'We've Branded an Unbranded Industry': FIGS Co-CEOs Trina Spear and Heather Hasson on Their Epic IPO

Sarah Favot

Favot is an award-winning journalist and adjunct instructor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She previously was an investigative and data reporter at national education news site The 74 and local news site LA School Report. She's also worked at the Los Angeles Daily News. She was a Livingston Award finalist in 2011 and holds a Master's degree in journalism from Boston University and BA from the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada.

FIGS co-founders ​Trina Spear and Heather Hasson
Courtesy of FIGS

Fashionable and comfortable medical scrub maker FIGS made history on multiple fronts when it made its Wall Street debut last month.

The Santa Monica company was likely the first led by two female CEOs and co-founders to go public; it was the first healthcare apparel company to go public, and it was the first company to make its IPO available on Robinhood.


And its performance beat expectations. Shares of FIGS jumped 36% to close at $30.02 after they priced at $22 each. They have since risen to $43.37 as of Thursday.

Co-CEOs and co-founders Trina Spear and Heather Hasson sat down with dot.LA to talk about how they went from selling their scrub sets out of their car in front of hospitals during shift changes to going public last month.

They discussed how the direct-to-consumer apparel company for health professionals surprised investors and how they wanted to make the IPO accessible to healthcare workers.

Courtesy of FIGS

Heather, you got the idea for FIGS after you had coffee with a friend who was a nurse practitioner and were horrified when you realized she was working 16-hour days wearing uncomfortable, unflattering scrubs. Scrubs seem like a big jump from the upscale handbag company you were running at the time. Why was it about that moment that made you think this could become a successful business?

Heather Hasson: Any entrepreneur doesn't think, 'Oh my God, this is gonna be a successful company,' you know. I think my lens was, what problems can I solve and how do I make this world better and how do I make this world a place where I want to live in.

Healthcare professionals are the most incredible people in the world and they don't have gear, they don't have clothing that can help them perform better. And also, direct-to-consumer, they should be able to order at 2, 3 o'clock in the morning when they need to. They need their uniform to go to work.

In the beginning, Trina and I, we were selling out of my car in front of hospitals during the shift change. At that moment, you realize people want FIGS, they want your stuff.

I really do, I wake up every single day thinking about healthcare professionals and how do we support them, how do we empower them, how do we celebrate them.

Where does the name FIGS come from?

HH: It's a very simple answer. It's my favorite fruit.

How big is your team? Why did you choose L.A. as your HQ?

Trina Spear: We have about 250 people. And why did we choose L.A.? Heather is from here, born and raised.

What was that moment like for you as the first female CEOs and first female co-founders company to go public?

TS: We really felt like the IPO, this milestone, wasn't so much about us. It was really about the community. Coming out of this pandemic and having this be almost a symbol of everything that our healthcare professionals went through. We had 12 healthcare professionals on the podium with us to ring the bell. We had 60 of our healthcare professionals at our IPO. This was a really amazing moment for this community that's been through so much and now it's kind of coming out of it and we really feel like we're the brand to support them and show up for them every single day.

You partnered with Robinhood which allowed retail investors to buy stock before the debut on the open market. Why?

TS: I think for us, back to our broader mission of supporting healthcare professionals, we really did want to give them an opportunity to invest pre-IPO and Robinhood enabled us to do that. Normally, being able to invest pre-IPO is very much a Wall Street insider-type of thing. By partnering with Robinhood, we were able to give access to FIGS stock, having equity in this company, to our most important people, the people we serve -- our healthcare professionals, so that's why we did it.

What will you be doing with their windfall? Could we expect to see them acquire other companies? Will you be growing your footprint in L.A. or elsewhere?

TS: The real investment that we're looking to make is in product. And the second area is in our community, our community is the brand, the brand is our community and so how do we continue to give to this community that's so deserving of something better. And then data and technology is a huge area for us. We have a really robust set of data and technology capability. And what that enables us to do is, at the heart of it, understand our customers better. The more data we have, the more we understand, the more we can serve and support. How do we deepen our connection with this community? Data and scalable data enables us to do that.

Some investors have eschewed direct-to-consumer brands in recent years, I'm thinking of the mattress startup Casper's "lackluster" IPO performance. FIGS on the other hand, stock surged 36% in its debut. Why should people invest in your company?

TS: There's a big difference between us and really every other company and the big difference is that we've been able to balance both growth and sustainable profitability. If you look at even last year, we grew 140% year-over-year and $263 million in net revenue. No one thought that was possible. Every investor we met, no one thought a direct-to-consumer company that has 98% of their sales online direct-to-consumer could grow 140% to $263 million, we did $318 million in revenue in the last 12 months as of the first quarter. Nobody thought that was possible.

Why have you been able to do this?

TS: All these companies are so focused on digital marketing and they put all the money into Facebook and all the money into Google and they hope to make a return on that investment. And as they scale, their customer acquisition cost goes up.

What we've proven is that as we scale, we've been able to decrease our customer acquisition cost by 61% over the last two years because we never were reliant on Facebook and Google digital marketing. We actually built the brand the right way. The way in which a Nike or a Lululemon or Adidas built their brand, with actual people loving the product and loving the brand, not based on how I figured out the algorithm on Facebook. This is a huge, huge shift from how people thought that digitally native direct-to-consumer companies should grow. Everyone thought 'how do you crack the code on Facebook's algorithm'. No, actually you build a community around a profession, you build relationships with real people, you build a brand people love, you build a product people come back over and over and over again to buy. That's the hard way to build a company and that's what we've done.

Courtesy of FIGS

It seems like this is a really niche market, do you have any plans to appeal to a wider customer base? Expand globally and into other uniform-wearing sectors?

TS: We actually don't view it as a niche market. I think many people do because they don't understand how many healthcare professionals there are, but this is a $12 billion industry in the United States. It's $79 billion globally and healthcare jobs are the fastest growing job segment in the country. We have a 2% market share in the U.S.

We think about our company as a lifestyle brand for the healthcare professional, so it's not just a top and a pant, it's also our under scrubs, our fleeces, our vests. We're outfitting healthcare professionals to work — at work, from work, head to toe, on shift and off shift. So it's all of these other things that we're doing and creating for our healthcare community and so we feel like we have a lot of runway, even just within the category that we're in.

At some point, we do feel like the uniform industry overall is broken and if there's any company that's going to disrupt that like we disrupted this industry bringing comfort and design and technical fabrication and functionality to the uniform industry overall, it would be FIGS, but you know, that is not in the near future.

Why should a medical professional buy FIGS? The price point is higher than other more traditional scrubs. On Amazon you can find a scrub top and scrub pants for $20 each, while your scrubs start at $38 for a top and $40 for pants. For lower-wage medical professionals like nursing assistants or medical students, this price point may be out of reach. Also, some might say that since you're going to be working in them every day and all the possible stains that may get on your scrubs, it's not worth it to buy high-end scrubs.

TS: If you look at our customer base, our customers make less than the average healthcare professional; 12% of our customers are students. Two-thirds of our customers make less than $100,000 a year and one-third, make less than $50,000 a year, within that two-thirds. So as much as we are a premium product, we are only about 15%-ish higher than the average scrub set. It's really important to us to serve all healthcare professionals and so really having an affordable, accessible product is one of core tenants here at FIGS that's really, really important.

You mentioned in your prospectus that it's a highly competitive market. How do you differentiate yourselves?

TS: The way in which the industry worked, is you had all these companies that were essentially licenses of other companies that sold to the retailer, and then the retailer sold to the end customer. But 85% of healthcare professionals buy their own uniforms.

We've branded an unbranded industry. And so what these companies really struggled with is that they didn't have that direct relationship [with the consumer]. They don't even know the names of their customer. The retailer is selling to the customer. That fundamental industry was broken, that structure was broken, that needed to be fixed and so that's what we've done.

We de-commoditized the commodity products, we went direct to consumer and then we built this community around this profession.

In 2020, FIGS had operating income of $57.9 million after a net operating loss of $300,000 in 2019. The 2020 active customer tally was 1.3 million, up from 600,000 in 2019. What was it about 2020 that made for such growth and profitability?

TS: This was happening prior to 2020. Essentially, we were profitable as of some point in 2019. But this is a trajectory that was long before COVID. We've grown the company every year by 100% year-over-year, so in terms of that following through to the bottom line, that was the trajectory we were on. It wasn't a COVID dynamic, if you will.

What do you keep in mind when you're designing products? Is it all about fashionability?

HH: it has to be really comfortable because you're in your scrubs for 16 hours sometimes 32 hours, so that is literally the design lens -- technical comfort. And we do not do anything that's not technical and super comfortable at the same time.

They're commuting to work, so they need a fleece, even a jacket over that and when they go to work, we're the first company to make jackets for the inside. We specifically make jackets for between 62 and 65 degrees. It's about the entire layering system. It's about what the healthcare professional wears 365, on the night shift, to and from work and when they wake up in the morning. That's never really been thought about and it should be because that's what healthcare professionals need.

Correction: An earlier this version of the story incorrectly referred to customer acquisition cost as cap. It was also updated to clarify the timeline in which FIGS raised $318M in revenue.

$207M Later, Napster is Back and Ready for the Metaverse

🔦 Spotlight

Happy Friday, Los Angeles!

This week, we’re rewinding the clock and fast-forwarding into the future at the same time. Napster, yes, that Napster, just got acquired for $207 million byInfinite Reality, a metaverse and immersive tech company that’s aiming to bring the iconic music platform into the next generation.

For anyone who came of age in the early 2000s, Napster was either your musical awakening or the reason your dial-up connection crashed. Launched in 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, it was the face of peer-to-peer file sharing and a lightning rod in the music industry’s first wave of digital disruption. After its legal battles and shutdown in 2001, Napster bounced between owners like Roxio and Best Buy, before eventually merging with Rhapsody and evolving into a legitimate streaming service.

Now, Infinite Reality is giving Napster a fresh remix. The company says it plans to turn Napster into a social-first music platform that emphasizes artist-fan interaction over passive listening. We’re talking virtual 3D concert experiences, listening parties, fan communities, and merch drops… essentially, a metaverse-native platform built for music superfans.

According to Infinite Reality CEO John Acunto, this aligns with the company’s bigger vision: moving the internet away from “a flat 2D clickable web” into “a 3D conversational one.” They’re betting that a brand like Napster, which already carries cultural weight, can thrive in a world where fans want deeper connections and creators want modern monetization tools.

It’s a bold move, but maybe a smart one. Nostalgia is a powerful asset, and in an era where legacy brands keep getting digital reboots, Napster has a chance to go from early disruptor to comeback story.

Will today’s listeners hit play? We’ll see. But as far as tech comebacks go, we’re here for this remix.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

  • Topanga, a Los Angeles-based company specializing in AI-driven waste reduction solutions for commercial kitchens, has raised an $8M Series A funding round led by Blue Bear Capital, with participation from Struck Capital, Amasia, and Wonder Ventures. This investment brings Topanga's total funding to $12.2M. The company plans to use the proceeds to expand its food waste tracking platform into the senior living, health care, and hospitality sectors, accelerate the growth of its ReusePass system beyond universities into enterprise food service, and enhance integration with major food-service platforms like Grubhub and Jamix. - learn more
  • Flight Science, an aviation tech startup focused on AI-powered flight optimization, raised $1.5M in pre-seed funding led by Outsiders Fund. The company helps airlines reduce fuel costs, emissions, and turbulence impact, and will use the funds to grow its team and expand product rollout by summer 2025. - learn more
        LA Venture Funds
          • Second Sight Ventures participated in a $14.2M Series A1 funding round for Lucky Energy, an Austin, Texas-based energy drink company. Lucky Energy offers a line of zero-sugar, zero-calorie beverages in six flavors, formulated with ingredients like maca and beta-alanine. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate distribution, introduce new products, support strategic partnerships, and recruit in key business areas. - learn more
          • M13 led a $5.5M funding round for Chord Commerce, with participation from Act One Ventures and others. The New York-based company provides an AI-powered customer data platform (CDP) that helps commerce brands unify customer data, generate real-time insights, and automate marketing decisions. The funding will be used to further develop the platform and support brands in scaling their data-driven marketing efforts. - learn more
          • Upfront Ventures led a $4M Seed funding round for Arlo Health, a New York City-based AI-powered health insurance underwriter focused on small and mid-sized businesses. Arlo offers level-funded health plans designed to improve preventive care and cost transparency through value-based care and AI-driven underwriting. The funds will be used to expand its broker network, grow its engineering and sales teams, and scale operations. - learn more
          • Bonfire Ventures co-led a $5M Seed funding round for VoiceOps, with participation from Village Global and others. Based in New York City, VoiceOps uses generative AI to analyze phone calls and surface insights that boost sales performance, ensure compliance, and optimize marketing. The funding will support product development, team expansion, and broader market adoption. - learn more
          • MANTIS Venture Capital participated in a $17.2M Seed funding round for EDGE Markets, a fintech company building banking tools tailored to the gaming industry. EDGE’s flagship product, EDGE Boost, offers a debit card and bank account specifically designed for betting, with features like spending limits, financial transparency, and cash-back rewards. The funds will be used to further develop the platform and expand its presence within the gaming market. - learn more

              LA Exits

              • SmartDepo, a leading provider of AI-powered deposition summaries for the legal industry, has been acquired by Rev, a prominent speech-to-text technology company. Founded in 2023 by civil rights attorney Isaac Manoff, SmartDepo delivers comprehensive deposition summaries featuring 100% accurate page-line citations, hyperlinked tables of contents, key admissions analyses, and deposition memos highlighting essential themes. This strategic acquisition combines Rev's highly accurate transcription services with SmartDepo's advanced summarization capabilities, aiming to enhance productivity for attorneys and court reporters by reducing manual review time and improving client outcomes. - learn more
              • Stem, a platform offering personalized distribution and digital strategy services for independent artists and labels, has been acquired by Concord, a leading independent music company. Stem will operate as a separate division within Concord Label Group, with CEO Milana Lewis and President Kristin Graziani continuing in their roles. This acquisition provides Stem with the capital and resources to invest in new technology, expand its suite of label services, and accelerate global growth, while maintaining its mission to empower independent artists with autonomy and support. - learn more

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                          $100M in Wheels and Wings: Startups Changing How We Move

                          🔦 Spotlight

                          Happy Friday, LA —

                          LA’s mobility scene is shifting gears — fast.

                          We’ve got movement on the ground and in the skies this week.

                          Image Source: Upway

                          Let’s start on two wheels. Sequoia-backed startup Upway just launched its new 30,000 square-foot flagship facility in Redondo Beach, and it’s not your average bike shop. The UpCenter, as they’re calling it, is the largest e-bike refurbishment center in California — and it’s a big bet on LA becoming a leader in urban micromobility.

                          If you haven’t heard of Upway yet, you will soon. The company refurbishes e-bikes at scale, with $70 million in funding and operations in both the U.S. and Europe. Their mission? Make high-quality e-bikes more affordable and accessible, especially in cities where traffic is, well… legendary.

                          With California’s new e-bike rebate in effect and Angelenos increasingly looking for car-free ways to move around town, Upway’s timing couldn’t be better. Whether you’re commuting, cruising the Strand, or just sick of spending half your life on the 405, a refurbished ride might be the smoothest move you make all year.

                          Now — from bikes to drones.

                          Image Source: Neros

                          Neros, a young LA-based startup focused on American-made autonomous drones, just announced a $35 million Series A to ramp up manufacturing. In a market long dominated by overseas players, Neros is building drone tech domestically — and it’s not just for hobbyists. Their AI-powered drones are designed to be rugged, adaptable, and mission-ready, with applications across defense, public safety, and infrastructure.

                          The round was led by Vy Capital, with participation from Interlagos Capital, D3, Sequoia, and Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, the CEO of Zipline. Neros’ co-founder and CEO, Soren Monroe-Anderson, summed it up well: this is about “freedom through autonomy.”

                          Now, on to this week’s LA venture deals, fund announcements, and acquisitions…

                          🤝 Venture Deals

                          LA Companies

                          • BuildOps, a Los Angeles-based provider of a unified cloud-based platform for commercial contractors, has raised a $127M Series C funding round led by Meritech Capital Partners, with participation from B Capital, Fika Ventures and others. This investment elevates BuildOps to unicorn status with a valuation of $1 billion. The company plans to use the funds to enhance product capabilities, improve customer support, and scale operations to meet the growing demand from commercial contractors nationwide. - learn more
                          • Proteus Space, a Los Angeles-based company specializing in rapid custom satellite bus solutions, has raised an oversubscribed $6.1M Seed-2 funding round, led by Lavrock Ventures with participation from Crosscut Ventures and others. The funds will be used to accelerate the development and deployment of MERCURY™, Proteus’ automated computational engineering system, which aims to revolutionize custom satellite bus design by significantly reducing development time and costs. - learn more
                          • Occuspace, a Westlake Village, California-based company specializing in occupancy intelligence technology, has secured a $6M Series A funding round led by Lewis & Clark Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate its growth across higher education, corporate, and government facilities, aiming to make space utilization data the source of truth for understanding and managing the built environment. - learn more
                          • Qolab, a company specializing in quantum computing hardware, has secured Series A funding from Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials. The investment will be used to advance the development and scalable manufacturing of superconducting qubits, a critical component for large-scale quantum computing. As part of the collaboration, Qolab and Applied Materials have also co-authored a technical roadmap outlining strategies to scale quantum computing from hundreds to millions of qubits. - learn more
                              LA Venture Funds
                                • Wasserman participated in a $56M funding round for Carbon Arc, a New York City-based AI data utility company. Carbon Arc specializes in transforming raw data from various industries into structured, standardized intelligence suitable for AI models and business applications. The funds will be used to accelerate the growth of Carbon Arc's Insights Exchange platform, enhancing its data utility services for businesses and the AI community. - learn more
                                • Trousdale Ventures participated in a $24M funding round for Coreshell, a San Leandro, California-based battery technology company. Coreshell specializes in developing low-cost, high-performance silicon anodes for lithium-ion batteries, aiming to enhance energy density and reduce costs. The funds will be used to scale production at their 4 MWh manufacturing facility and to plan a new 100 MWh facility, with the goal of delivering next-generation electric vehicle batteries to global automakers this year. - learn more
                                • Talino Venture Studios has participated in a $2.8M seed funding round for Higala, a Philippine-based instant payment system startup. Higala aims to enhance financial inclusion by connecting rural banks, thrift banks, commercial banks, and electronic money issuers through an open payments infrastructure, thereby lowering the cost of real-time payments and reducing entry barriers. The funds will be used to expand Higala's services, including the launch of platform banking in the second quarter, enabling smaller financial institutions to offer digital payment services. - learn more
                                • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in a $150M Series B funding round for Latigo Biotherapeutics, a Thousand Oaks, California-based clinical-stage biotechnology company developing non-opioid pain treatments. The funds will support the advancement of Latigo's selective Nav1.8 inhibitors, currently in clinical development, and the expansion of its broader therapeutic pipeline. - learn more
                                • Thiel Capital led a $3.25M funding round for Pilgrim, a biotech startup focused on enhancing human performance and defending against biological threats. The funds will be used to advance its Voyager platform, which is developing cutting-edge biotechnology with potential applications ranging from creating ‘supersoldiers’ to mitigating emerging biothreats. - learn more
                                • Alt-Capital and WndrCo participated in an $18M seed funding round for Town, a startup specializing in small business tax solutions. Town offers an AI-powered platform that automates tasks such as document processing and data collection, providing each client with a dedicated tax advisor. The funds will be used to scale Town's services across the U.S. and expand their team. - learn more

                                  LA Exits

                                    • Dieta Health, a Los Angeles-based company known for its AI-powered stool imaging technology, has been acquired by Cylinder. Dieta’s clinically validated app, shown to outperform traditional patient-reported outcomes, will be integrated into Cylinder’s platform to improve digestive health diagnostics and enable earlier, more personalized treatment. As part of the deal, Dieta’s founder and key team members will join Cylinder to support ongoing development and clinical research. - learn more

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                                            PledgeLA’s Next Chapter Starts Now with Noramay Cadena

                                            🔦 Spotlight

                                            Happy Friday, Los Angeles! As we wrap up another busy week in LA’s tech scene, there’s big news on the leadership front. PledgeLA has a new chair, and it’s someone who knows what it takes to break barriers and build lasting impact. Noramay Cadena, a San Fernando High grad turned triple-degree MIT engineer, has spent her career defying expectations. She started in aerospace engineering, leading operations before pivoting to venture capital, where she’s invested in 90+ companies across industries. She co-founded Latinas in STEM in 2013 and later launched MiLA Capital, a seed-stage VC firm investing in hardware and manufacturing innovations. As Managing Partner of Supply Change Capital, she has focused on technology transforming the food system, raising a $40M fund and deploying over $20M into 23 companies, including eight in California. Stepping into her new role as chair of PledgeLA, she’s setting her sights on an even bigger challenge: making LA’s tech and VC ecosystem more inclusive, accessible, and globally competitive.

                                            Noramay Cadena (left, with her son) incoming chair of PledgeLA, receives a Catalyst Award for Emerging Manager in December. (With Qiana Patterson, PledgeLA Chair 2020-22 and Managing Partner of NAYAH)

                                            She follows in the footsteps of Anna Barber of M13, whose leadership transformed PledgeLA into a driving force for change, launching the VC Fellowship to elevate diverse investors and spearheading the GP + LP Connections Series, which facilitated over 80 investor meetings last year. She also played a key role in the Venture Capital Data Report with UCLA Luskin and introduced the PledgeLA Catalyst Awards, honoring leaders driving capital access and innovation.

                                            Now as Chair Emerita, Barber will continue supporting PledgeLA as it enters its next phase under Cadena’s leadership.

                                            Cadena recognizes the strength of the foundation she’s inheriting. “Anna has been instrumental in making PledgeLA a force for inclusion in LA tech and venture. I’m honored to build on that work as we take the next big leap forward,” she said. “We’re at a critical moment for LA tech. We’ve built momentum, but now is the time to turn that into real, lasting change. I’m focused on forging new partnerships, increasing capital access, and ensuring that LA’s innovation economy works for everyone—not just the few.”

                                            Her first priorities? Expanding PledgeLA’s VC Fellowship to create more pathways into venture, strengthening connections between emerging fund managers and investors, and doubling down on community-driven initiatives. Earlier this year, PledgeLA members, including Wonder Ventures, raised $1.1M for wildfire relief efforts—a testament to the power of LA’s tech community when it mobilizes.

                                            With Cadena at the helm, PledgeLA isn’t just continuing its mission—it’s accelerating it. Thanks to Barber’s legacy and Cadena’s vision, the future of LA tech is poised for even greater impact. For more details on the transition and what’s ahead, read the official announcement here.

                                            And speaking of momentum, if you’re heading out this weekend, be sure to check for road closures—the LA Marathon is set to take over the streets this Sunday! Whether you’re running, cheering, or just navigating around town, it’s another reminder that LA is always on the move.

                                            Image Source: The McCourt Foundation


                                            🤝 Venture Deals

                                            LA Companies

                                            • Scrunch AI, a Los Angeles-based platform that helps businesses optimize their presence in AI-driven search results, has raised a $4M Seed funding round led by Mayfield. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate product development and expand its market reach, aiming to ensure brands remain visible and competitive as AI search becomes more prevalent. - learn more
                                            • Wolf Games, a Los Angeles-based generative gaming startup, has secured $4M in seed funding. The investment round includes prominent figures such as television producer Dick Wolf, music industry pioneer Jimmy Iovine, and Paul Wachter, Founder and CEO of Main Street Advisors. Wolf Games specializes in creating generative cinematic games that adapt to individual player choices, offering immersive and personalized storytelling experiences. The company plans to use the funds to develop its inaugural game, "Public Eye," set to launch in Summer 2025. "Public Eye" is a crime procedural game where players assist in solving murder investigations, guided by an AI-powered assistant that tailors the experience to each user's play style. - learn more
                                            • Fixated, a digital entertainment platform, has secured $12.8M in funding, led by Eldridge Industries. Fixated specializes in transforming creator representation and monetization, providing infrastructure, strategy, and expertise to help digital creators scale their content and diversify revenue streams. The investment will be used to expand Fixated's influence across talent management, content creation, gaming, and digital entertainment, aiming to empower creators and set higher industry standards. - learn more
                                            • Liminal, a user-generated content (UGC) gaming startup, has secured $5.8M in seed funding. The investment round included BITKRAFT Ventures, Riot Games, and OTK Media Group, with participation from angel investors including Marc Merrill, co-founder of Riot Games. Liminal is developing a platform that enables players to create immersive role-playing game (RPG) adventures without coding knowledge, aiming to make storytelling through gaming more accessible and engaging. The funds will be used to advance the development of this platform, with plans to launch publicly playable content in the coming year. - learn more
                                            • Pragma, a Los Angeles-based backend game engine developer, has secured $12.75M in strategic funding, bringing its total raised to over $50M. The investment round included participation from Square Enix, Upfront Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Insight Partners. Pragma specializes in providing scalable backend solutions for live-service games, powering features like matchmaking, analytics, and monetization. The new funds will be used to enhance their suite of live-service tools, support strategic acquisitions, and strengthen partnerships within the gaming industry. - learn more
                                            • Tetrous, a Sherman Oaks-based biotech company focused on bone-to-tendon healing, raised $6.5M in an oversubscribed Series A round. The funds will be used to expand market reach, generate clinical data, and broaden surgical applications of its technology. - learn more
                                            • Uthana, a generative AI company specializing in 3D character animation, has raised a $4.3M funding round led by IA Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to expand operations and development efforts, aiming to revolutionize the animation and game development industry by enabling real-time, lifelike animations that adapt dynamically to gameplay, thereby enhancing immersion and realism. - learn more
                                            • LiquidTrust, a Los Angeles-based fintech company, has raised a $4M Seed funding round led by Anthemis Female Innovators Lab Fund, Resolute Ventures, and Motivate Ventures. The company specializes in secure payment solutions for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and has introduced Micro Escrow Pay, an instant escrow payment solution designed to embed trust directly into payment flows. The funds will be used to expand operations and development efforts, aiming to protect SMBs from fraud and nonpayment risks. - learn more
                                              LA Venture Funds
                                                • B Capital participated in a $4.5M funding round for Bizongo, a Mumbai-based B2B e-commerce platform focused on raw material procurement and distribution, bringing the company's valuation to $980M. The funds will be used to scale operations threefold by December, expand product categories, and position Bizongo for profitability by the last quarter of FY26. - learn more
                                                • UP.Partners led a $4M Seed funding round for SaySo, a New York City-based retail technology company that provides an interactive shopping platform designed to turn excess inventory into profit-driven opportunities. SaySo plans to use the funds to expand its partnerships and bring its interactive clearance platform to a broader retail audience. - learn more
                                                • March Capital participated in a $200M Seed funding round for Lila Sciences, a company developing an AI platform combined with autonomous laboratories to accelerate scientific discovery across life, chemical, and materials sciences. The funds will be used to further develop Lila's AI platform, build the first AI-driven science factories, and scale operations to enhance scientific research capabilities. - learn more
                                                • Animal Capital led a $1.6M pre-seed funding round for Platter, a New York-based ecommerce technology startup. Platter specializes in helping Shopify brands create high-converting storefronts that maximize profit. The funds will be used to further consolidate disparate tools into a unified product suite, empowering Shopify brands to build more profitable storefronts. - learn more

                                                LA Exits

                                                  • Tastemade, a media company known for its food, travel, and home design content, has been acquired by food delivery startup Wonder for $90M. The acquisition aims to integrate Tastemade’s content with Wonder’s services, including takeout, delivery, and meal kits, to create a comprehensive "mealtime super app." The deal is also expected to enhance Wonder’s advertising business and offer seamless access to meals featured on Tastemade’s platforms. - learn more
                                                  • Jumpcut Media, a provider of AI-driven intellectual property management and audience analysis tools, has been acquired by Cinelytic, an AI-powered content intelligence platform. Jumpcut's platforms, such as ScriptSense and SocialSense, offer real-time insights into content development and market alignment, enhancing decision-making across the content lifecycle. This acquisition aims to integrate Jumpcut's capabilities into Cinelytic's services, optimizing decision-making in the entertainment industry. - learn more
                                                  • FatTail, a Calabasas, California-based advertising technology company specializing in direct advertising solutions, has been acquired by Chartbeat, a media operations software platform backed by Cuadrilla Capital. This acquisition aims to integrate FatTail's advertising revenue management capabilities with Chartbeat's content analytics services, providing media companies with a unified platform to enhance both audience engagement and revenue generation. - learn more
                                                  • Deep 6 AI, an AI-driven precision research platform specializing in accelerating patient recruitment for clinical trials, has been acquired by Tempus, a leader in AI-powered precision medicine. Deep 6 AI's platform analyzes both structured and unstructured electronic medical record (EMR) data to match patients with clinical trials, serving over 750 provider sites and encompassing more than 30 million patients. This acquisition aims to enhance Tempus' capabilities in clinical trial matching and real-world evidence generation, furthering its mission to advance precision medicine and patient care. - learn more

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