Meet TechStars LA's 2021 Accelerator Cohort

Bernard Mendez

Bernard Mendez is an editorial intern at dot.LA. He attends UCLA, where he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics. Mendez was previously an editor at the Daily Bruin, the student newspaper at UCLA.

Meet TechStars LA's 2021 Accelerator Cohort

When Matt Kozlov, TechStars Los Angeles' Managing Director, evaluates startups, he looks for a few key qualities in a company's leadership: humility, passion, resilience and the ability to accept coaching well.

"We believe that an A-plus team can turn a C-minus product into a really successful venture," he said. But the inverse, he said, isn't always true.

The 12 companies chosen for TechStars LA's 2021 Accelerator includes a social network platform for traders, a startup making a wristband that detects strokes and an app to handle small claims court cases.

Kozlov, who took the helm in February, is also taking his inaugural TechStars Los Angeles class in-person after the accelerator went remote during the pandemic.

"Nothing is better than an in-person experience for the mentors and founders," he said. "We are planning this year to bring the best of both worlds."

Kolzov, who spent the last two years working from home with "little" human interaction, is looking forward to swapping ideas across a table. TechStars LA is also in for other changes. The class will be held at an office space in Culver City, where most of the mentorships and instruction will take place.

But with LA County's new mask rules and an unpredictable virus, he's braced for the prospect of returning restrictions if COVID-19 cases rise.

"We've done it before, and we have to, we'll do it again," Kozlov said.

Kozlov said making sure the startups are racial diversity was a major area of focus for the accelerator. Many of the companies are led by Latino, Black and Asian American founders, and a majority of the businesses have women in their leadership.

"In terms of diversity, we really set that as a requirement when constructing this cohort," Kozlov said. "We wanted to make sure that the community of TechStars that we're bringing into this portfolio represents the community of LA."

Chelsie Hall, the co-founder of ViralMoment, said she's looking forward to collaborating with other startups and has already benefited from TechStars' network.

"The program hasn't even started yet, and they've already connected us to people who are just absolute experts in the space," said Hall, whose company helps brands identify internet trends.

The TechStars LA Accelerator's 2021 class will receive three months of training mentoring. Each company will receive $20,000 in exchange for 6% equity in the company, as per TechStars' usual accelerator agreements.

Here's a preview of this year's class:

Alva Health

Born out of Yale University, Alva Health wants to help people identify strokes sooner with a wristband that helps detect "the silent killer." Strokes are among the top leading causes of death worldwide. Detecting a stroke early is often a key way to improve survival rates and reduce side-effects for stroke victims.

"It's kind of a problem that has not been solved," said Sandra Saldana, CEO and co-founder of the Houston and New Haven based startup.

Butterfly Labs

Butterfly Labs wants to make at-home lab testing easier for telehealth companies.

Based out of Los Angeles, Butterfly's software provides telehealth companies access to labs, testing and results that can be shared with patients via their portal and mailing services. So far, they have partnered with 10 labs to offer blood and other tests.

Cheres

Cheres is a social network for stock tracking.

The platform allows users to see what their friends and followers are investing in. The app has pre launched and already has thousands on its waitlist, according to the company.

Communikind

Founder Cimeran Kapur created Communikind, an app that lets families track their behavioral health history and health data. She developed the app after finding out she had cancer while in medical school. Available on both the iOS and the Google Play Store, the app also lets users share data with physicians.

Kapur created the app to give patients more control over their medical histories.

ComplYant

Led by Shiloh Johnson, a former accountant, ComplYant sells software that helps businesses keep track of tax deadlines, bills and other paperwork.

Erdos Ventures

Erdos Ventures buys small e-commerce businesses. Based out of Canada, Erdos generates an offer within 14 days and lets owners choose between fully selling the company or sharing profits.

Eunimart

Based out of India, Eunimart offers machine learning and AI-based tools to help companies manage their businesses across major ecommerce platforms, including Shopify and Amazon.

The company primarily operates in Asia and the Middle East and is aiming to expand into the U.S.

Lightbox

Lightbox wants to combine the online and in-person shopping experience. The company's main product is a smart, 43-inch touchscreen that connects in-store shoppers with their online accounts.

Co-founder Sumant Yerramilly is no stranger to the program; he went through Techstars Boston in 2009, where he worked on Amp Idea, a company that designed an interactive touchscreen for taxis. The company was later acquired by Verifone Transportation.

PeopleClerk

PeopleClerk is an app that lets customers prepare small claims lawsuits and file the correct paperwork online. It operates in all 58 California counties and is hoping to expand into other states.

PeopleClerk co-founder and attorney Camila Lopez said it takes 30 to 40 hours and multiple court visits just to navigate the court system, which is often exacerbated by filing the wrong paperwork or missing a step in the process.

"If you watch a small claims hearing, you will see that people are showing up with evidence everywhere," Lopez said. "It's kind of a mess, and you're leaving money on the table."

Renno

Renno is an online business that aims to streamline the home renovation process. Led by former real estate consultant and CEO Khalief Brown, the company's app lets customers design a renovation, get pricing quotes and find contractors.

SanityDesk

SanityDesk is a software aimed at "solo-preneurs" and small businesses. The software helps businesses improve their web presence, marketing strategy and customer relations management.

ViralMoment

ViralMoment wants to make it easier for companies to better understand what's trending on the internet so it can make its own "viral moment."

The company uses Artificial Intelligence to generate reports on what people are saying about a company online based on images, videos and memes posted online.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Complyant founder Shiloh Johnson's name. It also clarifies Cimeran Kapur is the sole founder.

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Here’s Why Streaming Looks More and More Like Cable

Lon Harris

Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.

Here’s Why Streaming Looks More and More Like Cable

Evan Xie

The original dream of streaming was all of the content you love, easily accessible on your TV or computer at any time, at a reasonable price. Sadly, Hollywood and Silicon Valley have come together over the last decade or so to recognize that this isn’t really economically viable. Instead, the streaming marketplace is slowly transforming into something approximating Cable Television But Online.

It’s very expensive to make the kinds of shows that generate the kind of enthusiasm and excitement from global audiences that drives the growth of streaming platforms. For every international hit like “Squid Game” or “Money Heist,” Netflix produced dozens of other shows whose titles you have definitely forgotten about.

The marketplace for new TV has become so massively competitive, and the streaming landscape so oversaturated, even relatively popular shows with passionate fanbases that generate real enthusiasm and acclaim from critics often struggle to survive. Disney+ canceled Luscasfilm’s “Willow” after just one season this week, despite being based on a hit Ron Howard film and receiving an 83% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Amazon dropped the mystery drama “Three Pines” after one season as well this week, which starred Alfred Molina, also received positive reviews, and is based on a popular series of detective novels.

Even the new season of “The Mandalorian” is off to a sluggish start compared to its previous two Disney+ seasons, and Pedro Pascal is basically the most popular person in America right now.

Now that major players like Netflix, Disney+, and WB Discovery’s HBO Max have entered most of the big international markets, and bombarded consumers there with marketing and promotional efforts, onboarding of new subscribers inevitably has slowed. Combine that with inflation and other economic concerns, and you have a recipe for austerity and belt-tightening among the big streamers that’s virtually guaranteed to turn the smorgasbord of Peak TV into a more conservative a la carte offering. Lots of stuff you like, sure, but in smaller portions.

While Netflix once made its famed billion-dollar mega-deals with top-name creators, now it balks when writer/director Nancy Meyers (“It’s Complicated,” “The Holiday”) asks for $150 million to pay her cast of A-list actors. Her latest romantic comedy will likely move over to Warner Bros., which can open the film in theaters and hopefully recoup Scarlett Johansson and Michael Fassbender’s salaries rather than just spending the money and hoping it lingers longer in the public consciousness than “The Gray Man.”

CNET did the math last month and determined that it’s still cheaper to choose a few subscription streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime over a conventional cable TV package by an average of about $30 per month (provided you don’t include the cost of internet service itself). But that means picking and choosing your favorite platforms, as once you start adding all the major offerings out there, the prices add up quickly. (And those are just the biggest services from major Hollywood studios and media companies, let alone smaller, more specialized offerings.) Any kind of cable replacement or live TV streaming platform makes the cost essentially comparable to an old-school cable TV package, around $100 a month or more.

So called FAST, or Free Ad-supported Streaming TV services, have become a popular alternative to paid streaming platforms, with Fox’s Tubi making its first-ever appearance on Nielsen’s monthly platform rankings just last month. (It’s now more popular than the first FAST service to appear on the chart, Paramount Global’s Pluto TV.) According to Nielsen, Tubi now accounts for around 1% of all TV viewing in the US, and its model of 24/7 themed channels supported by semi-frequent ad breaks couldn’t resemble cable television anymore if it tried.

Services like Tubi and Pluto stand to benefit significantly from the new streaming paradigm, and not just from fatigued consumers tired of paying for more content. Cast-off shows and films from bigger streamers like HBO Max often find their way to ad-supported platforms, where they can start bringing in revenue for their original studios and producers. The infamous HBO Max shows like “The Nevers” and “Westworld” that WBD controversially pulled from the HBO Max service can now be found on Tubi or The Roku Channel.

HBO Max’s recently-canceled reality dating series “FBoy Island” has also found a new home, but it’s not on any streaming platform. Season 3 will air on TV’s The CW, along with a new spinoff series called (wait for it) “FGirl Island.” So in at least some ways, “30 Rock” was right: technology really IS cyclical.

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As TikTok Faces a Ban, Competitors Prepare to Woo Its User Base

Kristin Snyder

Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.

As TikTok Faces a Ban, Competitors Prepare to Woo Its User Base

Evan Xie

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.

Another day, another update in the unending saga that is the potential TikTok ban.

The latest: separate from the various bills proposing a ban, the Biden administration has been in talks with TikTok since September to try and find a solution. Now, having thrown its support behind Senator MarkWarner’s bill, the White House is demanding TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sell its stakes in the company to avoid a ban. This would be a major blow to the business, as TikTok alone is worth between $40 billion and $50 billion—a significant portion of ByteDance’s $220 billion value.

Clearly, TikTok faces an uphill battle as its CEO Shou Zi Chew prepares to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week. But other social media companies are likely looking forward to seeing their primary competitor go—and are positioning themselves as the best replacement for migrating users.

Snap

Alternatively, Snap is doing the opposite and luring creators with an ad revenue-sharing program. First launched in 2022, creators are now actively boasting about big earnings from the program, which provides 50% of ad revenue from videos. Snapchat is clearly still trying to win over users with new tech like its OpenAI chatbot, which it launched last month. But it's best bet to woo the TikTok crowd is through its new Sounds features, which suggest audio for different lenses and will match montage videos to a song’s rhythm. Audio clips are crucial to TikTok’s platform, so focusing on integrating songs into content will likely appeal to users looking to recreate that experience.

YouTube

With its short-form ad revenue-sharing program, YouTube Shorts has already lured over TikTok creators. It's even gotten major stars like Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift to promote music on Shorts. This is likely where YouTube has the best bet of taking TikTok’s audience. Since TikTok has become deeply intertwined with the music industry, Shorts might be primed to take its spot. And with its new feature that creates compiles all the videos using a specific song, Shorts is likely hoping to capture musicians looking to promote their work.

Triller

The most blatant attempt at seducing TikTok users, however, comes from Triller, which launched a portal for people to move their videos from TikTok to its platform. It’s simple, but likely the most effective tactic—and one that other short-form video platforms should try to replicate. With TikTok users worried about losing their backlog of content, this not only lets users archive but also bolsters Triller’s content offerings. The problem, of course, is that Triller isn’t nearly as well known as the other platforms also trying to capture TikTok users. Still, those who are in the know will likely find this option easier than manually re-uploading content to other sites.

It's likely that many of these platforms will see a momentary boost if the TikTok ban goes through. But all of these companies need to ensure that users coming from TikTok actually stay on their platforms. Considering that they have already been upended by one newcomer when TikTok took over, there’s good reason to believe that a new app could come in and swoop up TikTok’s user base. As of right now, it's unclear who will come out on top. But the true loser is the user who has to adhere to the everyday whims of each of these platforms.

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We Asked Our Readers How They’re Using AI in a Professional Setting. Here's What They Said

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow 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.

We Asked Our Readers How They’re Using AI in a Professional Setting. Here's What They Said

Evan Xie

According to Pew Research data, 27% of Americans interact with AI on a daily basis. With the launch of Open AI’s latest language model GPT-4, we asked our readers how they use AI in a professional capacity. Here’s what they told us:

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