Can AI Change How Hollywood Structures Stories? Corto.ai is Launching to Find Out

Sam Blake

Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake

Can AI Change How Hollywood Structures Stories? Corto.ai is Launching to Find Out

Having watched his reputation flourish upon a foundation of self-spun fabrications, then crumble into a heap of infamy that led him to change his name, Yves Bergquist knows a thing or two about stories.

As detailed in a November 2019 story in The Hollywood Reporter, Bergquist, who leads artificial intelligence (AI) projects at USC's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), was formerly a national security analyst and ABC News consultant named Alexis Debat. Once his lies were exposed, he left Washington D.C. in 2007, shrouded in shame.


Now, Bergquist is set to go public with Corto, his previously stealth-mode startup that uses AI to help storytellers in the entertainment industry better understand their content, their operations, and their audiences. Since 2016, Corto has worked symbiotically with the ETC, a think tank founded in 1993 by Star Wars creator George Lucas to support cooperative technological advancement in Hollywood.

As the THR story conveyed, Bergquist seems genuinely contrite. He has embraced working extra hard to overcome his tarnished past and salvage his integrity.

"This is a very sensitive thing for me," he told dot.LA. "Twelve years later it's still haunting."

With the coronavirus indefinitely shutting down production and threatening to erode disposable incomes, Bergquist's comeback may be just in time to help Tinseltown recover from a looming downfall of its own.

Introducing Corto

Even in normal times, says Bergquist, Hollywood faces challenges. With front-loaded costs and lengthy investment timelines, it's an inherently risky industry. And Hollywood's customers have unique expertise in the products they consume.

"Cars and yogurt don't deal with car and yogurt experts," he said. "Media sells to customers who are extremely experienced and knowledgeable about the product of media."

Taking a page out of philosopher Yuval Noah Harari's book, Bergquist waxes poetic on the idea that religion, nationality, and modern economies all rely on collective buy-in to stories.

"They're the most important objects in human civilization," he said. "They're the reason we have a society."

Put that way, it's no wonder that people crave stories; and that many seek to profit from satisfying that craving. Indeed, as technology has progressed, the variety and volume of content platforms and stories at our fingertips has exploded.

Where Corto comes in, is to help storytellers–and story sellers–meet that demand and stand out against that competition.

The end goal, according to Bergquist: "Better understand what resonates with whom, and why."

Modern medicine offers a useful analogy. Previously, Bergquist explains, doctors made diagnoses with little information.

"Say you (were to) walk into my office. You seem to have a fever, your tongue is white. Those generally are associated with cold or bronchitis. So there's your diagnosis."

Compare that to modern healthcare, which empowers physicians to collect far more sophisticated and useful information. And soon enough, pundits forecast a new era of medicine, where tech-enabled lifestyle data merge with a patient's medical history, genetics, and more to provide the granular insights needed for personalized healthcare.

"It's the same thing for entertainment," said Bergquist.

So how does Corto aspire to bring about a new era of stories?

The What: Content Genomics

Essential to Corto is its database of stories that it has thoroughly analyzed using several AI techniques. Like a submarine, Corto probes the depths of a story at a level and speed that a human brain cannot, and extracts the extent to which the story contains certain features, including dozens of "emotional tonalities" like melancholy, power, and generosity. Soon, Bergquist says, Corto will be able to extract additional deep features, like those related to specific characters and the story's structure.

For now, Corto's value starts with what it can tell a user about a script that's not in its database.

Bergquist showed dot.LA how it works, using Ad Astra as an example. He expressed that the interface, while functional — and actively used by a "major studio" for the past several months — is in early form, and that the feature set is still just about "5% of the vision."

When a user uploads a script, Corto takes about five seconds to "parse" the document. Then, like a doctor receiving a patient's genetic readout, new doors suddenly open.

Corto has parsed the script, in this case Ad Astra

Typing "emotion for AD ASTRA" in the command bar brings up a table of dozens of those emotional tonalities, each with a score from 0-100. Anything in the 25-75 range is a weak signal, Bergquist explained, meaning that particular emotion is not especially prominent in the script. Scores below 25 suggest a notable absence of the given emotion, while those above 75 indicate a strong presence.

Corto emotional tonality output

The command "comps for AD ASTRA" yields a list of titles from the Corto database that are similar to the given title based on the deep features that Corto has unearthed. The lower a title's "distance" from another, the more similar they are. "Comp emotion" breaks down these comparisons across each of the dozens of emotional tonalities. Search results can be filtered, such as by type (movie, TV episode, etc.), release year, or country.

Comps for Ad Astra


Ad Astra comps across emotional tonalities

Importantly, these results can reveal unexpected similarities. The comparable titles that Corto yielded for a test user's spy procedural show, for instance, surprisingly included several Sci-Fi titles, said Bergquist.

"Suddenly," he said, "there's a whole new audience that they could potentially market this to."

In the future — later this year, according to Bergquist — Corto will add visual analysis to its text parsing. On top of exploring a script's depths, it will also be able to extract insights from video.

"We want to create a tool," Bergquist explained, "that essentially understands how specific human emotions or narrative structures are expressed visually and from a sensory perspective."

It would function similarly to what Corto currently does with scripts, except it would turn audiovisual footage, rather than text, into data and insights.

Parsing video footage

Encoding and labeling the various elements of video would also theoretically increase pre- and post-production efficiency. For example, explained Bergquist, a film editor could say, "'Show me all the times when a female character was smoking a cigarette in the rain' — things like that. You cannot search content like that currently."

And the content comparisons this would enable–based on attributes that do not exist in a script–would also help to improve recommendation algorithms, which Bergquist describes as the "big kahuna" for Corto's content analysis.

Whether the purpose is to identify just the right title for someone to watch next, or to successfully execute a finely targeted marketing campaign based on a title's comparables, one needs insight not just about the content, but also the audience.

The Who: Audience Genomics

"It's not just, 'okay, people liked Avengers, so they'll probably like this'," Bergquist said. "It's 'why did they like it? What did they like about it? Who liked which attributes?'"

To find these answers, Bergquist explained, Corto probes the wide world of social media.

By analyzing Tweets, Reddit posts and such that are related to a given title, and using analytical methods similar to those used for the content analysis, Corto "can derive positive or negative sentiment for a title based on attributes like the acting, the cast, the director, visual elements, emotional tonalities, the music, the plot and more."

Using a method called knowledge representation to pair this granular data with broader datasets like census data and voting behavior can provide a detailed picture of who these groups are, and where to find them.

"If you give us a script we'll give you all the zip codes where each narrative domain and/or character will resonate the most," Bergquist said.

What's more, Corto layers in network analysis, so that on top of knowing what resonates with whom, and where they are, it also shows how sentiment travels from one group to another. Particularly useful is the identification of "swayable" communities–those whom Corto believes are not yet fans of a given title, but could be converted. Armed with the knowledge of what titles and attributes have historically resonated with such a group, "these are the communities that you can target as a marketer."

"Since we have content analysis integrated directly with audience analysis," Bergquist summarizes, "we can run your script, get a list of comparables, then immediately give you deep insights on the size and type of audience for your script, directly based on millions of social media conversations across all the places where people talk about media."


Helping Hollywood

Though Bergquist shared plenty with dot.LA, he showed a practiced guardedness when asked about specific customers and pricing.

"I would love to tell you everything," he said, "but I would get sued into oblivion if this stuff was identified. Working with Hollywood is like working for the CIA."

He did share, however, that two studios have currently licensed Corto, with a third set to sign up soon. He declined to provide pricing information.

Corto is not the only AI-for-storytelling game in town. Cinelytic, also L.A.-based, uses AI for film analytics and project management. The firm, founded in 2013, recently inked a deal with Warner Bros. And StoryFit, which is headquartered in Austin but does most of its business in Los Angeles, has found some success licensing its tools which, like Corto, include elements of natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis to analyze scripts.

"Marketing is frequently our first stop when we're introduced to a studio, because they're used to using data," StoryFit Chief Executive Monica Landers told dot.LA. "But we're really a better fit during development."

This often entails helping creatives avoid what Landers calls "red flags."

"You may want a character to be intelligent," she explains as an example, "but our analysis will show that she's actually speaking less intelligently than other characters. Or we can surface that your script is too flat. Or that the balance of dialogue and action is off."

StoryFit does a variety of projects, ranging from focusing on one script to a broader landscape analysis. Landers says customers include large and mid-size studios, and networks.

"Annual subscriptions range for most studios from $5,000 - $40,000 a month," she said.

"We've taken a radically different approach," claimed Bergquist. "As a result, we're able to output much deeper insights from a much wider dataset."

AI Skepticism

"My feeling about using NLP on scripts, is there's just so many places that can go wrong," said Brian Dolan, who formerly managed NLP analytics as director of research at MySpace and with the CIA, and is now Chief Executive of LA-based AI venture accelerator Verdant.ai.

"I'm skeptical it'll hit two marks," he told dot.LA. "I don't think it'll get to the sophistication where it can (predict performance), and more importantly, I'm not sure it can reach a level of sophistication where it can be tested – how do we know where it's making a mistake?"

"That's on top of whether machines should (even) be trying to analyze content," Dolan continued. "Aren't we humans making stories for other humans? Who benefits? The finance department – not the audience."

"Look, this isn't a silver bullet," retorts Bergquist. "And it's going to be a long time until it is. What this is, is a set of powerful tools to give development and marketing executives a lot more context and data than was previously available."

"Tens of billions of dollars are being spent every year making and marketing media content," he wrote. "If we can optimize even 5% of that – and it's likely we could do even more, from what our initial tests tell us – that's an enormous amount of money."

Neither CEO denied that what they are aiming to do is hard. And they both recognize that appealing to the community that will ultimately use these tools is crucial. To that end, each emphasized that what they seek to do is not replace people and processes, but augment them. Bergquist points out that Corto has the advantage of having been developed with a high degree of Hollywood input through ETC members, which include most major studios.

In the future, Bergquist believes Corto can reach the sophistication that's needed to make predictions about a story's bottom line. For now, he is taking it slow.

"The last thing the AI field needs is more buzz."

Knowing full well what can happen when a story gets out of hand, Bergquist appears to be ratcheting up the caution in his personal comeback sequel.

"What bit me in the ass in my last career is I created a story that was false," he reflected.

Time will tell how his story this time around lands with his own target audience.

---

Sam Blake covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA

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Smart Shoes for Kids? Skechers Thinks So 👟

🔦 Spotlight

Happy Friday, LA!

This week, Skechers may have just kicked off a new trend that’s bound to have parents and tech lovers talking. They've unveiled the "Find My Skechers" line, kids’ sneakers that come with a hidden compartment to securely hold an Apple AirTag. For $52 to $58, parents can now track their child’s shoes in real-time using the Find My app, giving a whole new meaning to "keeping an eye on things." While these tech-savvy kicks are already gaining attention, will they become the new norm in kids' footwear? And who’s next? Will Nike or Adidas be jumping on the AirTag bandwagon, or is Skechers setting the stage for a whole new wave of tech-integrated fashion?

But it’s not all smooth sailing. This innovation raises some interesting questions about privacy and surveillance. Are we crossing a line when we start tracking our kids’ every move through their shoes? While Apple’s anti-stalking features are in place to prevent misuse, it will be intriguing to see how other brands and parents respond to this new blend of fashion and tech.

What do you think? Could this become a must-have feature in the next generation of kids' gear, or is it a step too far? Let us know your thoughts!

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

  • LakeFS, a provider of Git-like version control for data lakes, has secured $20M in a growth funding round led by Maor Investments. The funds will support the company's expansion efforts and product development aimed at enhancing data engineering and AI initiatives within enterprise and public sector environments. - learn more

LA Venture Funds

    • Sound Ventures co-led the $16.1M Series A funding round for Knit, an AI-powered consumer research platform. The funds will be used to accelerate product development, enhance AI capabilities, and expand global research operations. This investment underscores the growing trend of combining AI with human expertise to deliver faster, cost-effective, and high-quality insights for enterprise research. - learn more
    • Anthos Capital co-led a $60M Series A funding round for Good Job Games, a mobile game developer known for creating casual and hyper-casual games. The investment, co-led by Menlo Ventures, will support the company's growth, enabling the expansion of its game portfolio and enhancing user engagement through innovative gameplay features. This funding marks a significant step in scaling Good Job Games’ operations and solidifying its position in the competitive mobile gaming market. - learn more
    • Pinegrove Capital Partners participated in Ramp's $500M Series E-2 funding round, which values the company at $22.5 billion. The funds will be used to accelerate Ramp's AI-driven financial tools, aiming to enhance automation and efficiency in corporate finance operations. - learn more
    • Riot Ventures participated in Oxide Computer Company's $100M Series B funding round, led by the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund (USIT). This investment will enable Oxide to scale its manufacturing capabilities, enhance customer support, and accelerate product delivery to meet the growing demand for on-premises cloud computing solutions. - learn more
    • Rebel Fund participated in a $3.2M seed funding round for Caseflood.ai, a San Francisco-based legal tech startup offering AI-powered client intake solutions for law firms. The funds will support the development of Caseflood's advanced voice agent, Luna, which autonomously handles client interactions, including consultations and retainer signings, aiming to enhance conversion rates and operational efficiency for law firms. - learn more
    • Smash Capital participated in Ambience Healthcare's $243M Series C funding round, co-led by Oak HC/FT and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The investment will support Ambience's expansion of its ambient AI platform, which automates clinical documentation, coding, and workflow tasks across over 200 specialties. The platform integrates directly with electronic health records, enhancing efficiency and compliance in healthcare settings. - learn more
    • ARTBIO, a clinical-stage radiopharmaceutical company developing alpha radioligand therapies for cancer treatment, has secured $132M in a Series B funding round. The round was co-led by Sofinnova Investments and B Capital, with participation from Alexandria Venture Investments and other investors. The funds will support the advancement of ARTBIO's lead program, AB001, through Phase II clinical trials, and facilitate the expansion of its manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure. - learn more
    • Rebel Fund participated in OffDeal's $12M Series A funding round, led by Radical Ventures, to support the company's mission of building the world's first AI-native investment bank. OffDeal aims to democratize access to high-quality M&A advisory services for small and mid-sized businesses by automating analyst tasks with AI, enabling efficient sell-side transactions. The funds will help scale OffDeal's technology-driven, advisor-led approach to facilitate successful exits for entrepreneurs. - learn more
    • Sandbox Studios participated in a $3M seed funding round for Sarelly Sarelly, a Mexican cosmetics brand, with backing from U.S. investors like Wollef, Morgan Creek Capital Management, and Hyve Ventures. The funds will support Sarelly Sarelly's expansion into the U.S. market, including retail launches at Ulta Beauty and growth on digital platforms like TikTok Shop. - learn more

    LA Exits
    • NEOGOV, an El Segundo-based provider of HR and compliance software for U.S. public sector agencies, has been acquired by EQT and CPP Investments in a deal valued at over $3 billion. The acquisition will help NEOGOV expand its product offerings and grow its presence across North America. - learn more

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          From Retro Cool to AI Convenience: LA’s New Tech Normal

          🔦 Spotlight

          Hello LA,

          What do you get when you cross a 1950s diner, robot-powered retail, and apps trying to do the right thing? A very Hollywood week in LA tech.

            Image Source: Tesla

           

          Let’s start with the most literal: Tesla’s long-awaited retro-futuristic diner just opened on Sunset, complete with drive-in movie screens, EV charging bays, and a neon glow that practically begs to be Instagrammed. It’s a mashup of Elon-style nostalgia and innovation, where your burger might take longer to arrive than your Model 3 finishes charging. While the menu sticks to diner classics (yes, there's a milkshake bar), the real flex is how Tesla is rebranding waiting as an “experience.” In a city where parking is currency, Tesla has turned it into a destination.

            Image Source: VenHub

           

          Just down the street, VenHub’s smart convenience store quietly opened its doors, but this is no 7-Eleven. The Pasadena-based startup is betting on AI-powered, cashier-free retail hubs that can be dropped anywhere, anytime. Think vending machine meets Apple Store. Investors are buying in on the promise of 24/7 access to snacks, essentials, and even meds. No human required. In a city of hustle, VenHub wants to make “convenient” even more convenient. Check out their locations here.

          Uber also rolled out new "Women Rider Preferences" in LA, letting women and nonbinary drivers opt to pick up women riders. It's a long-requested feature aimed at improving safety and comfort, especially for those driving at night. And while it’s opt-in for now, it’s a significant move toward rethinking trust and transparency in ride-hailing, starting with the people behind the wheel.

            Image Source: Snap

           

          And finally, Snap launched "Home Safe Alerts" to quietly keep you safer on the move. You can now send automatic updates to trusted friends when you're heading out or getting home. It’s a subtle yet powerful shift toward making tech feel more protective and less performative. Snap’s way of saying, "Text me when you get home," but without the follow-up guilt.

          So whether you're grabbing a burger under the glow of a Tesla screen, scanning a QR code at a robot-run bodega, or just getting home a little safer, this week reminded us that LA doesn’t just build the future. It makes it weird, wonderful, and just a little more user-friendly.

          Catch you next week ✌️

          🤝 Venture Deals

          LA Companies

          • Nevoya has raised $9.3M in seed funding, led by Lowercarbon Capital, to transform the American trucking industry with its advanced freight platform. The company aims to modernize logistics by optimizing routes, improving efficiency, and better connecting shippers and carriers. The funding will help Nevoya expand its technology and scale operations to redefine how goods move across the country. - learn more

          LA Venture Funds

          • Pinegrove Capital Partners joined Armada’s $131M Series B round to support the San Francisco-based edge computing startup in its mission to bring secure, modular data centers to remote and infrastructure-poor environments. Armada builds rugged, containerized units like its flagship Galleon and newly unveiled Leviathan, designed to enable real-time AI and compute at the edge. The funding will accelerate the deployment of these solutions globally and scale development for critical defense, energy, and industrial use cases. - learn more
          • Rebel Fund joined Lyra’s $6M seed round, supporting the San Francisco startup that’s redefining video conferencing with its AI-native platform. Lyra transforms traditional meetings into interactive workspaces with real-time collaboration and auto-generated summary notes. The capital will bolster infrastructure and support rapid growth as the company scales its go-to-market operations. - learn more
          • Plassa Capital participated in Bloom’s $1.6M pre-seed round to support the startup’s mission of building an all-in-one hub for the crypto trading community. Based in Miami, Bloom offers a social platform that combines trading tools, real-time news, and community-driven insights for crypto traders. The funding will help the company grow its team, enhance its product, and expand its user base. - learn more
          • Embark Ventures participated in TRIC Robotics’ seed funding round to support its development of autonomous robots that help farmers manage pests and plant diseases without chemicals. Based in Delaware, TRIC uses ultraviolet light and computer vision to treat crops like strawberries in a sustainable, labor-efficient way. The funding will help the company expand deployments, grow its team, and scale its technology to more farms across the U.S. - learn more
          • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Dispatch Bio’s $11.2M seed funding round. Based in San Diego, Dispatch Bio is developing a novel immunotherapy platform that aims to deliver a universal treatment for solid tumors by reprogramming immune cells at the tumor site. The funds will support further development of its platform and expansion of preclinical studies. - learn more
          • Mucker Capital led Vaudit’s $7.3M seed round, reinforcing its belief in the San Francisco Bay Area-based startup. Vaudit delivers an AI-powered media audit platform that automates real-time validation of ad spend, detecting discrepancies before payments are processed. The funding will enable Vaudit to enhance its platform, expand its team, and scale its global reach across web and mobile channels. - learn more
          • Morpheus Ventures participated in xLight’s $40M Series B funding round to support its mission of transforming semiconductor manufacturing. The Palo Alto-based company develops advanced laser-based lithography technology designed to make chip production faster, more precise, and more cost-effective. The new funding will be used to accelerate product development, expand the team, and scale operations to meet growing demand. - learn more
          • Magnify Ventures participated in Alix’s $20M Series A funding round to help the company modernize the estate settlement process. Based in New York, Alix offers a digital platform that simplifies and streamlines estate administration for families and professionals. The funds will be used to enhance the platform, grow the team, and expand its reach to meet increasing demand. - learn more
          • Untapped Ventures participated in Nexxa AI’s $4.4M seed round to support the company’s mission of bringing specialized AI solutions to heavy industries like manufacturing, logistics, and energy. Based in Sunnyvale, Nexxa’s platform enables domain-specific AI deployment tailored to industrial operations. The funding will help the company expand its engineering team, accelerate product development, and onboard new enterprise customers. - learn more

          LA Exits
          • Exverus Media, a Los Angeles-based media agency known for its data-driven approach to brand growth, has been acquired by global marketing firm Brainlabs. The acquisition strengthens Brainlabs’ U.S. presence and adds strategic media planning and measurement capabilities to its portfolio. Exverus will continue operating under its brand while gaining access to Brainlabs’ global resources and infrastructure. - learn more
          • Generous Brands is set to acquire Health-Ade Kombucha, the Los Angeles-based beverage company known for its premium, gut-healthy drinks. The deal marks Generous Brands’ push into the fast-growing functional beverage market and adds a high-profile name to its portfolio. Health-Ade will continue operating with its existing team while benefiting from expanded resources and distribution capabilities. - learn more
          • Launch Potato has acquired OnlyInYourState, a travel discovery platform known for spotlighting hidden gems across the U.S. The acquisition expands Launch Potato’s portfolio of digital brands and supports its goal of using AI to personalize trip planning experiences. OnlyInYourState will continue to operate while integrating with Launch Potato’s performance marketing and content strategy capabilities. -learn more
          • Vilore Foods has acquired Tia Lupita Foods, a better-for-you Mexican food brand known for its hot sauces, chips, and tortillas made with simple, sustainable ingredients. The acquisition expands Vilore’s portfolio into the health-conscious and culturally authentic food space. Tia Lupita will continue to operate under its brand while gaining access to Vilore’s distribution network and resources. - learn more

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              The $260M Robot Revolution Happening in Torrance

              🔦 Spotlight

              Hello Los Angeles,

              Forget rockets. This week, the loudest move in the defense tech scene came from a factory floor in Torrance, where Hadrian secured $260 million to fuel its robot-run revolution.

              The company, which builds AI-powered, robot-run factories for America’s aerospace and defense industries, announced the massive Series C raise, led by existing investors like Lux Capital and Founders Fund, along with a factory expansion loan facility arranged by Morgan Stanley. The funding will power Hadrian’s third factory (in Arizona), unlock full product manufacturing, and accelerate its mission to bring American manufacturing roaring back faster, smarter, and more automated than ever.

              And here’s what makes them fascinating: Hadrian isn’t just churning out parts. They’re reinventing what a factory is. Their facilities look more like giant humming circuit boards than the smokestacks of old, packed with robots, AI, and ambition to move at the speed of software.

              It’s the kind of vision you’d expect from a founder who speaks about reshoring U.S. manufacturing as if it were a moral obligation and then backs it up with billion-dollar contracts and steel-and-silicon proof.

              We’ll be watching closely to see what Hadrian assembles next. One thing’s certain: the robots are already working overtime, and if you’re smart (or a robot whisperer), you might want to join them.

              🤝 Venture Deals

              LA Companies

              • Boulevard, a SaaS startup that helps salons and self-care businesses manage scheduling and operations, has raised an $80M Series D led by JMI Equity at a valuation near $800M. The funding will fuel enhancements to its AI-powered scheduling tools and support continued product innovation and market expansion. - learn more
              • Rwazi has raised $12M in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered decision-making platform, which helps businesses replace gut-based decisions with real-time insights and simulations based on consumer behavior. The round was led by Bonfire Ventures and will support the growth of Rwazi’s simulation engine and data infrastructure to help companies make more precise, data-driven decisions across marketing, product, and operations. - learn more
              • Lexington Bakes, an artisan bakery known for its gluten-free, organic oat bars and luxury brownies, has raised $1M in a seed round. The investment was led by Rainfall Ventures. The funding will help the company transition to co-manufacturing, expand its retail reach from about 100 to a projected 1,000 doors in the next year, and scale up its team and operations. - learn more

              LA Venture Funds

              • TCG (The Chernin Group) participated in Substack’s latest $100M funding round, joining Andreessen Horowitz, and other investors. Their investment underscores confidence in Substack’s vision to grow its subscription publishing platform and expand its tools for independent writers and creators. - learn more
              • Acre Venture Partners participated in Zucca’s $5M funding round to help the Seattle startup scale its platform, which uses AI to design and develop plant-based food products faster and more efficiently. Their investment will support Zucca’s mission to create sustainable, health-focused foods and expand its operations. - learn more
              • Sound Ventures joined XMTP’s $80M Series B to back its vision of redefining how people communicate in the web3 world. With this funding, XMTP plans to scale its decentralized, privacy-focused messaging protocol, enabling secure, wallet-to-wallet conversations across the blockchain ecosystem. - learn more
              • Morpheus Ventures and Sage Venture Partners participated in Datavations’ $17M Series A funding round, with Morpheus joining as a new investor and Sage returning as an existing backer. Datavations, an AI-driven analytics platform for the building materials and home improvement industries, uses machine learning to deliver actionable insights on pricing, inventory, assortment, and supply chains. The funds will be used to grow the team, accelerate development of its Commerce Alert Hub, and expand its presence across North America. - learn more
              • Mucker Capital led the $3.3M seed round for Bidbus, an AI-powered consumer-to-dealer used car marketplace in the U.S. The platform enables car owners to auction their vehicles online and receive competing offers from dealers, while dealers gain access to high-quality inventory more efficiently. The funding will help Bidbus enhance its AI capabilities and expand into new markets. - learn more
              • Creative Artists Agency (CAA) participated as a strategic investor in Moonvalley’s $84M funding round, signaling strong industry confidence in the company’s development of a fully licensed, AI-powered video generation platform tailored for professional filmmakers and studios. CAA’s investment reinforces Moonvalley’s commitment to ethical AI practices and provides it with a direct pipeline to top-tier creative talent and entertainment partners. - learn more
              • MANTIS Venture Capital joined Zip Security’s $13.5M Series A funding round, backing the company's mission to deliver automated, AI-driven cybersecurity and compliance solutions. Their participation supports Zip’s efforts to expand its engineering team, build deeper platform integrations, and scale into regulated industry verticals like defense, finance, and healthcare. - learn more
              • Rebel Fund participated in Apolink’s oversubscribed $4.3M seed round, joining other notable backers such as Y Combinator and 468 Capital. By investing in this 19‑year‑old–led space tech startup, Rebel Fund is supporting Apolink’s mission to deliver continuous LEO satellite connectivity and facilitate its planned demo missions and constellation build‑out. - learn more

                LA Exits
                • Retina AI is to be acquired by Onar in a deal that will enhance Onar’s AI-powered customer analytics and personalization offerings. By integrating Retina’s predictive customer lifetime value technology, Onar aims to provide businesses with deeper insights into customer behavior and more precise targeting. The acquisition highlights Onar’s commitment to delivering data-driven solutions for optimizing customer relationships. - learn more
                • Nearsure, a U.S.-based tech services company with over 600 professionals across 18 Latin American countries, has been acquired by Nortal to bolster its AI and enterprise solutions in the Americas. Known for its AI-driven transformation, custom software, and partnerships with major platforms, Nearsure will merge into Nortal’s U.S. operations and rebrand later this year. The acquisition allows Nearsure to expand into U.S. and European markets while enhancing its AI, cybersecurity, and enterprise offerings. - learn more
                • InsideOut Sports & Entertainment, the event production company behind high‑profile sports events like The Pickleball Slam, Pro Padel League, and Major League Pickleball, has been acquired by GSE Worldwide, marking GSE’s first foray into live event production. Founded by tennis legend Jim Courier and Jon Venison, who will now serve as EVP and head of the new GSE Productions division, InsideOut’s team will integrate into GSE to help scale its live-event operations into new markets. - learn more

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