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Provocative Ad Gets Presidential Race From All Angles

An Aliso Viejo-based tech startup that created a single-lens camera to capture “stitchless” 360-degree video just aired a new and provocative national advertising campaign.

360fly Inc.’s digital commercial aired June 23, with an upcoming TV rollout, to promote its new 4K camera, which comes with an iOS and Android mobile app allowing users to shoot, edit and share content to social media sites, such as YouTube and Facebook. The 4K has a new image sensor that nearly quadruples the resolution of its original HD camera, the company said.

The commercial satirizes Donald Trump’s “border wall” campaign initiative and features a Trump impersonator standing in front of the wall the candidate has proposed building on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Trump impersonator speaks from a podium declaring that the wall is impenetrable while a blogger in the audience uses his 4K camera to record the event. The camera captures the end of a tunnel that’s been dug under the wall behind Trump, where Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders lookalikes are helping Mexican immigrants, including gardeners and churro cart vendors, out of the tunnel. The slogan at the end of the commercial reads, “Get a Broader Perspective. Miss Nothing.”

“We wanted a campaign that would demonstrate the single point of view of other cameras in contrast to our cameras, which are every point of view,” Chief Executive Peter Adderton said.

Several TV stations have refused to run the ad, including the Los Angeles affiliates of NBC, CBS and ABC, citing their intent that advertising remain politically neutral, Adderton said. The New York City-based Fox News Channel, known as the most conservative of the major networks, and its L.A. affiliate, agreed to run it.

Adderton wouldn’t disclose the amount spent on the advertising campaign created by Los Angeles agency 180LA.

The primary demographic of 360fly is young, active and male. In May, it raised $40 million in a Series C round. The company is the latest local entry in the emerging virtual reality segment. Its cameras capture immersive video to create VR footage through its proprietary software for mobile apps. The 4K camera sells for $499.

The Friendly Joke’s on Japan

A startup that created a fun twist on greeting cards has launched a crowdfunding effort in Japan. Irvine-based Joker Greeting is trying to raise $8,000 by the end of August on Kibidango, a Tokyo-based online crowdfunding website and vendor-distributor, said co-founder Travis Peterson. The startup creates greeting cards with music that plays on a continual loop until the battery dies. There’s no stop button, and if you press the play button to try and stop the card, it only gets louder, Peterson said. The recipient either has to wait three hours or literally break the card. Each card is stuffed with confetti that flies out if it’s broken.

The money raised through the crowdfunding effort will be used to expand the startup’s presence in Japan, Peterson said. Joker Greeting already has overseas vendors, including in the U.K. and Australia. Its cards also are sold directly to consumers on its website.

Joker Greeting’s first crowdfunding effort was on Kickstarter last year with a goal of $7,500. It greatly exceeded that, raising more than $92,000 in 30 days, Peterson said.

Joker Greeting offers a line of 10 cards and plans to debut more this year.

Nonprofit Helps Startups

An Irvine-based nonprofit organization that helps facilitate sustainable energy startups just found out it’s been awarded approximately $90,000 a year for six years as part of a grant from the California Energy Commission. CleanTech OC is a collaborative platform involving businesses, government and academia in the pursuit of “clean” technology and sustainability.

The commission has created regional energy innovation clusters, including one in L.A., with the goal of coordinating services, resources and infrastructure needed by entrepreneurs and researchers to bring energy innovations to market. CleanTech OC joined with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and several other entities to apply for the grant.

The clusters are designed to act like incubators, said CleanTech OC President and Chief Executive Scott Kitcher. The company intends to use its portion of the grant to hire a “cluster navigator,” he said.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “This is just the platform. The cluster itself is a startup to prove we can make this platform work. We’re confident we can. Eventually we’ll apply for more grants and private equity money to invest in these startups.”

CleanTech OC is based at The Cove, the physical space of Applied Innovation, University of California-Irvine’s innovation institute.

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