‘Raises’: Divergent Lands $160M, Coral Tree Closes $470M Fund

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.

Raises
Image by Joshua Letona

This week in “Raises,” a Torrance-based 3D-printing startup looking to disrupt the auto industry secured $160 million in fresh funding. Meanwhile, an L.A. investment firm seals close to half a billion dollars for its first fund.


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Venture Capital

Divergent Technologies, a 3D-printing automotive manufacturing company, raised a $160 million Series C round from investors including John L. Thornton, Tom Steyer and Hedosophia.

Men's apparel brand Johnnie-O received a $108 million investment from Ares Management and Wasatch Global Investors.

Kevin Hart's media and entertainment company HARTBEAT launched with a $100 million investment from Abry Partners.

Concert Health, a behavioral health medical group focused on treating depression and anxiety, raised a $42 million Series B round led by Define Ventures.

Estate and wealth management platform Vanilla raised a $30 million Series B round led by Insight Partners.

South 8 Technologies, a developer of electrolyte formulations for lithium-ion batteries, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Anzu Partners.

Creator-focused blockchain startup Our Happy Company, co-founded by musician John Legend, raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Infinity Ventures Crypto and Animoca Brands.

Text-to-pay technology startup Authvia raised a $7 million Series A round led by Red Door Capital Partners.

NFT-minting protocol company CXIP Labs raised a $6.5 million seed round co-led by Courtside Ventures and Wave Financial.

Amydis, a pharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative chemistry to detect diseases, raised $5.7 million in equity, per an SEC filing.

Health care tech startup Notisphere raised $3.6 million in seed funding led by Royal Street Ventures.

Spirits startup AMASS Brands raised $3.4 million in new equity, per an SEC filing.

Cartwheel, an on-demand delivery management platform for restaurants, raised $3 million in seed funding led by Moonshots Capital.

Latino-focused fandom platform CABRA Sports raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round led by VamosVentures.

Ruth Health, a telehealth startup focused on prenatal and postpartum care, raised $2.4 million in seed funding led by Giant Ventures.

Funds

Coral Tree Partners, a private investment firm focused on the media, entertainment, communications and marketing industries, raised $470 million for its first fund.

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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LA Latino/a Founders On Why Authenticity Matters in Tech

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.

LA Latino/a Founders On Why Authenticity Matters in Tech
Decerry Donato

As one of the most diverse cities in the world, Los Angeles is home to almost 5 million people who identify as Hispanic or Latinx. Yet, many feel they still lack representation in the city’s tech space.

“I can safely say that last year’s LA tech week hosted all of the events on the west side, and very few were focused on telling Latino and Latina entrepreneurial stories,” said Valeria Martinez, investor at VamosVentures. “We wanted to change that this year.”

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LA Tech Week Day 3: Social Highlights
Evan Xie

L.A. Tech Week has brought venture capitalists, founders and entrepreneurs from around the world to the California coast. With so many tech nerds in one place, it's easy to laugh, joke and reminisce about the future of tech in SoCal.

Here's what people are saying about day three of L.A. Tech Week on social:

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LA Tech Week: Female Founders Provide Insights Into Their Startup Journeys

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.

LA Tech Week: Female Founders Provide Insights Into Their Startup Journeys
Decerry Donato

Women remain a minority among startup founders. According to Pitchbook, even though women-led startups in the United States received a record $20.8 billion in funding during the first half of 2022, U.S. companies with one or more female founders received less than 20% of total venture funding in 2022. U.S. companies solely led by female founders received less than 2% of the total funding.

The panel, titled Female Founders: Planning, Pivoting, Profiting, was moderated by NYU law professor Shivani Honwad and featured Anjali Kundra, co-founder of bar inventory software Partender; Montré Moore, co-founder of the Black-owned beauty startup AMP Beauty LA; Mia Pokriefka, co-founder and CEO of the interactive social media tool Huxly; and Sunny Wu, founder and CEO of fashion company LE ORA.

The panelists shared their advice and insights on starting and growing a business as a woman. They all acknowledged feeling pressure to not appear weak among peers, especially as a female founder. But this added weight only causes more stress that may lead to burnout.

“The mental health aspect of being a founder should not be overshadowed,” said Kundra, who realized this during the early stages of building her company with her brother..

Growing up in Silicon Valley, Kundra was surrounded by the startup culture where, “everyone is crushing it!” But she said that no one really opened up about the challenges of starting your own company. .

“Once you grow up as a founder in that environment, it's pretty toxic,” Kundra said. “I felt like I really wanted to be open and be able to go to our investors and tell them about challenges because businesses go up and down, markets go up and down and no company is perfect.”

Honwad, who advocates for women’s rights, emphasized the value of aligning yourself with people with similar values in the tech ecosystem. “[Those people] can make your life better not just from an investment and money standpoint, but also a personal standpoint, because life happens,” she said.

Moore, who unexpectedly lost one of her co-founders at AMP Beauty, said that entrepreneurs “really have to learn how to adapt to [their] circumstances.”

“She was young, healthy, vibrant and we've been sorority sisters and friends over the past decade,” she said about her co-founder Phyllicia Phillips, who passed away in February. “So it was just one of those moments where you have to take a pause.”

Moore said this experience forced her to ask for help, which many founders hesitate to do. She encouraged the audience to try and share their issues out loud with their teams because there are always people who will offer help. When Moore shared her concerns with her investors, they jumped in to support her in ways she didn’t think was possible.

Kundra said that while it is important to have a support group and listen to mentors, it is very important for entrepreneurs to follow their own thinking and pick and choose what they want to implement within their strategy. “At the end of the day, you really have to own your own decisions,” she said.

Kundra also said that while it is easy to turn to your colleagues and competitors and do what they are doing, you shouldn’t always follow them because every business is different.

“When I was in the heat of it, I kind of became [a part of] this echo chamber and that was really challenging for us,” Kundra added, “but we were able to move beyond it and figure out what worked for us [as a company] and we're still on a journey. You're always going to be figuring it out, so just know you're not alone.”

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