Saysh, a lifestyle brand co-founded by Olympian Allyson Felix and her brother and business partner, Wes Felix, has closed its Series A round at $8 million.
The round was led by specialist consumer fund Iris and Gap Inc.'s (NYSE: GPS) performance lifestyle brand, Athleta. Additional investors in the round included Redpoint Ventures and Springbank Collective.
Saysh said it use the new funding to scale its branded e-commerce, wholesale distribution and community-based retail footprint. The investment also will support an expanded product line and the launch of several new activity-specific sneakers.
Saysh said its mission is to achieve gender equality, as illustrated by the company's debut product, the Saysh One, the first women's athletics sneaker to be built from the sole up for a woman's foot.
In other L.A.-area tech news:
- Car buying marketplace TrueCar Inc. (Nasdaq: TRUE) has acquired Irvine-based Digital Motors. Santa Monica-based TrueCar didn’t disclose financial terms of the deal, which it said would accelerate TrueCar's plan to “deliver a robust digital car buying and selling experience with its TrueCar+ marketplace.” Digital Motors' automotive retail and financial technology platform gives auto dealers, OEMs, lenders and others the ability to augment their physical presence with a digital storefront or marketplace that offers a omnichannel car buying experience to consumers.
- Religion of Sports, a sports media production company, has raised $50 million in a Series B fundraising round with the intent to develop new ownable content IP, further scale its creator network and increase global strategic partnerships. The company's funding round was led by Shamrock Capital, with support from Elysian Park Ventures and Cerro Capital. The new capital will allow Religion of Sports to include a top-tier non-fiction studio arm and expand into new formats, categories, genres, and markets globally. The expansion will also include ventures into non-sports territory, as well as production projects in entertainment, business and music.
- The Gallery of Digital Assets (GODA) has launched with the aim to give contemporary artists a curated platform to approach the digital world. Founded by a group of experts across industries, GODA aims to be a resource that allows exploration, education and empowerment for artists and buyers in the digital era. GODA said it will work with artists to use the medium in a way that feels organic and true to their creative voices, while providing users access to a curated collection of renowned figures from the traditional art world as well as up-and-coming artists. GODA’s founders include contemporary artist Nina Chanel Abney, entrepreneur Shaun Neff, recording artist Pharrell Williams, gallery owner Todd Kramer, art collector Easy Otabor and others. The first drop is scheduled for early this summer.
- Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health (Wavemaker 360), a venture fund focused on early-stage health care companies, has closed its Fund II at $64 million, surpassing its first fund by nearly four times. Fund II’s limited partners include health care organizations and health care executives across the United States, as well as some international investors. The goal for Fund II is to invest into 40 to 50 early-stage companies, with several investments already made. Wavemaker 360 currently has more than $85 million assets under management across two funds, and in less than four years has invested into 45 healthcare companies across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Singapore. Of those companies, 15 are Fund II investments.
