The Founders of Color Changing LA's Startup World

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.

The Founders of Color Changing LA's Startup World

Even after the tech industry's reckoning after the killing of George Floyd last year, the startup world is still overwhelmingly dominated by white men.

Of the $150 billion in venture funding raised by U.S startups last year, just $1 billion went to Black founders, according to Crunchbase.

And Southern California is hardly bucking the trend. Just 2% of VC investment partners here identify as Black or Latino and less than 10% of VC-funded companies are led by women or people of color in Southern California, according to PledgeLA.

But even though progress has been slow, there are founders of color helping lead the new wave of tech startups.

Who stands out? We asked the region's top VCs to weigh in.

The list includes a young CEO who grew up without internet access who's now building an esports empire as well as a music industry veteran using artificial intelligence to predict what songs will become breakout hits.

Here is who topped the list in alphabetical order of votes received.

Delane Parnell

PlayVS' founder didn't grow up with internet access. But now the young CEO is building an online esports empire. The Detroit native told dot.LA that a chance meeting brought him to Los Angeles where the company took off, raising $108 million since launching in 2018.

Since it entered the esports marketplace for high school teams, PlayVS has raised $107 million. Now, 43% of all high schools in the country have an esports team, playing Fortnite, SMITE, League of Legends and other games using the PlayVS platform. But Parnell has larger ambitions.

"I still want to build a digital playground in which every gamer can compete, whether they're high school-aged or college-aged or in their 40s in any sort of context of competition," he told dot.LA in April.

Hamet Watt

Hamet Watt, co-founder and former chairman of MoviePass, unveiled Share Ventures last fall after raising over $10 million in funding. The venture studio aims to jumpstart companies that focus on human performance or wellness.

"We like to use human performance because it expands the definition," Watt told dot.LA. "It's not just things like yoga. It's sports tech, behavior science and human optimization."

Watt said he is the only Black person he knows of running a venture studio and by virtue of his diverse network he can tap into talent others may have overlooked.

"You can't make money doing the same thing everyone else does," he said. "You can't fish in the same talent pond that everyone else does."

Troy Carter

Veteran music executive Troy Carter is constantly reinventing the business of music management. The angel investor's latest project is Q&A, where he is co-founder and CEO. Founded in early 2019, the company not only does music distribution and analytics, but it has been testing a new product that uses music enthusiasts and AI to test whether songs can become hits.

"My job, with software, is: Can I help them choose which song they should release first? And what that reaction would be around that song. Can I help them deliver that content from A to Z seamlessly? Can I help them with their project management software? So, it's not to replace the creative process, it's to organize it," Carter told dot.LA.

The Philadelphian-turned-Angeleno was the founder and CEO of Atom Factory, where he rose to prominence managing the careers of global superstars including Lady Gaga and John Legend. Most recently, he led creator services at Spotify and, in 2017, was named entertainment advisor to the Prince Estate.

He also created AF Square Investments, which has backed Uber, Lyft, DropBox, Blavity, and Gimlet Media among others.

Allan Jones

Former ZipRecruiter Chief Marketing Officer Allan Jones' came from a family of small business owners. Bambee, the human resources company he founded, was his answer to the disparity he saw in accessibility to top-tier HR managers.

"This year in particular has verified the feeling we've had since starting Bambee," Jones said in a statement according to a Bambee Linkedin post. "Human resources can no longer just be for the Fortune 500."

Founded in 2016, Bambee connects small businesses with a dedicated HR manager for an affordable $99/month. The company has raised a total of $33 million in funding rounds primarily led by QED investors, and is now valued at $145 million according to Pitchbook.

Jones credits his family of small business owners for Bambee's mission. "My inspiration comes from an earnest insight into the friction and struggles of running a business day-to-day," he said in an interview with Medium earlier this year. "I had a seat at the table where those owners came home and talked about their actual business problems each night."

Hernan Lopez

Former Fox TV International CEO Hernan Lopez launched his own media startup, West Hollywood-based podcast studio Wondery, in 2016. The company quickly made a name for itself with a roster of hit shows like "Dirty John," "Dr. Death" and "Business Wars." And it raised $18 million before it was snapped up earlier this year by Amazon, reportedly for nearly $300 million.

"As a gay Latino immigrant, I have hit most of these 'celings' and have felt defeated and alone. But I was fortunate to find mentors who encouraged me to never give up and who provided guidance on how I could achieve my dreams. Now I want to give that opportunity to others," wrote Lopez in a Linkedin post.

Donny Salazar

There's probably no business more crucial in today's retail landscape than logistics.

Donny Salazar co-founded MasonHub as a way to help retailers streamline their logistics and fulfillment in 2018. His company, valued at $85 million, connects brands to its network of fully-owned and operated fulfillment centers so that they can scale more easily. To date, MasonHub has raised $21.5 million, most recently hauling in a $15 million round led by Autotech Ventures, according to Pitchbook. It counts Carbon38, 11 Honoré, MINDD, Vegamour and Bala Bangles among its clients.

Salazar, who was formerly an executive at Gilt Groupe, is focused on high-growth companies.

"Throughout my experience scaling businesses, I struggled to find a partner that could support a fast-growing brand and cared about the customer experience as much as I do," Salazar wrote earlier this year.

Lead illustration by Ian Hurley.

Correction: This story corrects the amount MasonHub raised and its valuation. A previous version relied on incorrect Pitchbook data, which has since been updated.

From Your Site Articles

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

Grace Lee

🔦 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 🎃

Grace Lee

🔦 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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Resy Cofounder’s New App Lands in LA: A Loyalty Tool Restaurants Actually Want

Grace Lee

🔦 Spotlight

Hello LA,

Blackbird, the loyalty and payments startup from Resy and Eater co-founder Ben Leventhal, officially landed in LA this week. The product is simple in the wild: you check in, pay through the app, and earn rewards that restaurants can actually act on, helping them spot and serve regulars without guessing. The LA launch goes live with more than 50 partners centered on the Westside, including names like Gjelina and Felix, plus spots across groups such as Rustic Canyon and Citrin, with expansion planned beyond Venice and Santa Monica.

Image Source: Blackbird

Under the hood, Blackbird has been building a national network and says it is live at more than 1,000 restaurants. The company raised fresh capital earlier this year to expand markets and roll out cross-restaurant rewards, positioning LA as a key beachhead for growth. If you dine out a lot, the appeal is that the app collapses discovery, payment, and loyalty into one flow. If you run a dining room, the promise is cleaner data on guests you actually see, instead of a generic points program that lives somewhere else.

For LA specifically, the draw is that this model fits how the city eats. We spread across neighborhoods, follow chefs, and rotate between a small set of favorites and a long list of next-ups. A networked loyalty layer that recognizes that pattern could move real dollars, particularly for independents that want to keep the relationship direct. We’ll be watching how quickly the footprint moves east from the coast and which operators lean into memberships and targeted rewards first.

Scroll for this week’s LA venture deals, funds, and acquisitions.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

GammaTime, a Los Angeles based premium micro drama platform founded by former Miramax CEO Bill Block, raised $14M seed led by vgames and Pitango, with participation from Alexis Ohanian, Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and Traverse Ventures. The app is live on iOS and Android, features more than 20 vertical phone native originals, and plans new series from “CSI” creator Anthony E. Zuiker as it scales a freemium model for U.S. audiences. - learn more

Wolf Games, a generative-AI gaming startup backed by Dick Wolf, raised a $9M Series A led by Main Street Advisors. The company also inked a partnership with NBCUniversal to develop interactive games using NBCU IP, built on Wolf Games’ platform for creating “living, cinematic” game worlds. Notable participants include Maverick Carter, Tom Werner, and Rashid Johnson, alongside returning investors Jimmy Iovine, Paul Wachter, and Dick Wolf. - learn more

Quantum Elements, a Los Angeles based startup, launched Constellation, an AI native platform that helps teams build quantum software and co design hardware using agentic AI, natural language prompts, and a large noisy qubit simulator. The company emerged from stealth with funding from QDNL Participations and support from USC Viterbi, and says Constellation can speed code generation, debugging, and testing for applications in pharma, energy, and finance. - learn more

Arbor Energy raised a $55M Series A co-led by Lowercarbon Capital and Voyager Ventures, with Gigascale Capital and Marathon Petroleum Corporation participating, to accelerate deployment of its zero-emission, fuel-flexible turbines. The funding completes a 1 MW pilot called ATLAS and advances HALCYON, a 25 MW modular turbine that uses oxy-combustion with supercritical CO₂ for efficient, carbon-neutral baseload power aimed at data centers, utilities, and industrial customers. - learn more

Dialogue AI raised a $6M seed led by Lightspeed Venture Partners to scale its AI-native research platform, which uses a live conversational AI interviewer to run real-time customer interviews and deliver insights faster. Participants include Seven Stars, Uncommon Projects, the Tornante Company, and notable angels, and the funds will accelerate product and go-to-market efforts with early customers such as Wayfair, Square, Nextdoor, and Suno. - learn more

LA Venture Funds

March Capital participated in Uniphore’s $260M Series F, joining strategic investors NVIDIA, AMD, Snowflake, and Databricks. The funding will accelerate development and adoption of Uniphore’s Business AI Cloud and expand its partner ecosystem, alongside investors like NEA, BNF Capital, National Grid Partners, and Prosperity7 Ventures. - learn more

Beast Ventures participated in Nutropy’s latest funding round to scale precision-fermented casein for next-gen dairy ingredients. The France-based startup will use the capital to ramp production and deliver larger samples of its “cheeseable milk” powder to food manufacturers as it targets a 2027 launch. - learn more

Patron participated in Notch’s $8M seed financing round, alongside investors such as Wing, Samsung, and Balaji, to scale the company’s AI platform for generating performance ads. Notch has since launched a “URL-to-animated-ads” feature that turns a product link into ready-to-run animated creatives within minutes, supporting a faster workflow for marketers rolling out motion ads. - learn more

B Capital participated in CurbWaste’s $28M Series B, which was led by Socium Ventures with Flourish Ventures, TTV Capital, and Squarepoint Capital also joining. The funding brings total capital to $50M and will accelerate product and go-to-market work on CurbWaste’s operating system for independent waste haulers, including AI-driven dispatch, reporting, and payments. - learn more

Thin Line Capital participated in SenseNet’s $14M Series A to scale its AI wildfire-detection network in the United States. The round was led by Stormbreaker with Fusion Fund, Plaza Ventures, FOLD36 Capital, and B Current also joining; funds go toward new offices and installations as SenseNet fuses gas sensors, AI cameras, satellites, and weather data to spot fires before they are visible. The company says it already monitors about 130 million acres and can flag ignitions within minutes. - learn more

MANTIS Venture Capital participated in Keycard’s $38M financing for its identity and access platform for AI agents. The combined seed and Series A were led by Andreessen Horowitz, Acrew Capital, and Boldstart Ventures, and coincide with Keycard’s early-access launch. Keycard says its system issues short-lived, auditable identity tokens to help developers govern agent actions and data across apps. - learn more

WndrCo participated in Defakto’s $30.75M Series B, a round led by XYZ Venture Capital with The General Partnership and Bloomberg Beta also joining. Defakto, formerly SPIRL, builds a Non-Human Identity and Access Management platform that replaces static credentials with dynamic, auditable identities for services, pipelines, workloads, and AI agents across multi-cloud environments. The company will use the capital to accelerate product development and expand go-to-market efforts. - learn more

CIV co led 1001’s $9M round alongside General Catalyst and Lux Capital to build an AI native operating system for decision making in critical industries. 1001 combines live data ingestion, operational mapping, AI driven decisioning, and governance to help operators act in real time, with early pilots in aviation, logistics, and large infrastructure projects. The raise also includes backers like Chris Ré and Amjad Masad and will fund early deployments and hiring in Dubai, London, and beyond. - learn more

Brentwood Associates led Throne Labs’ $15M Series B initial close to expand the company’s smart restroom infrastructure across new and existing U.S. markets. Existing investors including Uncorrelated Ventures, DiPalo Ventures, Rabil Ventures, and Arpiné Capital participated as Throne scales its network of sensor-equipped, ADA-compliant restrooms and city partnerships. - learn more

M13 led Estuary’s $17M Series A, with participation from FirstMark and Operator Partners, to scale the company’s “right-time data” platform. Estuary unifies change data capture, streaming, and batch into one managed system with BYOC deployment so enterprises can control latency and feed AI applications more reliably; funds will support product and go-to-market expansion. - learn more

Strong Ventures provided follow-on funding in Unjeonseonsaeng’s ₩2.8B (~$2.0M) Series A, backing the driving-school comparison and booking platform as it scales nationwide. New investors Fast Ventures and Korea Credit Guarantee Fund joined the round, with proceeds going to expand the company’s SaaS tools for driving schools and enhance data-driven features like AI recommendations and advertising. The startup reports monthly GMV above ₩1B and its first profitable quarter in 2025. - learn more

Interlagos led Adaptyx Biosciences’ $14M seed, with Hyperlink Ventures participating alongside Overwater Ventures, Starbloom Capital, Stanford University, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, and others. Adaptyx is developing a biowearable for continuous, multi-analyte molecular monitoring; the raise brings total funding to about $23M and supports R&D, clinical progress toward FDA clearance, and platform scaling. - learn more

B Capital participated in Faeth Therapeutics’ new $25M financing, which brings the company’s total funding to $92M and supports a randomized Phase 2 trial of its PIKTOR regimen in endometrial cancer with the GOG Foundation. The raise, led by S2G Ventures with additional new and existing backers, follows Phase 1b data showing an 80% overall response rate and 11-month median PFS when PIKTOR was combined with paclitaxel. - learn more

Btech Consortium participated in PortX’s strategic growth round, joining renewed backers alongside new investors Allied Solutions and the American Bankers Association. The funding extends PortX’s Series B and underscores industry support for its AI-powered data integration platform for banks and credit unions. - learn more

LA Exits

Breez was acquired by JumpCloud to bolster JumpCloud’s identity threat detection and response capabilities and accelerate its security roadmap. The deal brings Breez’s ITDR technology and team into JumpCloud’s platform; terms were not disclosed. The Breez group is led by former Adobe executive Abhinav Srivastava. - learn more

The Founders of Color Changing LA's Startup World

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🔦 Spotlight

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