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XTango Raises $5.7M to Solve Companies' Productivity Problems

It is a frustrating but not uncommon issue in the workplace: an employee approaches a task, but they are unsure of how to complete it. Maybe they're a new hire who hasn't been shown how, or they haven't done the task in a while.
The problem's bigger than you might think. Workers spend nearly 20% of their work week seeking help in performing specific tasks, according to a report from McKinsey Global Institute. That's a huge concern for workplace productivity.
Tango, a Los Angeles-based startup, aims to offer a solution by making it easy to create how-to guides as a resource for employees. The company, which brands itself as a "workflow intelligence platform," raised a $5.7 million seed round this week. It had previously been bootstrapped by its founders.
Wing Venture Capital led the round, with General Catalyst, GSV Ventures, Outsiders Fund, Red Sea Ventures and a number of angel investors also participating.
Tango sees an opening as tech companies become more reliant on a growing number of software-as-a-service companies to improve their workflow.
Tango co-founders, from left, Dan Giovacchini, Ken Babcock and Brian Shultz
Users can use Tango's browser extension to record their screens as they demonstrate how to complete a task. As the application records, it also automatically creates a how-to guide, complete with screenshots.
Once the recording is complete, Tango allows users to edit the guide if needed. The user is then left with a video and a guide that can then be exported as a PDF or converted into code for embedding on webpages and wikis, allowing companies flexibility in how employees can access the guides.
Because it's a browser extension, Tango currently only supports applications within browsers. However, it plans to develop a product that goes beyond the browser.
Tango's three co-founders, Ken Babcock, Dan Giovacchini and Brian Shultz, are all former Harvard Business School students who dropped out in March 2020 to start the company, which has grown from three to 13 employees since its founding.
The initial idea for Tango was fairly different; it had the working title of "Twitch for work" and revolved around the idea of watching a company's highest performers while they work. Babcock, who is the CEO, said the mission of the company that evolved from this idea is represented well by its name.
"A lot of our founding story is kind of rooted in this idea of mentorship," Babcock said. "I think what we liked about 'Tango' is, you say tango, people are always like, 'Oh, it takes two to tango!' It's a dance where someone is leading and someone is following."
Other companies have tried to make the creation of tutorials simpler, including Camtasia, which aids in the creation of video tutorials specifically. Documentation tools such as Bit.ai have been helping companies create tutorials for software for years. Still, Babcock said he doesn't feel that Tango has any direct competitors.
"We felt that a step-by-step how-to guide actually would have several advantages over video: cutting through the fluff, the ability to follow at your own pace, and from the creator's perspective, fewer re-dos and awkward pauses," said Babcock. "These capabilities really differentiate Tango from every other technology [available]."
Tango is not expected to officially launch until September, but a few companies have already been using its system as pilot customers, including real estate service Bungalow and recruiting platform Dover. Babcock said the departments that could benefit most from a product like Tango are customer success and sales enablement.
With the new round, Tango plans to hire, execute a product-led growth strategy and build upon their customer support functions. Also on the roadmap is expanding the product to offer more services; what those services will be is currently unclear, but Babcock said the company is far from its limit.
"The initial product is about saving people time and creating documentation," said Babcock. "Once you have organizations using Tango, creating workflows, sharing them internally, you unlock a really rich data set about how people are working, what those best practices are, who might need help. The future state of Tango, the way we think about it, is a coaching platform."
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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).
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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.