Digital entertainment and esports brand FaZe Clan has gone public after a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company in a deal valued at $725 million.
The company’s shares began trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker symbol FAZE but ended its first day of trading down nearly 25%. The stock closed at $9.58 a share Friday, down 5% from Thursday’s close.
FaZe Clan is a Los Angeles-based online media company made up of 93 members, consisting primarily of esports competitors and content creators, plus a few celebrities like Snoop Dogg. Its social creators have a combined following of more than 500 million across multiple platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Twitch.
In other L.A.-area tech and startup news:
Flip plans to use new funding to expand its team, deepen its brand partnerships and launch its own third-party social commerce marketplace this summer.
Flip
- E-commerce platform Flip has raised $60 million in Series B funding at a valuation of $500 million. The round was led by WestCap with participation from previous investors Mubadala Capital and Streamlined Ventures, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $95 million. Flip said it plans to use the funding to expand its team, deepen its brand partnerships and launch its own third-party social commerce marketplace this summer.
- CareConnectMD Inc., a Costa Mesa-based provider of primary care and care coordination services for Medicare participants, has closed a $25 million financing round led by Minneapolis-based TT Capital Partners. CareConnectMD said it will use the investment to deepen its presence in California, Ohio and Texas and expand into other market, and to enhance its technology platform to scale and streamline care delivery.
- Health Note has closed a $17 million Series A led by SignalFire. SignalFire was joined by UnityPoint Health, Northwell Holdings, the for-profit arm of Northwell Health, and Cedars Sinai Health Ventures. Health Note has developed a pre-visit clinical intake automation platform that uses digital patient intake to prepare clinical notes for providers ahead of patient visits. The company said it will use the funds to accelerate market expansion, expand EHR integrations and invest in further R&D to build additional offerings for clinical support.
- Quadrata, a passport network bringing identity, reputation and compliance to blockchain applications, has raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by blockchain-focused venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital. The raise also saw participation from institutional investors such as Franklin Templeton, Abra, GSR Ventures, Orange DAO, Fellows Fund and prominent angel investors. The Marina del Rey-based company said it will use the funds to accelerate product deployment, expand its team and bring identity verification technology on-chain.
Fifth Wall, led by Brendan Wallace (left) and Greg Smithies (right), has $3.2 billion worth of capital under managment.
Lev Gorn
- Fifth Wall, a venture capital firm focused on technology for the global real estate industry, has closed its $500 million inaugural Climate Fund. The fund aims to invest in software, hardware, renewable energy, energy storage, smart buildings and carbon sequestration technologies to decarbonize the $10.5 trillion real estate industry. Fifth Wall said the fund is the largest private fund formed to decarbonize the real estate industry. This brings Fifth Wall’s capital under management to $3.2 billion.
