An Irvine-based company that’s developing software mainly for day traders wants to raise $750,000 in seed funding. Ziggurat Technologies Inc. would use the money on a variety of things, including website development, marketing and hiring programmers and engineers, founder and Chief Executive Sia Nazari said.
Nazari was a day trader himself and said the company was borne out of the need he saw to help day traders quantify their risk.
“The majority of individual (retail) traders either lack the knowledge of advanced mathematical and quantitative analysis or are not code developers (or programmers) to build trading tools or quantify risk,” he said via email.
Nazari is an engineer and research scientist by training. He wears a lot of hats on the four-person Ziggurat team, including quantitative trading strategy builder, developer, and financial engineer with the combined knowledge of engineering and finance.
Ziggurat is working on software with the intention of reducing uncertainty with its “dynamic risk-management engine,” as well as using artificial intelligence to gather information from various data sources and send feedback, in real time, on individual day-trading patterns, for instance.
It can also set up a trader’s customized risk profile, answering the question of how much capital he or she can put at risk per trade and per portfolio.
It’s been self-funded, with $20,000 invested by Nazari, his family and a friend. Nazari said now is the optimal time to build and launch the product for a few reasons, mainly that the U.S. stock market is experiencing high liquidity. The company is building its product to scale quickly and internationally, as well as planning to expand to other trading markets, such as commodities and currency.
Wine Tour Spills Out
The creator of a company that hosts private blindfolded wine tastings launched Pour Tour 2017 in New York City in January and plans to take the tour to an eclectic array of locales, including South Africa and Cuba.
The tour is Winefolded’s way of connecting with other wine enthusiasts and “taste seekers” through pop-up wine-focused events, founder Liliana Leon said. It has an office at WeWork in the 200 Spectrum Drive tower in Irvine.
The 2017 Pour Tour events cater to wine-drinking professionals interested in exploring their palates through “unique” wine experiences, she said. Winefolded likes to select rare wine varietals from different countries, but wine and food from local vineyards, wine shops and restaurants also are included to help out local small businesses.
On tour, the Winefolded team—five people, plus Leon—meets sommeliers, chefs and winemakers. Leon writes posts for the “100 Days of Wine” blog to share stories of the “remarkable individuals we get to meet along the way during our travels.” The name comes from the fact that Leon and her team will share 100 different types of wine bottles with 100 different taste seekers from around the world in 100 days.
The blog posts can be found on Wine Street Journal at www.winestreetjournalblog.com. Leon bootstrapped Winefolded with tens of thousands of dollars and then got a seed round of approximately $20,000, she said. The company is part of the pilot program of The Hungry Lab, a nascent incubator at the same WeWork location in Irvine, which is scheduled to officially launch in March.
Entrepreneur Is Mentor
The 11-year-old creator of a skateboard that fits into school lockers and backpacks has been selected as a mentor for St. Louis, Mo.-based Independent Youth’s Teen Entrepreneurship Network. Independent Youth is a nonprofit organization that motivates students to consider entrepreneurship. It’s built on peer-to-peer mentoring by successful teen entrepreneurs paired with high school students.
Locker Board inventor Carson Kropfl, though he’s not quite a teenager yet, will travel and speak with the group a few times a year to help educate and empower teenagers. He’s also part of Independent Youth’s PowerUp Program, which connects him with mentors, such as entrepreneurs, C-Level executives and community leaders.
“When I found out about being selected as a member of the Independent Youth organization, I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “It is such an honor, and I’m totally excited about it. I want to inspire other kids to shred hard, dream hard and work hard. Now that I’m going to be a mentor with IY, I will be able to help kids all over the country.”
Kropfl will soon travel to Nike’s headquarters in Washington County, Ore. as part of Independent Youth to receive one-on-one mentoring with Nike managers.
Locker boards are made from recycled skateboard decks. Kropfl’s 2017 goal is to make and sell 1,000 and earn revenue of $50,000. Last year, his company sold 117 boards and took in $6,300 in revenue, with $2,700 in profit. He launched the Locker Board website and online store late last year. Locker Board is a company of DBA Streetubez LLC, which Kropfl created with his parents, Keith and Carrie Kropfl.
