FACILITIES
The Irvine Spectrum now has a life science facility open for early-stage Orange County tenants in the business of biotech.
The 39,000-square-foot Hatchlabs @ Irvine Spectrum office, a collaboration between healthcare developer NexCore Group and life science real estate development platform Hatch Spaces LLC, features eight lab suites and a lab-enabled shell space.
The property, at 3 Burroughs, was acquired a year ago and subsequently renovated to become the “first post-incubation life science facility in Orange County,” its owners say.
Initial tenants include El Segundo medical equipment manufacturer Sky Biologics Holdings LLC, Walnut Creek biotech company Seegene Technologies Inc., and Garden Grove biotech company Phase Scientific Americas.
The Hatchlabs facility features conference rooms, community spaces and a shower room.
The property “offers unparalleled direct access to Orange County’s deep and talented science and manufacturing labor pool, world-class universities and incubation programs focused on the sciences, convenient proximity to the San Diego and growing Los Angeles life science clusters and adjacency to three major research and clinical hospitals,” Hatch Spaces co-founder Allan Glass said in a statement.
FutureStitch Inc., a San Clemente sock manufacturer, opened its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Oceanside.
The new factory is expected to employ about 60 people, who will work in knitting and printing, or at the facility’s research and development center.
FutureStitch will continue to manufacture socks at its locations in Shanghai, China and Turkey, company officials said.
The company aims to recruit and employ formerly incarcerated women at its Oceanside factory. It also plans to provide its Oceanside employees therapy and housing support collaborations with local organizations.
The company expects to surpass $50 million in revenue this year and is looking to build additional manufacturing facilities, company officials said.
FutureStitch founder and CEO Taylor Shupe has launched sock-related ventures before. Shupe co-founded San Clemente-based sock manufacturer Stance Inc. in 2009. The company now reportedly does well over $100 million a year in sales with a valuation cited around $500 million pre-pandemic.
Shupe has put in about $9 million of his own money into FutureStitch, which counts rapper-turned-business mogul Kanye West, or Ye (with whom Shupe has other business interests), and skateboarder-turned-entrepreneur Rob Dyrdek as strategic investors or partners.
FutureStitch has partnered with Shupe’s prior sock company, Stance, as well as footwear company Toms.com LLC, Crocs Inc. (Nasdaq: CROX) and clothing retailer Everlane, among others.
Elevai Labs Inc., a Newport Beach regenerative skincare company, has completed the expansion of its lab and office space in Davis.
The newly added space will increase Elevai’s production capabilities by 500% and will enable the company to mass produce its first product: skin rejuvenation serum Elevai enfinity and after-treatment serum Elevai empower. The new facility also allows the company to conduct research and development on the three to four new products it plans to launch in the next six months.
The company recently partnered with University of California, Davis and California State University, Sacramento to grow its team.
Elevai, founded in 2020, has raised over $1 million in funding to date. Elevai co-founder and CEO Jordan Plews did post-doctoral research at Stanford University on stem cells and regenerative medicine. He previously served as chief science officer at Chico-based biotech aesthetic company FactorFive Skincare.
FUNDING
Impossible Kicks, an Irvine brick-and-mortar apparel and footwear reseller, has closed a $3 million Series A round.
The funding will support the company’s continued expansion across the U.S., which includes two new locations by the end of the year and new stores next year, company officials said.
“This recent funding gives us more buying power and helps us deliver more offerings to our strategic locations and expanding ecommerce channels,” co-founder and COO John Mocadlo said in a statement.
Impossible Kicks currently counts 15 stores in nine different states, including California, New York, Texas and Florida. Pricing for products at its stores ranges from $80 to $50,000, according to company officials.
The company has raised $7 million in funding to date.ÂÂÂ Last year, it generated $15 million in sales.
NEW HIRES
Mathi Gurusamy, the CEO and president of Irvine IoT startup Mobilogix Inc., has been tapped for the board of directors at Utvyakta Solutions Private Ltd., an Indian IoT startup with U.S. operations in Irvine.
Gurusamy will also serve as chairman for Utvyakta’s U.S. division.
Utvyakta’s “proven compressor monitoring solution has been rigorously field-tested and is ready for mass deployment globally,” Gurusamy said in a statement. “The company’s vision of using AI and IoT to improve energy efficiency in factories and plants is crucial from both a business and an environmental perspective, as compressors are typically large consumers of energy.”
Gurusamy led Mobilogix’s growth in delivering custom turnkey IoT services to a number of blue-chip companies and startups across five continents, company officials said.
Mobilogix, founded in 2011, was acquired in August for an undisclosed amount by fellow Irvine-based IoT company Telit. The deal intends to support Telit’s expansion into the growing market of new and existing IoT adopters, company officials said at the time.
Prior to Mobilogix, Gurusamy served as COO at Telit for five years. He currently serves on the board of directors at Irvine industrial automation tech startup Cloudvidia LLC.
STUDIES
GATC Health Corp., an Irvine medtech company, said that its AI drug discovery platform can predict drug candidate success with 11 times more accuracy than the industry standard, at 88%.
The company’s study also found that its platform can predict drug failure at an “unprecedented” 84% accuracy rate. The platform can quickly assess whether a drug candidate will succeed or fail, “potentially saving billions of dollars in research and development costs,” company officials said.
The biopharma industry spent about $200 billion in 2020 on drug research and development, according to GATC. Yet, over 90% of drug candidates fail in clinical trials, according to an article published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
GATC performed its study using real-world, blinded data sets on biological systems with multiple disease rates, officials said.
GATC, founded in 2021, has raised over $5 million in funding to date. The company’s CEO, John Stroh, earned his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1980. Stroh has previously held CEO roles at Houston-based biotech company Nanospectra Biosciences and at Irvine medical device maker NeoMatrix LLC, which was acquired by Irvine medical device manufacturer Halo Healthcare LLC in 2012.
