The Strand 🌴 - February 17, 2019
Imran Khan's e-commerce startup unveils its name and website, Refactor Capital invests in Culture Biosciences, Catapult Capital acquires JibJab, and Activision Blizzard lays off 8% of its workforce.
Welcome to the twenty-second edition of The Strand, a weekly-ish newsletter covering venture capital, private equity, and general business news from around the Los Angeles area. My name is Brendan Boken, a native of Southern California. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, send deals/news to brendanboken@gmail.com.
Venture Capital Funding
Culture Biosciences, a two-year-old, South San Francisco, California-based biotech company pioneering bio-manufacturing-as-a-service, has raised $5.5 million in funding led by Section 32, with participation from Los Angeles-based Refactor Capital and Verily. PR Newswire
Inshur, a digital provider of commercial auto insurance, raised $7 million in Series A funding. Munich Re Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Santa Monica-based MTech Capital. Inshur - Press Release
Jobvite, a 12-year-old, San Mateo, California-based job recruitment platform, has raised more than $200 million in new funding from Los Angeles-based private equity firm K1 Investment Management. TechCrunch
Skylar, a nearly two-year-old, Los Angeles, California-based direct-to-consumer body beauty brand, raised $8 million in Series A funding. FirstMark Capital led the round. Fortune
Private Equity Funding
Avetta, an Irvine, California-based portfolio company of Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe, acquired Browz, a Draper, Utah-based provider of supply chain risk management solutions. MarketWatch
mTAB, an Anaheim, California-based portfolio company of Milestone Partners, acquired Slideworx, a German provider of digital storytelling software. Associated Press
Liquidity / Exits / M&A
Los Angeles-based private equity firm Catapult Capital has acquired JibJab, the 20-year-old, Los Angeles, California-based company that pioneered the silly selfie video. Financial terms were not disclosed. JibJab had raised $17.9 million in venture funding over the years, including from Polaris Partners, Overbrook Entertainment, and Sony Pictures Entertainment. TechCrunch
New Funds
No Los Angeles-based firms announced new funds this past week.
IPOs
No Los Angeles-based companies filed for IPOs this past week.
Featured Jobs
Flexport, a company on a mission to fix the user experience in global trade, is hiring a Global Operations Associate in the company’s greater LA office.
Tala, a mobile technology and data science company opening up financial access for underserved people around the world, is hiring a Chief Technology Officer in the company’s Santa Monica office.
Verishop, a startup re-imagining the e-commerce platform with a mission-driven approach, is hiring a Creative Director in the company’s greater LA office.
News, Resources, & Required Reading
Axios released a new study on the gender imbalance of decision-makers at venture capital firms based in the U.S. Only 9.65% of decision-makers at US-based VC firms are women. The breakdown was 105 female decision-makers out of an industry total of 1,088. That’s up from 8.93% in a similar analysis in 2018, and 7% in 2017, however much lower than it should be. “Decision-makers” are considered to be the top level of a firm’s investment management, in other words, people with checkbooks. Axios
California Governor Gavin Newsom announced in his first State of the State speech that he intends to scale back California’s $77 billion bullet train project, saying that extending the rail line to Southern California and the Bay Area would prove to be too costly and take too long to construct. LA Times
Former Snap employees Chris Lorenz, Geoffrey Anderson, and James Borow may have spent their days over the past few years at Snap, but on nights and weekends the group has been working on a side project - improving Ethereum development tools. Now, they’re launching Forge Platform, a new toolkit for distributed applications. TechCrunch
Imran Khan, former Chief Strategy Officer at Snap, has unveiled the name of his new e-commerce venture - Verishop. The company is hoping to revolutionize the joy of online shopping and will be “evaluating and selecting only brands that meet our standards and resonate with our customers.” The company has raised $17.5 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and will be launching a storefront soon. The company is also hiring for a number of roles in the Los Angeles area. Verishop - Medium
Love your Mondays: 10 LA companies where your work matters. Built in LA
Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard will lay off 8 percent of its work force, or around 775 people, CEO Bobby Kotick announced on the company’s most recent earnings call. The layoffs, which will be mostly in non-game-development areas like publishing, will impact Activision, Blizzard, and King. ARS Technica
Techstars has launched a space accelerator in Los Angeles. The Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator is a collaboration between the multi-industry accelerator and Starburst Aerospace, a multinational aerospace investor. In related reading, here are 9 aerospace companies taking flight in Los Angeles. Built in LA
Tesla’s vice president of global recruiting, Cindy Nicola, is leaving the company according to a source familiar with the matter. The automaker did not say if Nicola would be replaced, but added that the recruiting department will continue to report to Kevin Kassekert, Tesla’s VP of people and places. Nicola becomes another name on the list of key executives who have left the automaker this past year. Business Insider
Welcome to Santa Monica tech, where dot-com era and early-age startups share beachfront views. Built in LA
Take a Break
A $1 million car? Here are 11 of them.
Apex Legends, a free, squad-based battle royale game, launched a week and a half ago, and it already has 25M+ players. Product Hunt
A ticket to Michael Jordan’s NBA regular season debut game (ticket price was $8.50) sold this past week for $8,118.
A mansion with two pools on Billionaire’s Beach in Malibu has hit the market for $35 million.
Full highlights from the 2019 NBA Dunk Contest.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver unveils the NBA jersey of the future.
The Genesis Open returned this week to Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades, a small affluent community in LA County. The course serves as the annual host to the closing event of the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing. A number of notable players in the field this week included Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau, Adam Scott, and more. JB Holmes ended up winning the event by 1 stroke over Justin Thomas.
Thirst for rare wine and whisky drives surge in auction sales. Bloomberg Pursuits