Four of the top 15 companies that the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School selected as the “most fundable” companies as part of an analysis of thousands of early-stage U.S. companies are based in the Los Angeles region.

The analysis, which was conducted on companies with less than $10 million in annually revenue, is designed to bridge the gap between startups and the capital they need to succeed. Pepperdine, which plans to release a top 15 list annually, stated that the early-stage companies were selected based on their readiness for private investment.

“Recognizing that competition for funding is getting tighter we developed the ‘Most Fundable Companies’ initiative to assist angel and venture capital investors in identifying earl-stage startups that are worthy of investment,” said Craig Everett, assistant professor of finance and director of the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project.

The Los Angeles area companies included the following:

• Sagewise, a Los Angeles-based company that bridges blockchain technology and legal reality through its safety net for smart contracts. Blockchain uses cryptography to create transactions. Amy Wan and Daniel Rice founded Sagewise.

• EV Safe Charge, a Los Angeles-based company that makes it easy to purchase and install an electric vehicle charging station at your home or business and rent EV chargers for events. Caradoc Ehrenhalt founded EV Safe Charge.

• Nedl, a Santa Monica-based company that permits users to discover and start live radio broadcasts that are searchable by keywords, find them featured in the application store and on Amazon’s Alexa, a smart home control device. Ayinde Alakoye and Jason Medeiros co-founded Nedl.

• Nila Inc., an Altadena-based company that designs and manufactures LED s, or light-emitting diodes that use a semiconductor light source, that have lit concerts, sports stadiums, TV studios, ski slopes, crash testing and the U.S. Congress. Jim Sanfilippo founded Nila.

The most fundable companies assessment evaluated several company variables, including financial projections, market opportunity, intellectual property and the strength of the management team, all of which are used to produce a fundability score for every company that participates. The top 15 companies were selected in partnership with the New York City-based Venture Alliance,

Finance reporter Pat Maio can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 556-8329