Honey has inked a deal with the L.A. Galaxy to be stitched on their right sleeve. The online shopping and discount platform will also be an online deals partner, offering discounts for L.A. Galaxy fan merchandise, and it will be featured in the Galaxy's online marketing content.
The L.A. Galaxy will launch its secondary jersey on Wednesday with the Honey logo. Herbalife Nutrition will continue to be featured on the jersey front, as it has been for the past few years.
<p>It's the first time the team has partnered with Honey. </p><p>"We are always looking for brands that are headquartered in Southern California to align ourselves with to help communicate a message of community and SoCal atmosphere to our fans," said Robert Vartan, vice president of AEG Global Partnerships, which owns the L.A. Galaxy. "Honey was [a partner] that we felt was the right time, the right place."</p><p>Honey is a free online platform that notifies users about price drops and discounts on ecommerce sites. The Los Angeles-based startup was acquired by PayPal in 2019 for $4 billion. The Galaxy is not its first sports team partner — last year it expanded a partnership with the L.A. Clippers, and <a href="https://dot.la/honey-la-clippers-2648985210.html" target="_self">the Honey logo was also stitched onto their jersey</a>. </p><p>The NBA was the first major U.S. sports company to let teams display partners on player jerseys, and prior to being on the Clippers' sleeve, Honey had its logo on practice jerseys and the Clippers' training center. Last season <a href="https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/10/24/mls-announces-new-sponsored-jersey-patch-beginning-2020" target="_blank">was the first time the MLS allowed</a> sponsored sleeve patches. Vartan said that the featured jersey icon is one of the most impactful ways for sponsors to advertise their brand.</p><p>"I think the idea is to always start somewhere," he said. "But to start somewhere impactful, and we felt like in our sports kit, being on our jersey, on the sleeve is a great way to launch in a really impactful way for them."</p><p>The Major League Soccer season begins on April 17, and will have a regular 2021 season, but without fans in the stands.<br/></p><p>"Just like every sports team, we are following all the rules and regulations and guidelines set by the public health department locally and with the state," said Vartan. "Our goal is just optimistically to be there when we do get the approval to [have fans back]."</p>
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Backed by PayPal founder Max Levchin, fintech company HMBradley offers a hybrid savings and checking account and brags that it has an interest rate up to 3%.
The model has proved popular and on Tuesday, the Santa Monica-based digital banking platform HMBradley announced it has raised $18.25 million in Series A funding in a round led by Acrew Captial.
<p>Zach Bruhnke, HMBradley's co-founder and CEO, said in an interview that he didn't foresee a Series A round happening so quickly after the platform launched on March 30, but deposits have grown faster than expected.</p><p>"I think we were very much prepared for this to be a slow burn," he said. "We were going out saying we're going to build slow and steady."</p><p>HMBradley gives up to a 3% interest rate on savings to users who save 20% or more of their direct deposits each quarter no matter how much money they earn. There is a tiered system, so the higher percentage of your deposits you save, the higher the interest rate will be, up to 3%.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDgwMzI2Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3NDc2MjkzN30.tzNmtbN4_NuNAjcy6E0H7nDINSQSn701U6XWt8xTDn0/image.jpg?width=1500&coordinates=597%2C1%2C403%2C-1&height=2000" id="d0169" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e1fb9f2e4c3803197f28875e73a596df" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Zach Bruhnke" data-width="1500" data-height="2000" />
HMBradley's co-founder and CEO Zach Bruhnke
<p>The fintech firm said it has received over $90 million in deposits and its users have an average account balance of $30,000, while transaction volume has grown to over $110 million.</p><p>"Our customer base, they like to be rewarded for having good behavior and that's exactly what we're doing," Bruhnke said. "You save more, you earn more that's a big part of the focus."</p><p>The company differentiates itself from other fintechs by charging fees, trying to compete with customers who would normally bank at traditional banks rather than other digital banks that don't charge fees.</p><p><span></span>Bruhnke said the product has appealed to customers who are focused on saving and being rewarded for it with higher interest rates.</p><p>"What we didn't expect is how fast it would catch on with that audience," he said.</p><p>The Series A funding will help the company add to its growing employee roster, which expanded from 13 to 25 employees. The company recently hired Ben Coffman, who built the Capital One mobile app, and Saira Rahman, a former AVP at Alpine Bank and head of West Coast derivatives at B&F Capital Markets.</p>
<p><br/>The money will also be used to build new tools for customers like bill pay and remote check deposit. Bruhnke also wants to help customers understand their cash flows to make better financial decisions.</p><p>Acrew Capital was also an early investor in Chime, another digital banking service, based in San Francisco.<br/></p><p><em>Editor's note: This story has been updated to omit Finix and Deserve as funders in the Series A. They were not. </em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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PayPal Holdings, Inc. announced Thursday it will be transferring money to two L.A. firms as part of a $50 million commitment to eight early-stage, Black and Latinx-led venture capital funds.
Slauson & Co., the new fund from PledgeLA chairman Austin Clements focused on people of color, women and LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs; and VamosVentures, the Latinx consumer-focused, early-stage fund founded by Marcos Gonzalez, are both receiving undisclosed investment amounts.
<p>"For a small fund, this is critical," Gonzalez told dot.LA. "Welcoming PayPal into the VamosVentures family will provide insight and resources in a variety of ways. For example, deal referrals, input on diligence of companies we're looking at in the fintech space, and possible business development support for our portfolio. More broadly, we expect to benefit from more general insight on trends and connections to folks in the ecosystem that we might not otherwise be able to access."</p><p>Gonzalez said he thinks it is significant that Los Angeles is the only city where PayPal chose to invest in more than one fund.</p><p>"I think it shows that L.A. can be an epicenter for early-stage activity around diverse managers, founders and consumers," Gonzalez said. "More specifically, L.A. is a Latino city and we're working to increase the Latinx communities participation in the tech and VC ecosystem."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-proxy-image">
<a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/4001/4170669921_021a2a9881_b.jpg" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vbWVkaWEucmJsLm1zL2ltYWdlP3U9JTJGNDAwMSUyRjQxNzA2Njk5MjFfMDIxYTJhOTg4MV9iLmpwZyZobz1odHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRmxpdmUuc3RhdGljZmxpY2tyLmNvbSZzPTY5OSZoPWI2NzE5MmYwODE2YzQwN2ZiMTY5ZjExMjdjMTNmMWJjMjNkNWZhNjJjODA4YmUzODc4N2FkZTEzZmNkN2VjZjImc2l6ZT05ODB4JmM9MzIxODU3OTM3NSIsImV4cGlyZXNfYXQiOjE2MjE5NzY4MTZ9.TbIMvzMgjRrFC1MIgn_sO4wnIXPG988A_krHApWX6uU/img.jpg" id="48b1d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cde421879f65f78717ff196798bc61b4" /></a>
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<a href="https://live.staticflickr.com/4001/4170669921_021a2a9881_b.jpg"><strong>PayPal</strong> booth at LeWeb | Robert Scoble | Flickr</a>
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</p><p>Just 2% of VC investment partners in L.A. identify as African American or Latino, <a href="https://www.pledgela.org/" target="_blank">according to PledgeLA.</a> Nationally, a<a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/campaigns/us/audit/survey/diversity-venture-capital-human-capital-survey-dashboard.html" target="_blank"> 2018 Deloitte study</a> found 80% of investment partners at U.S. venture firms were white; 3% were Black and 3% were Latino. Just 4% of VC employees are black, according to a 2018 survey by the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), an industry trade group.<br/></p><p><a href="https://dot.la/lots-of-talk-but-little-action-how-can-venture-capital-solve-its-whiteness-problem-2646188887.html" target="_self">Because of the insular nature of how startups get funded</a> – with a big emphasis on existing networks and warm introductions - the lack of diversity has major trickle down effects on which founders get capital. </p><p>In an effort to help solve <a data-linked-post="2646195778" href="https://dot.la/diversity-in-venture-capital-2646195778.html" target="_blank">the whiteness problem</a>, VC's like Clements have gone out on their own to start new funds, but raising a first time fund is never easy and has been a "herculean task" this year, <a href="https://dot.la/venture-capital-los-angeles-2648185121.html?utm_campaign=post-teaser&utm_content=ngk8nnoq" target="_self">according to the NVCA. </a>That's why the PayPal investment comes as welcome news.</p><p>"Through our investments, we hope to be a catalyst for positive change for people who face historic disparities in access to capital and opportunity," Clements said in a prepared statement.</p><p>While PayPal will be what Clements calls the "inaugural investor" in Slauson & Co., VamosVentures is further along, having already raised $25 million with two months left of fundraising to go, according to Gonzalez. </p><p>PayPal said it would also invest in <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2962196-1&h=2203840554&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.chingona.ventures%252F%26data%3D02%257C01%257Ctaywatson%2540paypal.com%257C24fb27c22d524ba4d11408d86c835b93%257Cfb00791460204374977e21bac5f3f4c8%257C1%257C0%257C637378658740144272%26sdata%3D%252Bp1sznGljs7YIB73mm%252FP9Ef%252BhHOfa0ygYwZpNVt2ZVI%253D%26reserved%3D0&a=Chingona+Ventures" target="_blank">Chingona Ventures</a>, <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2962196-1&h=3017905659&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.fearless.fund%252F%26data%3D02%257C01%257Ctaywatson%2540paypal.com%257C24fb27c22d524ba4d11408d86c835b93%257Cfb00791460204374977e21bac5f3f4c8%257C1%257C0%257C637378658740144272%26sdata%3DqeOCgMtjkHbPKXWv%252Fo8k4SiEfHUNo9I7%252FBzARlhYP5s%253D%26reserved%3D0&a=Fearless+Fund" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Fearless Fund</a>, <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2962196-1&h=4109867380&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fharlem.capital%252F%26data%3D02%257C01%257Ctaywatson%2540paypal.com%257C24fb27c22d524ba4d11408d86c835b93%257Cfb00791460204374977e21bac5f3f4c8%257C1%257C0%257C637378658740154266%26sdata%3D9LdnnY%252BCLTGn65%252FPzj5z0z%252FAEyaL3ddx94a02u%252FRkTM%253D%26reserved%3D0&a=Harlem+Capital" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Harlem Capital</a>, <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2962196-1&h=2965451058&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fprecursorvc.com%252F%26data%3D02%257C01%257Ctaywatson%2540paypal.com%257C24fb27c22d524ba4d11408d86c835b93%257Cfb00791460204374977e21bac5f3f4c8%257C1%257C0%257C637378658740154266%26sdata%3DooNZiKKH6Kn3eoJDASQye5a18Gc7o8xD2ASqVmgjztY%253D%26reserved%3D0&a=Precursor+Ventures" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Precursor Ventures</a>, <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2962196-1&h=1643269006&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.zealvc.co%252F%26data%3D02%257C01%257Ctaywatson%2540paypal.com%257C24fb27c22d524ba4d11408d86c835b93%257Cfb00791460204374977e21bac5f3f4c8%257C1%257C0%257C637378658740164260%26sdata%3DB1h5I4927HBGc9u%252FGpMsUShmpDaej%252F%252B6M2NJ9LQuw%252F0%253D%26reserved%3D0&a=Zeal+Capital+Partners" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Zeal Capital Partners</a>, and one additional fund as part of the company's commitment to invest $530 million to support Black-owned businesses, strengthen underrepresented minority communities and fight for racial equity and economic equality.</p>
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