CNN’s Van Jones: Genius is Everywhere

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

CNN’s Van Jones: Genius is Everywhere

Van Jones hosts his own show on CNN, and he's the founder of The Dream Corps, an accelerator that supports economic and environmental innovation. Its #YesWeCode initiative aims to help 100,000 young people from underrepresented backgrounds find success in the tech sector. Van is an important voice on social justice and STEM education, and Time Magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world. In this episode, Van joins Spencer at Zillow Group's New York office for a live recording in front of employees. The two discuss Van's impressive background working in communities and promoting green jobs, how to increase diversity in tech and why young people have the power to change the world.


Press Play to hear the full conversation or check out the transcript below. You can also subscribe to Office Hours on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne.

Spencer Rascoff:Thanks, everybody. We're here in the New York office of Zillow Group. I'm here with our guest, Jones. Please, everyone, give Van a welcome.

Van, thanks for coming on Office Hours. I wanna start by having you walk us through your career. We know you as a public media personality on CNN, but there's a whole career that preceded that. So, tell us how you got there, and walk us through your career.

Van Jones:I think probably the best way to start is just to talk about where I was born and raised, and then just go from there. But I was born in Jackson, Tennessee. I was talking to a friend from Kentucky. I was born in Jackson, Tennessee. My dad had been born in segregation and poverty in Memphis in 1944. So, he grew up basically in a shotgun shack, joining the military to get out of poverty.

Everybody else was running out of the military. My dad ran into the military to get out. When he got out, he put himself through college. He married the college president's daughter, who was my mother, 'cause Willy Jones was bad. My dad was bad.

And then, he put his brother through college. He put his cousin through college. And then worked with my mom, put me and my sister through college. And I'll always point out, when my father died, the picture that we put of him on the funeral program was him standing in front of Yale Law School the day I graduated with his hands in the air —

Rascoff:Proud moment.

Jones:Yeah, proud moment for him, given where he started from. So, but my dad was such an “up and out of poverty guy. He got himself out of poverty, then he was a cop in the military, then he was an educator. And I just felt like my dad helped so many people, including my whole family, get out of poverty really with nothing.

How could I have a Yale law degree and not try to at least beat him, if not best him? So, I became a — 24 years old, graduated from Yale Law School, moved to the Bay Area and started working on criminal justice, police reform. I was woke before y'all had alarm clocks.

Rascoff:I'm guessing most of your Yale classmates pursued a different path?

Jones:You know what's so funny? Everybody I went to Yale with, they wanted to be in politics, and they wouldn't take on any controversial issues. They were worried about their Supreme Court testimony. And when I was just on the left side of Pluto. I was on every issue, every protest, every demonstration.

And I wound up working in the White House, and they didn't. Just saying. Follow your heart, follow your dreams. I started an organization called the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and we worked to try to fix the juvenile justice system. We wound up closing five abusive youth prisons in California, and we cut California's youth prison population by 80 percent with no increase in youth violence or youth crime. A big cost savings. Stopped them from building a super jail for kids in Oakland. Reformed the San Francisco Police Department. This is all in the 1990s, early 2000s.

Rascoff:All your early to mid-20s?

Jones:Twenties to early 30s, and I just burned out. It was too hard. A lot of funerals. You work with urban youth. You wind up going to a lot of funerals. You got young people in the caskets, and then old people with white hair sitting up in the pews, which is the reverse of what you expect. And there were so many — I've still gone to more funerals in Oakland than graduations.

And you're in a situation when you have that much bad stuff happening — even little things that you don't think about. Like, there's so many sidewalk memorials that when little, bitty kids see balloons, they sometimes start crying 'cause they think that the balloon is — they associate that with memorials of kids who have gotten killed.

So, just — that kind of stuff, that's just too hard for me. So, I wound up deciding to do something very different, just trying to get jobs for kids coming home from jail. And we had a big solar boom happening in California at that time — now you're about 2005, 2006.

And people were ordering the solar panels for their houses, which you can find on Zillow —

Rascoff:Thank you. Well done. [Laughter]

Jones:But they were ordering solar panels for their houses, but it would take them three months, six months, nine months to get the solar panels up 'cause they didn't have enough well-trained people to do the work. And so, I saw a big opportunity to try to get young folks from the community trained to put up solar panels.

And that became a huge breakthrough because we got money to train youth to put up solar panels, and a woman named Nancy Pelosi, who had just become Speaker of the House, came and saw what we were doing. And she went nuts. She says, “You're fighting pollution and poverty at the same time by getting these young people jobs, cleaning up the environment, bringing in the clean energy revolution."

So, she took me to Washington, D.C. She had me testify in front of almost every one of her committees, and we got a guy named George W. Bush to sign a bill called the Green Jobs Act of 2007 to spread my program across the country. That was a huge victory. And then I wrote a book about it in 2008 — “The Green Collar Economy," available on Amazon. [Laughter]

And that book became a bestseller. A guy named Barack Obama read the book, and so, suddenly —

Rascoff: Did that happen organically? He was a community organizer in Chicago at the time. How did you get on his radar screen?

Jones:He was running for Senate — I mean, he was in the U.S. Senate, and he was getting ready to run for president. And Al Gore at that time was making a huge noise about the climate crisis and depressing everyone because it's just such a big problem, and I was seen as somebody who had a solution.

So, then he brought me to Washington, D.C., to help him, and wound up moving about $80 billion with a B from the federal government into clean and green solutions, $5 billion for solar — $5 billion during the so-called stimulus package. So, it was my job to coordinate that spend out for the president.

After that, I went to Princeton, taught there for a while. Then I wound up on CNN with my second book, and that's where I am. But my TV career is the shortest part of my career. I spent literally 25 years working in communities, doing tough stuff, trying to help people, and I'm mainly known for talking about tweets on CNN.

Rascoff:It's funny how life happens. What are advice to young people and common threads from that career path? What do you pull out as some things that you'd want to make sure a 25-year-old self or 20-year-old self would hear?

Jones:You have a lot more power than you think, that's the main thing I would say. Especially when you're young and you're new. You see a lot of stuff that could be improved. You see a lot of gaps. And often you're almost scared to say anything 'cause you don't want to get in trouble, you don't want to seem like you're a troublemaker.

But my experience has been if your heart's right about it, if you really are trying to, say for instance, make Zillow be the best possible thing or whatever it is, you can actually make a tremendous difference, wherever you are. You don't have to have the big title. You don't have to be the head of stuff. You can actually make a tremendous difference.

I think, number one: Don't underestimate your power and your influence. People said we'd never close a prison in California. They just built 20 of them. They said, “You're never gonna close any prisons." We were just too young and dumb to know any better and wound up closing five and making things better.

Another thing I would say is that I think most people have some calling inside themselves. Almost like secret hope about your life that you might be able to make a difference, help people. You're almost embarrassed to share with people — something you want to write, something you'd love to see happen.

It's almost embarrassing, but it keeps coming back, and it keeps coming back. That's why you were born. That thing. It's why you're here. Now, you're getting skills and experiences and meeting people, doing a lot of other stuff, but that's the thing. And if you can, without getting yourself fired or evicted — which, having had both happen to me, I don't recommend — if you can find a way to just continue to move in the direction of that dream, it's amazing what happens in your life.

All the stuff that makes no sense in your life — the crazy people you've met, the bad things that have happened to you, your nutty family — all that stuff winds up being fertilizer to help you do something really beautiful and really amazing. And I think, more than ever, it's gonna be unlikely people that do awesome stuff.

I think the people I see at the top of the game in Washington, D.C., right now — they're stuck, and they're fighting. I see people in D.C., I see people in Wall Street, I see people in Silicon Valley, Hollywood. The people at the top, they're having a hard time adjusting to all these changes in technology, in society and everything else.

They're really, really struggling, whereas the newer people, they seem to actually have a little bit of an inside track on what's next. If you can combine that generational perspective with a deeper purpose and a deeper calling, I think you can do a lot more than most people would assume.

Rascoff:I wasn't alive in the '60s, but obviously there seemed then to have been this sense of upheaval and of empowerment, and youth were able to make an impact. It does seem like we have a lot of that today, and some of that is because of the democratization of media and social media. Some of it is because of millennials and just young people feel they want to be part of something bigger, connected to some sort of a mission, whether it's at a company or in politics or in society.

It does feel different than it did 10 or 15 years ago.

Jones:Even five years ago.

Rascoff:I'm trying to adapt to that as a CEO of what's it like to run a company in that environment. I think the media's trying to adapt to what's it like to inform people about what's happening in the world around them in that sort of environment.

Jones:I think people have a sense, and they're not wrong, that maybe help is not on the way. And in that situation, you want to do something. And I think, frankly, people who are not in government and who are not in politics are gonna have to do more. It used to be that the future was written in law in Washington, D.C. It was written in law by senators, by congress people, by Supreme Court folks, people who have been democratically selected to figure out the future for America and write the future in law.

Now, frankly, the future is being written in code — computer code — in Silicon Valley and places like this. They're updating your phones right now. You didn't ask them to, they're just busy doing it. If you think about that, what that means is that the private sector — whether it's finance or technology or media — the momentum is there, the power is there, the money is there.

But the people who are sitting in those chairs, in your chairs, nobody's coming to you and said, “You're supposed to save the world." They say, “You're supposed to get your project done. You're supposed to meet these earnings reports." But increasingly, you're gonna feel an urgency about the world. And you don't think you can wait four years to vote on it and hope it works out okay.

And so, this is a new reality, I think, for the private sector — that you actually have the ability to make a change. You have a whole generation that wants to make a change, and there's a big failure at the government level. And not just United States — throughout the West.

That's gonna be something that's important to take seriously 'cause I think to keep your best folks and to get your best work out of your best folks, that social purpose has to get elevated a little bit.

Rascoff:Companies like ours have been pulled into this by their employees really saying, “We want you to be more engaged civically. We want you to either be more philanthropic or more outspoken on political issues or both." And it's complicated managing a company in that type of environment, especially such a polarized, politicized situation.

I know there are things that our employees want me to speak out on, topics that I have chosen not to engage on, where other CEOs have. The litmus test that I've made for myself is does it directly affect our employees or our company?

What have you seen, either guests on your shows or others that you're interacting with in media and business landscape — how are they navigating that?

Jones:The reason I like what you're doing is because it's authentic to you. I think the most important thing is that you do you.

But I think trying to figure out how to let that authenticity bubble up through the rest of the company — that's a more difficult management challenge. I'm looking around at CNN, and I'm new to CNN, but I'm not young. So, I was born in '68, so I'll be 50 years old this year.

I'm new to CNN, but I'm not young. Because I'm new, I have more in common with the younger people, though. And I'm watching all these younger people — they have just brilliant ideas. Just unbelievably brilliant ideas. What they think is newsworthy is not what we are putting on the news.

I think we're leaving a ton of value on the table, just because the thing is just not set up to listen to the 24-year-old who's been there for 18 months. And so, that I think for companies of this size, figuring out some way — you should be authentic to yourself, but keeping your ear big for the authentic voices in your building, which will actually change what you're authentic about, I think that's the big challenge.

Rascoff:The nice thing about young people is — you once were in your mid-20s, started to take on the criminal justice system — is they don't know any better. So, they're hopelessly optimistic and naive.

In my world, in the startup world, that enables them and encourages them to start companies, 'cause they don't know any better.

You focused on criminal justice, then the environment, and then, more recently, STEM and underserved populations or underrepresented populations in technology. So, tell us about #YesWeCode and what you're up to more recently.

Rascoff:Part of the tragedy of what I see happening on is just what I call wasted genius. I spent a lot of time in tough schools visiting prisons, juvenile detention centers. Geniuses, just super ridiculously smart people. Genius is actually pretty uniformly spread out, but opportunity is not.

And so, when I was at Yale, I saw kids doing all kind of drugs and terrible stuff. The cops never got called, nobody went to prison. At worst, they went to rehab. Maybe they had to take a semester off, and that was it. And then, those people went on to become doctors, and lawyers. George W. Bush, president of the United States, that — you could have a bad couple years if you're at a certain income level and a certain zip code.

But a few blocks away, kids doing fewer drugs got seven years, 13 years, 22 years in prison. And so, we're just wasting a ton of genius, some of those young people who are behind bars right now could be the Mark Zuckerbergs, or they could start the Zillows or whatever, but they just won't have that shot.

And so, we started #YesWeCode as really an opportunity to try to connect some of the brilliant urban youth that we know in the Oakland part of the Bay Area with Silicon Valley. And Prince, the late rock star, was a person who really wanted us to do that. And so, Prince and I were the co-founders on #YesWeCode.

And it's been a really powerful experience because, just from a physical point of view, Oakland is only about 37 minutes from the Google campus, and I think 41 minutes from the Facebook campus. It's very, very close. But it may as well be on the other side of the moon in terms of somebody who's going to — what used to be Castle Von High School and their thought about the fact that they could ever work at Facebook; it's just completely on the different side of the moon.

Rascoff:What can companies do to improve underrepresented minorities in technology?

Jones:I think a couple things. First, how many people here ever had an internship any place? So, just that. Just doing internships and apprenticeship programs is so important. Because the thing about it is when you try to hire somebody for a job, there's only one of two outcomes. They're either gonna make it, or they're gonna get fired.

And that can be scary for everybody. It's like, “We hired somebody." The thing about an internship: You win if you just complete it. I had an internship — nobody's expected to ace the internship. They just had it, and they did a good job, they made some friends, they learned some stuff, they got some mentorship, their sights got raised.

That is not happening for huge sections of our country. Just literally people can't even get their foot in the door. I think internship programs are important, and then apprenticeship programs, where somebody's paid to work for three months or six months, and they complete the apprenticeship.

Maybe they're great, and they're awesome, and you hire them, you could say. But if not, they at least successfully completed an apprenticeship program. They might be able to go someplace else and get a job. These are the kinds of things that an HR department doesn't want to have to deal with the brain damage and the heartburn around, unless there's a passion in the company and not just the CEO.

By the way, stuff like this — it can't just be the CEO. If the CEO's excited about the internship program and you're not, it'll be the worst internship program ever. If the CEO's passionate about diversity and you're not, or passionate about apprenticeships and you're not, then even the people who see the video and who come will have a miserable experience.

So, it's really about you as a cohort recognizing the importance to yourself of bringing in some of these new voices and perspectives. When I first started doing this, I thought about it more honestly as, “This is great for the young people." I didn't realize how great it was for the companies.

It took, actually, a while for me to realize how great it was for people with completely different perspective, Rolodex, understanding to come in.

We occasionally do these hack-athons through #YesWeCode, and we get urban kids in the same room with engineers from top companies, and every single time we do it, the engineers are blown away by how smart these kids are. We've done it in Baltimore, in Oakland, in New Orleans and all over the country.

And top engineers — they come in, they think they're gonna teach these kids stuff, and within 20 minutes their mouths are hanging open. Not just by how smart the young people are, but also by the kids of problems that young people want to solve using technology.

We did a hack-athon once where a young girl — the problem she was trying to solve was that she was in foster care, African-American, tough background. And she said, “Mr. Jones, when you're in foster care, your parents aren't around, and you just have to wear whatever clothes your foster parents find for you.

“So, sometimes when you go to school, people laugh at you because of the way you look. So, young girls like me, we sometimes do stuff that we're not proud of to get money to buy clothes so we don't get laughed at." Her solution, very simple, “Could we build an app where people who are donating clothes" — 'cause a lot of their clothes are donated — “where the clothes could be found on an app, and we could pick our own clothes, so that way we'd be picking clothes that would be good for us?"

The engineer sitting next to me said, “That's probably a multibillion dollar idea because second-hand, used clothes — that's a global market. And nobody's ever actually even suggested that." And what I said is, “Poor kids have billion-dollar solutions because they've got billion-dollar problems."

And when you start listening to what some people are going through, you'd wind up finding whole other market opportunities — all kinds of adjacent possibilities that just aren't available to you if it's just everybody who went to fancy schools like me.

This whole #YesWeCode experience — and I just appreciate so much your support of it — I didn't realize what an elitist snob I was. I'm just gonna be honest. The first time we did a hack-athon in Oakland I showed up, and you got all these kids, and they're from tough neighborhoods, and some of these neighborhoods don't get along.

And I walk in there, and my first thought is, “I hope there's not a fight." This is anti-racist, civil rights guy. But the bias in my own head, my first thought was, “I hope there's not a fight." And three days later, by the way, when these kids had shown up 20 to 30 minutes early every day — they're sitting there, waiting for us to open up the building, and you can't drag 'em out there at the end of the day. And they've come up with ideas that are 20 times better than anything anybody has come up with from my sector of society. I was embarrassed.

I had to tell 'em, I thought, “Listen, I totally underestimated you guys. And if I'm doing it, Lord knows what other people are doing." And it just made me a complete zealot lunatic about creating more opportunity for folks in those places. And if Zillow can be a place to absorb even a fraction of that talent, there's no telling what can happen here.

Rascoff:I wanna talk about the state of news media. Yeah, I know. [Laughter] It's a fraught topic —

Jones:I thought you liked me.

Rascoff:Probably a year or two ago, if you had said, “The state of news media," the topic of conversation would have been about how difficult it is for print — maybe broadcast — but mostly print to make money in an increasingly digital environment. Now, fast forward a couple years, and it's more about what role does the media play to inform the public? How do politicians interact with the media?

From your perch, where you sit as a media professional, what would you wish that politicians did differently?

And I'm not just talking about Trump. I'm talking more generally to try to make for better discourse.

Jones:I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily blame the politicians. I sometimes feel like I work in the tobacco industry. Like, “Don't use our product; it's bad for your health." Sometimes, I feel that badly about the way that the media has responded.

I don't blame the politicians; they do what they do given what's available to them. I blame, really, us in the media system. There's another round of innovation. We now have a system based on the phones in your pocket — a ton of data, no wisdom at all. That's how I would describe it.

You are overwhelmed with data, and you can't find wisdom no matter what you do. And it's really the lack of wisdom that I think is causing the problem. I don't know what's gonna happen, but this is not working.

Because for CNN, I get to go into red states and red counties, talk to Trump voters all the time. The way we're talking past each other is just heartbreaking.

Rascoff:That seems sort of — I have a hard time convincing myself that will ever change. That seems sort of inevitable, given the fragmentation of media and the echo chamber that we put ourselves into, and the way that digital advertising and Facebook personalization propagates that ideology bubble that we all live in. We seem to inevitably be on this course towards more and more polarization.

Jones:And thank you very much.

Rascoff:How do we fix it? Come on, Van, what's the solution?

Jones:Hey look, I don't know what to do. I think I know how to be in the face of it. Less arrogant, less insistent that I'm right about everything, less committed to treating the red states the way that colonizers treat Third World countries.

It's very tough to lead a country you don't love. It's very hard to win people over when you don't respect them at all. And the one thing I know we need to stop doing is having this attitude, “You are an idiot and a bigot and a fool and a chump. Vote for me." That's less persuasive than you might think if you listen to NPR and CNN and MSNBC.

I think trying to insult people into joining our cause is ill-considered. I think that the idea that we're supposed to have empathy for everybody except Trump voters, that as liberals and progressives and — not putting you in that mix, but I'm just saying for myself — as liberals and progressives, we're supposed to have these big, open arms and big, open hearts, except for half the country?

That is not gonna work.

Rascoff:I strongly agree with one thing you said, which is that regardless of whether you're a Republican or Democrat, dismissing people on the other side of the aisle, if you — that is a recipe for disaster. We have to be respectful of people of all different walks of life and all different political persuasions.

Jones:Basic human rights and human dignity should be a threshold. We shouldn't attack people because of where they're born and their sexuality, their race, their gender, all that kind of stuff. In kindergarten, you can't do that. So, I think it's perfectly fine to decide to fight for that.

But to then extend that and dismiss half the country as, to make up a word, deplorable because they disagree with you, that is also — you gotta throw a flag on that as well. And also, let me just say this, we need each other. People forget that. We need each other. I'm a liberal. I think you need me in society. I got a big heart, I care about people who don't have big PACs and don't have lobbyists and can't give you any money, but I'll fight for 'em anyway.

I think you need me. But you don't want me writing a budget by myself. You don't because a conservative will say, “Van, I appreciate your bleeding heart, but how much does this cost, and who's gonna pay for it?" And I never think about that. I just say, “Feed the babies!" I'm not that worried about that.

It's in that back and forth —

Rascoff:Again, the importance of diversity, political and otherwise.

Van, you're a do-good machine, spawning all these different organizations, and thank you for talking with us. Thanks a lot for sharing thoughts about the future of media and just explaining your perspective and the impact that you're making. Thanks a lot, congratulations. You have the last word, please.

Jones:Look, I just want to say, you weren't born to do normal stuff. It's not a normal time. It's not business as usual. And you can have a much bigger impact than you usually let yourself believe. And the fact that you're here in New York City, you're working for a major tech company — look, my kids live in LA. The first thing they do is Zillow each other's houses to figure out the pecking order.

Till a year ago we were renting, so we didn't get a chance to play. But true story — but that's a big deal. The fact that you work for a company that every kid in America has heard of, or a lot of them have heard of, gives you standing. It gives you a legitimacy. It gives you a credibility.

And you might feel confused, and you might feel frustrated, and you might feel a bunch of things, but when you walk out of this door, you mean something to people. You mean something to people you went to school with, you mean something to your families, you mean something to your communities.

And you don't have to have all the answers. You just have to have some of the right questions like, “How can I help? What's going on? Maybe I know somebody; let me see if I can be of some use." You got people behind you in line who look like you or who don't — who don't have one mentor, not one person who's willing to tell them one thing.

And you can change that person's life without a raise, without changing a single other thing — you can change that person's life. Somebody did it for you, so I wish that people in national media and national politics could come here and say, “Here's how we're gonna fix everything and pass every bill and pass every program." We're a long way from that.

That is going to be the outcome of something else, and the something else is ordinary people giving a damn. Ordinary people reaching out to each other. Ordinary people doing one more thing than they would have done, and that begins to create an accumulation that can get us out of this thing.

There's something in this room, there's something in this company, there's something that could be very powerful, very beautiful, very impactful for ordinary people. I just encourage you to keep seeking for it because it can be really, really special. So, thank you.

Rascoff:Thank you.

The post CNN's Van Jones: Genius is Everywhere appeared first on Office Hours.

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Mattel Isn’t Just Playing Anymore

🔦 Spotlight

Hello Los Angeles,

AI just became Mattel’s newest playmate.

This week, Mattel announced a new partnership with OpenAI, setting the stage for a toy box transformation powered by artificial intelligence. The El Segundo-based toy giant will use ChatGPT to breathe new life into its iconic brands, including Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Masters of the Universe. The collaboration will start with interactive AI experiences and creative tools to support product development internally.

It's a bold move for Mattel, which has been steadily shifting its identity from a traditional toy maker to a modern entertainment company. Between box office hits like Barbie and now this AI integration, Mattel is showing that legacy brands can still lead the charge into the future. The partnership supports CEO Ynon Kreiz’s long-term vision to expand Mattel's intellectual property into a broader, multi-platform universe. OpenAI is now playing a key role in that strategy.

This also points to a larger trend unfolding in Los Angeles. The lines between tech, entertainment, and consumer products are blurring quickly. AI isn’t coming to the mainstream; it’s already here. And if Barbie is getting an upgrade, other LA-born icons may not be far behind.

We’re keeping an eye on how this unfolds and whether it becomes more than just a flashy concept. One thing’s certain: Mattel isn’t just playing around.

Catch the latest LA venture deals, acquisitions, and fund updates below.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

  • Coco Robotics, a Santa Monica-based startup specializing in last-mile autonomous delivery robots, has raised $80M in a strategic funding round led by angel investors Sam Altman and Max Altman, with participation from Pelion Venture Partners, Offline Ventures, Ryan Graves, and others. The company will use the funding to scale its AI-powered platform, grow its zero-emission robot fleet to 10,000 vehicles by 2026, expand partnerships with delivery platforms like Uber and DoorDash, and broaden its presence in more cities across the U.S. and internationally. - learn more
  • PopID, a fintech startup specializing in biometric payment and loyalty authentication using face and palm recognition, has closed a new equity financing round backed by major strategic investors including Verifone, PayPal, Commerce Ventures, Chipotle’s Cultivate Next, and Visa Ventures. The fresh capital will support the expansion of its global biometric network by leveraging Verifone’s terminal infrastructure to integrate secure and seamless biometric payments and loyalty programs across merchants worldwide. - learn more
  • Rosebud, an AI-powered journaling app designed to serve as a personal growth mentor, has raised $6M in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The funds will be used to expand the team, advance its proprietary memory-driven AI engine, and pursue partnerships with therapists, educational institutions, businesses, and clinics to enhance access and deepen the app’s reflective capabilities. - learn more
  • Impulse Space, the in-space mobility startup founded by ex-SpaceX engineer Tom Mueller, has raised $300M in a Series C funding round led by Linse Capital with participation from Trousdale Ventures and others, bringing its total financing to $525M. The company designs and builds orbital transfer vehicles—like Mira and upcoming Helios—to transport satellites between orbits, and the new funds will scale production, hire new staff, accelerate R&D (including electric propulsion), and fulfill a backlog of over 30 commercial and government contracts worth nearly $200 million. - learn more
  • dataplor, a Manhattan Beach, CA-based provider of global location intelligence, has secured a $20.5M Series B round led by F‑Prime Capital. The funds will help dataplor scale its privacy-focused point-of-interest and foot traffic mobility products, expand global coverage, enhance data capabilities, and accelerate product growth for enterprise clients seeking real-time consumer insights. - learn more

        LA Venture Funds

        • WndrCo participated in Meter’s $170M Series C financing. Meter provides a full-stack, enterprise-grade internet infrastructure solution that covers routing, switching, WiFi, and cellular for businesses ranging from single offices to large data centers. The new funds will accelerate global expansion, grow its channel partnerships with companies like CDW, Microsoft, and WWT, and support further deployment and R&D. - learn more
        • Sound Ventures participated in Landbase’s $30M Series A round, co-leading the investment alongside Picus Capital. Landbase uses AI, leveraging a GPT‑4o-based model trained on 40 million marketing campaigns, to automate and enhance outbound sales outreach, helping small and mid‑size businesses build trust and scale customer acquisition. The funding will support expansion of its team, product development, and go‑to‑market efforts as it rapidly grows its customer base. - learn more
        • Rebel Fund participated in Outset’s $17M Series A round, which was led by 8VC. Outset uses AI-powered agents to conduct and analyze in-depth video interviews at enterprise scale, serving clients like Nestlé, Microsoft, and WeightWatchers. The new funding will accelerate growth by expanding its go‑to‑market and engineering teams, enhancing its AI agent capabilities, and scaling its platform globally. - learn more
        • Anthos Capital returned as a participant in Laurel’s $100M Series C round, led by IVP. Laurel, the world’s first AI-powered “Time Platform” for professional services firms, automates time tracking and links how employees spend their time directly to business outcomes. The new funding will be used to scale the platform globally, enhance AI-driven time categorization and analytics, and help firms optimize resource allocation and profitability. - learn more
        • Vamos Ventures participated in Trustible’s $4.6M Series Seed round led by Lookout Ventures. Trustible provides an AI governance platform that helps enterprises inventory AI use cases, manage risk, comply with regulations like the EU AI Act, and accelerate responsible adoption. The funding will power product development, hire engineering and go‑to‑market talent (particularly in the D.C. area), and scale operations to help enterprise and public-sector customers deploy AI safely. - learn more
        • Village Global participated in Qanooni’s $2M pre‑seed round, joined by Oryx Fund, TA Ventures, and a group of strategic angels. Qanooni, founded in 2024 and based in the UAE, builds an AI-powered legal platform that integrates directly into Microsoft Outlook and Word to help lawyers draft, review, and manage documents using their own style and standards. The new funding will fuel expansion into the UAE and UK and advance its proprietary AI engine tailored for legal workflows. - learn more
        • Muse Capital and Rocana Venture Partners participated in Eli Health’s $12M USD Series A round, led by BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund, boosting the company’s total funding to around $20M USD. Eli Health has developed the Hormometer™, a real-time, saliva-based hormone monitoring system currently in beta for cortisol with plans to expand to progesterone and other biomarkers. The new capital will scale production, add biomarkers, support commercialization, and accelerate global rollout of its instant hormone health platform. - learn more
        • Crossover VC participated in ai.work’s $10M seed round led by A* and lool ventures. ai.work has emerged from stealth to launch an “AI Workers” platform—autonomous agents designed to streamline enterprise workflows across IT, HR, Legal, Finance, and more. The funding will be used to scale operations, accelerate product development, and deploy AI Workers into pilot programs with large enterprises. - learn more
        • MANTIS Venture Capital participated in AIM’s $50M funding round. The company has built the first embodied AI platform that retrofits heavy machinery, like bulldozers and excavators, for autonomous operation, aiming to boost safety, efficiency, and productivity in construction and mining. The new capital will help AIM scale deployments, advance its AI technology, and expand its plug-and-play autonomy solutions across heavy equipment fleets worldwide. - learn more
        • Watertower Ventures led Finofo's $3.3M seed round, with continued backing from Motivate Venture Capital, SaaS Ventures, and several angel investors. Finofo offers a modern business banking platform that automates accounts payable, treasury, and global receivables, enabling seamless, low-fee payments across more than 90 countries with ERP integration. The funds will support expanded AP and AR automation features, the launch of a small-business plan, and hiring across product, engineering, and go-to-market teams. - learn more
        • Finality Capital Partners participated in RISE Chain’s latest $4M raise, bringing its total funding to $8M. RISE Chain is building an ultra-fast Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain using "Shreds" architecture to deliver sub-5 millisecond transaction confirmations and scale toward 100,000 transactions per second. The new capital will support the mainnet launch, accelerate product and app development, and expand its real-time performance capabilities for advanced DeFi and high-frequency applications. - learn more
        • Emerging Ventures participated in Taiv’s $14.4M CAD (≈ $10.5 M USD) Series A round, led by Denmark’s IDC Ventures. Taiv equips bars, restaurants, and retail venues with free hardware that transforms existing TVs into targeted advertising and content delivery tools, then shares ad revenue with the venues. The funding will power expansion across North America (starting in Canada this summer), grow the team, and enhance its AI-driven content delivery platform. - learn more
        • Matter Venture Partners led an $18.4M investment in Kargo. The company offers an AI-driven inventory management system, including hardware like "Towers" and Lifts, that automatically captures and processes freight data at warehouse loading docks to improve accuracy, real-time visibility, and operational efficiency. The new funding will be used to develop new products, expand deployment across their customer base, and scale their computer vision platform in global supply chains. - learn more
        • Bam Ventures and Trust Fund participated in the $10.6M funding round for Nectar Social, a Seattle-based startup that helps brands convert social media engagement into revenue using AI-powered “social copilot” agents. The platform consolidates comments, DMs, mentions, influencer outreach, and analytics into one interface to streamline brand interactions and boost performance. The funding will support product development, team expansion, and scaling operations with enterprise customers. - learn more
        • MTech Capital participated in Voxel’s $44M Series B funding round. The company has developed an AI-powered workplace safety platform that integrates with existing cameras to detect hazards and unsafe behavior in real time, reducing accidents and operational risks. The new funding will accelerate R&D in computer vision, deepen its AI capabilities, and grow its team of industry experts to scale deployments across high-risk industries such as manufacturing, logistics, and ports. - learn more
            LA Exits
            • Hennessey Digital, a leading legal marketing agency known for its SEO, digital PR, PPC, and web design services, has been acquired by Herringbone Digital. The acquisition expands Herringbone’s platform into the legal marketing space while retaining Hennessey’s leadership and team. With added resources and support, Hennessey Digital plans to scale its services and integrate new AI-driven marketing tools to better serve law firms nationwide. - learn more
            • Prosthetic Records has been acquired by MNRK Music Group and will now operate under its MNRK Heavy division. The deal brings Prosthetic’s extensive heavy metal catalog - featuring pioneering acts like Lamb of God, Animals as Leaders, and The Acacia Strain - under MNRK’s umbrella. MNRK plans to amplify the label’s legacy through anniversary reissues, remastered editions, curated collections, and new releases from standout acts such as Pupil Slicer and God Alone. - learn more
            • RKO Pictures, the legendary film studio behind classics like King Kong and Citizen Kane, has been acquired by Concord Originals, the film and TV division of Concord. The deal gives Concord derivative and adaptation rights to over 5,000 RKO titles, including sequels, remakes, stage adaptations, and unproduced screenplays. RKO will continue as an imprint under Concord Originals, co-led by Sophia Dilley and Mary Beth O’Connor, with plans to revive its storied catalog through reissues, new productions, and adaptations. - learn more
            • StartADAM has been acquired by LeapXpert, bringing its AI-powered chat agent technology and founding team into LeapXpert’s fold. The acquisition enhances LeapXpert’s communication intelligence platform with advanced AI features, new messaging channel support, and deeper CRM integrations. StartADAM’s founders, including co-founder Adam Stone, who became LeapXpert’s VP of AI Product will lead development to scale these capabilities globally. - learn more
            • CASHét has been acquired by Entertainment Partners, integrating its suite of digital payment services including p-cards, automated accounts payable, and vendor verification into EP’s production finance ecosystem. The acquisition ensures that CASHét will continue supporting productions worldwide, regardless of their payroll or accounting systems, while expanding its services into new global markets. With this move, EP enhances its end-to-end financial workflow offerings, bringing faster, more secure, and fraud-resistant payment tools to film and TV productions. - learn more
            • Element Brand Group has been acquired by The Lede Company, with founder Heather Leeds Greenfield joining as a partner and head of brand partnerships. Greenfield’s senior team, including two SVPs, will move over to expand The Lede Company’s integrated marketing and communications offerings. The acquisition strengthens Lede’s cultural campaign capabilities and equips both firms with enhanced resources and scale for brand-driven initiatives. - learn more

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                  Billion-Dollar Beauty. Billion-Dollar Radios. Only in LA.

                  🔦 Spotlight

                  Hello Los Angeles,

                  This week, LA proved it can scale in silence and shine in the spotlight, sometimes in the same breath.

                  Let’s start with the quiet powerhouse.

                  Culver City-based Silvus Technologies is being acquired by Motorola Solutions for $4.4 billion in up-front consideration, with the potential for an additional $600 million in earnout payments, bringing the total deal value to $5 billion. Silvus builds tactical mesh radios, rugged high-bandwidth systems used by militaries, emergency responders, and defense contractors in more than 40 countries. These aren’t just walkie-talkies. They are engineered to deliver secure, uninterrupted communications in places where cell service and Wi-Fi don't stand a chance. Think natural disasters, war zones, and remote terrains. The tech spun out of DARPA-funded research at UCLA, and this deal is a reminder that LA isn’t just cranking out consumer apps and AI models. We’re exporting national security infrastructure too.

                  But while Silvus was locking down defense contracts, another LA startup was breaking the internet.

                  e.l.f. Beauty Chairman and CEO Tarang Amin and Rhode Founder Hailey BieberImage Source: e.l.f. Beauty

                  Rhode, Hailey Bieber’s skincare brand, is being acquired by e.l.f. Beauty in a deal valued at up to $1 billion. The structure includes $600 million in cash, $200 million in stock at closing, and up to $200 million in earnout payments tied to Rhode’s performance over the next three years. Not bad for a brand that launched in June 2022 and built a cult following off just a handful of products and a crystal-clear brand identity.

                  Yes, it’s celebrity-founded. But Rhode didn’t just ride a name. It built a movement. The brand cut through a saturated beauty market by doing less: launching with a few standout hero products, keeping the aesthetic clean and consistent, and using community-first marketing that turned product drops into cultural events. The results speak for themselves. $100 million in net sales over the past year and a loyal fanbase that treats peptide lip treatments like limited-edition merch.

                  Bieber wasn’t just the face of the brand. She helped shape the strategy, led product development, and drove creative decisions from day one. Following the acquisition, she’ll continue as Chief Creative Officer and Head of Innovation, while also stepping into a new role as strategic advisor to e.l.f. Beauty. Rhode will continue to operate independently, with its headquarters remaining right here in LA.

                  This isn’t just a win for Rhode. It’s another clear signal that LA is where culture, commerce, and execution come together and scale fast.

                  Keep reading for the latest LA venture rounds, acquisitions, and fund moves making headlines this week.

                  🤝 Venture Deals

                  LA Companies

                  • Bezel, a luxury watch marketplace, recently secured a $670K investment from Hyperspace Ventures as part of a broader $6.8M funding initiative. This investment aims to support Bezel's growth and enhance its platform for authenticated luxury watch trading. - learn more

                        LA Venture Funds

                        • Sound Ventures participated in the Series A funding round for General Counsel AI, a startup using artificial intelligence to streamline in-house legal work. The platform helps legal teams draft documents faster, stay compliant, and eliminate repetitive tasks by embedding company knowledge directly into its AI workflows. With Sound Ventures' backing, GC AI plans to scale its team and expand the platform’s capabilities to serve more enterprise legal departments. - learn more
                        • Kairos Ventures participated in Vivodyne’s $40M Series A funding round, reaffirming its commitment to advancing human-relevant drug development technologies. Vivodyne, a biotech company based in Philadelphia and San Francisco, is pioneering the use of AI and robotics to grow and test thousands of lab-grown human tissues, aiming to replace traditional animal testing in drug development. This approach addresses the high failure rate of clinical trials by providing more predictive human data, potentially accelerating the development of effective therapies. The new funding will support the expansion of Vivodyne's operations, including the opening of a 23,000-square-foot fully robotic laboratory in South San Francisco, to meet the growing demand from pharmaceutical clients. - learn more
                        • Fifth Wall co-led Wander’s $50M Series B funding round, joining QED Investors and others to support the company’s mission of redefining luxury vacation rentals through technology and consistency. Wander operates a vertically integrated platform that combines premium vacation homes with hotel-grade service, powered by its proprietary AI system, WanderOS. With over 1,000 properties already live and a Net Promoter Score of 85, Wander aims to scale toward 300,000 homes globally, offering a trusted and seamless experience for travelers and property owners alike. - learn more
                        • Clocktower Technology Ventures and Overture VC participated in GridCARE’s $13.5M seed funding round, supporting the company's mission to address the growing power demands of AI infrastructure. GridCARE utilizes advanced AI to identify and unlock underutilized grid capacity, significantly reducing the time required to power data centers from several years to just 6–12 months. By bridging the gap between AI developers and utility providers, GridCARE aims to accelerate the deployment of AI technologies while enhancing energy resilience. - learn more
                        • Clocktower Technology Ventures participated in Monarch Money’s $75M Series B funding round, reaffirming its support for the personal finance platform's mission to enhance financial wellness for households. Monarch offers tools for aggregating financial accounts, visualizing net worth, tracking budgets, and collaborating with partners or advisors. The new funding will enable Monarch to expand its team and further develop its platform to better serve its growing user base. - learn more

                          LA Exits

                          • TinyWins, the LA-based digital creative studio known for blending emotional storytelling with performance-driven content, has been acquired by marketing consultancy The Shipyard.Best known for its work with brands like Disney, Netflix, and Google, TinyWins will continue to operate under its own name and leadership in Los Angeles. The acquisition gives TinyWins access to deeper strategic and media resources, while The Shipyard expands its creative firepower and strengthens its presence on the West Coast. - learn more
                          • Churchill Management Group has been acquired by Focus Partners Wealth, marking the firm’s first external acquisition since its January rebrand. The Los Angeles-based investment advisor manages $9.4 billion in assets and will expand Focus’s national footprint in wealth management. - learn more
                          • Dolby Theatre, renowned for hosting the Academy Awards, has been acquired by Master Investment Group in partnership with Jebs Hollywood. The new ownership plans to introduce a series of events celebrating Middle Eastern culture, aiming to showcase the region's rich heritage, music, and traditions. This initiative seeks to foster community engagement and promote cultural exchange by bringing diverse artistic expressions from the Middle East to a global audience. - learn more

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                                VC Giants Back LA Defense Tech Startup

                                🔦 Spotlight

                                Hello Los Angeles, and happy Friday!

                                Memorial Day Weekend is finally here, and it seems even PCH got the memo, just in time for those coastal drives to kick off summer, traffic jams included. Speaking of navigation, El Segundo based startup CX2 has charted its own impressive course this week, securing $31 million in a Series A round led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Pax Ventures, to boost its mission in electronic warfare.

                                Electronic warfare (EW), for those of us who aren't regulars at the Pentagon, involves the tactical use of electromagnetic energy to control the spectrum, essentially jamming or confusing enemy communications and radar systems. CX2 was founded by a diverse and experienced group: Nathan Mintz, who brings deep expertise in defense technology from previous ventures such as Epirus and Spartan; Mark Trefgarne, a software entrepreneur known for a successful acquisition by Meta; Lee Thompson, an expert RF engineer previously with SpaceX; and Porter Smith, whose practical insights stem from his background as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot and subsequent experience as an investor.

                                The new funds will help CX2 scale its team and accelerate the development of advanced tools, including autonomous drones and specialized signals-intelligence systems. These innovations promise precision interference without collateral disruptions, addressing critical defense capability gaps identified by industry experts.

                                With tensions escalating globally, there's big demand for next-gen defense solutions, and CX2’s technology positions them as a major player in shaping future electronic battlespaces.

                                Dive deeper into the details and check out this week's roundup of LA’s venture deals and acquisitions below.

                                Here's to a weekend filled with sunshine, clear roads (fingers crossed), and tech that keeps pushing boundaries!

                                🤝 Venture Deals

                                LA Companies

                                • Axle Health, founded by former Uber execs, raised $10M in Gaa Series A round led by F-Prime Capital to expand its AI-powered logistics platform for home healthcare. The software streamlines scheduling, routing, and patient engagement, and is now used by major health systems and agencies across all 50 states. The company has seen 10x revenue growth over the past year. - learn more
                                • Promise, a generative AI studio based in Venice, California, has secured a strategic investment from Google's AI Futures Fund, alongside contributions from The North Road Company, and others. This funding will support Promise's integration of advanced AI technologies into its proprietary production platform, MUSE, and facilitate collaborations with Google's DeepMind researchers to push the boundaries of AI-driven storytelling. The studio plans to commence production on its first feature-length film this year, marking a significant step in its mission to blend human creativity with cutting-edge AI tools in filmmaking. - learn more
                                • Final Boss Sour, a Los Angeles-based snack brand blending gaming nostalgia with sour fruit treats, raised $4M in a Seed 2 round. The funds will go toward expanding distribution, product innovation, and creator partnerships. The company also launched a new tropical sampler box featuring real fruit flavors like mango, pineapple, and kiwi. - learn more
                                • VUZ, a UAE-based immersive media platform, raised $12M in a pre-Series C round led by the International Finance Corporation with participation from CrossWork.us, among others, to fuel global expansion and enhance its AI-powered streaming experiences. The funding brings its total raised to over $35M and will support growth across the U.S., Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. VUZ, now EBITDA positive, hosts 30,000+ hours of immersive content and has exclusive deals with leagues like LaLiga and Serie A. - learn more

                                    LA Venture Funds

                                    • B Capital co-led Data Sutram's $9M Series A funding round, supporting the company's expansion of its AI-driven fraud detection platform into sectors like cryptocurrency, gaming, and insurance. The investment will also aid in strengthening Data Sutram's AI capabilities and facilitating its international growth into markets such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia. - learn more
                                    • Upfront Ventures led Clair's $23.2M Series B funding round, reinforcing its commitment to the fintech startup it initially backed during the seed stage. Clair provides embedded earned wage access (EWA) solutions, allowing employees to access their earnings instantly through integrations with payroll and workforce management platforms like Gusto and TriNet. The new funding will support Clair's expansion across more than 29,000 business locations and enhance its partnerships with additional HR and payroll providers. - learn more
                                    • Rebel Fund participated in Keep's recent C$108M funding round, supporting the Toronto-based fintech's mission to modernize small business banking in Canada. Keep offers an all-in-one financial platform tailored to Canadian small businesses, addressing challenges like outdated systems and limited access to credit. The funding will help Keep expand its services, which include business credit cards, expense tracking, and multi-currency accounts, to more entrepreneurs across the country. - learn more
                                    • MarcyPen Capital Partners participated in SparkCharge's $30.5M funding round, supporting the expansion of its mobile, off-grid EV charging services across North America. This investment will help SparkCharge scale its Charging-as-a-Service model, enabling fleets to adopt electric vehicles without the need for permanent infrastructure. - learn more
                                    • Matter Venture Partners participated in Biostate AI's $12M Series A funding round, supporting the Houston-based startup's mission to revolutionize molecular diagnostics through affordable RNA sequencing and generative AI. Biostate AI aims to build a comprehensive RNA sequencing dataset to train AI models capable of predicting disease progression and treatment responses, thereby advancing precision medicine. - learn more
                                    • Prototype Capital participated in Sensmore's €6.5M funding round, supporting the German robotics startup's mission to retrofit heavy machinery with AI-driven automation. Sensmore's technology enables real-time automation of complex tasks in industries like construction and mining. The investment will help expand Sensmore's Physical AI platform, enhancing productivity and safety in industrial operations. - learn more

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