- dot.LA, an upcoming news and events company dedicated to covering L.A.’s startup and tech ecosystem, announced it raised $4 million in a seed round of funding
dot.LA — an upcoming news and events company dedicated to covering L.A.’s startup and tech ecosystem — announced it has raised $4 million in a seed round of funding from dozens of top L.A investors. Zillow and Hotwire Co-Founder Spencer Rascoff is serving as executive chairman and co-founder.
Here is the list of high-profile venture capital firms, companies, and executives who joined this round:
VC firms and investing partners: 3L, Act One, Anthos, CAVU, Comcast Ventures, Crosscut, Greycroft, Hawke Media Ventures, K5, March Capital, Maveron, m13, Mucker, NFX, Pelion, Thrive Capital, Torch Capital, Troy Capital, Upfront Ventures, Watertower Ventures, and Waverley Capital
Companies: GeekWire, Jam City, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Perkins Coie, Safire Partners, and Snap.
Company Executives: David Bonderman (TPG), Adam Friedman (CAA), Brad Gerstner (Altimeter), Rick Hess (Evolution Media), Gabe Greenbaum (Pritzker), Todd Lemkin (Canyon Partners), Navid Mahmoodzadegan (Moelis), Mark Mullen (Bonfire), Chris Ovitz (Future Positive), Danny Passman (Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman), Karl Peterson (TPG), Brad Ramberg (Beachbody, Idealab), Avery Rosin (Lead Edge), Elie Seidman (Tinder), Sukhinder Singh (Stubhub), Jeff Stibel (Bryant Stibel), Brendan Wallace (Fifth Wall), Brian Weinstein (Bad Robot), Jeff Wilke (Amazon), Josh Yguado (Jam City), and Jeremy Zimmer (UTA)
Entrepreneurs: Austin Allison (dotloop), Allison Checchi (Atom Tickets), Dick Costolo (Twitter), Michael Dubin (Dollar Shave Club), Rand Fishkin (SparkToro), Brad Inman (Inman News), Ross Hoffman (Headspace, Twitter), Todd Jackson (Dropbox), Josh Jones (HMC INQ), Jeff Kearl (Stance, SkullCandy), Brian Lee (BAM Ventures), Paul Levine (Sapphire Ventures), Eddy Lu (GOAT), Adam Miller (Cornerstone OnDemand), Jane Park (Tokki, Julep), Sean Rad (Tinder), JJ Ramberg (NBC News, Goodshop, Goodpods), Ken Ramberg (JOBTRAK, Goodshop, Goodpods), Keith Richman (Voi), Michael Stoppelman (Yelp), Sam Teller (Tesla and SpaceX), Russell Wilson (Seattle Seahawks) and musician Ciara.
dot.LA is launching on January 27 with the goal of shining a light on innovation in the L.A. startup and tech community. And at launch, the newsroom will have at least 5 journalists covering all aspects of L.A.’s startup scene. Plus the company is also actively hiring several more reporters and editors.
And dot.LA’s editor-in-chief is Joe Bel Bruno. Bruno previously held editor positions at The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. And other dot.LA journalists also include Tami Abdollah (most recently covered cybersecurity for the Associated Press), Ben Bergman (recently worked for NPR and KPCC), Rachel Uranga (recently worked at the Los Angeles Business Journal), and Managing Editor for Digital and Reader Engagement Eric Zassenhaus (most recently worked at Pacific Standard).
“It’s finally prime time for the L.A. tech scene, after many years of steady growth, and dot.LA is here to chronicle and report on what is going to be an explosive decade for L.A. tech,” Rascoff explained. “Los Angeles has so many ingredients that make a successful tech ecosystem: a culture of innovation and entrepreneurialism, world-class universities, many angel investors, venture capitalists, and startup mentors. One of the only missing ingredients was journalism to highlight the incredible startups and tech companies changing the world. Now with dot.LA on the scene, Los Angeles will be able to achieve its full potential.”
dot.LA co-founder and CEO Sam N. Adams is a former financial journalist and strategy consultant who manages business operations for dot.LA. And Adams will focus on building a sustainable business driven by events, sponsorships, and proprietary data.
