A startup that provides intercity travel via shared rides in a Tesla “semi-autonomous” electric car won first place in a startup pitch competition at The Vine on May 3. Tesla cars are described as semi-autonomous because they actively control certain driving operations, including the speed and position of the car on the road. The Vine is a building that houses startups and more established companies, along with incubator EvoNexus, in University Research Park.
Playa Vista-based Tesloop won $5,000 in office-space credit from Real Office Centers, which has multiple locations throughout Southern California; a $500 Amazon gift card from The Vine; and two hours of consulting from Ravindra Kondagunta, managing partner of Traction Labs, which is housed at The Vine. Haydn Sonnad came up with the idea for Tesloop last year, when he was 16. His father, Rahul Sonnad, is a co-founder and the chief executive.
Tesloop uses two leased Teslas to drive multiple people back and forth from cities that include Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Scheduling a ride is similar to scheduling a flight. Passengers book seats on planned routes. They are met with a Tesla at a pick-up/drop-off location. Once en route, they’re provided with headphones, Wi-Fi, food and beverages.
A new concept Tesloop recently rolled out is a “Pilot’s Club”—the startup refers to drivers as “pilots”—that trains previous users of the service to drive a Tesla and then book the driver’s seat on any route for free.
“This is possible today because driving autonomy has reached a point where driver interaction is very limited, so on a 250-mile route, the driver will only have to be operating the vehicle for maybe 5% of the time,” Haydn Sonnad said via email.
Tesloop has received an undisclosed amount of funding from investors that include Santa Monica-based Clearstone Venture Partners and from angel investors, according to Rahul Sonnad.
Wine Startup Launches Division
A startup with the goal of being the voice of modern wine culture for millennials recently launched a talent management division.
ILTG Inc., parent company of an online digital magazine www.ilikethisgrape.com and YouTube channel ILIKETHISGRAPE, created the division to boost the status of sommeliers and winemakers to a level similar to that of food celebrities such as Rachel Ray, according to co-founder and Creative Director Naushad Huda, who also co-founded XTOPOLY, a digital marketing agency in the Eureka Building in Irvine.
The new division will work with strategic partners to place “interesting” winemakers and sommeliers in various media, including films, digital shows and podcasts, according to the company.
Veteran music executive David Waechter was brought on to lead the division. He’s worked with musicians in the hip-hop, pop and jazz genres.
The catalyst for the creation of the parent company, which Huda and his wife, Kathy Lajvardi, founded last year, is the idea of disrupting the $300 billion global wine industry and making it enticing to young people of all cultures, Huda said. The startup has been doing this through its online magazine by posting articles that pair wine with topics such as music and film.
“The world is changing: Winemakers are creatives, and millennials are 91 million people—the largest generation ever,” Huda said.
The startup is in the midst of raising a $400,000 seed round, Huda said. It received an undisclosed investment from Napa-based WineDirect in January.
The startup also has hired staff writers for its Irvine headquarters and New York office to expand the content of its online magazine.
VC Fund Born
Costa Mesa-based Innovate OC, an incubator and co-working space for tech startups, has created a venture capital fund called IOC Ventures, an approximately $275,000 fund, according to founder Evan Jafa and investor Tony Beizaee.
The first investment was $75,000 that went to the winner of an investor presentation at California Dreamin’, presented in April by Chapman University’s Leatherby Center entrepreneur incubator.
Innovate OC brings together entrepreneurs, business leaders, mentors, investors and educators in its co-working space.
Investor Forum
OCTANe’s Technology Investor Forum takes place at Hotel Irvine on May 17 and 18. The annual event brings together a diverse array of key players in the tech industry, including company leaders, investors and academics. Panel discussion topics will include cybersecurity, the Internet of Things, and big data. OCTANe is a network of resources, expertise and capital focusing on tech and med-tech and based in a TechSpace office suite in Aliso Viejo.
Chief Executive Bill Carpou will share quantitative information about the network, culled for the first time, in his welcome address, including:
• OCTANe portfolio companies received $1.1 billion in venture funding from 2010 to 2015.
• More than 200 startups have been funded through its LaunchPad accelerator that connects startups to investors.
• Over 5,600 jobs have been created by startups that have gone through the accelerator.
• The value of exits from LaunchPad startups is approximately $501 million.
Separately, Paul Symczak, executive director of OCTANe’s LaunchPad Small Business Development Center, recently was honored with a 2016 Small Business Development Center Excellence & Innovation Award from the Santa Ana office of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
