GoodRx Is Named Startup of the Year at dot.LA Summit Awards

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.

GoodRx Is Named Startup of the Year at dot.LA Summit Awards

GoodRx earned dot.LA's top 2020 Startup award on Wednesday, beating out the popular sneaker reseller GOAT, the meditation application Headspace, mobile gamer Scopely and viral-video app TikTok.

"GoodRx started in Los Angeles, and will always be a Los Angeles-based company," said co-CEO Doug Hirsch. "We're so excited about the support we've received over the last decade from both entrepreneurs and investors and just incredible people that make up the ecosystem here in California and specifically in Los Angeles."


GoodRx was the first Los Angeles tech company to go public this year. It's mission to lower the prices of prescription drugs for Americans has made it one of the most-downloaded medical apps in the country.

"We're excited for the future and we appreciate the recognition," he said.

dot.LA wrapped up its inaugural Summit with the 2020 Startup Awards that honor the ingenuity and creativity propelling the startup scene in Southern California. More than 120 nominations were received from dot.LA's audience. The winners were chosen by a blue ribbon panel of judges, along with more than votes from the public.

Other winners included Entrepreneur of the Year, Tala CEO Shivani Siroya, Curative for Pivot of the Year, Blavity CEO Morgan DeBaun for Rising Entrepreneur, Openpath for Rising Startup and Social Justice Award went to Act One Ventures partner Alejandro Guerrero.

"We wanted to use this opportunity to shine a light on some of the most exciting, most driven and most world-changing people in companies in our world today," said dot.LA CEO Sam Adams.

Pivot of the Year: Curative Inc.

Curative was founded earlier this year by Fred Turner, an Oxford dropout. His company was then based in the Bay Area and tested for sepsis before it pivoted to provide COVID testing. As the pandemic emerged, he established a lab in San Dimas with the help of local venture capitalists that would eventually become Curative's home base. The company's saliva- based tests now account for about 10% of all testing nationally and Curative has an exclusive deal with the city of Los Angeles to provide testing.

"On behalf of our CEO Fred Turner and everyone who just want to thank you," said Curative spokesman Pasqualle Gianna. As you know, we pivoted from sepsis testing to COVID testing."

Finalists

Quantgene: The company typically offers AI-powered blood test systems for early cancer detection but now provides COVID testing and logistics for those going back to work.

Swoop: The startup focused on group transportation but developed software that limousine charter operators and their suppliers, could utilize during the pandemic as regular business dried up.

PRISM Bags: This company planned to launch their signature product, a woman's work bag but as the pandemic beared down created one suited that included mask pockets.

WELL Health Inc.: Funded and engineered the Rapid Release Program in March '20, which allowed health systems to manage urgent COVID-19 patient communications at scale.

Social Justice Award: Alejandro Guerrero

More than 20 VCs have signed onto to Act One Ventures partner Alejandro Guerrero's Diversity Rider Initiative.

The firms have pledged to add language in term sheets submitted to startups that they will make their "commercial best efforts to offer and make every attempt to include as a co-investor in the financing" at least one Black check writer or other underrepresented group."

Guerrero is the child of Mexican immigrants who said he often found he was the only person of color in the room when investment deals north of six figures were being made. He said he was inspired by the George Floyd protests and the push the industry to recognize long-standing inequities.

Finalists

Candace Walker, Co-Founder of Just US app: Created a hands-free voice control app that notifies your designated contacts when you've been stopped by police.

Derek Smith, Founder of Plug-In South LA: Created a tech startup community and accelerator program for entrepreneurs from under-represented backgrounds; produced the Urban Tech Connect conference.

Lolita Taub, Co-Founder and GP at The Community Fund: First-generation Latinx operator and investor that launched a $5 million early-stage fund to invest in community-driven companies.

Miki Reynolds, Executive Director, Grid110: Leads a no-equity, LA-based accelerator for underrepresented founders

Rising Entrepreneur: Morgan DeBaun

Morgan DeBaun is the founder and CEO of Blavity Inc., a leading news company and media brand for Black millennials and Gen Z. The outlet has been a leading voice for diversity. She launched Blavity in 2014; it now reaches over 30 million millennials a month.

Finalists

Cristina de la Peña, CEO & founder of Synapbox

Jessica Nouhavandi, co-CEO of Honeybee Health

Ksenia Yudina, CEO of UNest

Robert Luo, CEO & founder of Mi Terro

Rising Startup: Openpath

The property-tech firm provides s touchless-entry activated by one's mobile device to doors, gates, elevators and lobby check-ins.

James Segil and Alex Kazerani co-founded Openpath in 2016 along with Chief Technology Officer Rob Peters, Chief Security Officer Samy Kamkar, and Chief Revenue Officer Phil Goldsmith.

The company recently raised $35 million and has seen their value proposition become all the more useful in the post-pandemic era.

"I'm incredibly honored and humbled to be here amongst so many great entrepreneurs and great companies here in L.A.," Kazerani said. "On behalf of about 450,000 Openpath users and our entire team, we really want to thank dot.la"

Finalists

Pipe: A platform that offers non-dilutive financing to SaaS companies through an instant cash advance against the full annual value of software subscriptions.

PlayVS: Connects online games with official school administration and branding, elevating Esports from hobby to school-sponsored activity.

Outer: A direct to consumer outdoor furniture brand.

Wave: An entertainment technology company that turns performers into digital avatars and puts them on virtual stages.

Entrepreneur of the Year: Shivani Siroya

Shivani Siroya is the CEO and founder at Tala, a fintech company that offers microloans to people that often don't have a formal credit history. The company has extended $1 billion in microloans to 4 million customers in emerging markets and was last valued at $700 million. Siroya has been named one of Forbes' "40 under 40."

Finalists

Alex Canter, CEO and co-founder of software company Ordermark

Andrew Peterson, CEO and co-founder of Signal Sciences

Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek, co-founders and co-CEOs of GoodRx

Imran Khan, fo-founder and CEO of Verishop

Startup of the Year: GoodRx

The prescription-discount app GoodRx became one of the first Los Angeles tech companies to go public this year.

Co-founded by former Facebook executive Doug Hirsch and Trevor Bezdek, the Santa Monica company makes money by collecting fees from pharmacy benefits managers.

GoodRx is the most downloaded medical app in the United States and boasts 70,000 pharmacies on its platform. It's also profitable. The company earned $54 million in profit for the first six months ending in June, up from $31 million over the same time last year.

The company expanded into telehealth with the purchase of Heydoctor in 2019.

Finalists

GOAT: Fast-growing global luxury shoe and apparel retailer.

Headspace: A meditation app that recently raised $100 million in debt and equity.

Scopely: A mobile video game company that acquired FoxNextGames from Disney in January.

TikTok: The video-sharing platform was the top grossing app on iOS App Store globally in Q2 2020.

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Revel’s Afterburner Round: $150M for Hard Tech Infrastructure

🔦 Spotlight

Hello Los Angeles,

This week’s biggest hard tech funding headline belongs to Revel, which just raised a $150M Series B to modernize the software layer behind hardware test and control. The round was led by Index Ventures, with major participation from Redpoint Ventures and returning investors Thrive Capital, Felicis, and Abstract Ventures, plus angel participation including Figma CEO Dylan Field.

Image Source: Revel

Revel’s pitch is simple: rockets, advanced energy, robotics, and defense systems have evolved fast, but the tooling that tests and commands them is still stuck in the past. The company says its platform can cut test stand setup time from 14 days to about 8 hours, and that teams go from testing every other day to multiple tests per day. One customer, Impulse Space, reportedly runs 80+ instances of RevelTest, and Revel claims every pilot it has run has converted into a paying customer.

What makes this more than “just another big round” is where Revel is aiming next: expanding from test stands into industrial control across critical infrastructure, including nuclear facilities, power stations, refineries, water treatment, data centers, and biomedical manufacturing. Their platform includes live telemetry and safe command execution, and even a purpose built language, RevelCode, designed for deterministic, debuggable control in high consequence environments. In other words, if LA is becoming a capital of hard tech, Revel is trying to become the control room software those companies standardize on.Keep scrolling for the latest LA venture rounds, fund news and acquisitions.

🤝 Venture Deals

      LA Companies

      • Third Way Health raised an oversubscribed $15M Series A led by Health Velocity Capital to scale its AI-enabled hybrid human and automation front-office operations for medical practices. The company says it will use the funding to accelerate customer growth, expand operations, and deepen its AI and automation roadmap, building on its claim of supporting practices serving 5M+ patients annually. - learn more
      • Inhouse raised $5M in seed funding to grow its AI legal platform that helps small and midsize businesses generate contracts, get answers to complex legal questions, and bring in attorneys when needed. The round included backing from Run Ventures, Royal Street Ventures, Switch, and LegalZoom cofounder and former CEO Brian Liu, and the company says it will use the new capital to expand its AI agent capabilities and increase automation across contract lifecycle management, compliance, and proactive risk management. - learn more
      • Subject raised a $28M growth investment led by Vistara Growth, with participation from new backers NextEquity Partners, Green Street Impact Partners, and Outcomes Collective, plus existing investors including Kleiner Perkins and others. The company says it will use the funding to accelerate development of its AI-powered K–12 curriculum and online learning platform, expand accredited course offerings, and scale adoption with more districts and educators worldwide. - learn more
      • Mogul raised $5M in a round led by the Yamaha Music Innovations Fund, with participation from Urban Innovation Fund, Mindset Ventures, Fairway Capital Partners, and renewed support from Amplify LA and Wonder Ventures. The royalty management platform says it will use the funding to expand services for artists and their teams, building on traction like processing over $1.5B in royalties and launching its new Catalog Valuation Center to help creators understand the value of their catalogs. - learn more
      • Handl Health raised a $14.2M Series A led by Arthur Ventures, with follow-on investment from Syndra Capital Partners, an additional strategic investor, and increased participation from existing backers Mucker Capital, Riverfront Ventures, Digital Health Venture Partners, and Boutique Venture Partners. The company says it will use the new capital to expand its platform and deliver deeper analytics that help employers and benefits decision-makers design lower-cost health plans with more predictable pricing and better care outcomes. - learn more
      • Skorppio launched a self-serve, on-premise high-performance computer rental platform that lets AI teams, VFX studios, researchers, and schools rent enterprise-grade systems without buying hardware or locking into the cloud. The company says its fleet includes everything from performance laptops to DGX-class AI systems and GPU servers, supported through a PNY Pro partnership that makes NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs available, plus curated “KIT” bundles designed for specific workflows. - learn more

                    LA Venture Funds

                    • B Capital participated in Gushwork’s $9M seed round, backing the startup’s bet that “AI search” will become a major new channel for B2B lead generation. The round was co-led by Susquehanna International Group and Lightspeed, and Gushwork says it’s helping businesses show up in answers from tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity using automated marketing agents that generate search optimized content and backlinks. - learn more
                    • UP.Partners participated in BeyondMath’s $18.5M seed round, backing the company as it scales its “generative physics” approach to faster engineering-grade simulation. The raise included a $10M seed extension led by Cambridge Innovation Capital, with additional participation from Insight Partners and InMotion Ventures. - learn more
                    • MANTIS Venture Capital participated in SolveAI’s $50M funding round, backing the company as it launches a platform that lets employees build enterprise applications using natural language instead of code. The raise included a $45M Series A led by GV plus a previously undisclosed $5M pre-seed led by Accel, with additional participation from Northzone, NeverLift, and angels including Mike LoSapio, Pushmeet Kohli, and Olivier Godement. - learn more
                    • Fabric VC participated in Kash’s $2M pre-seed round, backing the startup as it embeds prediction markets directly into social media starting with X. Kash says users can turn posts into live, tradable markets through its @kash_bot, letting people express conviction on real-world outcomes inside the feed rather than in separate apps. The round also included investors such as Big Brain Holdings, Spartan Group, Coinbase Ventures, Kosmos Ventures, Halo Capital, MoonRock Capital, and Polaris Fund. - learn more
                    • M13 led LuminosAI’s latest funding round as the company launched Lighthouse, a new feature it says can automatically test generative and agentic AI systems for concrete legal liability. LuminosAI says the new capital will help it accelerate growth and expand its team to support a growing customer base, with participation from investors including Bloomberg Beta, Hawktail, AME Cloud Ventures, Crosscourt, Octave, Great Oaks, Fundrise, and others. - learn more

                                  LA Exits

                                  • Niagen Bioscience has sold its ChromaDex Reference Standards business to LGC in an all-cash transaction that closed on Feb. 24, 2026, as the company sharpens its focus on its core longevity strategy. Niagen says the divestiture helps it fully exit non-core operations and concentrate resources on NAD+ science, intellectual property, and commercial growth around its Niagen solutions, while LGC adds the standards portfolio to deepen its reference materials offering for pharma and lab customers. - learn more
                                  • Mutiny has been acquired by LA-based investment firm Shamrock Capital, which says the deal will help Mutiny accelerate growth and strengthen its position as a leading gaming-focused creative agency. Founded in 2021 and previously incubated within Trailer Park Group, Mutiny works with publishers and brands on research-driven, player-first creative, social, and community campaigns. Shamrock says Mutiny will continue scaling as a standalone business, with support that could include strategic acquisitions. - learn more
                                  • Vestigo Aerospace has been acquired by Applied Aerospace & Defense, bringing Vestigo’s Spinnaker deorbit drag-sail product line into Applied’s portfolio. Applied says Spinnaker helps satellite and launch-vehicle operators meet tightening orbital debris rules by providing a lightweight, cost-effective way to deorbit objects in low Earth orbit, and Vestigo founder and CEO Dr. David Spencer will join Applied as VP of Deployable Systems. - learn more

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                                                          Snap’s New Growth Engine Isn’t Ads

                                                          🔦 Spotlight

                                                          Hey LA,

                                                          This week’s most interesting story isn’t a flashy new feature, it’s a quieter flex: Snapchat is getting people to pay for Snapchat, on purpose.

                                                          Snap just proved “free app” isn’t the only business model

                                                          Snap says its direct revenue business is now running at a $1B annualized pace, with 25M+ subscribers paying across a growing menu of products like Snapchat+, Lens+, Snapchat Premium, and Memories Storage Plans. That matters because it’s not just a nice add-on to ads, it’s a different kind of relationship with users. Ads monetize attention. Subscriptions monetize intent.

                                                          And intent is sticky. If someone pulls out a card for you, they don’t churn the way an algorithm does.

                                                          Creator Subscriptions are the real tell

                                                          Snap is also launching Creator Subscriptions, starting with an alpha on February 23 for select U.S. creators, then expanding to Snap Stars in Canada, the U.K., and France in the following weeks. The offer is straightforward: subscriber-only Stories and Snaps, priority replies, and an ad-free experience inside that creator’s Stories.

                                                          The strategic move is even simpler. Snap wants “paying for closeness” to happen inside Stories and Chat, not on some external membership page. If they get that right, creators stop treating Snapchat as just a top-of-funnel channel and start treating it like a place to actually monetize their audience. Snap, meanwhile, gets a revenue stream that doesn’t care what CPMs are doing this quarter.

                                                          Meanwhile, IRL: lululemon’s Studio Yet.

                                                          Lululemon’s Studio Yet. pop-up is running Feb. 18 through March 8 at 8175 Melrose Ave. It’s a ticketed, limited-capacity lineup of workouts and community programming, with proceeds (less fees) supporting BlacklistLA.

                                                          Keep scrolling for the latest LA venture rounds, fund news and acquisitions.

                                                          🤝 Venture Deals

                                                              LA Companies

                                                              • Radiant announced a strategic investment from Lockheed Martin via Lockheed Martin Ventures, further oversubscribing the company’s current financing round. Radiant is developing its 1 MW Kaleidos portable nuclear microreactor and says it’s targeting a first reactor startup this summer at Idaho National Laboratory, with initial customer deployments planned for 2028. - learn more
                                                              • Mesh Optical Technologies announced it has raised over $50M, led by Thrive Capital, to scale production of its Alpha C1 optical transceiver, which converts electrical signals to light at 1.6 Tbps for AI data centers. The startup says its edge is manufacturing: it builds the optical engine using fast, repeatable flip-chip die bonding to make high-volume, U.S.-based production of optical links possible, backed by a team with experience from SpaceX and Intel.- learn more

                                                                          LA Venture Funds

                                                                          • Alexandria Venture Investments participated as an existing investor in Ten63 Therapeutics’ latest strategic financing, which also included participation from Morpheus Ventures and added new backers such as Chugai Venture Fund and the Gates Foundation, bringing total funding to more than $45M. Ten63 says it will use the capital to scale BEYOND, its AI-driven “Large Quantum Chemistry Model” platform for designing small-molecule drugs against historically “undruggable” targets, including programs in oncology and an HPV-focused effort supported by the Gates Foundation.- learn more
                                                                          • B Capital participated in Code Metal’s $125M Series B, a round led by Salesforce Ventures that valued the company at $1.25B, alongside investors including Accel, J2 Ventures, Shield Capital, Smith Point Capital, and others.Code Metal says it will use the new capital to expand engineering, accelerate product development, grow government and commercial partnerships, and scale go-to-market for its “verifiable” AI code generation and translation platform used in mission-critical environments. - learn more
                                                                          • Bonfire Ventures co-led Odynn’s $9.5M seed round alongside 8VC, with participation from Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst. Odynn says it’s building personalized AI infrastructure for travel companies, aiming to replace one-size-fits-all booking portals with dynamic experiences that tailor search, recommendations, and conversion flows to each traveler. - learn more
                                                                          • MTech Capital led Qumis’s $4.3M oversubscribed seed round, which also brought in American Family Ventures as a new strategic investor and pushed total funding to $6.75M. The company says it’s building an attorney-trained AI platform for commercial insurance “coverage intelligence,” and will use the funding to expand go-to-market and deepen product capabilities as adoption grows among large brokers and carriers (including NFP). - learn more
                                                                          • WndrCo participated in Mansa’s seed funding round, which the company says totaled $12M and was led by MaC Venture Capital. Mansa is now launching a vertical “micro-drama” format inside its app, debuting with the 27-episode original series The Heiress, The Baller & The Secret Society and positioning the feature as a mobile-first way to release serialized stories globally. - learn more
                                                                          • Alpha Edison co-led Ownwell’s $50M Series B, with Wonder Ventures participating alongside investors including Mercato Partners, Intuit Ventures, Left Lane Capital, First Round Capital, Long Journey Ventures, and PROOF Fund. The round includes $30M in equity and $20M in debt financing from Western Alliance Bank, and Ownwell says it will use the capital to expand nationally and simplify the property-tax appeal process through a new “National Appeals Packet” product. - learn more
                                                                          • Three Six Zero participated as an existing investor in Hook’s $10M Series A, which was led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Point72 Ventures, Imaginary Ventures, and Waverley Capital, bringing Hook’s total funding to $16M. Hook is an artist-first social platform that lets fans legally remix licensed songs using simple AI-powered tools and share them across social platforms, and it says the new capital will fund user growth plus product expansion like an Android app, richer creation formats, and deeper ecosystem integrations. - learn more
                                                                          • Overture Ventures participated as an existing investor in Zero Homes’ $16.8M Series A, which was led by Prelude Ventures alongside SJF Ventures and the Exelon Foundation. Zero Homes says it’s using the funding to expand into new markets, broaden its home-upgrade offerings, and grow its contractor network, powered by a smartphone-based “digital twin” approach that produces upgrade designs and pricing remotely. - learn more
                                                                          • Rebel Fund participated in Sphinx’s $7.1M seed round, which was led by Cherry Ventures alongside Y Combinator, Deel Ventures, and Singularity Capital. Sphinx is building browser-native compliance agents that work inside banks’ and fintechs’ existing tools to automate AML, KYC, and KYB work, with the new funding earmarked to scale that “agentic compliance workforce.” - learn more
                                                                          • Matter Venture Partners led ChipAgents’ oversubscribed $50M Series A1, bringing total capital raised to $74M, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Micron, MediaTek, and Ericsson. ChipAgents says it will use the new funding to scale its agentic AI platform for chip design and verification, expand engineering and research, and accelerate global deployment of multi-agent “chip teams,” alongside a new HQ buildout in Santa Clara. - learn more
                                                                          • MemorialCare Innovation Fund participated in SpendRule’s $2M round, which was led by Abundant Venture Partners with additional backing from Zeal Capital Partners. SpendRule is emerging from stealth with an AI-driven platform that helps hospitals validate invoices against complex contract terms before payments go out, aiming to reduce overspending and “contract leakage” across purchased services. The company says early customers include health systems like MemorialCare, Kettering Health, and MUSC Health. - learn more

                                                                                      LA Exits

                                                                                      • Fred Segal is being acquired by Aritzia, which is buying the brand’s rights/IP (terms not disclosed) and planning a revival under its ownership. Melrose Avenue is central to the deal too, since Aritzia is also taking a lease on Fred Segal’s iconic ivy-covered site at 8100 Melrose as part of the comeback plan. - learn more
                                                                                      • The Expert is being acquired by Havenly in an all-equity deal (terms not disclosed), bringing The Expert’s high-end virtual designer consultations and trade-oriented marketplace into Havenly’s broader home and commerce ecosystem. Lee Anne Blake will join Havenly as chief commercial officer, and while The Expert will remain a standalone website, Havenly plans to plug in its tech to strengthen The Expert’s purchasing and procurement tools for designers. - learn more

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                                                                                                              💘Zeitview’s New Valentine : Catching Methane Leaks

                                                                                                              🔦 Spotlight

                                                                                                              Hello Los Angeles, happy Friday and happy Valentine’s Day weekend.

                                                                                                              While the rest of us are debating flowers vs. gifts vs. reservations, LA’s infrastructure nerds are out here celebrating a different kind of romance: finding leaks before they ghost your entire operation.

                                                                                                              Zeitview just made methane a first-class feature

                                                                                                              Zeitview has acquired Insight M, folding high-frequency aerial methane detection into its broader “see it, measure it, fix it” play for critical infrastructure. The combined offering pairs methane monitoring with Zeitview’s predictive asset-health and inspection workflows, so operators can spot emissions faster, prioritize repairs, and tie results back to ROI instead of vibes.

                                                                                                              What Zeitview actually does, beyond the buzzwords

                                                                                                              If you haven’t been tracking them, Zeitview is essentially the operating layer for inspecting big, physical assets using drones, aircraft, and computer vision. They can analyze imagery you already have or capture fresh data, then turn it into inspection reports and analytics through their Asset Insights platform.

                                                                                                              Zeitview was previously known as DroneBase and rebranded after raising an expansion round, signaling a broader push beyond “drones” into enterprise-grade infrastructure intelligence across energy and other asset-heavy industries.

                                                                                                              Why Insight M fits, and why this isn’t just “climate tech”

                                                                                                              Methane is the rare climate problem that also hits the P&L, because a leak is both emissions and lost product. Insight M has built credibility around methane monitoring that’s meant to be operational, not just observational, and that plugs neatly into Zeitview’s inspection footprint.

                                                                                                              Put together, this looks less like a single acquisition and more like a workflow upgrade: one system that finds a problem, quantifies it, routes it to the right team, and proves it was fixed. The least romantic Valentine’s message of all, maybe, but also the most adult: “I noticed something small, and I handled it before it became expensive.”

                                                                                                              Keep scrolling for the latest LA venture rounds, fund news and acquisitions.

                                                                                                              🤝 Venture Deals

                                                                                                                  LA Companies


                                                                                                                  • HAWKs (Hiking Adventures With Kids), a nature-based children’s enrichment brand founded in Los Angeles, secured a strategic investment from Post Investment Group to accelerate its nationwide franchise expansion. The company plans to scale its mobile, outdoor-program model (after-school adventures, camps, and weekend sessions) by opening franchise territories across the U.S. while using Post’s franchising platform to build the operational infrastructure and support system for new operators. - learn more

                                                                                                                              LA Venture Funds

                                                                                                                              • Allomer Capital Group participated in TRUCE Software’s newly closed Series B, a round led by Yttrium with additional backing from New Amsterdam Growth Capital. The company did not disclose the amount, but says it will use the funding to scale go-to-market for two mobile-first product suites: an AI video telematics platform for commercial fleets that runs on standard smartphones, and TRUCE Family, a software approach to limiting student phone distractions in K–12 schools. - learn more
                                                                                                                              • Wonder Ventures participated in The Biological Computing Company’s $25M seed round, which was led by Primary Venture Partners alongside Builders VC, Refactor Capital, E1 Ventures, Proximity, and Tusk Ventures. The startup is commercializing “biological compute,” connecting living neurons to modern AI systems to make certain tasks dramatically more energy-efficient, and says its first product shows a 23x retained improvement in video model efficiency while also helping discover new AI architectures. - learn more
                                                                                                                              • Bonfire Ventures co-led Santé’s $7.6M seed round, with backing from Operator Collective, Y Combinator, and Veridical Ventures. Santé is building an AI- and fintech-driven operating system for wine and liquor retailers that brings POS, inventory, e-commerce, delivery orders, and invoice workflows into one platform to replace a lot of manual, fragmented processes. - learn more
                                                                                                                              • B Capital co-led Apptronik’s initial 2025 Series A and participated again in the company’s new $520M Series A extension, bringing the total Series A to $935M+ (nearly $1B raised overall). The company says it will use the fresh capital to ramp production and deployments of its Apollo humanoid robots and invest in facilities for robot training and data collection, with the extension also bringing in new backers like AT&T Ventures, John Deere, and Qatar Investment Authority alongside repeat investors including Google and Mercedes-Benz. - learn more
                                                                                                                              • WndrCo participated in Inertia Enterprises’s new $450M Series A, a round led by Bessemer Venture Partners with additional investors including GV, Modern Capital, and Threshold Ventures. The company says it will use the milestone-based financing to commercialize laser-based fusion built on physics proven at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, including building its “Thunderwall” high-power laser system and scaling a production line to mass-manufacture fusion fuel targets. - learn more
                                                                                                                              • Riot Ventures participated as a returning investor in Integrate’s $17M Series A, which was led by FPV Ventures with participation from Fuse VC and Rsquared VC. Integrate is pitching an ultra-secure project management platform built for classified, multi-organization programs, and says it has become a requirement for certain U.S. Space Force launch efforts. The company plans to use the new funding to ship additional capabilities for government customers and scale go-to-market across the defense tech sector. - learn more
                                                                                                                              • MANTIS Ventures participated in Project Omega’s $12M oversubscribed seed round, which was led by Starship Ventures alongside Buckley Ventures, Decisive Point, Slow Ventures, and others. Project Omega is emerging from stealth to build an end-to-end nuclear fuel recycling capability in the U.S., aiming to turn spent nuclear fuel into long-duration power sources and critical materials, with early lab demonstrations underway and an ARPA-E partnership to validate a commercially viable recycling pathway. - learn more
                                                                                                                              • Plus Capital participated in Garner Health’s $118M round, which was led by Khosla Ventures with additional backing from Founders Fund and existing investors including Maverick Ventures and Thrive Capital, valuing the company at $1.35B. Garner says it helps employers steer members to high-quality doctors using its “Smart Match” provider recommendations and a reimbursement-style incentive called “Garner Rewards,” and it will use the funding to expand its offerings, grow its care team, and scale partnerships with payers and health systems. - learn more
                                                                                                                              • Emerging Ventures co-led Taiv’s $13M Series A+ alongside IDC Ventures, with continued support from investors including Y Combinator and Garage Capital. Taiv says it will use the funding to scale its “Business TV” platform, which uses AI to detect and swap TV commercials in venues like bars and restaurants with more relevant ads and on-screen content, as it expands across major North American markets. - learn more

                                                                                                                                        LA Exits

                                                                                                                                        • Mattel163 is being acquired by Mattel, which is buying out NetEase’s remaining 50% stake and valuing the mobile games studio at $318M. The deal gives Mattel full ownership and control of the team behind its IP driven mobile titles, strengthening its in-house publishing and user acquisition capabilities as it expands its digital games business. - learn more
                                                                                                                                        • DJ Mex Corp. is set to be acquired in part by Marwynn Holdings, which signed a non-binding letter of intent to purchase a 51% stake in the U.S.-based e-waste sourcing and logistics company. The deal would bring DJ Mex into Marwynn’s EcoLoopX platform to expand its asset-light “reverse supply chain” services for recyclable materials, though it’s still subject to due diligence and final agreements. - learn more

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