This month, Built in Los Angeles will be featuring some “hot” startups across the various neighborhoods that, although may feel like different worlds at times, make up LA’s budding digital ecosystem. To recommend a startup or district of LA that deserves some love, email [email protected].
Culver City: Squabbler
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Culver City-based Squabbler set out in 2011 to embrace video engagement even before Vine and Instagram, co-founder and CEO Matt Bijur said. By using the Squabbler platform, publishers such as Major League Baseball and CNN engage with their audience via video and allow their users to “engage in an entertaining and valuable way.” As they solicit short-form videos from users, Squabbler even helps publishers to curate good videos and avoid “crappy” ones with their “secret sauce” technology that helps identify valuable content, Bijur said.
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West Hollywood: ShowKit
With the goal of making mobile app development a “people-first” experience, West Hollywood-based ShowKit provides a software development kit that allows the addition of video chat, screen share and shared gestures to any mobile app: Their product, which is “like Amazon’s ‘Mayday’ for iOS,”co-founder Emily Sipchen said, is gaining ShowKit some traction in such varied markets as robotics, gaming, classroom learning and financial planning.
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Santa Monica: Edgecast Networks
As a content delivery network with hundreds of servers in major cities, Santa Monica-based Edgecast Networks carries over 5 percent of the global internet traffic in the world. Since launching in 2006, Edgecast has been pushing forward with one purpose in mind: “make the internet faster for users all over the world,” President James Segil said. Last year, this mission propelled them to be ranked as the fast-growing Internet company by Deloitte.
