The Roundup: L.A. startup and innovation news you need to know:
CLEAN ENERGY: Swell Energy announced that it raised $120 million to expand its virtual power plant programs. The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Greenbacker Development Opportunities Fund I, with participation from an Ares Infrastructure Opportunities fund and the Ontario Power Generation Pension Fund.
The funding will support Swell’s development of hundreds of megawatt-hours of virtual power via 26,000 energy storage systems at homes and businesses across the U.S.
These virtual power plants provide a variety of grid services through projects across Hawaii, California and New York. The goal is to help utilities with their requirements to deliver cleaner energy to customers and reduce the grid’s dependence on fossil fuel.
Swell creates the virtual power plants by connecting utilities, customers and third-party service providers. It also aggregates energy resources through its software platform. With the utilities, it creates a network of solar-powered batteries, designed to keep energy grids stable, with the goal of reducing operating costs.
HAIR CARE: Arey announced it closed an oversubscribed $4.15 million Seed round, exceeding its original $2 million target. Female Founders Fund and Greycroft were the lead investors.
Arey is an e-commerce business in the hair care industry. It uses a science-driven approach, with a specific focus on grey hair. The co-founders are CEO Allison Conrad, an entrepreneur who experienced hair color loss, and Jay Small, a former Paul Mitchell protege and professional celebrity hair stylist, who educates clients on hair color loss.
VIDEO GAMES: Scopely announced that Phil Hardin has joined the company as CFO. Scopely is a mobile-first video game company.
Hardin spent more than 15 years at Amazon across several roles, including head of investor relations, global CFO for Amazon Advertising and led multiple finance teams across several digital subsidiaries. He most recently served as CFO of Beyond Meat, a plant-based meat brand.
HEALTH CARE: Cipher Skin, a monitoring platform that helps with musculoskeletal care, announced it launched a pilot program with Parker Health.
The program will make Cipher Skin's Biosleeve technology available to some orthopedic clinics in Los Angeles.
The pilot program focuses on pre- and post-surgery orthopedic patients. The Biosleeve can track patients' range of motion and monitor how they improve over time through physical therapy exercises. This data will be available in Parker Health's platform to facilitate recovery for patients in clinics and at home.
DRIVERLESS CARS: Motional and Lyft announced the planned launch of a driverless ride-hail service in Los Angeles. The service will be available via the Lyft app.
L.A. is the second city in Lyft and Motional’s multi-city partnership. Las Vegas was the first.
L.A. is one of Lyft’s largest ridesharing markets, according to a press release issued by the two partner companies. Motional has had operations and engineering divisions in L.A. since 2016. Lyft will still continue to offer traditional rideshare options, with cars with drivers, as well.
CREATOR COMMUNITY: Bump announced it’s working with Highnote and Mastercard to introduce the Bump Creator Card. Bump, based in L.A., is a fintech platform for revenue tracking and expense monitoring, as well as crypto and NFT management. It provides access to credit for creators and their businesses. Highnote is a cloud-based card issuer.
The goal of the card is to eliminate financial barriers that independent creators tend to face. The card provides access to customized financial services that support, monitor and track how much money creators make from assets such as royalties and publishing rights.
INNOVATION COMPETITION: Culver City-based XPRIZE recently hosted a two-day competition at the Long Beach Convention Center. XPRIZE is a nonprofit that creates large-scale competitions in several areas, including exploration and global development.
The goal of the competition was to develop physical robotic avatar systems, which humans can use to see, hear and interact with objects in a remote environment. The judging took place over a two-day public testing event. The winner was NimbRo, based in Germany, which received the $5 million grand prize. It was developed by the computer science department at the University of Bonn.
