The following two Los Angeles startups focus on payment tools and online video marketing. Both are in Silicon Beach and represent the diversity of the growing business community in Los Angeles.
Kuapay
Kuapay may sound by it’s name like a Hawaiian delicacy. Instead, the company is a bona fide startup in the Los Angeles Silicon Beach community that has landed a real, cold pile of investment totaling $4 million in June 2012. Kuapay caters to mobile users who want to be able to pay for goods and services from their mobile devices. While the company is based in Los Angeles, it has an international reach, with offices in both Spain and Chile as well as the U.S. Situated strategically to take advantage of Spanish-speaking markets as well as the the U.S., Kuapay has already come a long way after just being established in 2010. With the new investment infusion, the company is focusing efforts on on an e-wallet concept that takes advantage of QR codes to process payments and financial transactions at the retail cashier point. Kuapay’s product is unique in that it doesn’t cater to just one mobile device market. The product works in iPhones as well as Blackberrys and Android phones. By taking a cross-market approach, Kuapay hopes to standardize its payment tools and as shared mobile wallet tool everyone will accept and transact with. The company is run by Joaquin Ayuso de Paul, a well known telcom name who already sold Tuenti to Telefonica for $100 million previously.
Epoxy
Epoxy is another Silicon Beach startup that has picked up an investment in the millionaire’s club. The company announced it received an injection of $2 million from private investment to help its venture, providing distribution software tools for videomakers online and through the Internet. The company expects to use the funding to increase its engineering staff as well as bolster its website and product offering. Epoxy prior to the investment consisted of four players who banded together to provide a marketing service to video producers that didn’t already exist. Focused on the niche of the market that wants to see professional videos produced and distributed online through Youtube channels and similar, Epoxy expects to broaden its reach with the new financial resources available and establish itself as a business-to-business company. With the amount of marketing through different communication channels on the Internet, Epoxy’s approach with video was bound to happen sooner or later.
