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- 🤖🚕 Waymo Gets LA Green Light, Apex Launches Its First Satellite
🤖🚕 Waymo Gets LA Green Light, Apex Launches Its First Satellite
dot.LA Weekly Update
🔦 Spotlight
Happy Friday, Los Angeles!
Good news for those of us who hate driving LA’s congested freeways or making awkward conversation with Uber drivers:
🤖 🚕 Waymo is officially approved for robotaxi service in LA County!
You’ve probably already seen the fleet of white Jaguar SUVs with futuristic sensor arrays cruising around your neighborhood, and soon you can finally ride one in LA. After years of testing all over the city and months of a phased pilot rollout (read about dot.LA’s first ride in a Waymo this past fall), you will soon be able to call a self-driving taxi straight from your phone in the same way you call an Uber or Lyft. No details yet on when exactly the full rollout will happen, but we do know that it is coming soon.
This comes at a fraught time for self-driving cars, after robotaxi rival Cruise has paused street-level operations nationwide after a series of incidents, and a Waymo car was set on fire in San Francisco. Protests about self-driving car safety may be overblown, though, as the most recent data shows self-driving cars are almost 7x safer than their human-driven cousins (according to Waymo). Keep your eyes on dot.LA for more news about Waymo’s rollout.
We may have signup codes in the future…
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
Moego, an LA-based software solution for pet groomers, raised $24M in Series A funding. Base10 Partners led, and was joined by Digitalis Ventures, Conductive Ventures, and Uphonest Capital - learn more
Sahara, an LA-based decentralized network for knowledge founded by a USC professor, raised a $6M seed led by Polychain Capital, joined by Samsung Next, Matrix Partners, and Motherson Group - learn moreÂ
SimpleClosure, an LA-based startup offering “the easiest way to shut down a company” raised a $4M seed led by Infinity Ventures, with participation from Anthemis Group and Foxe Capital - learn more
LA Venture Funds
LA-based March Capital led a $53.2M Series C into Overjet, a dental provider support startup at a $550M valuation. Other investors included General Catalyst, Insight Partners, E14 Fund, Crosslink Capital, Spring Rock Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures, Harmonic Growth Partners, and the American Dental Association - learn more
LA-based B Capital led a $20M Series E extension for Nalu Medical, a Carlsbad-based developer of miniature neurostimulation devices - learn more
📖 What We’re Reading
Apex satellite SN1 (red) detaching from its SpaceX rocket
One of LA’s hottest space startups, satellite manufacturer Apex, has successfully launched its first satellite SN1 about 15 months after the company itself got off the ground with a $7.5M Seed Round led by Silicon Valley heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz. - learn more.
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