The Los Angeles Clippers, owned by former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer, is stitching a new logo on game jerseys this year. Los Angeles' tech darling Honey will appear on the basketball team's uniform as part of a partnership inked last fall.
The deal allows Honey, the L.A.-based online shopping and discount platform, to advertise overseas and share team content on its digital and social media platforms.
<p>"We look at our last six years since Steve Ballmer bought the team as sort of a restart of the Clippers built around those same principles of toughness and grittiness, determination," said Clippers sales officer Scott Sonnenberg. "That's the type of players we have on the court and that's the type of brand that Honey is." </p>
<p>Honey already had its name on practice jerseys and the Clippers' new training center. The company also led a $10 ticket campaign for home games during the 2019-2020 season. </p>
<p>It's the Clippers' second major corporate partner after dating site Bumble. The NBA was the first major U.S. sports company to let teams display partners on player jerseys, a decision Sonnenberg described as groundbreaking.</p>
<p>The Clippers have tried to position themselves as tech leaders within the NBA with their AI-powered Clippers CourtVision platform, a software program that overlays player stats and animated graphics over live games. </p>
<p>Earlier this year another L.A. startup, <a href="https://dot.la/goat-group-la-2647074186/goat-uses-nba-playoffs-to-launch-brand-campaign" target="_self">the sneaker seller GOAT</a>, tried to tap consumers in the profitable NBA market launching their first television campaign during the NBA playoffs. </p>
<p>Founded in 2012, Honey offers a free platform that notifies users about price drops and tracks the lowest prices on items listed across ecommerce sites. It <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/paypal-honey-4-billion-dollars/" target="_blank">was acquired by PayPal last yeast for $4 billion</a>. </p>
<p>Starting Friday, the browser extension will offer discount codes to fans who purchase Clippers gear on the shopping platform. </p>
<p>Even though stadiums are shuttered to paying fans, sales of merchandise have remained steady through the pandemic, said Sonnenberg. NBA fans streaming games online are still exposed to brand partnerships. </p>
<p>"Honey's a great match for us," he said. "Their entrepreneurial spirit, their toughness, their grittiness."</p>
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BAM Ventures, the early-stage, consumer-focused fund co-founded by corporate lawyer-turned-L.A. serial entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist Brian Lee, has filed paperwork with the SEC indicating that it is in the process of raising a third fund with $50 million in dry power.
<p>Lee and Shamin Rostami Walsh, BAM's managing director, declined to comment on the offering. Companies are barred by SEC regulations from <a href="https://thestartuplawblog.com/general-solicitation-can-i-generally-solicit-my-offering/" target="_blank">"general solicitation"</a> while they are raising capital, which includes speaking to the media. </p><p>The $50 million fund would be a considerable step up from BAM's $20 Fund II and $6 million Fund I, which provided early backing for buzzy consumer startups such as the video game maker Scopely and the trendy luggage direct-to-consumer company, Away. </p><p>But no investment has been more profitable than <a href="https://pulse2.com/bam-45-million-150k-honey/" target="_blank">the firm's reported $150,000 pre-seed check to Honey,</a> which turned into $45 million after the coupon startup was bought by Paypal for $4 billion last year. It is the sort of return VCs dream about and Honey's founders were turned down many times until they met Lee, <a href="https://dot.la/brian-lee-los-angeles-venture-capital-2645125301.html" target="_blank">who told dot.LA earlier this year </a>that he invested after getting a "vibe" from co-founders George Ruan and Ryan Hudson at a panel where they were speaking.<br/></p><p>"They knew exactly what they were building, and how they were going to get there," Lee said. "It gave us a lot of confidence to back them. Every time we met with them the numbers were growing, and we knew the future was very bright for Honey very early on."</p><p>Lee co-founded LegalZoom in 2001 and went on to team with celebrities to launch consumer brands, such as Shoedazzle with Kim Kardashian in 2009 and The Honest Company with Jessica Alba in 2011. Lee is also <a href="https://dot.la/st/about" target="_blank">an investor in dot.LA</a>. </p>
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Jamie Montgomery couldn't sleep for several nights as he weighed whether to move ahead with his annual two-day venture capital-fest in Santa Monica. This week's conference is billed as an all-star lineup of business leaders that includes the likes of bond king Michael Milken.
But, Montgomery — the founder and managing director of Los Angeles-based March Capital Partners — found himself slammed by reports of other major conferences shuttering due to concerns about coronavirus. Facebook yanked its annual F8 developer meeting in May, the Game Developers Conference scheduled in San Francisco for later this month was canceled, and the YPO Edge summit planned for March was dropped.
Ultimately, he gave it a green light.
<p>The annual convention that draws a thousand attendees from venture capitalists to entrepreneurs is on. "There's been a lot of anxiety around this," Montgomery told dot.LA. "We made the right decision for us."</p><p>The influential summit will be. held at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows in Santa Monica, where 140 private companies will pitch their startups attracts at an event attended by more than 1,000 founders, top-flight investors, entrepreneurs, and executives.<br/></p><p>A meeting Montgomery held with a health expert on Saturday — he wouldn't say. who he met with — solidified his decision. Among the factors is a view among some that coronaviruses as a group are considered cold-weather viruses, and that only 5% of the attendees were coming from overseas – where the bulk of outbreaks have been. Montgomery has also been consulting with local health officials.</p><p>So far, there are about 90,000 novel coronavirus cases worldwide. More than 100 of them have been reported in the U.S. and there have been nine deaths recorded as of Tuesday. To slow the spread of COVID-19, the Center for Disease Control said schools, events and business may have to be interrupted.</p><p>But in Los Angeles, considered the U.S. gateway to Asia, there's been no known outbreak and health officials have said the risk is still low. Big venues such as the city's convention center haven't had any major cancellations.</p><p>"We really respect everyone's decision as to whether to attend," Montgomery said. "I am not going to encourage you, whether it's you or your staff. It's a personal decision. You may have family concerns about a loved one or someone that's in a health state."</p><p>To offset any potential spread of the virus, conference planners are placing hand sanitizer in every room and the cleaning staff will be wiping down common surfaces with antiseptic wipes hourly. Attendees are encouraged to wash their hands frequently and to refrain from shaking hands. There will also be a physician on hand. Anyone showing symptoms of a cold or flu will be asked to leave the summit and those exhibiting signs of COVID-19, which include a fever and difficulty breathing, will be isolated and tested further at a medical facility.</p><p>"What they have proposed makes a lot of sense," said Jeffrey Klausner, an infectious disease expert at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health.</p><p>Klausner added that while social gatherings pose a risk in increasing transmission, there's no evidence that this is the case when attendees practice good hygiene. He said there's no evidence of ongoing transmission in Southern California. That could change; COVID-19 symptoms take up to two weeks to appear.</p><p>Unlike airborne influenza, which spreads quickly and can infect individuals multiple times, Klausner said people build an immunity to coronavirus, which is spread through respiratory droplets. All that tends to make outbreaks more localized. When cases do appear, Klausner said, most people will be either asymptomatic or exhibit mild symptoms. Less than 20% of confirmed cases have been severe, and just 2% have been fatal.</p><p>"The overall risk to the general U.S. population is still very low," he said.</p><p>Peter Pham, co-founder of venture capital firm Science Inc. isn't too worried.</p><p>"I'm an optimistic person and I also follow data," Pham said. "As of last (Sunday) night, the risk for younger folks is really, really low," he said.</p><p>Pham holds an exclusive dinner at Gjelina in Venice during the conference for some of the biggest names in Los Angeles' venture capital. Every year, you can count on at least one high-profile attendee. This year, it's Honey, who recently notched LA.'s biggest exit, with a $4 billion sale to Paypal. Dinner talk, he expects, will be much more focused on the city's next newsmaker rather than fears of the virus, as attendees focus on connecting with big money investors.</p><p>Hopefully, he said, someone will score a big check. In the meantime, "I will remind everyone to wash their hands, we are in a post-handshake world. Let's go with the elbow bumps and fist bumps."</p><p>At the conference, Montgomery said he won't be shying away from the topic. "Coronavirus is top of mind," he said. "We have a session on that on day two to talk about its public health and the economic impact this year."</p><div class="horizontal-rule"></div><p><em><strong>Editor's note</strong>: Shortly after this story was published, Kaiser Permanente confirmed that they were treating a new case of coronavirus in Los Angeles County. The patient is in in self-isolation and being treated on an outpatient basis. </em></p>
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