Science Inc. is a

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

-based

startup studio A startup studio, also known as a startup factory, or a startup foundry, or a venture studio, is a studio-like company that aims at building several companies in succession. This style of business building is referred to as "parallel entrepreneurshi ...

that develops, invests in, and acquires various businesses. Science Inc. invests money and offers mastery, to bring corporations to profitability. In

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

, Michael Jones founded the organization and is the current chief executive officer. Jones spent time serving with the company's Chief Executive Officers and investors on strategy, growth, and business development.

Funding

Science Inc. initially received $10 million in backing from well-known investor

Eric Schmidt Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American businessman and software engineer known for being the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, executive chairman of Google from 2011 to 2015, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 20 ...

’s Tomorrow Ventures. In 2013, Science Inc. raised $30 million in funding from Hearst Ventures, the investment arm of media giant

Hearst Corporation Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, televis ...

, and was named to

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

’s list of The Most Innovative Companies. Science Inc. also recently raised $20 million in debt financing from Silver Lake Waterman.

Notable affiliated companies

Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club Dollar Shave Club is an American company based in Venice, California, that delivers razors and other personal grooming products to customers by mail. It delivers razor blades on a monthly basis and offers additional grooming products for home del ...

launched with early investments and support from Science Inc. Science Inc. was Dollar Shave Club’s first investor, before the startup raised a $1 million seed round in March 2012."Science Incubator Turns Up the Heat With New Services"
LA Business Journal, June 28, 2015 It was acquired by

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy drink, t ...

in 2016.

DogVacay

Initial funding for the

DogVacay Rover.com is an American company which operates an online marketplace for people to buy and sell pet care services including pet sitting, dog boarding, and dog walking. Rover.com was founded in 2011 in Seattle, Washington ...

was obtained from Science Inc. DogVacay is a Santa Monica based company known for home dog boarding and other pet services.

HelloSociety

Science Inc. funded an incubated

HelloSociety HelloSociety was a Santa Monica, CA-based social media marketing and technology firm that helped brands partner with influencers. Kyla Brennan is its CEO and founder. The company was purchased by The New York Times Company in March 2016. History ...

, a social media marketing and technology firm that consults on strategic partnerships with influencers and market analytics. The company was purchased by

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

in March 2016.

Plowz & Mowz

In 2016, Science Inc. became one of the first investors in Plowz & Mowz, a gig-marketplace

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

and app that connects consumers with

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

landscapers Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including the following: # Living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly called gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal o ...

. The company began by offering residential snow plowing services and has since expanded its scope to

lawn A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. L ...

mowing A mower is a person or machine that cuts (mows) grass or other plants that grow on the ground. Usually mowing is distinguished from reaping, which uses similar implements, but is the traditional term for harvesting grain crops, e.g. with reapers ...

and over a dozen other outdoor home services.

Other

Other startups that have come from Science Inc. include HomeHero, HelloSociety,

FameBit YouTube BrandConnect (formerly FameBit) is an interactive entertainment company founded in 2013 and headquartered in Santa Monica, California. The company develops and maintains an Influencer Marketing link sharing platform. As of 2016 the comp ...

, Hello.Me, Stunner Inc., Delicious, Playhaven, Kyoku, and Quarterly. In the year 2016, FameBit was acquired by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. In 2015, Science Inc. sold off its mobile advertising network PlayHaven to mobile game publisher

RockYou RockYou was a company that developed widgets for MySpace and implemented applications for various social networks and Facebook. Since 2014, it has engaged primarily in the purchases of rights to classic video games; it incorporates in-game ads an ...

. The company at the moment focuses on mobile entertainment for millennials, including the popular App "Wishbone", which has more than 3.1 million

monthly active users Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...

."With 3.1M monthly users on Wishbone, Science touts its success reaching the teen market"
Venture Beat, September 30th, 2015

References

{{reflist, 30em Companies based in Santa Monica, California Technology companies based in Greater Los Angeles 2011 establishments in California