It's been a year, so it's time to celebrate — but also to be excited about what's to come.
It was one year ago today — Feb. 1, 2022 — that we launched L.A. Inno. Powered by L.A. Business First, we said in our debut that we were aiming to be "a new digital media brand focused on local innovation."
You've given us a lot to write about over the past year. L.A. is a diverse and dynamic region, with innovation in its blood.
We've shared stories of fundraising wins, from sports card appraisal and marketplace company Collectors Holdings Inc. securing $100 million to cancer-fighting startup Dantari receiving $47 million.
We've reported on acquisitions, such as Fair Technologies being acquired by Shift Technologies Inc.
And, of course — thanks to you — we've been able to provide numerous tales of innovation. Stories about people — entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. LA has seen innovation from both.
We spotlighted Alejandro Guerrero, an LA venture capitalist who crafted a diversity rider that more than 100 VCs nationwide are using to bring underrepresented investors into startup deals.
We also featured Society Brands co-founder Shawn Dougherty. We told the story of musician and former artist-in-residence at Spotify, D.A. Wallach, who teamed up with drug developer Tim Wright to create a $100 million life sciences and health care venture firm.
We also shared the work of Leslie Jones-Dove and Devshi Mehrotra, co-founders of JusticeText, a software platform with initial backing from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and musician John Legend.
And, we recently profiled 14 compelling startups to watch in 2023.
From where we sit, though, our work is only just beginning.
We look forward to sharing more of your stories and continuing to bring the startup community together as we embark on year two.
Learning is a collaborative process. We've sure learned a lot from you over the past 12 months. We hope that we've been a valuable communicator of that business intelligence and those lessons learned, doing so in a way that helps you build your companies and further your entrepreneurial pursuits.
That's our goal.
We're excited to see where the next 12 months take us all.
