Column: How iFoster Helped Save the Semester for College-Bound Foster Youth

Serita Cox

Serita Cox is the co-founder and CEO of iFoster, a nonprofit that aims to ensure that every child growing up outside of their biological home has the resources and opportunities they need to become successful, independent adults.

Column: How iFoster Helped Save the Semester for College-Bound Foster Youth

My first indication that COVID-19 was going to dramatically impact foster youth came on March 11 and it came from Los Rios Community College District, the second largest community college district in California, with over 75,000 students. The school sent an emergency email that they would be closing their four colleges and six educational centers, and moving to online classes for the rest of the semester. And they feared that many students, particularly foster youth, did not have the technology (laptops and an Internet connection) to make this change and risked failing their semester.


They were right, based on our experience of more than 10 years trying to connect youth in care to the things they need to succeed in school and in the workplace. In 2016, iFoster participated in a University of Southern California study that found that 95% of rural foster youth, and 79% of urban foster youth, did not have access to a computer and the internet where they live. Up until now, technology access was viewed as a "nice to have," but not necessary for foster youth to function in today's society.

March 11 changed that. Los Rios' email brought into stark focus that the relatively few foster youth who made it to college were at risk of failing and dropping out because they lacked the tools they needed. With only 8% of foster youth ever achieving a college degree, losing even one due to our failure to adequately provide for them is a travesty. We had to act.

iFoster co-founder and CEO Serita Cox

Photo: iFoster

In the 11 weeks of sheltering in place that soon followed, iFoster, John Burton Advocates for Youth, and the California Foster Youth Ombudsman's Office ran point on a mission to keep those youth connected, literally and figuratively. It involved almost 700 organizations and child welfare agencies, and resulted in the procurement and distribution of 6,630 smartphones and laptops.

This is the short version of how it all happened, and I hope it helps folks in other states plan for similar efforts this fall. If this can be done during stay-at-home orders in the country's most populous state, it can be done in any state, county or locality.

By the end of the day on March 11, we had the foundation of a plan figured out. We needed to start identifying college foster youth who needed the technology to survive academically, and then we needed to figure out how to pay for and actually acquire the phones and laptops, at a time when the demand for these was surging with every student in America basically learning from home.

The next day brought two big wins for this operation. First, California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office sent out directions to their 115 colleges that their foster youth would get the technology they need, and asked the administrations on those campuses to start getting rough estimates together for how many students qualified. This was the first of several key outreach efforts the got the ball rolling to actually define the universe of need.

Second, the philanthropic sector quickly got the importance of the goal here. Long-term funders of iFoster's digital divide programming – Foster Care Counts, Walter S. Johnson and Ticket to Dream – stepped up with the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office, John Burton Advocates for Youth, California Wellness Foundation, LA Tech, Foundation for Community Colleges, Tipping Point, and a generous anonymous donor. These early investments were followed by an executive order from the Governor of California and public funding from California Department of Social Services

By March 13, initial forecasts started pouring in from community colleges across the state. On March 16, the first specific requests identifying individual foster youth students and their needs came in. Before the first schools closed, laptops and smartphones for foster youth began arriving on college campuses for distribution. All of this happened prior to the statewide shelter-in-place order issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom on March 19.

But many schools had already sent students home, and foster youth around the state were left to frantically figure out how to remain in class remotely and from afar. We needed to build a massive outreach machine that could through sheer volume find most of the youth in need around the state.

A member of Mira Costa Guardian Scholars program catalogs a shipment of laptops and phones for foster youth who will need them during the pandemic shutdown. Photo: iFoster

Key foster care organizations in California have been sharing resources and partnering on programs for years across child welfare, K-12 education and college. It was this foundation that was able to immediately react and invite new partners to the table to implement a plan.

College foster youth support programs like Guardian Scholars reached out to their students to identify need. County child welfare departments, including the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, tasked their county social workers and probation officers to review their caseloads and find out which of their youth needed tech. Foster care liaisons at school districts across the state did the same, as did foster family organizations, court appointed special advocates, transitional housing providers and independent living programs.

With the process of finding recipients underway and financial commitments lined up from foundations, corporations and eventually the state, we then had to go and acquire the phones and laptops. And with demand for these products skyrocketing because of school closures, this is where California's existing infrastructure for connecting foster youth to technology paid off.

iFoster has provided over 6,000 laptops to foster youth since 2012 funded by very committed philanthropy. In the fall of 2019, just prior to the pandemic, iFoster launched a pilot program with the California Public Utilities Commission to provide all current and former foster youth between 13 and 26 with a smartphone that included unlimited voice, text and data that operates as an internet hotspot.

Having those types of arrangements was critical to mobilizing in an emergency. We did not have to cold call on manufacturers to source and ship laptops and phones – we already know and work with some. We did not have to completely invent pots of funding – we could augment ones that already existed.

It was this combination of having an existing collaboration, as well as scalable iFoster laptop and internet programs, that allowed California to respond so quickly to the connectivity needs of foster youth when the pandemic hit.

While outreach took an army of thousands, the process of getting the right technology to each youth was centralized at iFoster. We are a small virtual organization of nine employees, and we had to staff up quickly.

Year two of our "TAY AmeriCorps program" – where we train and hire current and former foster youth to be peer resource navigators to other foster youth – was scheduled to start in March. We brought on 25 foster youth in the Bay Area and Los Angeles who we felt could work effectively from their homes.

TAY AmeriCorps member Jezabel works on iFoster's intake team, establishing a list of youth who will receive laptops and phones. Photo: iFoster

We work in teams. Our bilingual intake team answers phone, text and emails requests and ensures that every application has all the information required for approval. They hand off to our VAT team (verification, activation and tracking), which ensures there is no duplication in requests and validates with each youth or their caregiver the tech they need and their shipping address.

As foster youth move frequently, ordering and shipping devices happen within one business day of validation. Our ordering team works closely with our third party logistic company, Rakuten Super Logistics, who fulfills and ships orders. Rakuten manages inventory, order priority and shipping flow.

Phones require activation on the Boost telecom network, so our VAT team work feverishly to activate phones once they ship to ensure that every phone is ready to go when a foster youth receives them. Finally, our VAT team follows up with every recipient to provide shipping and tracking information and to ensure that every youth knows who to contact if they have any issues with their tech or with any other resources they may need.

Clear roles, responsibilities and standard operating procedures are critical. However, it is the dedication of a team of transition-age foster youth and their supervisors managing them virtually that make this work.

All told, this was a collaboration of 686 partners that included the state, 50 county child welfare departments, thousands of child welfare workers, college support teams, caregivers, mentors and foster youth themselves. We have collectively proven that bridging the digital divide for foster youth is a solvable problem, and one that can be replicated, before distance learning starts again this fall.

One of the thousands of current and former foster youth who received a phone through the partnership sent a photo of her new lifeline. Photo: iFoster

For those interested in stealing our playbook, I sincerely hope you do! We are planning to produce a more formal how-to guide on the project soon. But in terms of top-line recommendations, here are the four things to focus on…

Build off philanthropy: In this crisis, the first and fastest funding came from philanthropy. However, to achieve scale, sustainable funding must come from the public sector.

Diverse network to identify demand: Understanding who needs what is not an easy task. There is no centralized data system that tracks foster youth tech needs. However, every foster youth has their own support network they rely on.

Unlimited Data is Key: The phones and laptops are only as valuable as the hotspot. Without that element, it will be hard for many of our foster youth students to connect from where they are.

Centralized Distribution: It took a lot of partners to make this all work, but the actual process of receiving products and sending them out to youth had to be a tight operation with strict procedures in place.

This collaboration continues to grow, with government funding adding to philanthropy. Not only will college foster youth have the technology they need to distance learn for as long as they need, but we are well on our way to ensuring that every high school foster youth will also have the tech they need, and there is every indication that our K-8 foster youth students will as well. As of June 12, this partnership has connected a total of 7,599 foster youth from 51 counties with tech, and we are still serving between 500 and 700 youth every week.

Fall is coming and distance learning will be a reality again. We are confident that other states, counties and localities can replicate what we've accomplished in 11 weeks of COVID.

We at iFoster are here to help. We are willing to provide technical support to any team nationwide who wants to ensure their youth go back to school with the technology they need. We will share our standard operating procedures, documents, templates and provide intros or allow others to leverage the partnerships we have already built to device wholesalers and telecom partners.

This column first appeared in the Chronicle of Social Justice.

Serita Cox is the co-founder and CEO of iFoster, a nonprofit that aims to ensure every child growing up outside of their biological home has the resources and opportunities they need to become successful, independent adults.

$160M Tugboats and Undersea Drones: LA Startups Are Raising the Stakes

🔦 Spotlight

Happy Friday LA,

This week’s headlines take us from the ocean floor to the docks of Long Beach, with LA companies leading the charge.

Image Source: Anduril

Let’s start with Anduril Industries, which rolled out three major announcements that underline just how quickly it is expanding its footprint across defense tech. The biggest milestone came from Ghost Shark, an extra large undersea drone developed in partnership with the Australian Navy. After just three years, it has moved from prototype to an official program of record, an unusually fast turnaround in an industry where procurement often takes decades. It marks a significant step for autonomous systems under the sea, an area where defense agencies have long struggled to innovate.

Image Source: Anduril

The company also revealed Menace I, a ruggedized system designed to bring petabyte scale processing power directly to the battlefield. Think of it as cloud computing without the cloud, giving troops the ability to process massive amounts of sensor data and video on site rather than relying on faraway servers. And finally, Anduril landed a contract to create mixed reality training tools, using immersive simulations to prepare service members for missions more effectively. Training has always been one of the costliest and most logistically challenging aspects of defense, and bringing advanced MR into the mix could transform how quickly and safely soldiers can get mission ready. Together, these updates show an LA company moving fast across land, sea and even into the training ground.

Image Source: Arc

Meanwhile, Arc is proving that electrification is not just for cars and yachts, it is now heading into some of the hardest working vessels on the water. The Venice based startup announced a $160 million deal with Long Beach’s Curtin Maritime to deliver eight hybrid electric tugboats. Tugboats are the muscle of the harbor, guiding massive cargo ships in and out of ports, and they usually burn through enormous amounts of diesel. Arc’s push into this space signals more than just a big contract. It is a pivot from building high performance electric speedboats for early adopters to tackling one of the most carbon heavy corners of maritime work.

The scale of this deal shows how far Arc has come since launching just a few years ago. Building hybrid electric tugboats is not a side project, it is a sign that the company wants to play a role in reshaping the future of port operations. And if LA’s own clean tech boat builder can make a dent in one of the dirtiest industries on the water, the ripple effects could stretch far beyond the coastline.

🤝 Venture Deals

      LA Companies

      • Apex Space closed a $200M Series D round led by Interlagos, with participation from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Point72 Ventures and 8VC, pushing its valuation past $1 billion. The Los Angeles based company builds satellite buses, the standardized spacecraft platforms that carry and power payloads ranging from Earth imaging sensors to missile early warning systems. With the new funding, Apex plans to increase production capacity by 50 percent and more than double its manufacturing facility as demand for space defense systems continues to grow. - learn more
      • Sapphire Technologies has raised an $18M Series C round, including investment from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries along with existing backers such as Equinor Ventures, Cooper and Company and Energy Capital Ventures. The funds will be used to scale up production at Sapphire’s manufacturing facility in Cypress, California, expand global deployments of its FreeSpin In-line Turboexpanders in regions like Japan and enter new markets. Sapphire’s technology converts otherwise wasted pressure energy, often from natural gas, into clean and emissions free electricity, playing a growing role in the global energy transition. - learn more
      • LocalExpress has raised $6.2M in a venture round led by OXZ Capital to expand its AI data capabilities into the grocery industry. The Glendale based platform, already serving independent grocery and food retailers across the US, Canada and Latin America, is transitioning from supporting internal operations to becoming a premier data syndication hub in the sector. This round will fuel further development of its unified commerce solutions and help scale its AI-powered systems for harmonizing transaction and inventory data. - learn more
      • ProRata.AI closed a $40M Series B financing round led by Touring Capital with participation from Bold Capital Partners and others, to launch Gist Answers, a new AI-as-a-service tool for publishers. Gist Answers lets publishers embed custom AI search, summarization, and recommendation features directly on their sites while maintaining control over their content. The move is designed to help publishers increase engagement, protect their content, and unlock new revenue streams in the AI era. - learn more

      LA Venture Funds

      • Upfront Ventures joined a group of investors in backing Sophont’s $9.22M seed round, led by Kindred Ventures. Sophont is building multimodal medical foundation models that combine data from pathology slides, brain scans, clinical notes, and lab results to enable functionalities like symptom triage, biomarker discovery, and clinical trial cohort selection. The funding will go toward increasing compute capacity, expanding data partnerships, and recruiting researchers to accelerate the development and release of model backbones and open science infrastructure. - learn more
      • Presight Capital participated in the $24M Series A round raised by TERN Group, which was led by Notion Capital. The funding will help TERN scale its AI powered infrastructure for global healthcare worker recruitment, credentialing and mobility, especially helping caregivers and nurses in places like India gain access to international job opportunities. TERN plans to use the investment to expand into new geographies, deepen training programs, and further build tools that make migration, compliance and placement faster, fairer and more transparent. - learn more
      • Emmeline Ventures joined a strong syndicate in Lōvu Health’s $8M Series A round, led by SJF Ventures. The funding will support Lōvu in scaling its AI-powered maternal health platform, enhancing remote monitoring, curated specialist services, and ongoing care from pre-conception through the first two years postpartum. With this investment, Lōvu aims to close gaps in maternal healthcare access and outcomes, especially for underserved populations. - learn more
      • Integrity Growth Partners led a $28M Series A round in Pest Share, joined by existing investors including MetaProp, Capital Eleven and RE Angels. Pest Share is an on-demand pest control platform tailored for residential property managers, operating in all 48 states and serving 300,000 residential units. The capital will fuel expansion in single-family and multifamily rental markets, enhance product innovation, and deepen integrations with property management systems. - learn more
      • Mantis VC joined Forerunner Ventures, Neo, Abstract and several angel investors in backing Hero Assistant’s $3.5M seed round at a $30M valuation. Hero Assistant is building a “Daily Assistant” super-app that consolidates things like calendars, weather, tasks, habits, goals, grocery ordering, notes and news, already replacing up to eight separate apps for its more than 300,000 users. The funds will help the company enhance features, scale growth, and deepen its reach in productivity. - learn more
      • Wedbush Healthcare Partners took part in Odyssey Therapeutics’ oversubscribed $213M Series D financing round alongside both new and existing investors. The funding will be used to push forward Odyssey’s pipeline of clinical and preclinical therapies focused on treating complex autoimmune diseases. With this capital raise, Odyssey aims to make progress toward key clinical milestones and bring precision immunomodulation treatments closer to patients in need. - learn more
      • BroadLight Capital participated in Higgsfield’s $50M Series A round, which was led by GFT Ventures and also backed by firms like Menlo Ventures and NextEquity Partners. Higgsfield is pushing its “click-to-video” AI platform, which lets users turn curated presets into cinematic clips with a single click rather than wrestling with complex prompts. In only five months since launch, the company has already drawn over 11 million users and more than 1.2 billion social media impressions, signaling strong momentum in the creator video space. - learn more
      • Impatient VC participated in Sphinx’s $9.5M Seed round, which was led by Lightspeed and also included investors like Bessemer Venture Partners, Box Group, and K5. Sphinx is launching an AI copilot built especially for data scientists, one that thinks in statistics and patterns to turn raw data into actionable insights without skipping rigor. The funds will go toward refining tools that integrate into workflows like Jupyter notebooks and VSCode so data teams can explore, model, and make decisions faster. - learn more
      • WME Group led a $20M Series B round in Palm Tree Crew, valuing the company at $215 million. The funding will power expansion across its hospitality venues, live events, and lifestyle ventures while leaning into WME’s entertainment, licensing, and brand network. Palm Tree Crew plans to scale its properties, deepen its festival footprint globally, and continue growing its portfolio of consumer brands as part of the next chapter. - learn more
      • Blue Bear Capital participated in Nuclearn’s $10.5M Series A round that helps the company deepen its AI-capabilities for nuclear operations. Nuclearn, founded by engineers who've worked inside power plants, builds specialized tools like CAP AI to automate safety-critical, documentation-heavy tasks and ensure regulatory compliance. The funding will support product expansion, talent hiring, and scaling its platform to more reactors worldwide. - learn more
      • Amplify was one of the investors joining Endurance28 and others in Cascade Bio’s $6M raise, which includes $2.8M in equity and $3.2M in nondilutive funding. Cascade Bio is advancing its enzyme-immobilization technology to help industrial partners transition from petrochemical processes to greener, biomanufacturing workflows. The funding will enable Cascade to scale its high-stability biocatalysts for use across chemicals, food ingredients, fragrances, and pharmaceuticals. - learn more

      LA Exits

      • Northstar has been acquired by Nayya, combining Northstar’s financial wellness tools with Nayya’s health, compensation and actuarial data platform. The unified offering introduces a “SuperAgent,” an AI adviser that not only helps employees understand benefits but, with their permission, can take actions like auto enrolling in wellness programs or appealing denied claims. The goal is to make health and wealth benefits simpler, more transparent and more useful year round rather than just during open enrollment. - learn more
      • Integrated Rental Systems has been acquired by VitalEdge Technologies, a major provider of dealer management software for heavy equipment. Integrated Rental’s platform is considered one of the most advanced in its field, and this deal allows VitalEdge to offer more fully integrated solutions covering rental, parts, and service revenue streams for equipment dealers. Alise Moncure, CEO of Integrated Rental, will join VitalEdge’s leadership team as President of Expansion Markets, leading rental and other high-growth segments. - learn more
      • VideoVerse has been acquired by Minute Media, bringing its AI-powered sports video platform Magnifi into the company’s portfolio. Magnifi helps leagues, teams and publishers automatically detect key moments, create instant highlights and distribute short-form video content more efficiently. With the acquisition, Minute Media is expanding beyond publishing to offer a more complete solution for video creation, distribution and monetization. - learn more
      • Bespoke Treatment has been acquired by Stella Mental Health, expanding the company’s services in Los Angeles. Known for its integrative approach, Bespoke offers treatments such as stellate ganglion block for trauma, IV ketamine, Spravato® and intensive outpatient programming. Through the acquisition, Stella is broadening its footprint and strengthening its ability to deliver personalized behavioral health care. - learn more

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      Snap’s AI, Paramount’s RTO, and NeueHouse’s Exit: LA’s Wild Week

      🔦 Spotlight

      Good Morning LA,

      If you blinked this week, you might’ve missed Snap unveiling new AI-powered Lenses, NeueHouse announcing its closure, and Paramount rolling out a five-day return to office mandate. Let’s get into it.

      First up: Snap. The company introduced its new “Imagine” Lenses powered by generative AI. Instead of the playful filters we all know, these tools feel closer to an on-demand art studio, letting people turn imagination into visuals instantly. It shows Snap leaning into what it does best: pushing the boundaries of how we express ourselves through the camera.

      Meanwhile, NeueHouse announced it will be closing. Known for blending hospitality, community and high-design workspaces, it attracted a mix of entertainment, design and tech professionals who wanted something beyond the typical co-working setup. Its exit comes as Paramount is moving in the opposite direction, requiring employees to return to the office full time starting in January. Together, these moves highlight the different paths workplaces are taking in a post-hybrid world, from phasing out to doubling down.

      On the global stage, the world’s eyes are on Berlin, where IFA 2025 is underway. The trade show is buzzing with foldable devices, wearables and AI-powered appliances that are blurring the line between tool and companion. The innovations debuting there are setting the tone for what consumers and startups everywhere will soon be building with, competing against and dreaming beyond. For those following along, The Verge is running live coverage with updates on the biggest reveals.

      And finally, OpenAI announced a new jobs platform, aimed at connecting workers with opportunities in an AI-driven economy. It is positioned as a way to broaden access and help talent navigate shifting industries. For engineers, creatives and founders alike, it is another signal that collaborating with AI is not a future skill, it is a present-day requirement.

      🤝 Venture Deals

          LA Venture Funds

          • FirstLook Partners participated in Hello Patient’s $22.5M Series A round, which backs the Austin based conversational AI platform transforming patient intake and communications. Hello Patient’s technology, handling voice, text, and chat conversations, helps healthcare providers streamline appointments, reduce missed calls, and improve patient access. The fresh funding will accelerate enhancements to its AI driven platform and support expansion to healthcare organizations nationwide. - learn more
          • Hyperlink Ventures joined Mojo Vision’s $75M Series B Prime funding round to support the expansion of its high performance micro LED platform. Mojo Vision plans to leverage the investment to accelerate commercialization of its wafers in, wafers out micro LED technology, which merges advanced silicon architecture, GaN on silicon emitters, quantum dots, and micro lens arrays to power next generation AI devices and infrastructure. - learn more
          • Fika Ventures joined Dispatch’s $18M Series A round, helping to bring its total funding to $30M. Dispatch provides AI powered, automated data orchestration for wealth management firms, eliminating repetitive tasks, streamlining client onboarding, and ensuring real time, connected client data. The new capital will fuel the expansion of its agentic workflows and further development of its AI ready infrastructure for advisors. - learn more
          • TenOneTen Ventures participated in Elysian’s $6M seed round to support the company’s AI native third party administration platform for commercial insurance claims. Elysian’s technology automates the complex, document heavy middle of claim handling by surfacing coverage insights and drafting communications so adjusters can focus on making strategic decisions. The funding will help accelerate go to market efforts, enhance customer onboarding, and scale both delivery operations and the underlying AI platform. - learn more
          • M13 participated in Allocate’s $30.5M Series B round, backing the company’s platform that helps wealth advisors and family offices access and manage private market investments. The new funding will support expansion of its AI-powered infrastructure and workflow automation, as well as broaden its reach beyond venture capital into private equity and credit. - learn more
          • Walkabout Ventures took the lead in Advisor.com’s $9M seed round. Advisor.com operates an AI-powered platform that pairs investors, especially those with under $500,000 in investable assets, with vetted fiduciary financial advisors. The funds will be used to accelerate customer acquisition, enhance its advisor matching technology, and expand its network of top-tier advisors. - learn more
          • Ares Management participated in ID.me’s latest funding, where the company raised a total of $340M in a Series E round combined with a credit facility, pushing its valuation above $2 billion. ID.me, a digital identity wallet trusted by more than 152 million users, will use the capital to scale access to secure, reusable digital identities and bolster its defenses against increasingly AI-driven fraud. - learn more
          • Core Innovation Capital participated in Flex’s $15M Series A funding round. Flex is a payments infrastructure platform that enables health and wellness retailers to accept Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) funds at checkout. With this investment, Flex plans to scale its enterprise reach, enhance its core technology, and grow its team to help merchants tap into more than $150 billion in underutilized pre‑tax health spending. - learn more
          • F4 Fund joined Camera Intelligence’s $2M seed funding round. The company is developing an AI-powered camera system that embeds a large language model (LLM) directly into a Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera, simplifying content creation through voice-activated controls and in-camera editing. The new capital will accelerate the build-out of this integrated AI-native camera and content editing solution, with an LLM feature set to launch on iOS in fall 2025. - learn more

          LA Exits

          • Air Lease Corporation has entered into a merger agreement to be acquired by a consortium including Sumitomo Corporation, SMBC Aviation Capital, Apollo-managed funds, and Brookfield in an all cash deal expected to close in the first half of 2026. Shareholders will receive $65 per share, valuing the company at about $7.4 billion or $28.2 billion including debt, and the company will be rebranded as Sumisho Air Lease with SMBC set to manage its fleet and order book. - learn more

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          LA Startup Powering Immigrant Workforce Secures $7.5M

          🔦 Spotlight

          Happy Friday, Los Angeles,

          It’s Labor Day weekend, which means most of us are thinking about a little time off. But one LA startup is laser focused on work, specifically on the millions of immigrant workers who keep the U.S. economy running.

          This week, Welcome Tech raised $7.5 million to expand its AI powered platform that connects immigrant communities with U.S. employers. If you’re not familiar, Welcome Tech has quietly become one of the most important bridges between immigrant workers and the American labor market. The company offers a suite of services, from job matching and financial tools to healthcare and education, built specifically for immigrant families navigating systems that weren’t designed with them in mind.

          The scale is staggering. Welcome Tech already supports more than 4.5 million registered members, and its enterprise partnerships have tripled in the last year. Revenue is up more than 200 percent year over year. With this new funding, the company plans to double down on AI, personalizing onboarding, automating job matching, and expanding multilingual support so workers can find opportunities faster and employers can access a motivated workforce with fewer barriers.

          Welcome Tech’s growth also underscores something very LA: this city runs on immigrant talent, and the systems that support them often lag behind. By building infrastructure tailored to this workforce, Welcome Tech isn’t just scaling a business, it’s tackling a gap that traditional employers and institutions have ignored for decades.

          As Labor Day weekend rolls in, it’s a reminder that the real labor story isn’t just about time off, it’s about how companies like Welcome Tech are reshaping access to opportunity in one of the country’s most essential workforces.

          And with that, let’s get into this week’s venture deals across LA.

          🤝 Venture Deals

          LA Companies

          • Payment Labs, a Los Angeles based fintech specializing in seamless payment workflows for industries like sports, esports, and the creator economy, has closed an oversubscribed $3.25M seed funding round led by Aperture Venture Capital. The company’s API powered SaaS platform, already trusted by Microsoft, SEGA, X Games, and more, simplifies complex global pay ins and payouts across 150+ currencies and 180+ countries while integrating tax compliance, royalty distributions, and reporting. This new capital will accelerate expansion of tailored payment solutions and bolster operations to support high growth verticals. - learn more

            LA Venture Funds

            • Clocktower Technology Ventures, participated in Momento Seguros’ $10.25M Series A round. The Mexico City based digital auto insurer is leveraging the capital to expand its full-stack platform, offering flexible, mobile-first coverage tailored to underserved drivers. By modernizing payments, underwriting, and claims processing, Momento aims to disrupt a traditionally rigid insurance market with transparent, user-centric solutions. - learn more
            • Dangerous Ventures participated in Copper’s $28M funding round aimed at scaling the world’s first battery equipped induction range. The Berkeley based company builds plug and play induction stoves with built in batteries that run on standard 120 volt outlets, simplifying electrification of cooking while offering backup power during outages. Copper plans to use the new funds to expand production, develop new appliances, and leverage its grid friendly design, already under contract to deliver 10,000 units to public housing, to drive broader adoption of clean, efficient cooking solutions. - learn more
            • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Leal Therapeutics’ $30M Series A round, joining a syndicate that includes SV Health Investors’ Dementia Discovery Fund, OrbiMed, Newpath Partners, Chugai Venture Fund, Euclidean Capital, and PhiFund. Leal is advancing its neuro metabolic pipeline with lead programs LTX 001 moving into clinical trials for schizophrenia and LTX 002 progressing toward initial clinical data in ALS. This funding will also support the advancement of additional pipeline candidates and technologies aimed at delivering transformative treatments for CNS disorders. - learn more
            • Impatient Ventures and Riot Ventures participated in Blue Water Autonomy’s $50M Series A funding round to accelerate development of autonomous, long range ships designed for the U.S. Navy. The capital will be used to build and deploy the firm's first full sized autonomous ship by next year and support rapid scaling, as the team has already quadrupled since its seed round while completing engineering tests and securing materials from over 50 suppliers. This funding brings the company’s total raised to $64 million and underscores growing momentum around U.S. maritime innovation. - learn more
            • TenOneTen Ventures joined a $3.5M seed round in Loman AI, supporting the Austin based startup’s efforts to transform restaurant operations using voice AI. Loman’s AI phone agent handles call volume by taking orders, booking reservations, answering FAQs, and integrating smoothly with POS systems, helping restaurants boost revenue by up to 22% while cutting labor costs by as much as 17%. This new funding will accelerate product development and team expansion as demand for Loman’s platform grows nationwide. - learn more
            • CIV participated in AiGent’s $6M seed round, backing the AI driven startup’s mission to transform idle backup generators into a powerful decentralized grid resource. AiGent’s platform aggregates and orchestrates distributed generation assets including those at commercial, industrial, and mission critical facilities like AI data centers, turning them into rapidly dispatchable “distributed power plants.” This innovative approach not only enhances grid reliability and reduces costs but also opens up new revenue streams for asset owners without the time, cost, or disruption of building additional infrastructure. - learn more
            • Blue Bear Capital led a $12.4M SAFE funding round in Splight, supporting the San Francisco-based grid technology company’s mission to dramatically expand transmission capacity using machine-learning. The new capital will fuel deployment of Splight’s flagship Dynamic Congestion Management™ across U.S. and European grids—helping alleviate long interconnection delays and renewables curtailment by intelligently leveraging existing infrastructure. This round also secures Splight’s ability to scale both its commercial and technical teams amid surging demand from AI data centers and utilities. - learn more
            • Amboy Street Ventures participated in Nest Health’s $12.5M Series A round to support the expansion of its whole family, in home care model for Medicaid populations. Nest Health leverages AI powered clinical services, from medical to behavioral and social support, to deliver care at home while cutting churn and improving outcomes, including reduced ER visits and higher vaccination rates. The company will use the funding to scale its AI enabled care offerings into new regions and enhance partnerships with payors. - learn more
            • VamosVentures participated in Kira’s $6.7M seed funding round, supporting the AI driven fintech infrastructure platform as it emerges from stealth. The capital will enable Kira to expand across Latin America, especially South America, scale its technical team, and accelerate development of new embedded financial products powered by stablecoins, AI agents, and enterprise grade APIs. Kira aims to streamline financial services in markets with large underbanked populations and has already generated $3 million in revenue in its first year. - learn more

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