FUNDING
Caylent, an Irvine-based cloud native software services company, announced Sept. 27 the completion of a $16 million investment round led by private equity firm East Los Capital.
It also announced a “significant expansion” of its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), as well as 50 new hires this quarter.
“Through our relationship with AWS, Caylent is able to tap into the world’s most complete set of infrastructure, data, and development technologies to design solutions for our customers,” Chief Executive of Caylent J.P. La Torre said. “Caylent has elected to move all-in on AWS as the platform of choice for our customers’ cloud computing needs.”
Founded in 2015, Caylent offers “container orchestration” software, which is used to deploy software into the cloud. It is currently growing at 300% year-over-year, the company said. Its 50 new employees will help with the increasing demand from its customers seeking to migrate to AWS.
“This investment round will allow us to open new service lines in the areas of data analytics, machine learning, and cloud application development alongside expanding our geographical footprint across the Americas to keep up with demand,” La Torre said.
Irvine-based biodegradable dining ware manufacturer LeafPack said Oct. 5 it’s seeking U.S. investors to expand its domestic operations, co-founder and CEO Thomas Laugesen told the Business Journal.
“We can change the world and generate some great business,” Laugesen said. “Not only does it make sense, but it’s what we should have been doing already.”
LeafPack, founded in UC Irvine’s Wayfinder incubator, manufactures coffee cups, plates and to-go boxes from unbleached pulp fiber that can be composted or recycled, Laugesen said. Its Denmark-based manufacturing facility, which houses 100 tons of equipment, produces 1.6 miles of straws per hour and molds 150 cups in 30 seconds.
About 50 billion coffee cups are thrown out every year in the U.S., he said.
“It doesn’t matter where you get your takeaway coffee cup, whether it’s Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts or The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. They’re all coated with plastic,” Laugesen said, adding less than 1% of coffee cups get recycled.
Once LeafPack gets the “right amount” of funding, it will build six different manufacturing facilities in the U.S. within three years and produce 200 to 300 million units every year, he said.
“The investment community wants to hear ‘fintech’ or ‘biotech.’ Our logical business plans involve a big initial hump. A manufacturing line requires a lot of capital upfront. Basically, we need millions.”
“This is big business,” he added. “We need to attract the right people for it.”
LAUNCH
Laguna Beach-based mobile app developer Love Out Loud App Inc. announced Oct. 4 the launch of its first seed round to support the rollout of its free app, “Love Out Loud.”
Investors will also get stock in the company, according to founder and CEO Suzy Patz.
Love Out Loud is a social media platform that allows users to publicly share their “good deeds,” from donating to a charity to free deeds, including feeding a stray cat or greeting a neighbor.
Patz, a cancer and brain injury survivor, left her career in the trading and investing space in 2020 to develop the mobile app with Ryan Cooper, the head of business engineering for Minecraft.
It’s partnering with Benevity, a Canada-based philanthropic service provider, giving users access to its database of 1 million nonprofits in the U.S., Patz said. The app will also match users with nonprofits after selecting causes they wish to support.
“There are so many nonprofits that are struggling. We’ve created a singular place where everyone can find them,” Patz told the Business Journal, adding that 72% of nonprofits had no digital strategy for donations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Love Out Loud is currently available on the Apple App Store and will come to the Google Play Store soon.
Ted Li and Cayman Carter announced Oct. 1 the launch of The Single Co., a Newport Beach-based company developing “the most comfortable swim fin.”
Li previously spent 22 years working for Oakley and Quiksilver, while Carter was named the Newport-Mesa Dream Team Football Player of the Year in 2012.
“As soon as football was over, I needed something to push and stimulate me, and that was business,” Carter told the Daily Pilot. “I found that same kind of competitiveness that I had in football in business.”
“When you talk to someone who uses a bodysurfing fin, they always complain about it. ‘I get blisters on my pinky toe, I get cut on the top of my foot,’” Li said in the Daily Pilot. “The fins today basically cut up your feet. There’s a lack of emphasis on comfort and performance.”
The Single Co. designed its fins after a running shoe, emphasizing a “true fit.” Unlike traditional rubber fins, they’re also made out of silicon for durability, the company said.
“This is not about we want to be a $20-million business,” Li said. “We want to make amazing products, and we want to deliver an amazing experience to our customers. We just want to have fun.”
INCUBATORS
Pasadena nonprofit Alliance for Southern California Innovation (Alliance) announced Oct. 4 the official rollout of its SoCal Venture Pipeline program to Orange County.
The program was launched in June with Silicon Valley Bank to help Southern California become a tech epicenter.
“We started in Santa Barbara, then Los Angeles, and now we’re moving south to Orange County,” Alliance’s Venture Outreach Manager Raychel Espiritu told the Business Journal.
“There’s so much talent here, especially coming out of research universities, but there’s a bit of a gap in terms of publicity or access to VCs. We hope to bridge that gap.”
Alliance has existing partnerships with several OC incubators, accelerators and organizations, including Octane and Operate Studio, Espiritu said.
“They’re working hard to help companies here raise key rounds of funding on their growth journey,” Operate Studio’s founder and President Carey Ransom said about Alliance.
The application process for the SoCal Venture Pipeline is free for founders, Espiritu said. Once its investor committee assesses a startup is Series A ready, they clean up its pitch deck and prepare its founder for meetings with VCs.
“One of the most challenging aspects is getting that initial meeting with VCs,” Espiritu said. “They’re not as receptive to cold emails, but if it comes from a trusted source like us, it increases their likelihood.”
Alliance aims to facilitate funding for 11 startups by the year’s end, Espiritu said.
COVID INNOVATION
Zymo Research, a biotech firm based in Irvine, reported Sept. 28 it has donated 1 million COVID-19 testing kits to MapMyGenome in Hyderabad, India to combat the country’s increase in COVID cases.
Zymo Research reported its donation comprises its DirectDetect reagent and swab collection devices, adding that its particular test can perform COVID-19 testing without extraction, alleviating the shortage of extraction resources.
The product “enables countries seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases to perform COVID-19 testing without extraction; therefore, removing the barrier of limited extraction resources. It’s our way of providing humanitarian support to people in need,” said Vice President of Business Development Dr. Marc Eden said. “We teamed up with MapMyGenome because of their ability to rapidly deploy and analyze RT-PCR testing.”
MapMyGenome is a molecular diagnostics company and provider of personalized DNA testing, COVID-19 testing, and genetic counseling. It’s currently providing COVID-19 testing for incoming passengers at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad.
“In India, where testing supplies and vaccinations are difficult to obtain, testing is imperative to diagnosing the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” said Anu Acharya, chief executive and founder of MapMyGenome. “While many biotechnology and testing suppliers have tended to concentrate on their domestic testing efforts, we appreciate Zymo Research’s global humanitarian effort to help eradicate COVID-19.”
