Rachel Uranga
Rachel Uranga covers the intersection of business, technology and culture. She is a former Mexico-based market correspondent at Reuters and has worked for several Southern California news outlets, including the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Los Angeles Daily News. She has covered everything from IPOs to immigration. Uranga is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and California State University Northridge. A Los Angeles native, she lives with her husband, son and their felines.
Less than seven months after launching, the high-flying streaming service Quibi has shut down.
Despite a sold-out advertising slate, deals with A-listers and a $1.75 billion war chest from high-profile investors the former Disney executive and founder Jeffrey Katzenberg couldn't make the short-form mobile video platform stick.
<p>Katzenberg called investors on Wednesday to tell them Quibi would shut down, ending one of Hollywood's most high-profile streaming endeavors by a storied executive. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/quibi-weighs-shutting-down-as-problems-mount-11603301946" target="_blank">first reported</a> the news. </p><p>Shortly after, Katzenberg and the company's CEO, Meg Whitman, published a post on Medium acknowledging the news and blaming it on a combination of the pandemic and the execution. </p><p>"Quibi is not succeeding," they wrote. "Likely for one of two reasons: because the idea itself wasn't strong enough to justify a standalone streaming service or because of our timing."</p><p>The two said they would return cash to shareholders and look for buyers for their remaining assets.</p><p>"While the result was not what any of us wanted, we did accomplish a number of things and we are very proud of what the talented Quibi team has built with the blood, sweat, and tears that they poured into this business over these past two years," they wrote.</p><p>Katzenberger had tried to sell Quibi to tech giants such as Apple, Facebook and NBCUniversal, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/quibi-explores-strategic-options-including-a-possible-sale-11600707806" target="_blank">The Information</a> reported. All passed. He also considered taking the company public to raise additional funds, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/quibi-explores-strategic-options-including-a-possible-sale-11600707806" target="_blank">according to the Wall St. Journal</a>. That didn't pan out either.</p><p>"Our failure was not for lack of trying; we've considered and exhausted every option available to us," Katzenberg and Whitman wrote.</p><p>Launched on April 6, with dozens of short-form original series, Quibi executives said they did not intend to compete with Netflix or Hulu. Instead, they hoped targeted viewers on their mobile devices for short-form content, aiming to catch them while they were waiting in line or looking for a quick entertainment fix in between other moments. But the company failed to catch on and faced fierce competition by YouTube, Facebook and other short-format video platforms that millennials and Gen Z have already adopted.<br/></p><p>Katzenberg had previously blamed lackluster user reach on the pandemic and the stay-at-home culture it created for putting an end to the commutes and time spent waiting in line where they hoped to meet their audience.</p><p>"The circumstances of launching during a pandemic is something we could have never imagined but other businesses have faced these unprecedented challenges and have found their way through it. We were not able to do so," he and Whitman wrote.<br/></p><p>Another disadvantage was the astronomical production costs for creating the content, were reported to be up to $100,000 each minute. Quibi had signed on stars <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/television/quibi-shows-stars.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">like Chrissy Teigen, Tyra Banks and Tom Cruise</a>.</p><p>But with no hit show or catalog of familiar flicks, Quibi struggled. Plus, it arrived in the middle of the pandemic when mobile users were stuck at home, not waiting in lines or riding public transit.<br/></p><p>Quibi attracted investment from some of Hollywood's biggest players including the Walt Disney Company, 21st Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., NBCUniversal, Viacom Inc and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.</p>
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Luxury electric vehicle-maker Karma Automotive announced pricing for its first all-electric car will start at $79,900, as the company prepares to take on Tesla and break out in the burgeoning upscale electric vehicle market.
The car can be reserved for a fully-refundable $100 deposit on their website. The design for the Karma GSe Series sedan has yet to be released but the company said it would retain the low-slung sporty profile of the company's signature car, the Revero GT, with a powertrain configuration, 21-inch wheels and vegan leather interior standard. Karma said its range will be "north of 300 miles."
<p>It's set to roll out next year as competition in the electric vehicle market heats up. Earlier this week, Silicon Valley-based Lucid announced their car, Lucid Air, is slated for 2021 and will start at $77,400. That prompted Tesla CEO Elon Musk to announce a price drop for the Model S.</p><p>Tesla has dominated the market but a slew of new electric vehicles are set to come on line that could challenge the carmaker's position. Karma told dot.LA earlier this year <a href="https://dot.la/karma-automotive-ipo-2646804376.html" target="_blank">it is talks with investment banks to help it go public</a>. The company sought to bring down prices so it can have a broader market appeal.</p><p>With production facilities in Moreno Valley, Karma is the only U.S.-based electric vehicle startup that is producing and selling vehicles other than Tesla. Last year it rolled out about 550 of its Revero GT, an ultra luxury electric vehicle that starts around $135,000.</p>
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Electric car company Fisker is getting ready for its Wall Street debut, adding C-level executives and snapping up a slick 73,000 square-foot headquarters in Manhattan Beach that it's calling "Inception."
The leased headquarters will house the now Torrance-based company's design and engineering team as it ramps up to deliver the "Ocean SUV" by the fall of 2022. The company said it will double its size, bringing on about 100 employees over the coming months, most of whom will work out of the new headquarters.
<p>The move comes after Spartan Energy Acquisition Corporation <a href="https://dot.la/fisker-ipo-2646402528.html" target="_blank">announced this summer</a> a deal that valued Fisker at $2.9 billion at the time. The New York Stock Exchange-traded corporation will hold a meeting Oct. 28 to vote on the deal. If approved, Fisker will be traded under the ticker "FSR." </p><p>Under the deal — expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter — Fisker will get more than $1 billion in gross proceeds to jumpstart production of Fisker Ocean, the vision of founder Henrik Fisker, CEO and chairman of the eponymously named startup. </p><p>Last month the company announced it would establish a new technology center in San Francisco called "source code" where it would provide support for design and engineering software. And earlier this week it appointed longtime Ernst & Young auditor John Finnucan as its chief operating officer. </p><p><a href="https://dot.la/fisker-ipo-2646402528/southern-california-bars-restaurants-salons-gyms-places-of-worship-must-shut-down-indoor-operations-amid-surge-in-covid-19-cases" target="_blank">The Fisker Ocean</a>, which premiered at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, starts at $37,499 and is being billed as the most sustainable vehicle, replete with a vegan interior and recycled carpet. Reservations for the either purchase or lease start at $250.</p><p><span></span>Special purpose acquisition companies, known as a SPACs, enabled electric-vehicle startup Nikola Corp to go public this summer and have become a quick route to Wall Street for many companies. </p><p>Aston Martin designer Fisker's previous venture, Fisker Automotive, fell into bankruptcy in 2013 and was bought by a Chinese group that rebranded it Karma. That company <a href="https://dot.la/karma-car-2646367624.html" target="_self">recently secured $100 million from investors</a> and it <a href="https://dot.la/karma-automotive-ipo-2646804376/particle-4" target="_blank">hopes to go public as well.</a> </p>
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