LAUNCH
Dog food maker Cali Raw Nutrition is ringing in the new year with new products, including two formulas for puppies and older dogs, in addition to raw bone treats and a salmon oil supplement.
The Newport Beach-based company makes dog food using raw meats and protein, fresh fruit and vegetables, and an assortment of vitamins as an alternative to kibble. Meals start at $6.50 for a 1-pound bag.
Cali Raw officials say the company is one of the only few of its type to offer age-specific meals with feeding instructions to improve digestion, among other healthy habits. The company’s first formula was made for puppies under the age of 1.
The company offers a monthly subscription plan for pet parents, and ships boxes every Tuesday. Pickup and delivery services are available in Orange County, with plans to expand to San Diego and Los Angeles this year.
Brandine Strand founded the company in 2018 after dealing with several pet health issues, ranging from skin allergies to obesity. She noticed an immediate change in her dogs after about a month of a raw food diet and decided to introduce her discovery to others.
Stand enlisted James Pendergast, a raw dog and cat food formulator with more than 14 years of experience, to create recipes for Cali Raw.
The company plans to grow in several areas this year, including adding an East Coast shipping hub. It recently opened a new round of funding.
Irvine’s Just Food for Dogs (JFFD) has allocated $1 million in research funding and has assembled an advisory board with 12 veterinarians and eight board-certified specialists to spur advancements in pet health and nutrition. New research projects will be led by Dr. Dan Su.
JFFD, a fast-growing dog food provider with a footprint spanning San Diego to Seattle, helped fund two studies last year.
One of the studies, conducted by Irvine’s Western University and University of California-Davis, compared grain-containing and grain-free pet food; it revealed that 75% of dry food or kibble contains toxins that have been linked to chronic diseases. The other study indicated that JFFD’s fresh food is 40% more digestible than kibble, according to the company.
JFFD last year raised $68 million in funding; it plans to grow its team to 650 as it adds retail locations. The company also expects to double sales totaling $300 million this year.
For more on JFFD, see the Dec. 16, 2019 print edition of the Business Journal.
Irvine-based MassGenie is gearing up to launch a SaaS—or software as a service—product for e-commerce businesses and retailers.
The company launched its online marketplace in 2017. It combines crowdsourcing and e-commerce to provide more affordable prices via a social shopping experience. For example, a phone case might cost $14.99 for one shopper, but if that shopper enlists three other buyers, they can drive the price down to $12.99 per person.
The platform generated $7.7 million in purchases in the first half of 2019, up more than 1,100% from the previous year and a good indication that consumers will look to “power buy” whenever possible, according to Bruce Watanabe, co-founder and chief executive.
He added that the company’s latest SaaS offerings will allow merchants to increase organic web traffic via crowdsourcing and social media, while reducing their reliance on marketplaces such as Google and Amazon.
The company is also developing an artificial intelligence component to add to its SaaS product; that addition is expected to launch in mid-2020, according to Chief Technology Officer Thu Truong.
MassGenie has raised nearly $4 million to date, according to Crunchbase records. The company has five local employees, with additional offices in Vietnam and the Philippines.
PERSONNEL MOVE
Laguna Hills-based Locate Inventory, an inventory management software provider with a cloud-based system, has promoted software developer Zack Schiffelbein to chief executive.
“As more and more businesses pivot away from traditional brick-and-mortar retail toward mobile, digital and e-commerce, there’s going to be an even greater need for Locate’s software,” Schiffelbein said. “I’m excited for the road ahead and the chance to lead our incredibly talented team.”
The 31-year-old executive served as a solutions specialist at Fishbooks Pro for nearly six years before leaving the company in 2017 to launch Locate with George Keliher, the company’s former chief executive officer. Keliher is now board chairman.
Schiffelbein leads the company with his two brothers, Chief Technology Officer Nick Schiffelbein and Vice President of Sales Jake Schiffelbein.
Locate processed over $500 million invoiced transactions in 2019, and the company’s clients include Culver City’s Splash Lab and fellow upstart Wurkin Stiffs in Florida.
PARTNERSHIP
Material engineering company Smart Planet Technologies in Newport Beach has agreed to license its “earth coating” technology to Walki Group, the largest independent extrusion coating company in Europe.
Walki’s annual revenue are said to exceed $300 million; it has offices in seven countries.
Smart Planet’s earth coating offerings are made from a series of mineral-enriched resins and uses about half the plastic of traditional coatings for paper products such as labels, cups and food trays.
While plastic coatings cause paper products to fall into the landfill category—including over 50 billion paper cups per year—earth coating is engineered to meet more stringent recycling standards. The company’s offerings are being sold through several vendors in the foodservice and hospitality industries.
The company has local partnerships with packaging distributor 4 Blue Waves LLC in Costa Mesa and Orange-based Replenysh, a startup building a technology platform to collect, transport and sell secondary materials.
President Will Lorenzi launched the company in 2007 and has raised about $400,000 thus far. Smart Planet Technologies has opened a new round of funding.
OFFICE SPACE
Koder, a company that connects coders and software developers with projects, is nearly doubling the size of its headquarters, moving to a 4,000-square-foot office near the Los Olivos Marketplace at the Irvine Spectrum.
The company has grown its team to 50 employees and expects to add a half a dozen employees this month.
Founder and Chief Executive Elmer Morales attributed the company’s growth to “significant traction from customers,” which have included Bravo Pay, BMW, Uber and others.
The company offers its services via two business models: a subscription service that provides companies with a team of engineers to work on apps and projects on an as-needed basis; and a project-based model that assigns business’ items to multiple coders and provides compensation based on individual performance and contributions.
Both models allow companies to find good engineers with knowledge in specific languages, without spending upward of $40,000 to recruit and bring talent on board, Morales said.
The company has attracted and vetted close to 5,000 coders and expects to more than triple that number by year’s end.
Koder also plans to launch a new SaaS product for vetting software developers and incorporate artificial intelligence into its platform later this year.
