A busy week on the West Coast featured a range of moves in the tech space. With mobile apps modernizing sectors from social media to the restaurant business, SoCal companies are pulling ahead in the innovation game. Check out what these businesses are building. This is the Built In LA Weekly Refresh.
Religion of Sports raised $50M. Co-founded by Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Gotham Chopra, sports media company Religion of Sports secured a round of Series B capital. It works to inspire sports fans through videos, podcasts, films and social content. The funding will help the company develop new ownable content IP, scale its creator network and increase its global strategic partnerships. [PR Newswire]
Calaxy secured $26M. Backed by The HBAR Foundation and Animoca Brands, Calaxy is building out its Web3 social platform that bridges fans and their favorite content creators. Fans can purchase tokens from creators on the app and earn exclusive rewards in turn. As the company prepares to launch its mobile solution this summer, it also announced the appointment of Solo Ceesay as its new CEO. [Built In LA]
LA Tech quote of the week
Skorch highlighted in Built In’s Future 5 series. Skorch operates a mobile lifestyle app that features handpicked places to get food, drinks and good vibes anywhere in a user’s city. Skorch aims to help people stay up-to-date and in-the-know about the highest-rated things to do. Users can share their experiences with one another on the app via social feed and location tags, so if a place passes the vibe check, others are sure to see it. [Built In LA]
Fresho raised $10M. Based in the U.K., B2B food ordering company Fresho is working to streamline a bustling industry. Its platform provides restaurants and suppliers with a connected solution that aims to make it quick and easy to order ingredients and as well as get those orders fulfilled. Its new funding will help Fresho to build out its LA headquarters and hire a team of 15 by year’s end. [Built In LA]
LeanTaaS pulled in growth funding. Santa Clara-based LeanTaaS grabbed an undisclosed amount of funding from investor Bain Capital. The company’s platform powers hospitals and health systems with predictive analytics to help them utilize their scarce resources, like beds and infusion chairs, more efficiently. Its new capital will help advance its product suite, launch new products, scale its go-to-market functions and fuel opportunities for mergers and acquisitions. [Built In LA]
Songtradr acquired Musicube. Using data intelligence to help brands and businesses establish their signature sound, Songtradr is building out its suite of tech-enabled music solutions with discoverability tech from Germany-based Musicube. Following the acquisition, Musicube will join Sondtradr’s existing data intelligence development team as it continues to serve its existing client base. [Built In LA]
BeatBread featured in Future 5 series. As global music streaming continues along a rapid growth track, beatBread is helping artists start the growth of their businesses. The platform uses data to predict an artists’ future revenues and then offers them financing based on their findings and the artist’s conditions. The company is rolling out new features this summer that will increase artists’ access to capital and improve their term deals. [Built In LA]
A Santa Barbara VC firm launched an $11M fund. Santa Barbara Venture Partners recently announced the final close of its inaugural fund targeting tech and tech-enabled firms. Offering its portfolio companies expertise in marketing, software and revenue generation, SBVP aims to invest in software companies pursuing a product-market fit that has been clearly established. To date, it has backed nine companies including Bark Technologies and Voltaiq. [Email]
