There’s a new robot in town — and it just raised $3.6M
Elementary Robotics, the brainchild of industry veterans Bill Gross (Idealab) and Arye Barnehama (DAQRI), raised $3.6 million to begin construction on a robot factory right here in LA. The company is “building our robots to augment current human output and performance, and enable existing workforces to have greater throughput as well as focus on more complex, human judgment-centered decisions,” according to an interview with TechCrunch.
The city’s robotics industry is booming and continues to attract new talent. “Los Angeles is a great place for this, because we have a close relationship with Caltech and JPL,” Gross told TechCrunch. “And LA is great for all the design resources as well, with Art Center, and all the great studios with people who are great at human interaction and story-telling. So we’re excited to be building this company in LA.” [Tech Crunch]
TicketGuardian raised $8M to give concertgoer’s peace of mind
Ticket refunds are a huge issue in the live events space — most ticket sellers just don’t offer them. If a ticket holder can no longer make an event, they’re forced to enter the secondary market (where scalpers run wild, driving prices through the roof) or find a friend to buy the ticket off them for a loss. TicketGuardian’s software aims to solve that problem by partnering with major ticket sellers like events.com to offer customers the option of buying insurance at purchase. If a customers cancels, their ticket is refunded and the seller and event organizer are given a real-time update on the status of that seat. With a fresh $8M in cash, the company is looking to do that more and in more places in the new year. [Built In LA]
This Downtown bookseller is turning their store into an online lifestyle brand
The internet is killing brick-and-mortar booksellers. Or is it? That’s the question at the center of this Vox story, which profiles the recent uptick in bookstore traffic thanks to — of all things — Instagram. The piece profiles The Last Bookstore in Downtown LA, a literati paradise with two stories of labyrinth-like mazes that take you through book tunnels and magazine sculptures. The shop was designed before Instagram — “[the store was] was designed to make people feel like they were getting lost in a world of books” a store manager told Vox — but it was social media that put it on the map. “We get so many people who come to the store to get those Instagram shots, and then my job is to try and capture them with our actual books and our actual inventory so they buy books,” the manager told Vox. [Vox]
5G is coming to LA, or so we’ve been told...and told....and told…
It’s been in the air for quite some time, the news that AT&T is launching the country’s first mobile 5G network. (We should say, it’s been in the air because AT&T put it there — time and time again.) Now, it’s happening — we think. The company has set an end-of-year deadline, slating 5G hotspot service to start December 21 in parts of 12 cities including Los Angeles. That said, prevailing sentiment on the internet is that the rollout smacks more of publicity than anything else. Unless you’re able to snag one of a few free Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspots being handed on December 21, you’re doomed to wait until 2019 to pay ($499 outright and $70 per month) for 15GB of data like the rest of us. [Engagenet]
Virtual fitness app Zwift raises $120M to expand into esports (and they’ve got cycling on lock)
Zwift, the platform that allows users to go on a virtual group bike ride through the French countryside or run with friends in Central Park, is stepping into the e-sports arena with $120 million in new funding. The Long Beach company’s Series B was led by Highland Europe — the Swiss fund seems to have a concentrated interest on this specific corner of the fitness tech world — and brings Zwift to more than $164 million in total funding.
The company also announced news of its first e-sport effort this week, a professional biking competition called Kiss Super League. Races will be held exclusively on Zwift — and according to the company, their rosters are pretty stacked. “In 2018, more than one third of the Tour de France peloton were Zwifters. With that support already in place, we are in the unique position of being able to combine affordable physical endeavor with video gaming technology, ultimately setting the stage for us to become the first true esport of its kind,” Zwift co-founder and CEO Eric Min in a statement. [LA Biz Journal]
LA is short one hyperloop company this week
As stories of Elon Musk’s Hawthorne tunnel rides proliferate this week, echoing into the far corners of the Musk news digest, another LA hyperloop company quietly slipped into oblivion. Arrivo, a hyperloop-style transportation company started by a former SpaceX engineer named Brogan BamBrogan, ended operations last week after failing to secure new funding, according to reports from The Verge. The company had pledged to spend up to $15 million building a test track and research center in Colorado in 2018. A representative from the state’s department of transportation told The Verge that they hadn’t heard from Arrivo in about a month. [The Verge]
