PARTNERSHIP
The Irvine Ranch Conservancy (IRC) last month invited 14-year-old Newport Beach resident and inventor, Ryan Honary, to conduct a pilot project evaluating environmental protection applications for his AI-driven sensor network, SensoRy AI.
“We were impressed with Ryan’s research, and we are excited about its potential to improve our ability to detect threats and monitor our natural resources, which are essential to our adaptive management approach,” IRC’s Chief Programs Officer Nathan Gregory said.
In response to the 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed over 18,000 structures, killed 85 and cost over $16.5 billion, Honary developed an early detection technology for preventing wildfires “at the spark.”
SensoRY AI notifies authorities and provides predictions regarding growth, speed and direction.
IRC’s study, beginning in early 2022, will test Honary’s system for use in land management, fire prevention and monitoring techniques that “inform the response to various environmental threats,” the conservatory said.
FUNDING
Wing Virtual Assistant, an app co-created by UC Irvine alumni, announced last month raising $2.1 million of seed funding.
The seed round was led by New York-based RTP Seed, with participation from Brookstone Venture Capital and UC Berkeley’s SkyDeck.
“We were oversubscribed due to our very strong growth and superior technology development,” Wing CMO Roland Polzin said in a statement. “We have more than doubled our revenue since we opened our seed round. With this support, we are hiring a team to further develop software and make marketing investments so that we keep growing in this hot market.”
Wing is an AI-driven concierge app initially geared towards assisting college students in 2020, said Wing COO Martin Gomez.
According to company officials, most of Wing’s clients are now small business executives seeking help with menial, recurring work, including social media management, sales, and reception services. Wing’s automated assistant handles those tasks via text message requests.
Wing aims to raise a Series A funding round later this year.
VENTURE CAPITAL
Brella, a new Montessori-inspired childcare center in Los Angeles, announced Jan. 11 a $5 million seed funding round.
The funding was led by Newport Beach-based Toba Capital, OC’s largest VC. It will allow the startup to open more facilities in Hollywood and Pasadena by the end of this year, the school said.
Brella, founded in Playa Vista in 2019, is part of a growing industry of preschools leveraging technology to help families find childcare solutions, the company said.
Brella’s app allows parents to create a profile, upload necessary forms and documentation, and book times to drop their children off for a minimum of three hours.
The newest funding round takes Brella’s total amount raised to $8 million.
Irvine-based Tech Coast Angels (TCA) said Jan. 18 that Pasadena Angels (PA) will become a member of the Tech Coast Angels network, adding to one of the largest angel groups in the country.
While PA will maintain its identity, its affiliation with TCA will include a seat on TCA’s Board of Governors and help streamline operations, the investor network said.
For entrepreneurs, this means additional expertise, mentorship, and funding opportunities for startups.
“We’ve had a close relationship with Pasadena Angels for a very long time,” TCA chairman Jeff Lapin said in a statement. “Taking our relationship to the next level builds on this collaboration for our members, and it also augments our already large and diverse set of advisors, mentors, and investors we can bring to startups and young companies.”
Tech Coast Angels, established in 1997 and comprising over 500 members, is one of the largest angel investor networks. TCA reports investing over $255 million in more than 500 early-stage companies and has helped facilitate more than $1.7 billion in additional capital.
Since its inception in 2000, Pasadena Angels has grown from nine to over 100 total investors. PA reports funding up to 18 startups annually, and participating in 10 additional deals per year.
BOARD MEMBERS
Irvine’s agtech startup Swarm Engineering announced Jan. 6 the appointment of two advisory board members: agtech veteran Vonnie Estes and data scientist Magarit Khachatryan.
“We are at a critical inflection point in the acceleration of science and technology, and the way it is being deployed to support agri-food organizations and processes,” Swarm founder Anthony Howcroft said in a statement.
Swarm is a Software-as-a-Service platform that uses cognitive computing to solve problems in the agri-food supply chain, the company said. Since its inception in 2016, it’s raised a total of $2.7 million in seed funding, per Crunchbase data.
Estes previously held leadership roles at DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta.
Khachatryan, President for Women in Operations Research and Management Science at the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, led several projects for Fortune 500 companies and startups.
Said Khachatryan: “Pulling from my own experiences, I will strive to build on the company’s momentum and work to continue advancing the company’s goals, and in particular to support their supply chain network optimization initiatives, which is a passion of mine.”
LAUNCH
Newport Beach tech veteran Jon Darbyshire announced the launch of SmartSuite, a new work management software offering.
The announcement comes after two years of development and an $11 million “self-funded” initial investment in the SAAS platform, Darbyshire said.
“We founded SmartSuite to address the inefficiencies we see in how teams work together, with team members using a patchwork of disconnected apps, emails and spreadsheets to manage how they plan and manage work each day. Our goal is to turn the traditional software paradigm upside down,” Darbyshire said in a statement. “SmartSuite provides a work management platform that
unites the essential elements that are used in getting work done—databases, spreadsheets, documents, collaboration tools, file management products and automation capabilities—into one platform.”
SmartSuite can serve teams of up to 5,000 and provide more than 200 pre-built templates for project management, sales, marketing, and software development, according to the company.
SmartSuite was founded by three veteran software execs, along with a team of 100 developers, who previously founded enterprise governance risk compliance software firm Archer Technologies, now used by 75% of the Fortune 100 today, the company said.
