Here’s how L.A.’s Curative Plans to Move Saliva-Based COVID-19 Testing to Other U.S. Cities

Rachel Uranga

Rachel Uranga is dot.LA's Managing Editor, News. She is a former Mexico-based market correspondent at Reuters and has worked for several Southern California news outlets, including the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Los Angeles Daily News. She has covered everything from IPOs to immigration. Uranga is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and California State University Northridge. A Los Angeles native, she lives with her husband, son and their felines.

Here’s how L.A.’s Curative Plans to Move Saliva-Based COVID-19 Testing to Other U.S. Cities

Fred Turner, the 25-year-old founder of Curative Inc., is the man behind L.A.'s push to bring universal testing to the region. But, he has bigger plans.

Turner, an Oxford dropout, just landed a deal with the Air Force to test military worldwide and he's now eyeing national expansion for his startup. By the end of this month, the company he started months ago is expected to pump out more than a million test kits a week.

"We are a strange company because our goal is to essentially put ourselves out of business," Turner said.


Turner, who was named UK Young Engineer of the Year at age 17 when he built a DNA machine from his bedroom to figure out why his brother had red hair and he had brown hair, turned his focus to coronavirus in January. He upended his life as head of Shield Bio, which sought to eliminate sepsis, and moved to Southern California after a local venture capitalist connected him with a lab that he could build out for COVID-19 testing.

Curative Inc. was born.

Curative, Inc. Founder Fred Turner is the man behind L.A.'s push to bring universal testing to the region.

For weeks he lived in hotels as he created what has become the backbone of testing in America's second largest city. The company, one of the few saliva-based tests that have gotten emergency approvals from the FDA, has a 10% false negative rate, according to their own non-peer reviewed studies. Turner argues the rate is better than most of the nasal swab testing out there and oral tests, which can be self-administered, are the only way the country can reopen quickly.

He is now operating two labs, one in San Dimas another in Washington D.C., with plans for several more across the nation. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is watching to see if Los Angeles' promise of universal testing meets the expectations with some already complaining about the difficulty of securing an appointment.

dot.LA: Curative is responsible for 95% of Los Angeles COVID-19 tests. Can you meet the demand for universal testing?

Curative, Inc. Founder Fred Turner: We will be able to fulfill demand. There's more infrastructure that needs to be put in place. With the collection site, the mayor's office has been working hard to scale those up and make sure that the collection site infrastructure is in place. On the lab side, we definitely have enough capacity to serve the area.

In (the San Dimas) lab we have capacity for about 20,000 per day. We're going to be scaling this lab up to 30,000 over the next week or so, eventually, probably slightly more than that.

Ultimately, the goal is to do as many tests as we need to reopen the country and I think we've had many different estimates of how many that might be. I've heard estimates (that it will take) as high as five million tests a day to reopen, but the current supply chain is nowhere near going to be able to keep up with that. The next goal we are shooting for is a million tests a week by about mid-May, end of May.

If we're testing more people will that strain the turnaround time? Right now, I understand it's about 24 to 72 hours. Can you take it down to several hours or even minutes?

We are always aiming to push it down. I think it can be pushed under 24 hours, but we tend to focus more on scaling it up at that point. I think 24 hours is around optimal as you bring on more capacity. We're obviously being careful to match the capacity coming into the lab against the turnaround.

Curative is one of the few companies that the FDA has provided emergency approval for use of a saliva test. Do you think this is the answer to universal testing nationally?

Oral fluids is the technical term, which is slightly different from saliva. Our protocol involves having the person cough first, which releases virus from the upper and lower respiratory tract. Some of that is then caught in the saliva, and also viruses in the saliva. The idea is you're effectively sampling multiple sites at once, which we think gives a slight increase in the sensitivity of the testing.

Self-collected sampling has got to be the way forward. There's just no way that we can do a million nasal pharyngeal swabs, or we call them 'brain swabs,' it's just not practical. We don't have the medical staff, and as a country we just can't do that many swabs. And so the way forward is going to be self collection. That's the only thing we can do at scale.

Covid-19 Oral Fluid Test Kit Instructionswww.youtube.com

Curative recently secured a contract with the Department of Defense. What's next?

We haven't settled on the exact number, but we will be in a large number of states. That is the plan, building out the infrastructure for this kind of testing. We can take the L.A. model and scale it across the country. We have a version of the drive-thru software that other cities and states can take. We have all the training material. We have a team that fly around the country setting up these drive-thru sites. We have really tried to make a plug-and-play package where cities and states that want to launch drive-thru testing, we have everything they need.

Is Los Angeles a testing ground and a proving ground for national efforts?

Yeah, I think Mayor Garcetti has definitely demonstrated what can be done if the city moves very quickly to build out the infrastructure, I do think the drive-thru testing, walk through testing is going to be an essential component of this.

It's just much faster to get the samples to the lab than shipping it out and then shipping it back again. The infrastructure piece is critical for getting these tests out there and we're working with several other states now on building out a similar infrastructure. Some of them have existing programs that we would be plugging into and expanding, and some of them are looking to roll out their own similar programs. You can test a lot more people with the oral tests with far fewer staff.

What are the challenges with the supply chain in terms of making your tests more widely available?

We need more plastic, more robots, more people. Most of the components that go into these tests are just already maxed out in their production capacity. And so we've been throwing online a bunch of internal production, such as injection molding to make our swab kit tubes, as well as bringing on other sources of similar materials that are not being used for COVID-19 testing and validating them for COVID. So for the swabs, for example, we use a swab type that is usually used for testing clean rooms. It works just as well for COVID testing, but nobody else is using it for that purpose.

We don't want to be competing with other people, stopping them from getting access to resources. We want to bring on new supply so it's not a zero- sum game, and the total amount of tests will increase. But, I think distribution is going to be a bigger bottleneck over the next month. Los Angeles has done a fantastic job in building out infrastructure and collection. That needs to happen now across the whole country.

What would it take to meet national demand?

It would take a network of multiple labs that we are calling gigalabs that can process 50,000 to 100,000 tests a day across the country and a significant scale up in the production of the physical components that go into the tests. We've been investigating lab sites in a few states, something central like Texas or Colorado.

Are you concerned that you have too high of a false negative rate at 10%?

All COVID tests will have false negative rates. In our studies, we demonstrated that the sensitivity is at least as good if not better than the nasal pharyngeal swab tests. So, there will definitely be false negatives as there will be in every test, but we think the data supports us having a low rate of false negatives. The sensitivity is about 90%.

When you include all patients, the nasal pharyngeal came in at about 79%. A new (non-peer reviewed) Yale study shows a higher sensitivity from saliva and all fluids than the nasal pharyngeal. I don't think we have the evidence to say that we're better yet, but we have the evidence to say that we're at least equivalent. The ease of doing oral tests and the accessibility is obviously significantly better. We're not using PPE. We're not exposing healthcare workers. It's just a much easier test to roll out that people can test themselves.

File:Florida National Guard (49677710741).jpg - Wikimedia Commonsupload.wikimedia.org

At one point, Curative was attempting to roll out at-home testing and then had to pull back after FDA warnings. Will you be making home testing kits again?

I can't give a time estimate but we are actively working with the FDA right now. I think their concern is "can people adequately collect the sample, or will they do it wrong, and then get a negative test result," which is incorrect. Our plan is to use telemedicine observation. What we've seen in our clinical studies is that if you give people the chance to do it wrong, they will do it wrong. In fact when you have somebody observing, they read the instructions better and they collect a better sample. We're still working on the pricing and potentially looking at whether there is federal or state reimbursement for some of that testing and the potential of billing insurance.

Tracing technology has been promising. Do you have any plans to tie tests to these applications to testing?

We've had several conversations with contact tracing apps and we continue to work in collaboration with public health departments in their contract tracing efforts. Having the test is obviously one thing, but you have to use the information to actually stem the tide of COVID infection. And so, it is an essential step in working closely with various people.

I do like the app-based models where you obviously want to maintain people's privacy, but having people opt-in to share their location history if they test positive so you can contact nearby people.

What does Curative do once there's a vaccine? Are you obsolete?

The U.S. needs to maintain some kind of spare capacity so that next time we are not having to build all of this during a pandemic. But we are a strange company because our goal is to essentially put ourselves out of business. Ultimately, and I say this to everyone we hire, we don't know how long this will go on for. We want to provide as many tests as needed, but the goal is to end COVID and not be doing COVID testing anymore.

Curative took off in March when you arrived in Los Angeles from Silicon Valley, how has the journey been for you personally?

I don't have very much free time, but it's been a lot of fun to be able to work at this pace and have the support of people like the city, the mayor's office to really just do what is needed to scale this up. When we work with suppliers, and we say we're doing COVID testing, they just move heaven and earth to make things happen. It's been really inspiring to be a part of that push forward.

We are just pushing as hard as we can to scale up as fast as we possibly can and bring on as much testing as we can. The city opening up testing to everybody is kind of a culmination of that. We're making about 50,000 kits a day right now and we want to make that as widely available as we can. I would like to get a little more sleep.

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Curative's saliva tests have a 10% false positive rate. In actuality, the tests have a 10% false negative rate.

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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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            Forget Traffic: Air Taxis Are Coming to LA28

            🔦 Spotlight

            Hello Los Angeles,

            The future just got a flight plan, and it includes skipping traffic for the 2028 Olympics.

            Image Source: Archer

            This week, Santa Clara-based Archer Aviation made headlines (and history) by being named the official air taxi provider for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Team USA. Yes, that means electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft will be soaring above the gridlocked freeways, whisking athletes, officials, and perhaps a few lucky spectators through LA’s famously congested skies.

            This isn’t just a flashy PR stunt (although, let’s be honest, it is peak LA). It’s a strategic move to redefine how we move around the city, especially during one of the largest global events ever to hit Southern California. In partnership with the LA28 Organizing Committee, Archer plans to deploy its Midnight aircraft, an all-electric air taxi that promises ultra-quiet, zero-emission rides from point A to point OMG-I’m-not-in-traffic.

            While Archer is headquartered in Santa Clara, it has deep ties to the LA tech ecosystem. United Airlines, one of its major partners, has previously announced plans to establish eVTOL routes between downtown and LAX. Pair that with this new Olympic milestone and we’re looking at LA as ground zero for what could become the world’s first large-scale urban air mobility network.

            Of course, there are still regulatory hurdles, infrastructure needs, and airspace coordination issues to iron out before we can book our sky ride to the Coliseum. But make no mistake, this announcement is a moonshot moment for LA tech, mobility, and the future of Olympic-scale transportation.

            We’ll be keeping our feet on the ground (for now), but we’ll definitely be watching the skies.

            Catch you next week ✈️✨

            🤝 Venture Deals

            LA Companies

            • Akido, a Los Angeles-based health tech company, has raised $60M in Series B funding led by Oak HC/FT to expand the reach of its AI-powered clinical tool, ScopeAI. The platform assists physicians by generating clinical questions, documenting patient responses, and drafting care plans in real time. The funding will help Akido scale its technology across its provider network and expand into new markets like New York City. - learn more
            • Reflect Orbital, a startup developing satellite-based sunlight delivery systems, has raised $20M in a Series A round led by Lux Capital. The company plans to use the funding to expand its team, scale operations, and prepare for its first satellite launch in Spring 2026. Reflect Orbital’s technology aims to reflect sunlight from space to Earth, enabling nighttime illumination for energy, remote operations, and civil infrastructure. - learn more
            • Rolli, an AI-powered platform designed to support fact-based journalism, has received an investment from the NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF). This marks NIIF's first investment in a media company, underscoring its commitment to backing ventures that enhance democratic institutions through innovation. Rolli's platform connects journalists with a diverse range of vetted experts, aiming to streamline news production and promote equitable representation in media. The funding will help Rolli expand its reach and further develop tools that empower journalists to produce accurate and impactful reporting. - learn more

              LA Venture Funds

              • CIV and Wonder Ventures participated in The Nuclear Company’s $46.3M Series A round to support its plan to develop large-scale nuclear reactor sites across the U.S. CIV co-founder Patrick Maloney also co-founded the company, which is taking a “design-once, build-many” approach to modernize nuclear construction. The funding will help meet rising energy demands from sectors like AI and data centers. - learn more
              • WndrCo participated in Cartwheel's recent $10M funding round. Cartwheel is an AI-driven 3D animation startup that enables creators to generate rigged animations from text prompts and videos. The funding will support Cartwheel's efforts to simplify and democratize 3D animation production. - learn more
              • Crosscut Ventures participated in Solestial's $17M Series A funding round, which aims to scale the company's production of radiation-hardened, self-healing silicon solar panels for space applications. Solestial plans to increase its manufacturing capacity to 1 megawatt per year, matching the combined annual output of all U.S. and EU III-V space solar companies. This investment supports the growing demand for cost-effective, high-performance power systems in the expanding space industry. - learn more
              • Upfront Ventures participated in Tern's $13M Series A funding round, adding to its earlier $4M seed investment in the travel tech startup. Tern offers an all-in-one platform for travel advisors, streamlining itinerary building, CRM, and commission tracking. The new funding will help Tern enhance its product offerings and expand support for its growing user base. - learn more
              • Dangerous Ventures participated in Verdi's $6.5M seed funding round, supporting the Vancouver-based agtech startup's mission to modernize farm irrigation systems through AI-powered automation. Verdi's technology retrofits existing infrastructure, enabling precise, row-level control of irrigation, which helps farmers reduce water usage and labor costs. The investment aligns with Dangerous Ventures' focus on climate resilience and sustainable food systems. - learn more
              • Pinegrove Capital Partners participated in Saildrone's recent $60M funding round, supporting the company's expansion of its autonomous maritime surveillance technology into Europe. The investment will aid in deploying Saildrone's uncrewed surface vehicles for enhanced maritime security and defense applications across European waters. - learn more
              • Starburst Ventures participated in a €2 million seed funding round for French defense tech startup Alta Ares, which specializes in embedded AI and MLOps solutions for military applications. Alta Ares' technologies, including the Gamma platform for real-time video analysis and the Ulixes platform for managing operational data lifecycles, operate autonomously without the need for internet or cloud connectivity. This funding will support the industrialization of these solutions and expand their deployment across European armed forces and NATO allies. - learn more
              • Nomad Ventures participated in Stackpack’s recent $6.3M seed funding round, supporting the company's mission to streamline vendor management for modern businesses. Stackpack offers an AI-driven platform that provides finance and IT teams with a centralized system to oversee third-party vendors, manage renewals, and mitigate compliance risks. The investment will enable Stackpack to expand its operations, enhance its platform, and introduce new features like the "Requests & Approvals" tool, aimed at simplifying vendor onboarding and procurement processes. - learn more
              • Tachyon Ventures participated in Stylus Medicine's $85M Series A funding round, supporting the biotech company's development of in vivo genetic medicines. Stylus aims to simplify gene editing by enabling precise, durable CAR-T therapies delivered directly inside the body, potentially transforming treatment for various diseases. - learn more
              • Up.Partners led a $28M Series A funding round for WakeCap, a construction tech startup that uses sensor-powered platforms to deliver real-time workforce visibility and site intelligence. WakeCap’s system tracks labor hours, safety, and productivity across large-scale projects, with over 150 million labor hours already monitored. The new funding will help the company expand globally, enhance product features, and grow its engineering and customer success teams. - learn more


                LA Exits

                • MediaPlatform, a leading provider of enterprise video solutions, has been acquired by Brandlive, a company renowned for bringing the magic of television to business communications. This strategic acquisition aims to enhance Brandlive's capabilities in delivering high-scale, reliable CEO town halls and global corporate broadcasts. By integrating MediaPlatform's robust infrastructure with Brandlive's creative video tools and production services, the combined entity seeks to offer more engaging and authentic internal content experiences for enterprise clients. - learn more
                • RHQ Creative, a studio renowned for its competitive Fortnite training maps, has been acquired by JOGO, the game development company founded by popular creator Typical Gamer (Andre Rebelo). This acquisition aims to bolster JOGO's expansion into the competitive gaming arena by integrating RHQ's expertise in skill-building and training map design. RHQ Creative, co-founded by Fortnite pro Quinn Gannon (RichHomieQuinn) and Sean Lugo, has achieved over 20 million map visits and 200 million hours of playtime. The deal includes full ownership of RHQ's map catalog and the addition of its team to JOGO, enhancing the company's capabilities in developing high-quality, competitive gaming experiences. - learn more

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                    This LA Startup Wants to Make It Rain and Just Raised $25M to Do It

                    🔦 Spotlight

                    Hello LA!

                    While most tech headlines are busy chasing AI chatbots and flying taxis, one startup in El Segundo is aiming a little higher. Literally.

                    Rainmaker just secured$25 million in Series A funding to expand its cloud-seeding drone technology. The round was led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from Starship Ventures, 1517 Fund, Long Journey Ventures, Naval Ravikant, and others.

                    Their idea is simple but urgent. Instead of relying on old-school aircraft to spray rain-making particles across the sky, Rainmaker uses AI-powered drones that find and seed clouds with pinpoint accuracy. It is faster, more affordable, and could reshape how regions fight back against droughts.

                    California's ongoing water struggles have made it clear that simply "saving" water is not enough. Cities and entire economies need new tools to create it. Rainmaker plans to use the funding to grow its fleet, invest in atmospheric science, and expand commercial partnerships with utilities and governments searching for solutions.

                    Bigger picture, Rainmaker is part of a growing shift in LA's tech ecosystem. While software remains dominant, more investors and founders are quietly betting on "hard tech" that addresses real-world problems like water, energy, and infrastructure.

                    It is not just about apps anymore. It is about survival tech.

                    With the skies getting hotter and the reservoirs getting lower, the next great tech export out of LA might not be entertainment or social media. It could be rain.

                    Stay tuned…

                    🤝 Venture Deals

                    LA Companies

                      • SimpleClosure, a Santa Monica-based startup that automates the business shutdown process, has raised a $15M Series A funding round led by TTV Capital. The company, which launched publicly in late 2023, helps startups and businesses navigate legal, regulatory, and compliance hurdles when closing down, using AI to streamline paperwork and communications. The new funding will support SimpleClosure’s platform growth and product expansion, as rising economic pressures create heightened demand for efficient dissolution solutions. - learn more

                        LA Venture Funds

                        • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Haya Therapeutics’ $65M Series A funding round. Haya Therapeutics, which is developing precision RNA-guided medicines for chronic and age-related diseases, will use the capital to advance its lead therapeutic programs targeting heart failure and fibrosis. The company plans to expand its pipeline, invest in its discovery platform, and grow its team to accelerate clinical development. - learn more
                        • Griffin Gaming Partners led a $7M funding round for Fuse Games, a gaming studio focused on developing new original IP. Fuse Games, founded by industry veterans with experience at major gaming companies, plans to use the funds to accelerate production of its first title and expand its team as it builds ambitious new gaming experiences. - learn more
                        • Shamrock Capital has made a strategic growth investment in Neocol, a leading consulting platform that specializes in sales and AI-driven software solutions for subscription businesses. Neocol, which helps companies optimize revenue operations and digital transformations, plans to use the investment to accelerate its growth, expand its services, and further strengthen its leadership position in the Salesforce ecosystem. - learn more
                        • Trust Fund participated in a $7.2M seed funding round for Agree.com, an all-in-one platform that combines e-signature and integrated payments, aiming to streamline and speed up service agreements. The company plans to use the new capital to grow its engineering team, expand integrations, and enhance payment capabilities to help service providers close deals faster. - learn more
                        • Hyperlink Ventures participated in Orca AI’s $72.5M funding round. Orca AI, headquartered in London, develops AI-based navigation and collision-avoidance solutions to improve safety and efficiency for commercial shipping fleets. The funding will help Orca AI scale its autonomous shipping technologies, expand its team, and support global growth efforts. - learn more


                        LA Exits

                        • StoryFire, a social storytelling and video platform with over 2.5M users, has been acquired by Flashy Finance to launch a new platform called Flashy Social. The move aims to merge content creation with blockchain-powered financial tools, allowing creators to monetize through token incentives, streaming features, and community engagement. This acquisition supports Flashy Finance’s broader vision of building a cultural, creator-led financial ecosystem. - learn more
                        • Jaanuu, Inc., a Los Angeles-based medical apparel brand known for its stylish and functional scrubs, has been acquired in an asset sale by VentureOn Management, LLC. The acquisition includes substantially all of Jaanuu's assets, encompassing its intellectual property, inventory, and customer relationships. VentureOn Management plans to continue Jaanuu's operations, focusing on delivering high-quality medical apparel to healthcare professionals. - learn more
                        • Skechers has agreed to be acquired by 3G Capital in a deal valued at approximately $9.4 billion. Shareholders will receive either $63 per share in cash or $57 plus an equity unit in a new private parent company. Following the acquisition, Skechers will become privately held, maintain its Manhattan Beach headquarters, and continue to be led by its current management team. - learn more

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