title https://www.pacbiztimes.com Proudly serving Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties Fri, 08 Mar 2024 18:54:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 Cal Poly’s AngelCon cuts down to final six https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2024/03/07/cal-polys-angelcon-cuts-down-to-final-six/ Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:15:54 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=92557 This article is only available to Business Times subscribers Subscribers: LOG IN or REGISTER for complete digital access. Not a Subscriber? SUBSCRIBE for full access to our weekly newspaper, online edition and Book of Lists. Check the STATUS of your Subscription Account.

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Entrepreneurs pitch their startups at CLU’s Hub101 event https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2024/01/10/entrepreneurs-pitch-their-startups-at-clus-hub101-event/ Thu, 11 Jan 2024 06:52:15 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=92202 This article is only available to Business Times subscribers Subscribers: LOG IN or REGISTER for complete digital access. Not a Subscriber? SUBSCRIBE for full access to our weekly newspaper, online edition and Book of Lists. Check the STATUS of your Subscription Account.

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Finding funding: Area venture capitalists, founders share advice https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/10/14/finding-funding-area-venture-capitalists-founders-share-advice/ Sat, 14 Oct 2023 16:51:58 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=91118 Correction: A previous version of this article called The Alliance for SoCal Innovation by the wrong name. It is no secret that funding from venture capital firms has slowed down tremendously in 2023 with the global market funding about $144 billion in the first half of 2023, a 51% decline from the same time period Read More →

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From left to right, Mike Tucker of ScOp Venture Capital, Woody Sears of Autio, Julie Henley McNamara of Entrada Ventures and moderator Mark diTargaini of Pacific Western Bank. (Jorge Mercado / PCBT Staff)

Correction: A previous version of this article called The Alliance for SoCal Innovation by the wrong name.

It is no secret that funding from venture capital firms has slowed down tremendously in 2023 with the global market funding about $144 billion in the first half of 2023, a 51% decline from the same time period in 2022.

However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t good entrepreneurs with good ideas in the market and it doesn’t mean that funding won’t ever return.

As a result, strengthening pitches, expanding one’s network and remaining a positive outlook is important for founders going forward.

At least, that is what Woody Sears, founder of Autio, said during a panel discussion on the state of funding in 2023 hosted by the The Alliance for SoCal Innovation.

Other panelists included venture capitalists from Santa Barbara-based firms — Julie Henley McNamara of Entrada Ventures and Mike Tucker from ScOp Venture Capital — who provided insight for a room of nearly 30 founders who gathered at the Santa Barbara Biergarten on Oct. 10.

Sears’ company Autio, which is an app that creates educational audio narratives, recently closed a seed round worth $5.5 million in January.

“You want to have lots of options. Even once you get close to a term sheet or get a term sheet, it’s always good to keep pushing on the gas even though it’s easy to get distracted by building and continuing to grow the company,” Sears said.

Entrada Ventures specializes in funding early-stage companies through seed and beyond.

McNamara said that especially for those companies in the early seed stage raises “not all money is created equal.”

“Find the people you connect with and talk to a lot of people,” she said.

“It’s not about being desperate and needing money, but also finding the right people to help grow the business.”

Tucker noted that for early-stage founders “time is money.”

“You have to be careful with your time,” he said.

The three also spoke on how founders pitch and particularly focused on one angle — do not lie to investors to make the company sound better.

“One of the things we can tell really fast is if someone is being dishonest,” Tucker said, adding that the firm listens to about 25 pitches a week.

“Whatever’s going on with the business, we will really appreciate authenticity. Authenticity is number one — even if you’re not really happy with the metric, just report it and talk about why it is that way for now and how it can be improved.” 

“We are going to be under the hood so don’t lie,” McNamara said.

From the founders side, Sears agreed and added that it’s also okay as a founder to not have all the answers on a particular question.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing to say, ‘that’s a great question. I don’t have the answer right now,’” Sears said.

“These are long-term relationships you are forming, so don’t make anything up because that will never work out.”

Now for the founders looking to do their due diligence on investors and firms, all three agreed that the best way to do so is to talk to other portfolio companies.

McNamara and Tucker said their firms often will recommend people that they have already invested in to speak with for new founders.

All three also spoke highly of Santa Barbara and the community created between founders, angel investors and venture capital firms.

“I have met with some VCs who weren’t even in our vertical or in our category and they were helpful in giving advice and making connections later,” Sears said.

“It is fantastic advice to tap into these knowledgeable folks.”

email: jmercado@pacbiztimes.com 

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Moving on up: Drone supplier opens second manufacturing plant in Moorpark https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/09/22/moving-on-up-drone-supplier-opens-second-manufacturing-plant-in-moorpark/ Fri, 22 Sep 2023 20:10:08 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=90869 This article is only available to Business Times subscribers Subscribers: LOG IN or REGISTER for complete digital access. Not a Subscriber? SUBSCRIBE for full access to our weekly newspaper, online edition and Book of Lists. Check the STATUS of your Subscription Account.

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One Ryde at a time: AngelCon winners look to reshape college traveling https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/06/08/one-ryde-at-a-time-angelcon-winners-look-to-reshape-college-traveling/ Thu, 08 Jun 2023 23:32:10 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=89395 June 12 update: A previous version of the article incorrectly stated Josh Wong’s last name in the photo caption. Additionally, corrections have been made to update the arrival of Emily Gavrilenko and Wong to the Ryde team as well as the make-up of the team. Ride-sharing applications are nothing new in the world of Uber Read More →

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Ryde co-founders, the AngelCon 2023 winners, Josh Wong and Emily Gavrilenko talked about their app to investors before presenting at the event. (courtesy photo)

June 12 update: A previous version of the article incorrectly stated Josh Wong’s last name in the photo caption. Additionally, corrections have been made to update the arrival of Emily Gavrilenko and Wong to the Ryde team as well as the make-up of the team.

Ride-sharing applications are nothing new in the world of Uber and Lyft, but even so, Ryde is trying — successfully — to make a name for itself.

Ryde, a San Luis Obispo-based company, recently won the sixth annual AngelCon competition, hosted by The Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Small Business Development Center (SBDC).

The event, hosted June 1 at SLO Brew Rock in San Luis Obispo, raised a total of $140,000 and chose to invest in two startups. 

By winning the competition outright, Ryde was awarded $100,000 in equity investment while the runner-up, DEMO, also received an investment totaling $40,000. 

“It’s an awesome feeling,” Emily Gavrilenko, CEO of Ryde, told the Business Times.

“The startup journey is a roller coaster with its ups and downs and this is definitely one of the ups along the way. We think we have a billion-dollar idea but other investors validating that we’re onto something and then also giving us that money that will be really valuable runway as we continue going is special.”

Ryde is a peer-to-peer travel marketplace connecting student drivers with riders for long-distance travel.

Gavrilenko, 22 and a Cal Poly graduate with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s in computer science, recalled that when she was a freshman it was difficult getting back home to visit her family during holidays or even just a regular weekend.

“I took Amtrak the first time and it was twice as long as driving and three times as expensive compared to gas,” she said.

She then found out about Facebook groups where people would post where they are traveling and if people wanted to tag along.

“But those groups were very disorganized, took a lot of time, and is also a little awkward because you don’t really know who you’re getting in the car with.”

Ryde is solving that problem by becoming the one-stop marketplace for college students to connect with each other in order to facilitate rides.

The app is contingent on the driver being a university student and then only allowing fellow university students to accept rides.

“Knowing someone goes to that same university is a huge builder of trust and a majority of people wouldn’t even consider traveling with just anyone from the general population,” she said.

The biggest difference between them and Uber or Lyft is that in those cases, drivers are aiming to turn a profit, Gavrilenko said.

“They weren’t planning to make that trip from SLO to Santa Barbara so they have to take three hours to make that drive and get paid for it,” she said.

“For us, drivers are already going from point A to point B and they’re not driving for profit. They’re driving to reimburse the cost of gas.”

Because of that difference, a drive from SLO to Santa Barbara that would cost $150 on Uber could be as low as $15 on Ryde, Gavrilenko said. 

Ryde then charges a 20% fee and that’s how it turns a profit.

Currently, the app, which only launched in the summer of 2022, has been “a hit” with the Cal Poly campus. Gavrilenko said 600,000 miles have been traveled by Ryde users.

It will be expanding to UC Santa Barbara in the fall and will also hit Cuesta College and Santa Barbara City College soon, Gavrilenko said.

Half of the $100,000 prize will go toward marketing efforts for its new launches in the fall while the other half will go toward product development, she added.

Ryde is still looking for another $100,000 in equity funding, at least. The team is currently made of up entirely Cal Poly students and is led by Gavrilenko as well as fellow co-founders Josh Wong and Johnny Morris.

Morris and Gavrilenko actually met because they had similar ideas for the company back in 2021. 

“My first thought was ‘Oh, competition. I have to beat him to market,’” she said.

Instead, Gavrilenko joined up with Morris around the same time Wong did and together, the trio has amassed $100,000 in equity funding to show for it. 

The hope is to one day be purchased by a bigger ride-sharing company, like Uber or Lyft, that will allow Ryde to go even further.

“I always felt like I had to go back to school and get my MBA or get a formal education and it wasn’t until the opportunity really presented itself that I decided to go all-in and it’s worked out great,” Gavrilenko said.

DEMO, the runner-up of the competition, won $40,000 and is led by CEO Alec Stallman, who is developing a platform where creators can sell collaboration rights to their content, earning money in the process.

Stallman told the Business Times he has been in the music industry for well over a decade and has already seen people gravitate toward the company’s business model.

Quantum Energy, creators of a comprehensive AI-driven software tool providing data for the cleantech industry, won the Audience Choice Award and received $1300 in prize money from the crowdfunding campaign.

The other three competitors were Zoetic Motion, a physical therapy platform that combines computer vision technology with gamification to provide patients with an engaging and effective recovery experience; VLab Education, which develops VR science experiments that give students a method of experiencing what it is like to be a scientist, regardless of their access to traditional lab resources; and MyMetaFi, a marketplace which enables users to collect, use, and trade the most valuable non-fungible tokens without having to pay full price.

email: jmercado@pacbiztimes.com 

From left to right, a representative from Pacific Premier Bank, Ryde co-founders Johnny Morris, Emily Gavrilenko and Josh Wong, and Judy Mahan. (courtesy photo / Ruby Wallau)

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Unleashing an industry: Vetama gives more freedom to mobile veterinarians https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/05/25/unleashing-an-industry-vetama-gives-more-freedom-to-mobile-veterinarians/ Thu, 25 May 2023 22:25:15 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=89192 This article is only available to Business Times subscribers Subscribers: LOG IN or REGISTER for complete digital access. Not a Subscriber? SUBSCRIBE for full access to our weekly newspaper, online edition and Book of Lists. Check the STATUS of your Subscription Account.

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Beni raises $4 million in seed funding round https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2022/12/16/beni-raises-4-million-in-seed-funding-round/ Sat, 17 Dec 2022 00:40:31 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=75873 Santa Barbara-based Beni closed its first seed round Dec. 13, announcing a $4 million financing round led by Buoyant Ventures. Beni, a free-to-use browser extension meant to amplify secondhand shopping efforts, with the money will continue to develop its technology and partnerships over the next year. According to a press release, Beni has partnered with Read More →

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Santa Barbara-based Beni closed its first seed round Dec. 13, announcing a $4 million financing round led by Buoyant Ventures.

Beni, a free-to-use browser extension meant to amplify secondhand shopping efforts, with the money will continue to develop its technology and partnerships over the next year.

According to a press release, Beni has partnered with over 30 resale sites such as The RealReal, Rent the Runway, Vestiaire Collective, eBay, and Kidizen. 

Beni has announced new partnerships every month, including a pilot program with Patagonia’s WornWear, in order to usher in the new era of the circular economy.

The model of the circular economy relies on actually reusing the material that is being recycled, rather than producing new material of the same kind.

Beni helps push this forward for users as when they find something they want, the browser extension suggests a similar listing from leading retail sites.

“We started Beni to make resale more accessible,” Sarah Pinner, co-founder and CEO of Beni, said in a press release. 

“Beni saves shoppers hours of scrolling and helps resale sites get the right inventory to the right shoppers. With this financial backing, we will grow our team and scale Beni to accelerate the adoption of resale.”

A woman-owned company, Beni has been funded primarily by other women in both its pre-seed and seed round. The company has now raised $5 million in total.

Buoyant Ventures is joined in the seed round by Better Ventures and pre-seed investors XYZ Venture Capital, Chingona Ventures, and Starting Line Ventures.

“Beni will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water use associated with fashion retail all while helping shoppers save money. Buoyant Ventures, a female-owned venture fund, is proud to support this female executive team who is on a mission to help transform the circular economy,” Amy Francetic, Managing General Partner of Buoyant Ventures, said in a press release.

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