FINANCING
Irvine-based identity verification software developer YouAttest raised $700,000 in a seed round of financing.
The round was led by Chief Executive Garret Grajek, an information security expert with 30 years of experience and 13 security-focused patents.
He is also a co-founder and former chief technology officer at SecureAuth Corp., a local identity security software maker that sold for north of $200 million in 2017 by K1 Investment Management and continues to employ some 100 workers in Irvine.
YouAttest is a cloud-based tool that automates identity auditing and verification services for Okta’s Identity Cloud, which serves over 100 million users.
“YouAttest was launched to address a neglected part of the IT equation, which is auditing,” Grajek said. “Simple to use tools like Salesforce, Okta and Zoom do not exist for the audit and compliance world.”
The capital raise will bolster product development and marketing efforts, in addition to expansion to the pharmaceutical, medical and finance industries.
The firm began earning revenue at the beginning of the year and is open to working with both resellers and integrators.
Grajek lives in Aliso Viejo with his wife and their two children.
Adroit Worldwide Media Inc., an Aliso Viejo-based software maker that uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to automate retail processes, recently received an investment from Datalogic.
Regulatory filings indicate the funding was in the $5 million range.
Datalogic is an Italian firm that designs and makes bar code readers, mobile computers, sensors and more for automation markets.
The firm said it was particularly drawn to the upstart’s automated inventory tools that track inventory in real time, as well as what Adroit calls its “frictionless shopping” experience, which enables cashier-less checkout with an app and QR code system. The company’s product is marketed under the AWM Smart Shelf name.
Adroit has steadily grown its businesses since launch in 2016. It grew revenue about 400% last year, and expects to grow about 500% this year, Chief Executive Kevin Howard told the Business Journal in April
“We are implementing fully autonomous environments for retail, governments, schooling, healthcare and manufacturing,” Howard said. “We envision a world where access and interaction are truly seamless throughout the globe. Partnering with the likes of Datalogic furthers our vision and reach on a global level.”
The new investment brings the company’s collective funds raised to about $23 million, and puts the firm well on its way to reaching its stated goal of up to $15 million in Series B financing.
Previous investors include real estate and holdings firm Mark IV Capital and Peter Ueberroth’s The Contrarian Group Inc., both of Newport Beach, and Impact Venture Capital in Sacramento.
The University of California system said it provided emergency seed funding to eight teams working on a variety of COVID-19-related research activities at University of California-Irvine.
Projects span clinical management and epidemiological studies and include:
• Studies on the vulnerable elderly population and risk factors that contribute to the severity of the virus.
• The development of an artificial intelligence-based platform that mines medical publications and provides the most updated information to medical researchers, medical groups in clinical environments and the public at large.
• Behavioral studies on the impact of COVID-19 on young adults in the criminal justice system and minority men with at-risk conditions such as HIV.
• A serosurveillance study to determine the prevalence of COVID-19 antibodies in health workers using antigen microarray tests.
• A sewage surveillance project that will analyze SoCal wastewater from fall 2019 to March 2020 to determine how early COVID-19 appeared in the region.
• A biosensor that detects antibodies in formerly infected persons; it could provide data on who has convalescent plasma and possible immunity to the virus.
• An artificial intelligence-based platform that predicts COVID-19 progression and outcomes based on chest X-rays.
The UC system funded 85 projects with a total of $2.1 million across its campuses and affiliate partners.
PARTNERSHIP
Genomic Testing Cooperative of Irvine is setting up a lab within a lab at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.
Under the agreement, GTC will provide its genomic tests for DNA and RNA profiling, which enables precision medicine or patient-specific therapies that have proven effective thus far in the treatment of cancer patients.
“It’s the first joint venture like this, and the first of many to come,” said GTC’s Chief Executive Maher Albitar, who noted the company was formed as a cooperative so that it could create relationships with healthcare providers and share in the burden of the costs associated with the business.
“It’s less expensive to do research, less expensive for clinical trials and better for research discovery,” Albitar said.
GTC also plans to co-develop new tests utilizing clinical and outcomes data from the John Theurer Cancer Center, which treats about 30,000 new patients a year and participates in more than 350 clinical trials.
In February, GTC partnered with New York-based tumor pattern recognition firm C2i to create liquid biopsy tests for solid tumors.
Additional partners include Irvine-based Cellgen Diagnostic and CSI Laboratories in Alpharetta, Ga.
The Business Journal estimates GTC brought in over $10 million in revenue in its first year of operations in 2019. GTC has postponed fundraising activities and is currently growing revenue 30% month-over-month, said Chief Commercialization Officer Arie Shen.
COVID-19 Insights
Aliso Viejo-based Driveway Software Corp., which provides insurance firms with data insights into driving behaviors, says its data shows there was a 40% drop in traffic volume in March.
The telematics company, whose technology allows insurers to measure and reward good driving behavior, says its result are based on its analysis of more than 5 billion miles of driving data.
Of the pandemic, “It’s heightened the value of our technology because so many insurers have been proactively giving out credits and rebates, and we provide them with real-time insights rather than anecdotal information,” said Chief Executive Mike Simmons.
Its software uses multiple sensors, machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect various activities such as aggressive accelerating or braking or texting.
The firm then rolls behaviors into a calculated safety score for every driver.
Simmons joined Driveway in 2016 and moved the company from San Mateo to Aliso Viejo. It is one of several telematics companies based in OC.
Chief Technology Officer Igor Katsman founded the firm in late 2011 before moving to his hometown of Israel, where Driveway maintains an R&D facility.
Since launch, the 30-person company has raised about $12 million. It expects to make additional hires in the next few months.
Carma Project Inc. is working with Toyota to recover and replace some 12.5 million recalled Takata airbags—which can explode when deployed due to long-term exposure to high heat and humidity—still on the road.
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the Costa Mesa-based company said it has launched a gift card rewards program to encourage consumers to get their cars fixed.
Data suggests car owners are holding onto their cars longer amid the crisis, which means it’s more important than ever for consumers to properly maintain and repair their vehicles, and fix recalled parts, said Chief Executive Fabio Gratton.
Carma Project launched in 2018 as an influencer brand, using social media to raise awareness and reward those spreading the word about automotive safety recalls.
Since then, the company has developed license plate recognition technology that identifies and notifies vehicle owners with safety recalls.
About 25% to 30% of car owners contacted by the company get their cars fixed. For the older, harder to find vehicles, Carma’s conversion rates are five to 10 times higher than traditional outreach methods, like direct mail, Gratton said.
Gratton is the founder of digital healthcare incubator Alchemy Factory, healthcare market research firm InVibe Labs and a clinical trial patient recruitment platform, called CureClick.
Gratton said Carma Project was borne out of his ventures in healthcare.
He said, “Instead of helping people find clinical trials, we’re helping people find safe cars.”
