Los Angeles
Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, we talked about the “de-stonkifying” of the market. This week, we’re looking at a wounded Facebook/Meta that finds itself…
PortalOne raises $60M as it levels up to launch its hybrid, immersive gaming platform later this year
Gaming has been one of the most popular entertainment categories in the last two years of pandemic living. Now, a gaming startup that’s building a new kind of platform that…
Glossier just laid off one-third of its corporate employees, mostly in tech
Glossier, the popular beauty brand led by former blogger Emily Weiss, let go of 80 of its corporate employees today, according to an internal email obtained by Modern Retail. The…
Starship Technologies picks up €50M from the EU’s investment arm to expand its fleet of autonomous delivery robots
Starship Technologies, one of the bigger names in the world of autonomous delivery robots — those little caboose-like, boxy delivery vehicles that self-drive around cities — has been on a…
AvantStay, a platform for kitting out — and then renting out — high-end vacation rental homes, raises $160M
Another travel startup that found itself scrambling to pivot as the COVID-19 pandemic took off is now announcing a huge round of funding after finding its feet and proving that…
Papaya raises $50M to give you a way to pay bills via its mobile app
Paying bills is hardly a fun thing. So I think it’s safe to say that any technology that can make the process easier is welcome by all. Papaya is a…
AKUA aims to replace the unsustainable part of food — factory farming — with regenerative ocean farming.
Shares of Switchback II Corporation are off more than 14% today, appearing to sell off sharply following news that the SPAC’s merger with scooter company Bird has been approved by…
Creadev seasons Salted with new funding for its QSR brands
Salted created six brands so far, including moonbowls, Califlower Pizza and lulubowls, and serves food from Chinese takeout to pizza to salads.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is in development for Oculus Quest 2
During its big VR and AR-focused event Thursday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a major new title headed to its VR platform that should turn a few heads.…
As urban rental markets recover and people flock back to cities, people are once again finding themselves with plenty of new neighbors in communities that are trying to embrace a…
Featured Article
Inside the Realms of Ruin
“The Ruin stirs, and the Five Realms rumble,” a now-archived web announcement read on Thursday morning. “You are cordially invited to join New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors Marie Lu, Tahereh Mafi, Ransom Riggs, Adam Silvera, David Yoon, and Nicola Yoon in Realms of Ruin, a collaborative fantasy epic filled with dark magic, intrigue,…
Netflix employees stage a trans solidarity walkout, pose list of demands
Netflix employees staged a walkout yesterday in response to the company’s handling of a Dave Chappelle special that premiered on October 5. At the same time, Los Angeles-based trans activist…
Locale puts $2M to work helping people discover local cuisine
Locale bundles orders together and operates on a weekly model, so all of the bakeries and restaurants have one big order rather than a bunch of separate orders that eat…
FitOn pumps up its fitness platform with $18M in Delta-v Capital-led funding
Digital fitness and wellness company FitOn was created to provide 15- or 20-minute workouts aimed at getting people moving in whatever time they can make.
Entity Academy, an edtech startup that trains, mentors and places women in tech roles, secures $100M
Women have made great inroads into the tech world in recent years, but there remains a long way to go before we reach a truly equitable state of affairs in…
Just raises $8M in its effort to beat Root at the car insurance game
Just Insure, a pay-per-mile insurance technology company, has raised $8 million in a funding round. CrossCut Ventures, ManchesterStory and Western Technology Investments co-led the investment, which brings its total raised…
SpotOn raises $300M at a $3.15B valuation and acquires Appetize
Last year at this time, SpotOn was on the brink of announcing a $60 million Series C funding round at a $625 million valuation. Fast-forward to almost exactly one year…
GrubMarket gobbles up $120M at a $1B+ pre-money valuation to take on the food supply chain
When people talk about “online food delivery” services, chances are that they’ll think of the Uber Eats, Instacarts and Getirs of this world. But today a startup that’s tackling a…
Performance marketing agency MuteSix bets on content and data to boost DTC e-commerce
We interviewed MuteSix CRO Greg Gillman to discuss how the LA-based performance marketing agency bets on content and data to work with its direct-to-consumer e-commerce clients.
A bug in a medical startup’s website put thousands of COVID-19 test results at risk
A California-based medical startup that provides COVID-19 testing across Los Angeles has pulled down a website it used to allow customers to access their test results after a customer found…
Link-in-bio monetization platform Snipfeed raises a $5.5M seed round
The link-in-bio business is heating up as more mobile website builders compete for a coveted slice of real estate on a creator’s TikTok, Instagram or Twitter. Linktree leads the space,…
Featured Article
Abodu raises $20M to build prefabricated backyard homes
The need for more affordable housing has never been more urgent as a shortage in the U.S. housing market persists. Startups attempting to help address the shortage in a variety of ways abound. One such startup, Abodu, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Previous backer Initialized…
Flymachine raises $21 million to build a virtual concerts platform for a post-pandemic world
As concerts and live events return to the physical world stateside, many in the tech industry have wondered whether some of the pandemic-era opportunities around virtualizing these events are lost…
Apple is opening a store in downtown LA’s nearly 100-year-old Tower Theatre
This Thursday, Apple will mark the opening of a new store in downtown Los Angeles. The space occupies the newly renovated Tower Theatre, which opened in DTLA’s Broadway Theater District…
Fintech giant Klarna raises $639M at a $45.6B valuation amid ‘massive momentum’ in the US
Just over three months after its last funding round, European fintech giant Klarna is announcing today that it has raised another $639 million at a staggering post-money valuation of $45.6…
Mythical Games raises $75M to build an NFT game engine
Even as NFT sales dip below their most speculative highs, startups aiming to tap into their potential are still scoring big funding rounds from investors who believe there’s much more…
Eano’s Stella Wu is not your typical construction tech startup founder
Renovating a home is an exciting, yet often fraught-filled, endeavor. One startup that aims to help make the process simpler, cheaper and less stressful by helping people manage the home…
TiMi Studios, one of the world’s most lucrative game makers and part of Tencent’s gargantuan digital entertainment empire, said Thursday that it has struck a strategic partnership with Xbox. The…
Canada’s newest unicorn: Clio raises $110M at a $1.6B valuation for legal tech
Clio, a software company that helps law practices run more efficiently with its cloud-based technology, announced Tuesday it has raised a $110 million Series E round co-led by T. Rowe…
