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XSoCal's Startup Scene Is Surging: A Look At the Biggest Deals of the Second Quarter
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
The L.A. tech scene is booming despite a year-plus pandemic and a string of natural disasters. Rocket makers, sneaker sellers and fusion power creators were among those that dominated the list of L.A. venture deals for the first half of 2021.
On Wednesday, the National Venture Capital Association and Pitchbook released their Venture Monitor report which tracks investment across the country. Both Los Angeles and the U.S. overall notched record-breaking levels of VC investment as the COVID-19 pandemic rebound continues.
A few highlights from the report:
- At the national level, megadeals of $100 million have become more common, and L.A. appears to be no exception, with all 10 of its largest deals coming it at $100 million-plus.
- VC investment in Q2 for the Los Angeles-Long Beach area totaled $8.5 billion, spread across 365 different deals. That's slightly down from Q1's $9.4 billion, but still more than double the investment from the same time period last year ($3.9 billion).
- Los Angeles remains a powerhouse, but it still lags behind Silicon Valley. The $8.5 billion dollars of Q2 investment puts Los Angeles-Long Beach second, behind only the Bay Area ($26.7 billion) and New York City ($12.6 billion) in terms of total VC deal activity. Boston, Seattle and Denver round out the top 6.
- The white-hot market streak continues. For the year to date, VC investment in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area has totaled $17.9 billion across 762 deals. That's easily on pace to shatter 2020's record total of $22.7 billion.
- The three largest deals in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area came from the aerospace industry. Elon Musk's SpaceX raised $1.2 billion while upstart rival 3-D rocketmaker Relativity Space pulled in $650 million sending its valuation soaring to $4.2 billion. Defense contractor raised $450 million catapulting the Irvine-based company's valuation to $4.6 billion.
- Of the top 10 largest deals, three were fintech software companies.
- Energy and software also received large investments in excess of $100 million.
- Santa Monica scooter company Bird Rides, which is plotting out an IPO via SPAC, also made the list. The blank-check company Switchback II Corporation was marketing a PIPE offering to investors.
- All of the top 10 largest VC investments were later stage investments—a trend which was generalizable across the entire United States.
- Exits were strong nationally and for the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, with IPOs representing the dominant pathway to liquidity. The region's largest exits came from FIGS, ZipRecruiter and Bridg.
- FIGS, the Santa Monica Healthcare apparel brand, IPO'd for an exit of $3.4 billion.
- ZipRecruiter, the Santa Monica online recruiting platform, also IPO'd for an exit of $2.4 billion.
- Bridg, the Los Angeles SaaS data infrastructure company, was acquired by Cardlytics for an exit of $350 million.
Here's a look at Pitchbook's list of the biggest second-quarter deals in Southern California — from the Santa Barbara area to Orange County:
- LA Second Only to SF in Total Venture Deal Value: Report - dot.LA ›
- Here Are Los Angeles' Top Venture Capitalists - dot.LA ›
- Los Angeles Venture Capital Activity Was Up in Q3 - dot.LA ›
- VCs See Valuations Reach Record Highs as Optimism Stays High - dot.LA ›
- SoCal Venture Pipeline Connects Startups with Series A Funds - dot.LA ›
- Young LA Startups Saw Their Valuations Surge in 2021 - dot.LA ›
- Los Angeles Startups Closed a Record Number of Deals in Q3 - dot.LA ›
- VCs Are Flush, But Funding Mostly Male-Led Startups - dot.LA ›
- This Week in ‘Raises’, Our Roundup of LA Startup Funding News - dot.LA ›
- 5 Highlights From a Record-Smashing 2021 for SoCal Startups and VCs - dot.LA ›
- Los Angeles Venture Capital Activity Was Up in Q3 - dot.LA ›
- LA Startup News: DiCaprio Helps Launch a New VC Fund - dot.LA ›
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
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LA Tech ‘Moves’: LeaseLock, Visgenx, PlayVS and Pressed Juicery Gains New CEOs
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.
“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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LeaseLock, a lease insurance and financial technology provider for the rental housing industry named Janine Steiner Jovanovic as chief executive officer. Prior to this role, Steiner Jovanovic served as the former EVP of Asset Optimization at RealPage.
Esports platform PlayVS hired EverFi co-founder and seasoned business leader Jon Chapman as the company’s chief executive officer.
Biotechnology company Visgenx appointed William Pedranti, J.D. as chief executive officer. Before joining, Mr. Pedranti was a partner with PENG Life Science Ventures.
Pressed Juicery, the leading cold-pressed juice and functional wellness brand welcomed Justin Nedelman as chief executive officer. His prior roles include chief real estate officer of FAT Brands Inc. and co-founder of Eureka! Restaurant Group.
Michael G. Vicari joined liquid biopsy company Nucleix as chief commercial officer. Vicari served as senior vice president of Sales at GRAIL, Inc.
Full-service performance marketing agency Allied Global Marketing promoted Erin Corbett to executive vice president of global partnership and marketing. Prior to joining Allied, Corbett's experience included senior marketing roles at Disney, Warner Bros. Studios, Harrah's Entertainment and Imagi Animation Studios.
Nuvve, a vehicle-to-grid technology company tapped student transportation and automotive sales and marketing executive David Bercik to lead the K-12 student transportation division.
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.
This Week in ‘Raises’: Curri Scoops Up $42M, Mosaic Scores $26M
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.
A local logistics platform raised fresh funding to put toward product development, infrastructure and sales and marketing initiatives, while a San Diego-based fintech company closed its Series C funding round to expand its investment in AI which will empower high-growth SMB and mid-market finance leaders.
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Venture Capital
Curri, a Ventura-based logistics platform, raised a $42 million Series B funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
San Diego-based financial platform Mosaic raised a $26 million Series C funding round led by OMERS Ventures.
AHARA, a Los Angeles-based startup focused on providing personalized nutrition suggestions, raised a $10.25 million seed funding round led by Greycroft.
Per an SEC filing, San Diego-based developer of peptide therapeutics designed to assist in the treatment of autoimmune diseases and disorders selectIon raised $5 million in funding.
Miscellaneous
Los Angeles-based Sensydia, a company working on non-invasive cardiac diagnostics, said this morning that it has received $3 million in a NIH grant.
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).
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.
Why a Downturn in Esports Investments Isn’t Something To Fear
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
Last year, global venture capital investment in esports dropped by more than 40%. Investors have been rapidly selling off teams and franchises, and the industry has witnessed a consistent decline in ad spend. This has prompted many critics to coin the term “esports winter,” referring to a fall-off in the industry, an indication that VCs believe their investments didn’t achieve success as expected.
A recent article in The New York Times highlighted two major esports leagues that recently divested from their teams: Madison Square Garden sold its team CounterLogic Gaming to NRG in April, while Team SoloMid sold its League of Legends Championship Series team in late May.
Arguing that the industry still has potential for growth, several gaming executives at a LA Tech Week panel said that instead of an “esports winter,” the industry was experiencing a period of “normalization.” The panel at SoHo House in West Hollywood featured Brian Anderson, CEO of Culver City-based esports outfit FlyQuest Sport, Gene Chorba, head of developer relations at Roku and Felix LaHaye, founder of United Esports.
“I'm actually very skeptical of the claim of an esports winter,” Anderson said. “I think that what I'm seeing in the market right now, ultimately, is just a lot of venture capital firms that deployed capital into the eSports space that are not generating the returns that they were looking for, and have now done the press junket and are labeling it an esports winter.”
“In reality,” Anderson said, “esports, in my view, is alive and well.”
Anderson said there were a lot of “unrealistic expectations” around esports since it became popular in 2016, and the current decline was a sign that the market was correcting itself. “This is a necessary pain point that any nascent industry is going to go through as it matures and develops, and I think that in, let's say, 24 months, 36 months, esports will be in a much better financially sustainable place,” he said.
“I think we're having a little bit of a normalization,” Chorba said. “We saw the entire economy was being shot to the moon, with nothing behind it… we were seeing valuations of companies, public and private, that just didn't make sense for what they were building.”
Other tech industries have experienced a similar “normalization” in recent years. Cryptocurrencies, NFTs and big tech have all seen a downturn in recent months after being flooded with VC interest for many years.
According to the panelists, the existing viewer base for esports was a clear sign that the industry still had potential for growth. “There's still a ton of attention on professional video games. There's still so much grassroots fan support,” Anderson said. “As long as organizations and developers are able to figure out how to actually monetize that fan base, I think esports is still alive and well and here to stay for a long time.”
According to Insider Intelligence in 2022, there were 532 million esports viewers globally, with nearly 30 million viewers in the U.S.; this is expected to increase to 34.8 million by 2026.
Chorba explained that the reduction in ad spend and brand deals in esports shouldn’t worry investors because these crucial revenue streams have slowed down for other industries as well. “Ad-supported is hemorrhaging money and really just trying to wait out what's really a bad economy right now,” he said. As more people stop paying for cable, Chorba said, eyeballs will move onto streaming sites like YouTube or Twitch to watch gaming content.
LaHaye and Chorba said that one of the reasons for the decline in esports investments could be that executives and VCs are running esports companies like tech or SaaS companies. “As a matter of fact, they are not tech companies. They are ad-supported entertainment products,” LaHaye said.
By taking their companies to IPOs too early, certain esports companies ruined their chances in the market, LaHaye added. “There's also a downswing that's done by a rush to [go] public,” he said. “There are some fairly poor business models in esports that are going through a rougher time.”
“[Game publishing] is a hit-making business,” LaHaye said. “I think there tends to be confusion between what is a fundamental issue for the esports industry itself and some business models within the esports industry being bad business.”
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Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.