APPS
Fwaygo, a pre-launch music app developer in Irvine, recently partnered with rapper Young Thug and raised over $1.6 million at what the company says is a $100 million valuation.
Fwaygo is a music streaming and social media app centered on music discovery and helping artists monetization their product. Its algorithm is “constantly learning” and adjusting the feed to each user’s individual tastes, giving them the “unique experience” of hearing new independent music.
The offering “is the iceberg heading for the [expletive] Titanic full of executive A&Rs; with these big plaques who don’t do nothing,” CEO and co-founder Jeremy Greene told Young Thug in a livestream on Instagram. “We’re coming to sink it. We’re going to do fair deals, help you collaborate with people, get you on tours and get you on playlists.”
It’s also hiring software engineers; the company currently has a team of seven engineers and is looking to scale its team to about 16 in the coming months, according to the company’s LinkedIn job listings.
The firm recently moved into new offices at the Irvine Towers complex.
Its Instagram page currently has 40,600 followers; its 100,000th follower will get a “bust down” Rolex watch, Greene said.
The app is slated to be released publicly in the coming months.
Irvine-based real estate app developer SetSchedule said its technology has helped facilitate $3.5 billion in real estate transactions since its 2018 product launch.
SetSchedule says its SaaS products bring real estate professionals, homeowners, and home shoppers together. Its offerings provide prospective home buyers with data about properties, and helps home sellers price their properties, among other services.
Since the SetSchedule app launched in 2018, the company reported it has expanded its core offerings to include consumer cloud communication products, artificial intelligence, and autonomous business flow applications.
“The growth made in the number of transactions over the last two years has built confidence that as a company, we are growing in the right direction,” officials said in a statement this month.
“We are seeing this due to the innovations we have made, utilizing machine learning to better score real estate agents, and introducing products including SetHello which allows home shoppers to instantly connect with a real estate agent in their area.”
The startup reported now counts over 200 employees and has over 32,000 active users. SetSchedule Chief Executive Roy Dekel projects 120% growth by 2022, according to a statement.
VENTURE STUDIOS
Cie Digital Labs, an Irvine-based, technology-focused venture studio, said Nov. 16 it has named former Wall Street executive and private equity investor J. Douglas Holladay as a strategic adviser and executive in residence, focusing on several new ventures in fintech and govtech.
Holladay brings a background from Goldman Sachs, the Department of State, and leadership across “multiple philanthropic organizations,” the studio said.
“In order to be truly successful, the businesses we build must do more than just make money,” Holladay said. “They need to contribute to a more hopeful future for our world. Cie and I are aligned in that mission, and I look forward to seeing how they leverage innovative technology solutions toward that end.”
“Doug brings a broad history of success and excellence across finance, investing, government and philanthropic work,” Cie CEO Anderee Berengian said. “His extraordinary experience creating positive change across diverse industries will provide our ventures with further proven leadership to accelerate and scale our disruptive technologies.
“Furthermore, Doug’s innate ability to be a super connector will bring the knowledge of world class experts to our companies, and provide them access to the people and entities who can best make use of our innovations.”
CAMPAIGN
Costa Mesa-based LunarCrush Inc., a cryptocurrency-focused software platform, said it is launching a campaign that will gift users a set amount of its own currency, called $LUNR.
It plans to give away a set amount of its $LUNR daily for the next 23 months, the company said.
An additional amount of $LUNR will be awarded every week to a user depending on their level of activity, according to the company.
Founded in 2018, LunarCrush is a cryptocurrency social listening platform that aims to help simplify the crypto investing market.
$LUNR is a token rewarded to LunarCrush users for their work.
The currency’s training value as of last week was about $3, with a 24-hour trading volume of $93,447.33, according to CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin, by comparison, sports a daily trading volume of $38.7 billion.
The company reported global cryptocurrency exchange Okcoin is the first digital exchange to list $LUNR; users can now deposit and withdraw the token from Okcoin.
“We’re thrilled to be the 1st exchange to list the community’s rocket fuel,” Okcoin said in a Tweet.
According to Crunchbase, LunarCrush has raised a total of $2.1 million in funding; its last round closed in May.
COLLABORATION
Swarm Engineering, an Irvine startup that uses artificial intelligence to manage agri-food supply chains, said Nov. 16 it has entered a research and development agreement with Virginia Tech’s Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
The department “is committed to continued advancement on the forefront of science and technology. This collaboration with Swarm will expand our innovations in the cognitive computing space,” Virginia Tech Director and Professor Ran Jin said in a statement.
The goal of the project is to combine Swarm’s machine learning techniques with operational research, and novel visualization approaches, the company said.
Swarm’s SaaS offerings aim to solve problems such as supply and demand forecasting, optimizing inbound and outbound logistics, and maximizing yield in controlled environment agriculture.
The company reported raising a $2.7 million seed round in April.
Swarm and Virginia Tech plan to develop innovative ways to reduce cost of production and transportation, “positively impacting” sustainability in the industry, the company said.
