DOT.LA TERMS OF SERVICE

Last Updated: 1/27

Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") apply to your access to and use of the websites, mobile applications and other online products and services (collectively, the "Services") provided by Intersection Media Group, Inc. ("dot.LA" or "we"). By clicking "I Accept" or by using our Services, you agree to these Terms, including the mandatory arbitration provision and class action waiver in Section 15.If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use our Services.

If you have any questions about these Terms or our Services, please contact us at legal@dot.la. For information about how we collect, use, share and otherwise process information about you, please see our Privacy Policy.

Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years of age to use our Services. If you are under 18 years of age (or the age of legal majority where you live), you may use our Services only under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms. If you are a parent or legal guardian of a user under the age of 18 (or the age of legal majority), you agree to be fully responsible for the acts or omissions of such user in relation to our Services. If you use our Services on behalf of another person or entity, (a) all references to "you" throughout these Terms will include that person or entity, (b) you represent that you are authorized to accept these Terms on that person's or entity's behalf, and (c) in the event you or the person or entity violates these Terms, the person or entity agrees to be responsible to us.

User Accounts and Account Security

You may need to register for an account to access some or all of our Services. If you register for an account, you must provide accurate account information and promptly update this information if it changes. You also must maintain the security of your account and promptly notify us if you discover or suspect that someone has accessed your account without your permission. If you permit others to use your account credentials, you are responsible for the activities of such users that occur in connection with your account. We reserve the right to reclaim usernames, including on behalf of businesses or individuals that hold legal claim, including trademark rights, in those usernames.

User Content

  1. Our Services may allow you and other users to create, post, store and share content, including messages, text, photos, videos, software and other materials (collectively, "User Content"). Except for the license you grant below, you retain all rights in and to your User Content, as between you and dot.LA.

  2. You grant dot.LA a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your User Content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your User Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed without compensation to you. When you post or otherwise share User Content on or through our Services, you understand that your User Content and any associated information (such as your username or profile photo) may be visible to others.

  3. You may not create, post, store or share any User Content that violates these Terms or for which you do not have all the rights necessary to grant us the license described above. You represent and warrant that your User Content, and our use of such content as permitted by these Terms, will not violate any rights of or cause injury to any person or entity. Although we have no obligation to screen, edit or monitor User Content, we may delete or remove User Content at any time and for any reason with or without notice.

Prohibited Conduct and Content

You will not violate any applicable law, contract, intellectual property right or other third-party right or commit a tort, and you are solely responsible for your conduct while using our Services. You will not:

  1. Engage in any harassing, threatening, intimidating, predatory or stalking conduct;
  2. Use or attempt to use another user's account without authorization from that user and dot.LA;
  3. Impersonate or post on behalf or any person or entity or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
  4. Sell, resell or commercially use our Services;
  5. Copy, reproduce, distribute, publicly perform or publicly display all or portions of our Services, except as expressly permitted by us or our licensors;
  6. Modify our Services, remove any proprietary rights notices or markings, or otherwise make any derivative works based upon our Services;
  7. Use our Services other than for their intended purpose and in any manner that could interfere with, disrupt, negatively affect or inhibit other users from fully enjoying our Services or that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the functioning of our Services in any manner;
  8. Reverse engineer any aspect of our Services or do anything that might discover source code or bypass or circumvent measures employed to prevent or limit access to any part of our Services;
  9. Use any data mining, robots or similar data gathering or extraction methods designed to scrape or extract data from our Services;
  10. Develop or use any applications that interact with our Services without our prior written consent;
  11. Send, distribute or post spam, unsolicited or bulk commercial electronic communications, chain letters, or pyramid schemes;
  12. Bypass or ignore instructions contained in our robots.txt file; or
  13. Use our Services for any illegal or unauthorized purpose, or engage in, encourage or promote any activity that violates these Terms.
You may also post or otherwise share only User Content that is nonconfidential and that you have all necessary rights to disclose. You may not create, post, store or share any User Content that:
  1. Is unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive, harassing, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory or fraudulent;
  2. Would constitute, encourage or provide instructions for a criminal offense, violate the rights of any party or otherwise create liability or violate any local, state, national or international law;
  3. May infringe any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other intellectual or proprietary right of any party;
  4. Contains or depicts any statements, remarks or claims that do not reflect your honest views and experiences;
  5. Impersonates, or misrepresents your affiliation with, any person or entity;
  6. Contains any unsolicited promotions, political campaigning, advertising or solicitations;
  7. Contains any private or personal information of a third party without such third party's consent;
  8. Contains any viruses, corrupted data or other harmful, disruptive or destructive files or content; or
  9. In our sole judgment, is objectionable, restricts or inhibits any other person from using or enjoying our Services, or may expose dot.LA or others to any harm or liability of any type.
1. Enforcement of this Section 4 is solely at dot.LA's discretion, and failure to enforce this section in some instances does not constitute a waiver of our right to enforce it in other instances. In addition, this Section 4 does not create any private right of action on the part of any third party or any reasonable expectation that the Services will not contain any content that is prohibited by such rules.

Ownership; Limited License

The Services, including the text, graphics, images, photographs, videos, illustrations and other content contained therein, are owned by dot.LA or our licensors and are protected under both United States and foreign laws. Except as explicitly stated in these Terms, all rights in and to the Services are reserved by us or our licensors. Subject to your compliance with these Terms, you are hereby granted a limited, nonexclusive, nontransferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to access and use our Services for your own personal, noncommercial use. Any use of the Services other than as specifically authorized herein, without our prior written permission, is strictly prohibited, will terminate the license granted herein and violate our intellectual property rights.

Trademarks

dot.LA and our logos, our product or service names, our slogans and the look and feel of the Services are trademarks of dot.LA and may not be copied, imitated or used, in whole or in part, without our prior written permission. All other trademarks, registered trademarks, product names and company names or logos mentioned on the Services are the property of their respective owners. Reference to any products, services, processes or other information by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, supplier or otherwise does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation by us.

Feedback

You may voluntarily post, submit or otherwise communicate to us any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, original or creative materials or other information about dot.LA or our Services (collectively, "Feedback"). You understand that we may use such Feedback for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgment or compensation to you, including to develop, copy, publish, or improve the Feedback in dot.LA's sole discretion. You understand that dot.LA may treat Feedback as nonconfidential.

Repeat Infringer Policy; Copyright Complaints

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other applicable law, we have adopted a policy of terminating, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that anything on our Services infringes any copyright that you own or control, you may notify dot.LA's designated agent as follows:

Designated Agent: DMCA Manager
Address: 212 26th st #317

Santa Monica CA, 90402

E-Mail Address: legal@dot.la

Please see 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) for the requirements of a proper notification. Also, please note that if you knowingly misrepresent that any activity or material on our Services is infringing, you may be liable to dot.LA for certain costs and damages.

Third-Party Content

We may provide information about third-party products, services, activities or events, or we may allow third parties to make their content and information available on or through the Services (collectively, "Third-Party Content"). We provide Third-Party Content as a service to those interested in such content. Your dealings or correspondence with third parties and your use of or interaction with any Third-Party Content are solely between you and the third party. dot.LA does not control or endorse, and makes no representations or warranties regarding, any Third-Party Content, and your access to and use of such Third-Party Content is at your own risk.

Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you will indemnify, defend and hold harmless dot.LA and our officers, directors, agents, partners and employees (individually and collectively, the "dot.LA Parties") from and against any losses, liabilities, claims, demands, damages, expenses or costs ("Claims") arising out of or related to (a) your access to or use of the Services; (b) your User Content or Feedback; (c) your violation of these Terms; (d) your violation, misappropriation or infringement of any rights of another (including intellectual property rights or privacy rights); or (e) your conduct in connection with the Services. You agree to promptly notify dot.LA Parties of any third-party Claims, cooperate with dot.LA Parties in defending such Claims and pay all fees, costs and expenses associated with defending such Claims (including attorneys' fees). You also agree that the dot.LA Parties will have control of the defense or settlement, at dot.LA's sole option, of any third-party Claims. This indemnity is in addition to, and not in lieu of, any other indemnities set forth in a written agreement between you and dot.LA or the other dot.LA Parties.

Disclaimers

Your use of our Services is at your sole risk. Except as otherwise provided in a writing by us, our Services and any content therein are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. In addition, dot.LA does not represent or warrant that our Services are accurate, complete, reliable, current or error-free. While dot.LA attempts to make your use of our Services and any content therein safe, we cannot and do not represent or warrant that our Services or servers are free of viruses or other harmful components. You assume the entire risk as to the quality and performance of the Services.

Limitation of Liability

  1. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, dot.LA and the other dot.LA Parties will not be liable to you under any theory of liability—whether based in contract, tort, negligence, warranty, or otherwise—for any indirect, consequential, incidental, or special damages or lost profits, even if dot.LA or the other dot.LA Parties have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

  2. The total liability of dot.LA and the other dot.LA Parties for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or our Services, regardless of the form of the action, is limited to the greater of $100 or the amount paid by you to use our Services.

  3. The limitations set forth in this Section 12 will not limit or exclude liability for the gross negligence, fraud or intentional misconduct of dot.LA or the other dot.LA Parties or for any other matters in which liability cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law. Additionally, some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitations or exclusions may not apply to you.

Release

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you release dot.LA and the other dot.LA Parties from responsibility, liability, claims, demands and/or damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown (including claims of negligence), arising out of or related to disputes between users and the acts or omissions of third parties. If you are a consumer who resides in California, you hereby waive your rights under California Civil Code § 1542, which provides: "A general release does not extend to claims which the creditor does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release, which if known by him or her must have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor."

Transfer and Processing Data

In order for us to provide our Services, you agree that we may process, transfer and store information about you in the United States and other countries, where you may not have the same rights and protections as you do under local law.

Dispute Resolution; Binding Arbitration

Please read the following section carefully because it requires you to arbitrate certain disputes and claims with dot.LA and limits the manner in which you can seek relief from us, unless you opt out of arbitration by following the instructions set forth below. No class or representative actions or arbitrations are allowed under this arbitration provision. In addition, arbitration precludes you from suing in court or having a jury trial.

  1. No Representative Actions. You and dot.LA agree that any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or our Services is personal to you and dot.LA and that any dispute will be resolved solely through individual action, and will not be brought as a class arbitration, class action or any other type of representative proceeding.
  2. Arbitration of Disputes. Except for small claims disputes in which you or dot.LA seeks to bring an individual action in small claims court located in the county of your billing address or disputes in which you or dot.LA seeks injunctive or other equitable relief for the alleged infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property, you and dot.LA waive your rights to a jury trial and to have any other dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or our Services, including claims related to privacy and data security, (collectively, "Disputes") resolved in court. Instead, for any Dispute that you have against dot.LA you agree to first contact dot.LA and attempt to resolve the claim informally by sending a written notice of your claim ("Notice") to dot.LA by email at legal@dot.la .la or by certified mail addressed to [insert legal department address]. The Notice must (a) include your name, residence address, email address, and telephone number; (b) describe the nature and basis of the Dispute; and (c) set forth the specific relief sought. Our notice to you will be similar in form to that described above. If you and dot.LA cannot reach an agreement to resolve the Dispute within thirty (30) days after such Notice is received, then either party may submit the Dispute to binding arbitration administered by JAMS or, under the limited circumstances set forth above, in court. All Disputes submitted to JAMS will be resolved through confidential, binding arbitration. Arbitration proceedings will be held in Los Angeles County, California unless you are a consumer, in which case you may elect to hold the arbitration in your county of residence. For purposes of this Section 15, a "consumer" means a person using the Services for personal, family or household purposes. You and dot.LA agree that Disputes will be held in accordance with the JAMS Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures ("JAMS Rules"). The most recent version of the JAMS Rules are available on the JAMS website and are hereby incorporated by reference. You either acknowledge and agree that you have read and understand the JAMS Rules or waive your opportunity to read the JAMS Rules and waive any claim that the JAMS Rules are unfair or should not apply for any reason.
  3. You and dot.LA agree that these Terms affect interstate commerce and that the enforceability of this Section 15 will be substantively and procedurally governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1, et seq. (the "FAA"), to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. As limited by the FAA, these Terms and the JAMS Rules, the arbitrator will have exclusive authority to make all procedural and substantive decisions regarding any Dispute and to grant any remedy that would otherwise be available in court, including the power to determine the question of arbitrability. The arbitrator may conduct only an individual arbitration and may not consolidate more than one individual's claims, preside over any type of class or representative proceeding or preside over any proceeding involving more than one individual.
  4. The arbitration will allow for the discovery or exchange of non-privileged information relevant to the Dispute. The arbitrator, dot.LA, and you will maintain the confidentiality of any arbitration proceedings, judgments and awards, including information gathered, prepared and presented for purposes of the arbitration or related to the Dispute(s) therein. The arbitrator will have the authority to make appropriate rulings to safeguard confidentiality, unless the law provides to the contrary. The duty of confidentiality does not apply to the extent that disclosure is necessary to prepare for or conduct the arbitration hearing on the merits, in connection with a court application for a preliminary remedy or in connection with a judicial challenge to an arbitration award or its enforcement, or to the extent that disclosure is otherwise required by law or judicial decision.

  5. You and dot.LA agree that for any arbitration you initiate, you will pay the filing fee (up to a maximum of $250 if you are a consumer), and dot.LA will pay the remaining JAMS fees and costs. For any arbitration initiated by dot.LA, dot.LA will pay all JAMS fees and costs. You and dot.LA agree that the state or federal courts of the State of California and the United States sitting in Los Angeles County, California have exclusive jurisdiction over any appeals and the enforcement of an arbitration award.
  6. Any Dispute must be filed within one year after the relevant claim arose; otherwise, the Dispute is permanently barred, which means that you and dot.LA will not have the right to assert the claim.
  7. You have the right to opt out of binding arbitration within 30 days of the date you first accepted the terms of this Section 15 by emailing dot.LA at legal@dot.la. In order to be effective, the opt-out notice must include your full name and address and clearly indicate your intent to opt out of binding arbitration. By opting out of binding arbitration, you are agreeing to resolve Disputes in accordance with Section 16.
  8. If any portion of this Section 15 is found to be unenforceable or unlawful for any reason, (a) the unenforceable or unlawful provision shall be severed from these Terms; (b) severance of the unenforceable or unlawful provision shall have no impact whatsoever on the remainder of this Section 15 or the parties' ability to compel arbitration of any remaining claims on an individual basis pursuant to this Section 15; and (c) to the extent that any claims must therefore proceed on a class, collective, consolidated, or representative basis, such claims must be litigated in a civil court of competent jurisdiction and not in arbitration, and the parties agree that litigation of those claims shall be stayed pending the outcome of any individual claims in arbitration. Further, if any part of this Section 15 is found to prohibit an individual claim seeking public injunctive relief, that provision will have no effect to the extent such relief is allowed to be sought out of arbitration, and the remainder of this Section 15 will be enforceable.

Governing Law and Venue

Any dispute arising from these Terms and your use of the Services will be governed by and construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of California, except to the extent preempted by U.S. federal law, without regard to conflict of law rules or principles (whether of California or any other jurisdiction) that would cause the application of the laws of any other jurisdiction. Any dispute between the parties that is not subject to arbitration or cannot be heard in small claims court will be resolved in the state or federal courts of California and the United States, respectively, sitting in Los Angeles County, California.

Modifying and Terminating our Services

We reserve the right to modify our Services or to suspend or stop providing all or portions of our Services at any time. You also have the right to stop using our Services at any time. We are not responsible for any loss or harm related to your inability to access or use our Services.

Amendments

We may make changes to these Terms from time to time. If we make changes, we will provide you with notice of such changes, such as by sending an email, providing a notice through our Services or updating the date at the top of these Terms. Unless we say otherwise in our notice, the amended Terms will be effective immediately, and your continued use of our Services after we provide such notice will confirm your acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree to the amended Terms, you must stop using our Services.

Severability

If any provision or part of a provision of these Terms is unlawful, void or unenforceable, that provision or part of the provision is deemed severable from these Terms and does not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Miscellaneous

  1. The failure of dot.LA to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not operate as a waiver of such right or provision. These Terms reflect the entire agreement between the parties relating to the subject matter hereof and supersede all prior agreements, representations, statements and understandings of the parties. The section titles in these Terms are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect. Use of the word "including" will be interpreted to mean "including without limitation." Except as otherwise provided herein, these Terms are intended solely for the benefit of the parties and are not intended to confer third-party beneficiary rights upon any other person or entity. You agree that communications and transactions between us may be conducted electronically.

  2. Under California Civil Code Section 1789.3, California consumers are entitled to the following specific consumer rights notice: The Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs may be contacted in writing at 1625 N. Market Blvd., Suite N-112, Sacramento, California 95834, or by telephone at 1 (800) 952-5210.

CHAOS in the Skies, Valar in the Core and Robotaxis on the 405

🔦 Spotlight

Hello LA!

If you are reading this while watching the clouds stack up over the city, you are not wrong. The forecast is calling for heavy rain and possible flooding through Sunday, so consider this your permission slip to cancel a few plans, stay dry and catch up on what the hard-tech crowd has been building this week.

Let us start with the least subtle name in local defense tech. CHAOS Industries just closed a $510 million dollar round led by Valor Equity Partners, valuing the company at $4.5 billion dollars and pushing its total funding past the $1 billion dollar mark in under three years. The company builds Coherent Distributed Networks radar, essentially a mesh of smaller, lower cost sensors that can pick up drones and other low flying threats minutes earlier than legacy radar systems, a gap that has become painfully obvious on modern battlefields. The new capital is going toward product development and manufacturing so militaries and border agencies can actually field these systems at scale rather than treating them as one-off experiments.

What makes CHAOS interesting is not just the size of the round but the architecture choice. Instead of a single massive radar on a hill, they are betting on distributed, software first networks that can be upgraded, repositioned and re-tasked as threats change. It is a very cloud-era way of thinking about defense hardware, and it is pulling engineers from a mix of aerospace, gaming and traditional software backgrounds into a category that used to be the domain of slow, closed incumbents.

Image Source: Valar Atomics

If CHAOS is focused on keeping the skies manageable, Valar Atomics wants to keep the lights on for everything that needs compute. The Hawthorne based nuclear startup raised $130 million dollars in Series A funding led by Snowpoint Ventures, with participation from Crosscut Ventures and a roster of deep tech backers that includes Palmer Luckey and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar. Valar is building compact, high temperature gas reactors that use TRISO fuel and helium coolant, designed for strong safety characteristics and very high operating temperatures.

Instead of a single gigantic nuclear plant, Valar’s plan is to mass produce one standardized reactor design and cluster hundreds of them on “gigasites” that sit directly behind the meter for big energy users. Think hydrogen production, AI data centers, heavy industry and synthetic fuel plants, not just electrons on the grid. Construction is already underway on a first test reactor in Utah, targeted for completion in 2026, and the company is positioning itself as part of a new wave of nuclear companies that treat reactors as a product you replicate, not a megaproject you tolerate.

Image Source: Waymo

On the consumer side, your weekend mobility options are getting an upgrade too, weather permitting. Waymo has begun routing paid robotaxi rides onto freeways in Los Angeles, alongside San Francisco and Phoenix, after years of staying mostly on surface streets. The company says freeway segments can cut some trip times by as much as half, making a driverless ride to LAX or a cross town trek on the 405 feel less like a novelty and more like a practical option. Regulators and human drivers now have to figure out what it means to share the fast lane with cars that never get tired and never text at red lights.

Image Source: Apple

Apple is also coming for the least fun part of any LA trip: the airport ID check. The new Digital ID feature lets you create a passport based identity inside Apple Wallet that TSA will accept at more than 250 airports for domestic travel, including LAX. You scan your passport, verify with Face ID and then present your Digital ID at TSA checkpoints using your iPhone or Apple Watch without handing over your device. It will not replace a physical passport for international flights, but it does mean boarding passes, credit cards and ID can all live in the same tap-to-go flow the next time you sprint to Terminal 4.

Between radar that sees drones earlier, reactors that promise industrial scale clean power and robotaxis that hop on the freeway, a lot of the future is quietly being wired in while you hunt for an umbrella. Stay safe, stay dry this weekend and keep scrolling for this week’s venture rounds, fund announcements and acquisitions.

🤝 Venture Deals

      LA Companies

      • Skims has raised $225M in new funding at a $5B valuation, in a round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives with participation from BDT & MSD Partners. The company plans to use the capital to accelerate its shift toward brick-and-mortar retail and international expansion, while continuing to invest in product innovation across intimates, shapewear, apparel, and activewear, including its new NikeSKIMS collaboration; Skims is on track to surpass $1B in net sales in 2025, just six years after launch. - learn more
      • Neros has raised $75M in a Series B round led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from existing investors Vy Capital US and Interlagos, bringing its total funding to over $120M. The El Segundo based defense drone startup will use the capital to massively scale production of its Archer and Archer Strike FPV drone platforms and ground control systems, expand industrial capacity, and deepen a China-free, allied supply chain. The raise coincides with Neros being selected as one of the primary FPV drone suppliers for the U.S. Army’s Purpose-Built Attritable Systems program, following a major Marine Corps drone order. - learn more

              LA Venture Funds

              • BAM Ventures joined Exowatt’s new $50M financing round, backing the Miami based company’s push to deliver dispatchable, American made solar power to AI data centers and other energy hungry industrial sites. The round, an extension of Exowatt’s $70M Series A led by MVP Ventures and 8090 Industries, brings the company’s total funding to $140M in under two years. Exowatt will use the capital to expand U.S. manufacturing and scale deployments of its modular P3 system, which stores solar energy as heat and converts it to electricity on demand to provide round the clock, grid independent power. - learn more
              • WndrCo joined the $145M Series B round for Alembic, the AI marketing analytics startup it first backed in early 2024, as the company’s valuation jumped to $645M. The round was led by Prysm Capital and Accenture and will help Alembic scale its platform, which uses AI to link brand marketing across channels like TV, podcasts and social media to real sales outcomes. Alembic also plans to use part of the funding to build a new Nvidia powered supercomputing cluster in San Jose to support growing demand from enterprise customers. - learn more
              • Magnify Ventures joined Joy’s $14M Series A round, backing the San Francisco based startup’s push to build an AI powered parenting platform that blends machine intelligence with real human experts. Co-led by Forerunner and Raga Partners, the funding coincides with the launch of the Joy Parenting Club app, which gives new parents and parents of toddlers 24/7 access to certified coaches plus AI driven guidance, milestone tracking and personalized product recommendations. Joy plans to use the capital to further develop its AI model, expand partnerships with baby and parenting brands, and grow its expert network to support families through more stages of childhood. - learn more
              • Overture VC, via its climate focused Overture Climate fund, reupped in Harbinger’s $160M Series C round as the medium duty electric and hybrid truck maker continues to scale its U.S. built EV platform. The round was co led by FedEx, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, and THOR Industries, and includes existing backers like Tiger Global, Ridgeline, Maniv Mobility, Schematic Ventures, Ironspring Ventures, ArcTern Ventures, Litquidity Ventures, and The Coca Cola System Sustainability Fund. Harbinger will use the capital to ramp production of its electric stripped chassis platform and fulfill an initial FedEx order for 53 Class 5 and 6 trucks, supporting large fleet electrification and last mile delivery use cases. - learn more
              • Sound Ventures joined the $60M Series B round for GC AI, an AI platform built for in-house legal teams, alongside lead investors Scale Venture Partners and Northzone. The new funding values the San Francisco based startup at $555M and brings its total capital raised to $73M. GC AI will use the money to accelerate product development and deepen its integrations and AI agents, building on rapid growth to more than 1,000 customers, $10M in ARR, and 1.75 million legal prompts processed in under a year. - learn more
              • Fulcrum Venture Group doubled down on its backing of Code Metal, joining the startup’s $36.5M Series A to support its push to bring verifiable AI powered code translation to mission critical industries. Led by Accel at a $250M valuation, the round also brought in RTX Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Smith Point Capital, Overmatch VC, AE Ventures, Shield Capital, J2 Ventures, and several strategic angels. Code Metal will use the capital to expand its platform across defense, automotive, and semiconductor customers, promising formally verified, regulation-ready code that can be ported between chips and modernized much faster than traditional methods. - learn more
              • MarcyPen Capital Partners led Rebel’s $25M oversubscribed Series B to scale the company’s returns recommerce marketplace, which helps retailers resell open box and overstock goods instead of sending them to landfills. The new capital will fund expansion into outdoor and sporting goods categories with existing retail partners and support broader growth of Rebel’s tech platform, which processes and resells returned products at up to 70 percent off retail while tackling the trillion dollar returns problem. - learn more
              • Halogen Ventures joined Auditocity’s $2M seed round alongside Techstars, Innovate Alabama, and several angel investors to help scale the company’s AI driven HR compliance auditing platform. The Alabama based startup plans to use the capital to expand nationally and deepen its intelligent automation tools so HR teams can spot compliance risks in real time and resolve issues before they become costly problems. - learn more
              • Upfront Ventures joined Majestic Labs’ more than $100M financing as the AI infrastructure startup emerged from stealth with a new memory centric server architecture. Founded by ex Google and Meta executives, the company claims its all in one servers deliver up to 1000 times the memory capacity of top tier GPU systems, effectively replacing multiple racks with a single box for the largest AI workloads. Majestic will use the capital to grow its team, finish its full software stack, and run pilot deployments with customers looking to cut power use and costs while training massive models. - learn more
              • Alexandria Venture Investments and Freeflow Ventures joined an oversubscribed round of more than $100M for Iambic, a San Diego based biotech using an AI driven discovery platform to develop new cancer therapies. The clinical stage company will use the fresh capital to expand its operations and advance a pipeline that includes IAM1363, a HER2 targeted candidate that has already shown early anti tumor activity, as well as additional AI designed programs and pharma partnerships. - learn more
              • EGB Capital joined Extellis’ $6.8M oversubscribed seed round, backing the Durham based startup’s push to deliver reliable, all weather satellite imagery at industrial scale. Led by Oval Park Capital with participation from Duke Capital Partners, First Star Ventures, New Industry Ventures, Front Porch Venture Partners, and Blue Lake VC, the funding will support Extellis’ first satellite launch and initial product rollout. - learn more
              • Core Innovation Capital joined Arrived’s $27M Series B style funding round, backing the Seattle startup’s push to make fractional real estate investing feel more like buying stocks. Led by Neo with participation from Forerunner Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, and other investors, the new capital will help Arrived scale its “stock market for real estate” platform and recently launched Secondary Market, which lets investors buy and sell shares of individual rental homes across the U.S. with just a few clicks. - learn more
              • Strong Ventures participated in a new pre Series A round for Provotive, the company behind AI packaging design platform Packative. The round was led by Japanese VC firm Miraise, with Korean fund VNTG and a Japan based strategic CVC also joining. Provotive plans to use the capital to expand its AI driven packaging services across Japan, Korea, and the broader Asian market, helping brands quickly generate localized, customized packaging at scale. - learn more

                    LA Exits

                    • Nativo is being acquired by family safety and location app Life360 in a cash and stock deal valued at about $120M. The acquisition folds Nativo’s native ad platform, programmatic tools, and publisher network into Life360’s advertising business so brands can reach families both inside the Life360 app and across CTV, mobile, and premium web environments. The companies say the combined platform will offer a full funnel, privacy minded, “family safe” ad solution and expect the deal to close in January 2026, pending customary approvals. - learn more
                    • RealtyMogul, an online real estate crowdfunding and investment platform, has been acquired from its venture backers by The Wideman Company, a cash flow focused, high touch real estate investment firm. The deal gives RealtyMogul a long term owner while keeping its brand and digital marketplace intact, supporting a member base that has invested more than $1.2B of equity into properties valued above $8B. The Wideman Company says the acquisition will bring additional capital and strategic support to expand RealtyMogul’s offerings and deal flow for individual investors and real estate sponsors. - learn more

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                              Swipe Less, Know More, Build Faster: LA’s AI Push

                              🔦 Spotlight

                              Happy Friday LA!

                              This week was about AI moving from side feature to core product strategy. Tinder is testing an opt-in “Chemistry” flow that learns your interests with permission, including signals from your camera roll, to propose fewer, higher quality matches. Snap is wiring Perplexity’s conversational, source linked answers directly into Snapchat. And Rivian spun out Mind Robotics to take the industrial AI it built for its own lines to a broader market.

                              Tinder Bets on AI for Quality Over Quantity

                              Tinder is piloting Chemistry, an opt-in experience that starts with a short Q&A and, with permission, analyzes cues from your camera roll to build a richer picture of what you like. The aim is to cut through swipe fatigue by presenting a smaller set of high intent matches each day, first in New Zealand and Australia, as part of Match Group’s larger 2026 product overhaul. The pitch is relevance and control, with phased rollout and consent front and center; if engagement lifts, expect tighter loops between real world signals and match recommendations.

                              Snap Brings Perplexity Answers into Snapchat

                              Snap struck a deal with Perplexity to deliver conversational, source linked results inside Snapchat starting in early 2026, backed by a one year cash and equity package reportedly worth about 400 million dollars. Ask a question where you already spend time and get a cited answer without hopping to a mobile browser, with Snap emphasizing that Snapchat data will not train Perplexity’s models. The announcement landed alongside improving fundamentals, signaling Snap’s plan to make trustworthy answers feel native to social habits rather than a separate destination.

                              Rivian Spins Out Mind Robotics

                              Rivian formed Mind Robotics to productize the software and systems that coordinate its own manufacturing, raising roughly 110 to 115 million dollars led by Eclipse. The goal is to sell factory floor intelligence beyond vehicles, including adaptive quality control, smarter material handling, and autonomous workflows that reduce downtime. With Rivian’s headquarters in Irvine and a growing regional robotics talent base, this puts Southern California on the map for next generation industrial automation tied to the EV supply chain.

                              Bottom line

                              LA’s tech scene is pushing AI toward measurable outcomes: better match quality, faster answers with clear citations, and more efficient production. Keep an eye on the unsexy details, including privacy choices and user consent, data boundaries between partners, and how each team turns these features into monetization. That is where this week’s announcements will turn into lasting advantage.

                              🤝 Venture Deals

                                  LA Companies

                                  • Evotrex exited stealth with a $16M Pre-A round led by Xstar Capital, with Unity Ventures, Kylinhall Partners, Vision Plus Capital, and founders of Anker Innovations participating; the capital will expand engineering and speed commercialization of its first product. The California startup plans to debut what it calls the world’s first power-generating RV trailer at CES 2026, designed to provide off-grid power and help extend EV range while towing. - learn more
                                  • Zest AI, which provides AI-driven credit underwriting and lending intelligence for banks and credit unions, closed an oversubscribed, customer-led financing round from SchoolsFirst, Members 1st, ORNL, and Truliant credit unions, with participation from Citi Ventures. The company says the round came at a higher valuation than its prior growth raise and will fund more automation across the borrower journey and a broader rollout of LuLu, its generative AI lending-intelligence platform. - learn more
                                  • Estate Media, the social first real estate media startup co-founded by “Million Dollar Listing” star Josh Flagg, says it has surpassed $6M in revenue and closed a $1M seed round, bringing total funding to $2.65M. New investors include Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen and real estate and media figures such as Samir Mezrahi (“Zillow Gone Wild”), Tracy Tutor, and Hudson Advisory, which the company says positions it for profitability and further growth. - learn more

                                        LA Venture Funds

                                        • Cedars Sinai Ventures joined Amae Health’s $25M Series B, led by Altos Ventures with participation from Quiet Capital, Bling Capital, Healthier Capital, and 8VC. The company, which is building an AI enabled clinic model for severe mental illness, says the funding will accelerate nationwide clinic openings, advance its AI care platform, and support research into conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and treatment resistant depression. Total funding now tops $50 million. - learn more
                                        • Magnify Ventures participated in MiSalud Health’s new funding round led by IGNIA, alongside Ulu Ventures, Redwood Ventures, Amplifica Capital, and client investor Taylor Farms. MiSalud, which delivers bilingual virtual and on-site care for blue-collar workforces, says the capital will help it expand into 20 new states and add services typically offered only in person; reports peg total funding at about $18.3 million. - learn more
                                        • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Accipiter Biosciences’ $12.7M seed round, which was co-led by Takeda and Flying Fish Partners. The Seattle startup is developing AI-designed de novo protein therapeutics that can combine multiple mechanisms in a single molecule, and it also announced partnerships with Pfizer and Kite Pharma alongside the financing. The company says the funds will advance preclinical programs in immunology and oncology and further build out its computational design platform. - learn more
                                        • Rebel Fund participated in Cactus’s $7M seed round alongside Wellington Management, Y Combinator, and Pelion Venture Partners. Cactus builds a 24/7 AI copilot for home service businesses that answers calls, qualifies leads, books jobs, and manages follow ups to capture after hours demand. The company says the funding will support product expansion and go to market growth in the United States. - learn more
                                        • B Capital joined the angel round for Microtide Biotechnology (also known as Weitao Bio), which raised over RMB 100 million, led by Qiming Venture Partners. The Shanghai company, spun out from Sile Biomedicine’s in vivo CAR T platform, is developing targeted LNP delivered in vivo CAR T therapies for blood cancers and autoimmune diseases, and will use the funds to advance its first candidate and further develop its core platform. - learn more
                                        • Patron co led Flint’s $15M Series A, with participation from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering alongside Basis Set Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Afore Capital, and Y Combinator. Flint builds an AI platform that helps teachers personalize K 12 learning, and the company says the funding will accelerate product development and scale the service to more schools. - learn more
                                        • Rebel Fund participated in Freya’s $3.5M round alongside Y Combinator, 212 VC, N1 Tech, BD Partners, and others. Freya is building voice automation tools that let companies create and manage natural language voice workflows, aiming to replace brittle IVR systems with more flexible, AI powered voice agents. The company says the funding will accelerate product development and early go to market efforts. - learn more
                                        • Regeneration.VC led Hullbot’s roughly $10.6M Series A, with participation from Climate Tech Partners, Katapult Ocean, Folklore, Trinity Ventures, Rypples, NewSouth Innovations, and Bandera Capital. The Australian startup builds autonomous hull-cleaning robots that remove biofouling to cut ship fuel use and emissions, and it plans to use the funding to ramp manufacturing, expand global service hubs, and develop larger robotic platforms. - learn more
                                        • M13 led Teleskope’s $25M Series A, with continued participation from Primary Venture Partners and Lerer Hippeau. Teleskope builds an agentic data security platform for the AI era, and says the capital brings total funding to $32.2M to accelerate product development and scale go to market. - learn more
                                        • SmartGateVC participated in Coherence Neuro’s $10M seed round led by Topology Ventures and Artesian, alongside Blackbird, Possible Ventures, XEIA, Jumpspace, Divergent, Spacewalk VC, and others. San Francisco based Coherence Neuro is developing a closed-loop, bi-directional neurotechnology platform to treat cancers like glioblastoma by decoding and modulating electrical signals; the funding will support its first human trials and further product development. - learn more
                                        • Rebel Fund participated in Mecha Health’s $4.1M seed round led by Valia Ventures, alongside Y Combinator, Reach Capital, and Phosphor Capital. Mecha Health is an applied AI lab that builds foundation models for radiology which read medical images and generate fully structured reports, and the new capital supports continued development and deployment of these systems. - learn more

                                            LA Exits

                                            • Green Econome was acquired by VCA Green, the sustainability practice of VCA Consultants. The Los Angeles firm is known for lifecycle strategies, building performance reporting, and compliance services like ENERGY STAR, LEED, CALGreen, and Title 24; combining it with VCA Green’s energy modeling, project management, and field verification creates a single team serving both new construction and existing buildings. Marika Erdely, Green Econome’s founder, is joining VCA Green as a principal. - learn more
                                            • InData Consulting was acquired by The 20 MSP as part of a three-company deal that also included Red Level Group and iStreet Solutions. The additions expand The 20 MSP’s footprint in California, Arizona, Michigan, and the Sacramento area, bringing its total to 44 acquisitions in about three years. The company says it sources targets from its peer group to speed integrations and reduce attrition. - learn more
                                            • Caulipower was acquired by Urban Farmer, a Paine Schwartz Partners portfolio company, creating a vertically integrated “better for you” frozen foods platform that pairs Urban Farmer’s manufacturing with Caulipower’s nationwide brand and distribution. Caulipower will continue operating under its name, with founder Gail Becker joining Urban Farmer’s board; financial terms were not disclosed. - learn more
                                            • StudyOS was acquired by Sitero, a technology-enabled CRO, which simultaneously launched SiteroAI to position itself as the industry’s first fully AI-powered CRO. StudyOS’s Ash clinical-trial agent will be integrated with Sitero’s Mentor eClinical suite, with Sitero projecting 20–30% efficiency gains across the trial lifecycle beginning in 2026; terms were not disclosed. - learn more

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                                                    Cap Tables to Costumes: Whatnot’s Mega Round and Your LA Weekend Plan 🎃

                                                    🔦 Spotlight

                                                    Happy Friday Los Angeles!

                                                    Live shopping’s LA moment

                                                    Whatnot, the LA born marketplace for live auctions, raised $225 million at an $11.5 billion valuation. The round was co led by DST Global and CapitalG, with Sequoia, Alkeon, a16z, Greycroft, BOND, and others participating. The company says the money goes to international expansion, trust and safety, and seller tools - fuel for a category that has moved from “Is this a fad?” to “How big does this get in the West?”

                                                    Why it matters

                                                    If that valuation sounds sudden, you’re not imagining it. Whatnot’s last raise in January valued the company around $5 billion. Less than 10 months later, the number has more than doubled, tracking a year of surging GMV and a social commerce flywheel spinning across TikTok Shop, YouTube, and Amazon. For LA, it’s a marquee bet on the creator commerce stack we do best: community, content, and culture that converts

                                                    The bigger picture

                                                    The implications go well beyond trading cards. Live, personality led storefronts are evolving from hobby to underwritable small business. If Whatnot uses this cash to keep fraud low and throughput high, we could see an LA export take root globally, not just as an app category but as a job category. That is a storyline to watch into Q4 and beyond.

                                                    From cap tables to costumes: Halloween in LA 🎃

                                                    You’ve earned some offline fun. Heading into Halloween weekend (Oct. 31–Nov. 2), LAist’s guide has a little of everything: neighborhood Día de los Muertos celebrations (from the Canoga Park family festival to an ofrenda for pets at Annenberg PetSpace in Playa Vista), the Frogtown Arts weekend along the LA River, plus plenty of screenings and concerts across town. Bookmark the list, pick your neighborhood, and maybe swap “add to cart” for “add to calendar.”

                                                    Send tips, sightings, and spooky term sheets our way. Venture deals for LA companies, funds, and acquisitions are below.

                                                    🤝 Venture Deals

                                                        LA Companies

                                                        • Bryan Johnson’s longevity startup Blueprint raised $60M from a celebrity heavy group of backers including Kim Kardashian, Naval Ravikant, Alex Hormozi, Ari Emanuel, and the Winklevoss twins to turn Johnson’s personal Blueprint regimen into a broader consumer platform. The company says the funding will help package diagnostics, biomarker tracking, prescriptions, nutrition, and other longevity services into an accessible offering. The round underscores mainstream interest in data driven wellness despite past questions about Blueprint’s trajectory. - learn more
                                                        • Rarity PBC raised $4.6M in seed financing to advance a one-time, autologous blood-stem-cell gene therapy for ADA-SCID (“bubble baby” disease) that it has licensed from UCLA researcher Dr. Donald Kohn. The round, led by biotech investor Steve Oliveira (Nemean Asset Management), will support manufacturing and steps toward commercial readiness. - learn more
                                                        • Fruitist raised $150M led by a vehicle managed by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, with participation from Aliment Capital and Ray Dalio’s family office. The LA-based superfruit brand says the funding will fuel crop expansion, cold storage, and automation as it scales distribution to 12,500+ stores and targets continued growth following roughly $400M in trailing sales. - learn more
                                                        • Homecourt, the Los Angeles based luxury home and personal fragrance brand founded by Courteney Cox, raised an $8M Series A led by CULT Capital. The company says the funding will fuel brand marketing, team hires, and infrastructure as it expands beyond DTC into 300+ retail doors including Nordstrom, Bluemercury, and Revolve. Homecourt has broadened from home care into body and laundry collections since launching in 2022. - learn more

                                                            LA Venture Funds

                                                            • Aliavia Ventures participated in Human Health’s $8.5M raise, joining LocalGlobe, Airtree, Skip Capital and Scale Investors to back the precision health platform from former Canva product leaders Georgia Vidler and Kate Lambridis. The funding will support international expansion, deepen product intelligence in areas like women’s health, respiratory and pain, and scale Human Evidence for patient driven research; Human Health reports more than 200,000 users and 20 million logged health actions to date. - learn more
                                                            • Riot Ventures participated in EnduroSat’s $104M funding round, alongside Google Ventures, Lux Capital, the European Innovation Council Fund, and Shrug Capital. The Sofia based satellite manufacturer says the capital will scale production of its ESPA class (200 to 500 kg) modular satellite buses, targeting capacity of up to two satellites per day at a new 188,340 square foot Space Center so constellation customers can get to orbit faster. The raise is EnduroSat’s second this year and follows a €43 million round in May. - learn more
                                                            • Rocana Venture Partners participated in Recess’s $30M Series B, which was led by CAVU Consumer Partners and included Midnight Ventures, Torch Capital, Doehler Ventures, KAS Venture Partners, Vanquish, and Craig Kallman. The relaxation-beverage company will use the capital to grow its team, expand retail distribution, and ramp marketing, and it also named former Nutrabolt executive Kyle Thomas as President and Co-CEO to help scale the brand. Recess says it now sells in more than 15,000 U.S. stores, positioning it to capitalize on demand for functional relaxation and alcohol-alternative drinks. - learn more
                                                            • Terasaki Institute participated in iOrganBio’s $2M launch financing, joining First Star Ventures (lead), IndieBio, Cape Fear BioCapital, 2ndF, and Alix Ventures. The Chapel Hill based startup unveiled CellForge, an AI powered cell-manufacturing platform that pairs predictive models with high throughput control to engineer reproducible human cells and organoids for drug discovery and cell therapies. The funds support product development and early deployments. - learn more
                                                            • Fox Sports made a strategic investment in Shadow Lion, the creative agency and IP studio co-founded by Tom Brady, forming a partnership to develop talent-led originals, digital content, long-form projects, and marquee live events. The deal includes a new Los Angeles hub for Shadow Lion on the Fox lot, with early tentpoles including a University of Michigan football docuseries from executive producers Brady and Jim Harbaugh and collaboration on the Fanatics Flag Football Classic. - learn more
                                                            • EB Medical Research Foundation participated in Eliksa Therapeutics’ funding to advance ELK-003, a biological eye drop for ocular complications in epidermolysis bullosa. The round, led by DEBRA Research with support from Cure EB, the Abe Fund, and EB Research Partnership, backs an ongoing pilot study with 18 patients enrolled and no drug-related side effects reported among the first eight who completed treatment. - learn more
                                                            • Patron and HartBeat Ventures participated in Sweatpals’ $12M seed round alongside a16z speedrun, backing the community fitness platform as it expands its “daylife” model of IRL wellness events. The funding will support product and market expansion for hosts and gyms using Sweatpals for discovery, ticketing, memberships, and marketing. Business Insider reports the startup now reaches over 1 million monthly users and is growing into new U.S. cities. - learn more
                                                            • UP.Partners participated in Lula Commerce’s $8M Series A, led by SEMCAP AI with Rich Products Ventures, GO PA Fund, NZVC, Green Circle Foodtech Ventures, and Outlander VC also joining. The Philadelphia company, active with more than 2,000 retailers, offers an AI powered digital commerce suite for convenience stores covering order ahead, pickup, delivery, and back office tools, and says the round brings total funding to over $16M to meet rising demand. - learn more
                                                            • Navitas Capital led WorkHero’s $5M seed to scale its AI powered back office platform for small HVAC contractors, with Workshop Ventures, York IE, and strategic angels also participating. WorkHero combines agentic AI with human account managers to handle invoicing, permits, rebates, warranty registrations, and pricebooks so owners spend less time on admin. The funding will expand engineering and product and add new services such as call answering and bookkeeping. - learn more

                                                                LA Exits

                                                                • DMI was acquired by Stingray, adding about 8,500 U.S. retail locations to Stingray’s in-store audio advertising network and bringing its total footprint to roughly 33,500 sites. The deal cements Stingray’s leadership in pharmacy retail audio across the two largest chains and brings DMI’s creative services, including cinema advertising and brand marketing, under its umbrella, with CEO Tena Clark staying on to help integrate and expand the offering. - learn more

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