Los Angeles
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Soylent founder’s abandoned “eco-living experiment” could land him in jail
Soylent’s Rob Rhinehart is facing criminal charges and fines up to $4,000 for allegedly refusing to remove a shipping container he placed on top of a hill behind his home in the Montecito Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. The head of the meal replacement startup weirdly named after a movie where they ground up and served people in drink form was charged with unpermitted… Read More
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Crunch Network
Pop culture stimulates the evolution of the LA tech scene
It wasn’t so long ago that venture capital was a suburban California phenomenon. Los Angeles didn’t have much in terms of a real tech scene — and even San Francisco only had a few VCs or tech companies. Now, VC offices have sprung up in San Francisco, moving more of the investment energy up there. That great migration of companies and activity touches upon what is now… Read More
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Thrive Market raises $111 million for its online organic grocery store
Buy organic groceries online, at an affordable price. That’s the mantra of Los Angeles-based Thrive Market, which has raised a significant $111 million Series B funding round, led by Invus. Thrive, which competes with similar online grocery services like Vitacost, believes there is a significant market opportunity to make natural foods more accessible to consumers and they’ve… Read More
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Hyperloop One plans to project Russians across Moscow
Hyperloop One, a Los Angeles-based startup working on making Elon Musk’s crazy-fast vacuum tube transportation blueprint a reality, has agreed to partner with the Summa Group and the Russian Government to build a Hyperloop in Moscow. The Summa Group is a Russsian investment group with a large stake in infrastructure investments in the country including port logistics, engineering… Read More
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Hyperloop Technologies becomes Hyperloop One, pulls in $80 million and announces global partners
The news comes just days after rival hyperloop builder Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) announced a licensing deal to power its own prototype with magnetic levitation technology. Both Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop Technologies) and HTT are based in L.A. and both are working on models of Elon Musk’s Hyperloop – a vacuum tube-based transportation technology promising… Read More
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Crunch Network
Meet the foxes behind LA’s latest startup gem
Scrolling through the @shopboxfox Instagram account is enough to notice the clean-cut aesthetic: feminine, driven, artistic. However, the ladies behind LA’s BOXFOX, Chelsea Moore, Sabena Suri and Jenni Olivero, are channeling much more than their social media accounts let on; they are enhancing strategy and technology to make one of life’s favorite moments, gift giving, easier and… Read More
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Mark Suster On Falling Valuations And LA’s Tech Scene
TechCrunch sat down with Mark Suster, managing partner at Upfront Ventures. One of the most active investors in Los Angeles, Suster spoke of how local startups are able to draw upon the city’s creative talent to bring content, commerce and communication platforms to the next level. He also commented on falling tech valuations. “By any definition we’ve been in a funding… Read More
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How To Expand Your Marketplace To LA
“The theme of LA is diversity.” That is what DoorDash’s Kevin Huang told me in our conversation about how expanding on-demand marketplaces into LA differs from other markets. As an LA-based enterprise and marketplace investor, one of the most common questions I get from entrepreneurs is how to expand marketplaces into LA. While this includes all the usual difficulties of… Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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One Month After Lyft, UberX Finally Lands At LAX
Los Angeles Uber riders, rejoice. UberX is finally coming to LAX. The company announced that as of 8 a.m. tomorrow, riders will be able to request and get picked up by UberX cars. This comes exactly one month after Lyft launched at LAX, which was originally announced by LA’s Mayor Eric Garcetti. Uber and Lyft had battled for months with the airport and the LA city council to reach… Read More
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Chicago And Los Angeles Are Next Up For Google Fiber
You know the drill. Once a city has spoken with Google about bringing Fiber into their hood, there’s a process for the city to go through. A lengthy one. Checklists. The whole nine yards. Two new cities are exploring Fiber with Google and they are Chicago and Los Angeles. Yes, San Francisco has been skipped again and I’m going to go cry into my slow internet from… Read More
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Crunch Network
What Los Angeles Is Missing
L.A. tech has clearly hit its growth inflection point, but the City of Angels has yet to get its startup wings. Here’s the good news: In 2014 alone, we raised more than $3 billion, saw more than $5 billion realized capital across over 80 exits and became the fastest growing startup region in the U.S. Read More
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Watch Fifth Grader Ari Get Fitted For A New 3D-Printed Hand
During the 2015 Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles last week, a fifth grader named Ari stopped by a booth set up by Google. The booth had information about its “Impact Challenge” for disabilities. What Ari didn’t know is that her life would change before she left the games. Read More
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HTC Spends Nearly $10M On A 15% Stake In Virtual Reality Platform WEVR
HTC is planning to release its extremely well-received virtual reality headset Vive to consumers later this year, possibly in November. In the meantime, the Taiwanese company is busy building out its VR ecosystem. HTC disclosed that it spent almost $10 million for a 15 percent stake in WEVR, an open VR platform and community based in Los Angeles. Read More
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Crunch Network
Slightly Slighted, Apple’s Diehards Still Do The Launch Day Lineup
While the atmosphere outside the store was generally similar to previous launches, a glaring difference was the fact that I wasn’t waiting outside of an Apple Store. I was sitting on the sidewalk outside of the upscale fashion boutique Maxfield, on trendy Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. Read More
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Shyp Confirms $50M Raise, Launches Beta Service In Los Angeles
On-demand shipping service Shyp is rolling out its service in Los Angeles today, its fourth city. Read More
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Shyp CEO Kevin Gibbon Will Be At Disrupt NY To Chat About Shipping And Returns
In just a few weeks, Shyp co-founder and CEO Kevin Gibbon will join us at Disrupt to chat about the evolution of on-demand services and the impact easier returns could have on e-commerce as a whole. Read More
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Crunch Network
Why Hollywood Needs To Make Technology A Priority
Every day, it seems there are new headlines on the strained relationship between technology and entertainment. Variety’s recent “Broken Hollywood” story was essentially a battle cry from entertainment heavyweights sounding off on the biggest challenges they’re facing in an industry undergoing a great deal of turmoil. In 2015, when we’ll see an estimated one… Read More
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Crunch Network
From Paralysis To Recovery, Optimization Offers Ports New Tech Remedy
Eight weeks is what the port of Oakland estimated it would take to recover from the paralyzing effects of the west coast port labor disputes. That’s right, as much as eight weeks of delays for domestic car manufacturers to receive parts, grocery stores to receive food and retailers to get their hands on the new Apple Watches. And eight weeks for the U.S. exporters to get their goods… Read More
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Entertainment Deals Take Center Stage In LA’s Burgeoning VC Scene
A string of big acquisitions, public offerings, and a pipeline of growing young startup companies has venture investors saying “I love L.A.” The recent acquisitions of Maker Studios and Oculus VR, as well as the planned public offering for TrueCar that’s finally going through, all point to a healthy investment ecosystem, but there’s still one industry that rules… Read More
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