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LA TechWatch

The Pulse of LA Tech

Business

A CEO’s 5-Step Guide on How to Manage Online Retail Finances: The Startup Edition

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Synder is a personal financial assistant for small to medium-sized businesses in the eCommerce sphere. Synder carries out all bookkeeping and accounting tasks for your business. It doesn’t matter which sales channels or payment processors you use, whether it is Stripe, Square, Shopify, Amazon, eBay, PayPal, Etsy, or WooCommerce.

iLife Raises $4M to Empower Life Insurance Professionals to Offer Modern Digitally-Focused Customer Experiences

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Like most industries, the pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital adoption in the insurance industry. Life insurance professionals need to leverage technology to successfully engage with prospective and existing clients to deliver services that today’s digital-savvy consumers demand. iLife is a sales automation platform for the life insurance industry that streamlines building a digital presence, increases sales, manages leads and prospects, matches customer profiles to policies, and allows the seamless collection of application materials. The company’s most popular plan is offered for a nominal $99.99 per month and offers unlimited prospects, customized quote generation, one-click submission for underwriting, and a selection of more than 670K policies. By leveraging iLife, insurance brokers are able to reduce the time to quote from days and weeks to seconds, bringing a much-needed better tech-enabled customer experience to the customer. LA TechWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Nelson Lee to learn more about the inspiration for the business, how iLife is bringing much-needed advancement to a traditionally stalwart industry, the company’s future plans, and recent round of funding from investors that include Foundation Capital, AME Cloud Ventures, Plug and Play, Cherubic Ventures, and Expansion VC.

The 10 Australian Fintech Startups That You Need to Know About That Will Hit the Virtual Stage at Demo Day Next Month

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This burgeoning Australian Fintech ecosystem is ready to showcase some of the leading Fintech innovators in Australia to the rest of the world. Here are ten-market ready startups that are poised for international expansion.

Sunbit Scores Another $130M for its Buy Now, Pay Later Platform for Everyday Services and Becomes LA’s Newest Unicorn

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Platforms like Klarna and Affirm have popularized buy it now, pay later platforms to distribute payments over time for e-commerce purchases. Sunbit is the buy now, pay later platform that brings the flexibility and ease of these payments for everyday services like optical care, dental visits, automobile maintenance, and election healthcare. Transactions, for amounts as low as $60 to as high as $10K, can be approved for the flexible solution within 30-seconds in 7300+ locations. LA TechWatch caught up with Cofounder and CEO Arad Levertov to learn more about how Sunbit’s platform brings consumers peace of mind with the ability to pay over time, the company’s strategic plans, and latest round of funding from investors that include Group 11, Zeev Ventures, Migdal Insurance, Harel Group, AltaIR Capital, and More Investment House.

The Crypto Crash Isn’t a Crash, It’s a…

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I’ve written 250+ crypto-related posts since I saw the crypto light on June 29th, 2017. The most widely read of all those posts is titled “7 Thoughts On Blockchain, Cryptocurrency & Decentralization After Three Months Down The Rabbit Hole”. The 5th thought was “ It’s A Bubble….So What”. I went on to explain: I say “so what” because […]

PayPal Acquires Happy Returns and Eyes Post-Purchase Service to Boost Online Shopping

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Happy Returns, the in-person return logistics provider for online purchases, has been acquired by Paypal. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Robot Stomachs: Powering Machines With Garbage and Urine

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The World Bank estimates that 3.5 million tons of solid waste is produced by humans every day, with America accounting for more than 250 million tons a year or over 4 pounds of trash per citizen. This figure does not include the 34 billion gallons of human organic materials that are processed in water treatment centers across the country each year.

Arcturus Raises $5M to Allow Volumetric Video to Scale

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Volumetric video captures a three-dimensional space or object using computer graphics, photogrammetry, and computation-based methods. Since these videos are recorded in 3D, they can be viewed on web or mobile without any specialized hardware or equipment. Arcturus is a suite of software that allows content creators can to easily record, edit, and distribute native volumetric content at scale. The company’s platform can be used in sports, gaming, e-commerce, live performances, real estate, or any other applications where dimension and perspective on depth and space can enhance the viewing experience. LA TechWatch caught up with Head of Marketing Piotr Uzarowicz to learn more about volumetric video, the company’s traction, future plans, and recent round of funding from investors that include BITKRAFT Ventures, HBSE Ventures, NTT Docomo Ventures, Build Ventures, Marc Merrill, and Craig Kallman.

ReCharge Raises $277M for its E-Commerce Subscription Management Software Thats’ the Secret Weapon for Merchants

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Recurring revenue is the holy grail for businesses, bringing revenue predictability, deepened customer relationships, and high customer lifetime values. Successfully retaining customers leads to lower acquisition costs in the long term and reduced churn. Given the benefits, SaaS solutions have widely moved to subscription offerings and e-commerce businesses are also jumping in on the trend. The global subscription economy for e-commerce is expected to grow to ~$250B by 2025. ReCharge is a subscription management platform built specifically for e-commerce merchants to capitalize on this growth. Bootstrapped since its founding, the company just raised its first institutional round after growing 91% in 2020. The 15,00+ merchants using Recharge’s checkout solution include Hubble, Harry’s Art of Sport, Fiji, and Oatly. LA TechWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Oisin O’Connor to more about the experience of initially bootstrapping, the company’s impressive traction, the state of the e-commerce market, and recent round of funding from investors that include Summit Partners, ICONIQ Growth, and Bain Capital Ventures.