely. They also wants people to still look forward to "going" to work everyday, even when they are stuck at home in their yoga pants.</p><p>The firm has been doing two virtual standup meetings per day, with employees dancing or celebrating St. Patrick's Day. There's also a 30-day ab workout challenge and Carter makes it a point to spontaneously make a video call with at least two employees a day to check in on how they are doing.</p><p>Beyond the Zooms and Slacks, there is still a fund to deploy and Carter says M13 is actively hunting for deals. It helps that valuations, which had ballooned in recent years, are now coming back to earth.</p><p>"In a world where we're all scared it's easy to forget there are opportunities," Carter said. "We are absolutely still writing checks."</p><p>Carter and his team are focused on how consumer behavior is changing and what businesses will benefit, and what people will need versus what they merely want. He cites two M13 portfolio companies seeing a rush of interest that he does not think will be short lived.</p><p>"Daily Harvest is booming right because people are not able to get food from local grocery stores," Carter said. "Capsule had one of its highest sales weeks because people don't want to go to pharmacies."</p><p>Carter does acknowledge that many of his companies will not be as well positioned for the present reality or even the post-COVID world.</p><p>"All of us will have companies in our portfolio that will be forced to close," he said.</p>
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The subscription box service FabFitFun has laid off around 20% of its employees as the company looks to sharpen its "focus on areas that drive the most value" and build itself as a launchpad for brands.
<p>The 137 cuts to its staff of 600 employees will largely come from the FabFitFunTV production team, which creates on-demand wellness videos and daily lifestyle content for subscribers that pay $50 for a curated box of products. </p><p>"We've made the decision to pull back certain initiatives and streamline our core business efforts. As a result, we've had to make the extremely difficult decision to reduce the size of our team," founders Katie Rosen Kitchens, Daniel Broukhim and Michael Broukhim said in a memo to employees on Feb. 13 that the company provided to dot.LA. FabFitFun declined to comment further.</p><p>FabFitFun is offering laid off employees severance packages and "outplacement services."</p><p>The decade old venture-backed service that's nearing a billion-dollar valuation had recently seen a growth spurt after it scored an $80 million Series A round last January. The funding was led by Kleiner Perkins, and included Upfront Ventures and NEA.</p><p>Earlier this year it hired Louisa Wee, a vice-president of marketing strategy, analysis and programmatic media for Netflix to lead its brand, content and creative programming. Recently, the company has made a push to ramp direct sales, offering "flash sales" to subscribers as it positions itself as a place for discovery as shoppers shift away from brick-and-mortar stores. </p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">This year, we're excited to introduce more member-exclusive flash sales to your FFF experience. These themed sales are an opportunity for us to bring you more products & brands to help you discover, explore, and empower your daily life! Learn more at <a href="https://t.co/bMlcvwBz7H">https://t.co/bMlcvwBz7H</a>. <a href="https://t.co/AVMz7opjRo">pic.twitter.com/AVMz7opjRo</a><br/>— FabFitFun (@FabFitFun) <a href="https://twitter.com/FabFitFun/status/1232455329847238658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>
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