This month, Built In Los Angeles will be featuring some “hot” startups across the various neighborhoods that, although may feel like different worlds at times, make up LA’s budding digital ecosystem. To recommend a startup or district of LA that deserves some love, email [email protected].
Pasadena: Central Desktop
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While working at CNET in 2005, Isaac Garcia and Arnulf Hsu co-founded Central Desktop to help companies share information across team members and manage projects. It all stemmed from a project in which Garcia was helping Microsoft launch Windows Marketplace in 14 countries and realized that even Microsoft even struggled with team and project collaboration. So Garcia and Hsu left their jobs, each invested $7,500 and set off to solve this problem.
Now Central Desktop has raised a bit more cash than that original $15,000, allowing it to serve thousands of customers, including American Red Cross and CareerBuilder; VP of Marketing Linda Souza sat down with Built In LA to tell the tech community about their upcoming plans and why the team loves Pasadena.
West LA: AdColony
[ibimage==29783==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-left]AdColony, a mobile video ad network, is one of the fastest growing, early stage companies in Southern California, CEO Will Kassoy said: since it officially launched in March 2011, the company has enjoyed 10 consecutive quarters of record-breaking revenue. This success stems from clients such as Walmart, Nike, Sony and McDonalds who use AdColony’s Instant-Play technology to reach consumers on their mobile devices through video advertising.
Additionally, AdColony launched a rich media technology because “what we heard from major brands, like 20th Century Fox or Procter & Gamble, was that they wanted to drive engagement.” Through both their video and rich media technologies AdColony is working to move mobile users “from awareness to consideration and action.”
Fairfax: LeadBolt
[ibimage==29782==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-left]In the “free app economy” in which we live (1.4 million apps on iOS and GooglePlay stories with over 50,000 apps added each month), Fairfax-based LeadBolt is leading the way by helping mobile apps get discovered and increase their profitability.
Leadbolt recently announced two new mobile ad formats: audio ads, which are already outperforming mobile banner ads by 30 percent, and floating ads, which allow users to ‘pop’ images that float in bubbles across the screen. Additionally with LeadBolt’s ad-serving technology and algorithm, the team is able to monitor app downloads and the engagement of the ad, “ensuring a better, more accurate match for the users,” CEO Dale Carr said. Built In LA caught up with Carr to see how his team will be carrying its success into the new year:
