Here Are the LA Seed Startups Top VCs Wish They'd Invested In

Ben Bergman

Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.

Here Are the LA Seed Startups Top VCs Wish They'd Invested In

Los Angeles is home to around 5,000 startups, the majority of which are in their young, formative years.

Which of those thousands are poised for a breakout in 2021? We asked dozens of L.A.'s top VCs to weigh in. We wanted to know which companies they would have invested in if they could go back and do it all over again.

Yesterday, our investors picked their favorite Series-A or later startups, and not surprisingly there was more consensus, with familiar names like PopShop Live and Scopely leading the way.

But the most lucrative returns come from identifying companies in their infancy, as recent blockbuster IPOs vividly demonstrate. For instance, Sequoia's $600,000 seed check to Airbnb in 2009 accounted for 70% of its shares in the company and helped it get into competitive later rounds. When the vacation rental service went public last month, Sequoia's stake was worth $4.8 billion.

What will be the next breakout? The complete list is below and is ranked in random order except for the first three, which stood out by virtue of getting multiple votes: Pipe enables companies with recurring revenues to tap into their deferred cash flows with an instant cash advance. Clash App, Inc., is a TikTok alternative launched by a former employee of the social network in August. And XCLAIM allows bankruptcy claims to be digitally traded.

Boiling

Pipe

Pipe provides financial services to help cloud service companies tap into their deferred cash flows, allowing them to continue growing without taking on debt or giving up ownership. For subscription-based businesses, this makes it "as if all of your customers converted to annual plans overnight," according to the company.

Founded by Harry Hurst, Josh Mangel and Zain Allarakhia, the company raised $66 million of seed funding earlier this year in a deal led by Craft Ventures and Fin Venture Capital.

Clash App Inc.

Created by former Vine-r Brendon McNerney and entrepreneur and marketing expert P.J. Leimgruber, Clash App is a short form video platform similar to TikTok, but without built-in sound libraries. It's geared toward empowering creators with innovative monetization options and inclusive communities.

XCLAIM

XCLAIM has created an electronic platform where bankruptcy claims that take a notoriously long time to process can be digitally traded. Founded in 2018 by Matthew Sedigh, who has operated in the corporate restructuring field for more than a decade, the company says "rather than wait years for the bankruptcy court process to issue payment distributions, creditors can now access immediate liquidity by selling their claim to interested buyers." Earlier this year, it raised a $4 million seed round led from Luma Launch, First Round Capital and Freestyle Capital.

Simmering

Freck Beauty

Freck Beauty manufactures beauty products intended to make the user feel seen. Remi Brixton, the company's chief executive officer, founded the startup in 2015 when she was in search of a freckle makeup product. When she couldn't find one, she launched her own, the FRECK OG. The East Los Angeles-based company raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in a deal led by KarpReilly and Stage 1 Fund earlier this year.

The Skills

The Skills wants to be the master class on sports and life. The Los Angeles-based startup launched two months ago and offers classes from gold medal Olympians — including swimmer Michael Phelps and volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings — and Grand Slam tennis Champion Maria Sharapova. In December, it closed a $5 million seed round backed by Boston-based Will Ventures, Global Founders Capital, 8VC, Maveron, Hack VC and Correlation VC.

Mapped

Founded by Shaun Cooley, former chief technology officer of Cisco's Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Industries division, Mapped provides IoT services in El Segundo.

The company raised $3 million of seed funding in a deal led by Greycroft earlier this year, putting its pre-money valuation at $9 million.

DataPlor

Created in 2016 by Geoffrey Michener, Dataplor indexes micro-businesses in Mexico (and will soon be expanding to other countries in Central and South America) and sells the data to larger companies.The company relies on contractors in those countries to collect the information from local businesses. It raised $4 million from ff Venture Capital, Quest Venture Partners and Space Capital earlier this year and expects to use it to expand into more Latin American countries.

Grow Credit

Launched by serial entrepreneur Joe Bayen, Grow Credit helps customers improve their credit score by providing credit for subscription services like Netflix and Spotify. Their MasterCard can help consumers with thin or damaged credit scores and the small line of credit can be upgraded for a fee. The company closed a $2 million seed round earlier this year with participation from Mucker Labs.

Outer

The two-year-old Santa Monica-based company has seen business boom during the pandemic as retail stores shut down and online orders surged. The direct-to-consumer outdoor furniture brand uses backyards as showrooms and raised $4.3 million in a seed round earlier this year led by Mucker Capital. Founded by Jake Liu and Terry Lin, a former designer at Pottery Barn, Outer aims to appeal to Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn shoppers.

WhatNot

A livestreaming reseller of collectibles like FunkoPop vinyl figurines, Pokémon cards and sports cards, WhatNot taps into a growing retail trend and promises that the collectibles are verified, much like sneaker reseller GOAT.

The startup secured $4 million in seed funding this month from Scribble Ventures, Wonder Ventures, Operator Partners, Y Combinator, Liquid 2 Ventures, Twenty Two Ventures and other investors. The company plans to use the funds to expand into video games, comics books, designer toys and vintage fashion.

Fourthwall

Fourthwall is the developer of an internet platform that helps content creators launch fully-branded websites focused on interacting with fans. Their website tag phrase is "Make a living doing what you love," which is complemented by their model, which provides creators 100% ownership of their website and brand.

Founded by Walker Williams and Will Baumann, the company has raised $4 million to date, from investors Defy Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Initialized Capital Management.

Shop LatinX

Shop LatinX calls itself the "leading beauty, fashion, and lifestyle ecommerce designed by and made for Latinas." The brainchild of two Los-Angeles-based Latinas, Brittany Chavez and Raquel Garcia launched their website before Black Friday in 2016. It features more than 200 brands.

First Resonance

Founded by former SpaceX software engineer Karan Talati and Neal Sarraf, First Resonance promises to ease the workflow for manufactures with software intended to provide greater visibility into production and test product development lifecycle. The company raised $1.75 million of seed funding last year from Wavemaker Partners, Stage Venture Partners and PLG Ventures, among clothes.

Vurbl

Vurbl offers curated, one-stop-shop of what it calls the best audio on the internet, which can include podcasts but also goes well beyond that from religious sermons to court arguments. The new platform founded by CEO Audra Gold is being built with the $1.3 million pre-seed round Vurbl closed in September led by AlphaEdison with participation from Halogen Ventures and Ten13.

PocketWatch

Former Disney executive Chris Williams founded the studio that produces family-focused content from YouTube stars. This year it launched clock.work, an advertising agency designed to help major brands reach kids. Investors include Viacom, Greycroft, Third Wave Digital and United Talent Agency, along with strategic angels including Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Landau.

PocketList

The app allows renters to see and share apartments that will soon be available before they're listed — reducing the time properties sit vacant and potentially heating up competition among apartment hunters. It launched earlier this year. The company has $2.8 million in seed funding led by David Sacks' Craft Ventures along with Abstract VC, Wonder Ventures and angel investor Spencer Rascoff, co-founder of Zillow and dot.LA.

Quilt

The audio-based social platform promises to be the spot for "live, supportive, feel good conversations—just like hopping on the phone with a friend when you need it most." It lets people start a conversation around any topic or join by listening. Quilt raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding from Freestyle Capital in 2019.

Tonebase

Founded by Abhi Nayar, Chris Garwood and Igor Licthmann, Tonebase provides high-level music education online. Yale School of Music alumnus Garwood and Lichtman told their alma mater that it built with the idea that it was "a way for people everywhere to learn from the very best musicians around the world — individuals who, due to their busy performing and teaching careers, are traditionally accessible to only a select few." The company has raised an undisclosed amount from Launch fund, e.ventures and other undisclosed last May.

Second Spectrum

Launched in 2013 by Jeff Su, Yu-Han Chang and Rajiv Maheswaran, Second Spectrum already has deals with the NBA and English Premier League. This year it scored another one with Major League Soccer to use its optical tracking system to evaluate and analyze performance.

Second Spectrum puts their tracking cameras inside the stadium. Machine learning and AI-powered analytics provide detailed data that helps coaches and others better understand the game from player speed and deceleration to shot velocity in near real time. That technology can also be used on broadcast platforms to give fans more insight. The company raised about $20 million backed by CAA Ventures, Raine Ventures and The Chernin Group in 2018.

Toucan

Founded by CEO Taylor Nieman, Shaun Merritt and Brandon Dietz, Toucan is a Chrome browser extension that lets people learn a new language. It scans websites you visit and translates some words into the language you want to learn. The Santa Monica-based company most recently raised a $3 million round backed by GSV Ventures, Amplifyher Ventures, and Wonder Ventures, among others.

Serve Automation

Created by former SpaceX engineers, Serve Automation aims to change the way foods get delivered. It has secured $7 million in a seed round and is operating in stealth mode.

Lead art by Candice Navi.

From Your Site Articles

Snap’s New Growth Engine Isn’t Ads

Grace Lee

🔦 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

Grace Lee

🔦 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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Skyryse Raised $300M+ to Do What Most Startups Can’t

Grace Lee

🔦 Spotlight

Hello Los Angeles

LA just minted another aviation unicorn, and it is not because someone built a prettier helicopter demo. It's because Skyryse is trying to do the rarest thing in tech: turn software into something regulators will sign their name to, and that pilots will trust when conditions are at their worst.

El Segundo’s newest unicorn is simplifying the cockpit

Skyryse raised $300M+ in a Series C at a $1.15B valuation. The round was led by Autopilot Ventures and returning investor Fidelity Management & Research Company, with participation from Qatar Investment Authority, ArrowMark Partners, Atreides, BAM Elevate, Baron Capital Group, Durable Capital Partners, Positive Sum, Rokos (RCM Private Markets Fund), and Woodline Partners, among others.

Image Source: Skyryse

The pitch is bold and deceptively simple. Skyryse is building a “universal operating system for flight,” SkyOS, designed to replace the cockpit’s maze of mechanical controls with a computer-driven system that makes routine flight easier and emergency situations more manageable. The bigger claim is standardization: if you can make the interface and controls feel consistent across aircraft, you reduce training friction, lower pilot workload, and create fewer opportunities for human error when the stakes spike.

The real work starts after the press release

Skyryse says the funding will be used to accelerate FAA certification and scale SkyOS across additional aircraft platforms, including the Black Hawk. That is the hard part, and also the part most startups never reach. Aviation is where software has to prove itself in edge cases, repeatedly, with zero tolerance for surprises, because “mostly works” is another way of saying “eventually fails.”

The bet hiding inside the headlines

If Skyryse clears certification and can port SkyOS across aircraft types the way software ports across devices, it could unlock a new category of safety automation for fleets that cannot afford downtime, confusion, or long training cycles. Emergency response, defense modernization, and industrial aviation are all markets where reliability is the product, and simplicity is the differentiator. In a world obsessed with shipping faster, Skyryse is playing a different game: getting permission to ship at all.

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

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

Accrual announced it has raised $75M in new funding led by General Catalyst, with participation from Go Global Ventures, Pruven Capital, Edward Jones Ventures, and a group of founders and industry executives. The company says the raise supports its official launch and continued buildout, alongside early partner firms, investors, and advisors. - learn more

Morpheus Space secured a $15M strategic investment led by Alpine Space Ventures and the European Investment Fund, with continued support from existing investors, to fuel its next phase of growth. The company says it will use the capital to expand mass-production capacity and its team at its Dresden “Reloaded” facility, helping industrialize its GO-2 electric propulsion systems and meet rising demand from large satellite constellations. - learn more

Machina Labs raised a $124M Series C to build its first large-scale “Intelligent Factory,” a U.S.-based production site aimed at rapidly manufacturing complex metal structures for defense, aerospace, and advanced mobility. The company says the funding, backed by investors including Woven Capital, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Balerion Space Ventures, and Strategic Development Fund, will help it scale its AI-and-robotics “software-defined” manufacturing approach from breakthrough tech into high-throughput production infrastructure. - learn more

Midi Health raised a $100M Series D led by Goodwater Capital, with new investors Foresite Capital and Serena Ventures joining and existing backers including GV, Emerson Collective, and others returning, valuing the company at over $1B. The women’s telehealth provider says it will use the funding to scale beyond menopause care into a broader, AI-enabled women’s health platform, expanding access and using AI to personalize care and streamline clinical operations. - learn more

Mitra EV raised $27M in financing, combining equity led by Ultra Capital with a credit facility from S2G Investments, to expand its “no upfront capital” fleet electrification model. The Los Angeles-based company says it will use the money to grow its shared charging network, roll out additional fleet solutions, and expand into new markets, positioning itself as a fully managed package that bundles EV leasing, overnight charging, and access to shared fast-charging hubs. - learn more

Plug raised a $20M Series A to scale its EV-first marketplace, following $60M in used EV sales since launching in 2024. The round was led by Lightspeed with participation from Galvanize and existing investors including Autotech Ventures, Leap Forward Ventures, and Renn Global, as Plug positions itself as infrastructure for the coming wave of off-lease EV inventory with EV-native pricing, battery health insights, and faster dealer transactions. - learn more

Breezy, a Los Angeles-based AI operating system for residential real estate professionals, raised an oversubscribed $10M pre-seed round led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Fifth Wall, DST Global, Liquid 2 Ventures, O.G. Venture Partners, and others. The company says it will use the funding to strengthen its product and data platform, grow engineering and design, invest in security, and prepare for broader U.S. and international rollout. - learn more

LA Venture Funds

Upfront Ventures participated in Daytona’s $24M Series A, a round led by FirstMark Capital with participation from Pace Capital and existing investors E2VC and Darkmode, plus strategic checks from Datadog and Figma Ventures. Daytona is building “composable computers” for AI agents, essentially programmatic, stateful sandboxes that can be spun up, paused, and snapshotted on demand so agents can safely run code and explore many paths in parallel at scale. - learn more

Second Sight Ventures participated in Willie’s Remedy+’s $15M Series A, a round led by Left Lane Capital to fuel national retail expansion and continued product development for its hemp-derived THC beverages positioned as an alcohol alternative. The company says it has already sold 400,000+ bottles in under a year and claims the top spot for online THC beverage sales as it gears up for broader distribution in 2026. - learn more

Navitas Capital led Cadastral’s $9.5M funding round, with participation from JLL Spark Global Ventures, AvalonBay, Equity Residential, and 1Sharpe. Cadastral says it will use the capital to accelerate product development and expand go-to-market for its vertical AI platform, positioning the product as an “AI analyst in a box” that automates core commercial real estate workflows like underwriting and due diligence. - learn more

B Capital participated in Lunar Energy’s $232M raise, which the company disclosed as two rounds: a $102M Series D led by B Capital and Prelude Ventures, and a previously unannounced $130M Series C led by Activate Capital. The startup says it will use the capital to rapidly scale home-battery manufacturing and deployments, turning those distributed systems into a grid-supporting virtual power plant as electricity demand surges. - learn more

B Capital participated in Goodfire’s $150M Series B at a $1.25B valuation, a round that also included investors like Juniper Ventures, DFJ Growth, Salesforce Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Lightspeed, South Park Commons, Wing, and Eric Schmidt. Goodfire says it will use the funding to scale its interpretability-driven “model design environment,” aimed at helping teams understand, debug, and deliberately shape how AI models behave in high-stakes settings. - learn more

Helena participated in Positron AI’s oversubscribed $230M Series B at a post-money valuation above $1B, alongside strategic investors including Qatar Investment Authority and Arm. The round was co-led by ARENA Private Wealth, Jump Trading, and Unless, and the company says it will use the capital to scale energy-efficient AI inference now and accelerate its next-generation “Asimov” silicon roadmap. - learn more

Smash Capital participated in ElevenLabs’ $500M Series D, which values the company at $11B as it scales its voice and conversational AI products for enterprise use. The round was led by Sequoia Capital with support from existing backers like Andreessen Horowitz and ICONIQ Capital, plus additional participation including Lightspeed Venture Partners. - learn more

MTech Capital participated in Pasito’s $21M Series A, a round led by Insight Partners with additional participation from Y Combinator. Pasito says it’s building an AI-native workspace for group health, life, and retirement benefits that turns messy, unstructured plan and census data into a unified layer so carriers and brokers can automate workflows end-to-end, from quoting and enrollment to support and claims. - learn more

Rebel Fund participated in Ruvo’s $4.6M seed round, led by 1confirmation with participation from Coinbase Ventures and others, as the Y Combinator-backed fintech expands its cross-border payments infrastructure between Brazil and the U.S. Ruvo says it operates like a U.S. dollar account for Brazilians, combining Pix, stablecoins, ACH/wire transfers, and a Visa card in one app to speed up remittances by reducing intermediaries. - learn more

Rainfall Ventures participated in a seed funding round for Deft Robotics alongside Spring Camp, backing the company’s push to build AI-driven automation tools for manufacturers. The round amount wasn’t disclosed in the announcement, but the funding is positioned to help Deft scale product development and customer deployments in industrial settings. - learn more

Trousdale Ventures participated in CesiumAstro’s Series C by leading the $270M equity portion of a $470M total growth-capital raise, alongside investors including Woven Capital, Janus Henderson Investors, and Airbus Ventures. CesiumAstro says the broader financing also includes $200M from Export-Import Bank of the United States and J.P. Morgan, and will fund a major U.S. scale-up including a new 270,000-square-foot HQ and expanded manufacturing to accelerate deployment of its software-defined, AI-enabled space communications platforms. - learn more

Mucker Capital participated in Linq’s $20M Series A, which was led by TQ Ventures to help the company become infrastructure for AI assistants that run directly inside messaging apps. Linq’s platform lets developers and businesses deploy assistants through channels like iMessage, RCS, and SMS, and the company says the funding will go toward expanding the team, building a go-to-market motion, and continuing to develop the product. - learn more

Sound Ventures participated in Day AI’s $20M Series A, which was led by Sequoia Capital with additional participation from Greenoaks, Conviction, and Permanent Capital. Day AI says the funding will help scale its AI-native CRM platform and support its move into general availability, positioning “CRMx” as a faster, context-driven alternative to legacy systems that turn simple questions into slow projects. - learn more

Chaac Ventures participated in Arbor’s $6.3M seed round, which was led by 645 Ventures with additional backing from Next Play Ventures, Comma Capital, and angel investors. Arbor is building an AI interview and research platform that captures frontline employee and customer conversations and turns that qualitative “ground truth” into structured operational intelligence leaders can act on quickly, without slow surveys or pricey consultants. - learn more

B Capital participated in When’s $10.2M Series A, a round co-led by ManchesterStory and 7wire, with new investor Mairs & Power Venture Capital and returning backers Enfield Capital Partners, TTV Capital, and Alumni Ventures. When says it helps employers and departing or transitioning employees navigate health coverage changes by steering people to more affordable alternatives to COBRA through an AI-powered marketplace and targeted reimbursements, with the new capital going toward team growth and expanding into more transition scenarios like Medicare eligibility and early retirements. - learn more

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