Graphene Stands to Revolutionize Audio, but First It Has to Get Past Industry Inertia

Sam Blake

Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake

Graphene Audio

When you put on headphones or listen to loudspeakers today, you are likely tapping into the same underlying technology that was invented in the late 19th century to convert electrical energy into sound.

That's not to say that audio technology isn't slimmer and sleeker, but there hasn't been nearly as much innovation as in video. That's at least the view of GraphAudio, a four-year old startup whose product is based on Nobel Prize-winning technology, which it hopes will bring about the next frontier in audio.

"We want to bring an audiophile experience to the mass market," said chief executive Ramesh Ramchandani, "and become the 'Intel Inside' of audio."


The headphones market has nearly doubled over the past two years. In 2019, Apple's Airpods yielded more revenue alone than Twitter, Snapchat and Spotify combined.

The Beverly Hills-based company is hoping to penetrate that market and capture a sizable chunk with tech that enables a superbly crisp listening experience, made from a miraculously efficient and effective material, which can ultimately be offered to end-consumers at a competitive price.

For 30 years, Ramchandani has worked in tech, primarily in semiconductors, first as a design engineer and later as head of several startups with successful exits. Along the way, he helped GoogleX set up its artificial intelligence strategy.

Two years ago, GraphAudio cofounders Fred Goldring, an L.A.-based entrepreneur, and materials scientist Lonnie Wilson, who'd previously worked out of the California Nanosystems Institute at UCLA, recruited him to lead the company.

Ramesh RamchandaniRamesh Ramchandani is the CEO of GraphAudio, a four-year old startup whose product is based on Nobel Prize-winning technology.

What convinced Ramchandani to saddle up was the opportunity to mass-market a new technology that vastly improves sound and could be used in everything from smartphones to televisions.

The company has perpetual, exclusive licenses to several patents developed out of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for audio components made from graphene, and $4 million in seed funding from investors including will.i.am and Herbie Hancock.

But so far GraphAudio can produce only a few hundred units per month of its technology out of its lab in Austin. That's because its process to manufacture at scale, which uses a technique called chemical vapor deposition, requires a more robust facility, and the company has yet to sign on a big-name customer. It also needs to shrink its brick-sized prototype amplifier, which provides the extra voltage needed by its electrostatic speaker system, to the size of a microchip.

Ramchandani thinks the company can smoothly overcome these engineering challenges and enable its technology components to fit into the headphones, televisions and smartphones of the customers GraphAudio is targeting. And he's chasing that vision so that he can bring to a mass market what he sees as the gold standard of audio, at or below prices that consumers already pay. But what he really needs to do is sell his technology to the companies that make those products.

GraphAudio's Challenges Ahead

Graphene audioassets.rebelmouse.io

Ramchandani said he is in "active discussions" with at least two companies, though would not say which ones specifically, citing non-disclosure agreements. But he said the companies were equivalent in size and stature to players such as Sony, Sennheiser, Samsung or Bose.

Jim Rondinelli, an audio expert and chief operating officer of audio-tech company Immersion Networks, sees a compelling case for GraphAudio to make to its target customers.

For an ideal loudspeaker or headphone, he said, "there's no better material than graphene."

For example, whereas Apple's earbuds convert only about 8% of their power source into sound, GraphAudio's transducer converts 99%. That's according to Alex Zettl, a physicist whose work formed the basis of the company's technology and who now sits on its advisory board. Those efficiency gains have several knock-on effects, such as improving battery life and reducing the amount of heat that gets dissipated across devices, which can damage other components.

But companies like Apple that are already succeeding in the audio market may be disinclined to change what they are doing. Rondinelli said, for instance, that Apple may have "some resistance to change because they already carry a lot of power and negotiating leverage."

Other companies prefer to stick to technologies they develop. A representative from Sennheiser, a German audio hardware company, said it continuously evaluates new technologies to improve listener experience. "However, as an audio specialist with a 75-year heritage, we utilize proprietary transducers for the majority of our headphones."

Is Graphene the Next Big Thing in Audio?

The key to delivering any sound to a listener's ear through speakers or headphones is a transducer: the basic technology that converts electrical energy into sound. It makes beats thump and voices soar.

In 2016, GraphAudio acquired an exclusive license from the University of California, Berkeley's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to monetize patents that describe a transducer made out of graphene: an ultra-lightweight, stronger-than-diamonds carbon-based material that in its purest form is the only two-dimensional material on Earth.

Those patents were filed on the heels of a landmark paper written by UC-Berkeley physicists Zettl and Qin Zhou, which highlighted graphene's unique usefulness as a transducer for an electrostatic speaker.

Wilson, who would go on to co-found GraphAudio and is now its chief technology officer, had long been interested in graphene by the time that paper was published. The remarkable material had existed mainly as an intriguing theoretical concept until Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov won a Nobel Prize for their experimental work on graphene in 2010.

"I was looking for the next big thing and I really thought graphene, although it had been out there and they'd been trying to find a good application for it, was looking for a good home," Wilson said. "What really caught my eye was this graphene work that Zettl was working on up at Berkeley."

Competition for Graphene Speakers

GraphAudio's biggest competitor so far is Montreal-based ORA Graphene Audio. The company develops graphene-based speaker and headphone components, and has earned some revenue through joint-development partnerships with brands it describes as "well known."

ORA has sold headphones directly to consumers through a Kickstarter campaign, but ran into some production delays along the way. It is now only pursuing a B2B strategy, like GraphAudio.

The two companies' products are not identical. GraphAudio uses stacked layers of 100% pure graphene. By contrast, ORA's "graphene oxide" includes oxygen, in addition to what co-founder Ari Pinkas called a "magic formula" of materials that enable ORA to mold its components into a variety of shapes depending on its customers' needs.

That difference matters, Pinkas said, because at this point graphene oxide is easier to produce at high volumes. Novoselov, the Nobel Prize winner, has praised the company for offering "one of the first consumer products to feature a high-content graphene technology."

Another key difference between ORA and GraphAudio is that ORA does not rely on an electrostatic speaker design but rather the more common electrodynamic coil (see below section). Pinkas said this has helped his company forge partnerships with brands that are testing the product.

GraphAudio's transducer, however, can dual-function as a highly sensitive microphone – for which the company also holds a patent. That could help Ramchandani's sales pitch, as reducing the number of parts in a consumer device by combining a speaker and microphone would open up valuable real estate on those devices.

This microphone capability is key to GraphAudio's longer-term plans. Since it can detect frequencies beyond the normal range of human perception – it has registered ultrasonic wild bat calls, for instance – it holds potential for applications well beyond consumer audio. Wilson noted that autonomous cars could use it to communicate with each other, and that it could also be used for medical and military purposes, among others.

So, while Ramchandani, Wilson and team have a product with plenty of promise, there's still a long road ahead.

"We're on the 1-yard line in terms of our development cycle," Ramchandani said.

Still, he expects his company will advance down the field rather quickly, predicting that products with GraphAudio inside will be available to consumers by 2022. A big payout could await.

"We recognize we have challenges," Goldring said, "but we see ourselves disrupting audio in much the same way flatscreens revolutionized video."

If GraphAudio overcomes its hurdles, Rondinelli concurs. "It's easy to imagine a scenario where these guys are shipping hundreds of millions of devices," he said.

How an Electrostatic Speaker Works

The more common dynamic speaker system compared to an electrostatic system, in this case with a graphene membrane

The most popular way to transduce electricity into sound has long been the dynamic coil speaker. It works by using a coil of wire and a magnetic current to nudge a magnet that physically pushes air through an open chamber, usually shaped like a cone; this creates vibrations that ultimately move the tiny hairs inside our ears, which our brains perceive as sound.

Electrostatic speakers work differently. Rather than using a transducer that relies on a magnetic field, coil and chamber to propel sound waves, they use an electric field to vibrate a round, flat and super-thin membrane which emits the pressure waves that we hear as sound.

Though still relatively rare, their development accelerated with World War II-era materials advances. Today the super-thin membrane is most commonly made from mylar, a type of plastic. MartinLogan sells electrostatic loudspeakers and Stax has a headphone version.

The speakers are typically more efficient at converting electrical energy into high-quality sound and tend to be more resistant to the deterioration that causes sound distortion.

But bass notes aren't traditionally as rich on electrostatic speakers, and they require relatively high levels of power. That usually means users must also buy an external amplifier, making them more expensive. GraphAudio believes that by replacing mylar with graphene, however, and pairing it with an amplifier that fits inside consumer hardware, it can overcome the shortcomings of electrostatics and make them ubiquitous, while improving battery life and even speeding up manufacturing.

---

Sam Blake primarily covers media and entertainment for dot.LA. Find him on Twitter @hisamblake and email him at samblake@dot.LA

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From Sunset Boulevard to Outer Space: LA’s Latest

🔦 Spotlight

Good Morning Beliebers and Los Angeles!

While Justin Bieber’s new album dropped last night, here’s what else is making headlines in Los Angeles this week.

Luma has opened its Dream Lab on Sunset Boulevard, boldly positioning itself at the forefront of AI-powered creativity. Known for transforming ordinary photos into cinematic 3D scenes, Luma is combining cutting-edge research with practical tools to build a playground for artists, engineers, and anyone ready to push the boundaries of visual storytelling. In their words: “From Hollywood blockbusters to the next generation of immersive media, this is where the magic happens.”

Meanwhile, well beyond our skyline, SpaceX reportedly hit an eye-popping $400 billion valuation in a recent share sale, making it one of the most valuable private companies ever. The milestone reflects both investors’ fervor for the commercial space race and LA’s unrivaled role as the launchpad of aerospace innovation.

LA continues to prove it can deliver on the ground, in the cloud, and far beyond the stars. See you next week.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

     
  • Varda Space Industries, the El Segundo–based company manufacturing pharmaceuticals in microgravity, has raised $187M in a Series C round led by Natural Capital and Shrug Capital, bringing its total funding to approximately $329M. The funds will support an increased launch cadence of robotic drug-production capsules, expansion of its El Segundo lab for biologic drug crystallization, and broader efforts to scale commercial microgravity-driven drug formulation and hypersonic reentry testing. - learn more

LA Venture Funds

  • Rebel Fund participated in Vellum’s $20M Series A round, which was led by Leaders Fund. The company helps businesses build and optimize LLM-powered applications. Vellum plans to grow its team and speed up product development with the new funding. - learn more
  • Bold Capital participated in a $31M Series B funding round for Aqtual, a Hayward, California based precision medicine startup developing a cutting edge cell free DNA (cfDNA) multiomics platform. The capital will help commercialize Aqtual’s flagship rheumatoid arthritis diagnostic, currently being tested in a 1,300 patient trial, and support expansion into other chronic and autoimmune diseases. - learn more
  • Strong Ventures invested in VERAMORE, a skincare brand focused on addressing early signs of aging in women. Since launching in March 2022, VERAMORE has grown over 300% annually, expanded to more than 16 products, and entered markets including Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Europe, and Korea. The funding will support its D2C growth, product-driven marketing, and planned global expansion starting with Japan in 2025 and the U.S. and Europe in 2026. - learn more
  • Mucker Capital joined a $3.7M seed funding round for Velvet Capital aimed at launching its DeFAI operating system and $VELVET governance token. Velvet’s vertically integrated DeFi toolkit combines AI-powered trading, portfolio management, APIs, and a native token to streamline on-chain investment for funds, DAOs, and individual traders. The funding will accelerate platform development, the rollout of its tokenomics, and broader adoption of its intent-based DeFi suite. - learn more
  • Btech Consortium Fund participated in a $8.5M Series A funding round for Castellum.AI, a New York based financial crime compliance platform that uses in‑house risk data, AI, and screening tools to help financial institutions manage AML/KYC compliance. The funds will be used to expand their team, enhance integrations with financial institutions, and accelerate adoption of their AI‑powered compliance solutions. - learn more
  • Bold Capital Partners joined the oversubscribed $45M Series A round for Centivax, a South San Francisco biotech company dedicated to developing a universal flu vaccine using a proprietary mRNA-based immune-engineering platform. Led by Future Ventures, the funding will help Centivax advance its lead candidate into Phase I clinical trials and expand its broader universal immunity pipeline targeting pathogens like RSV, HIV, and malaria. - learn more
  • Alpha Edison participated in Honor Education’s $38M Series A funding round for the San Francisco–based learning platform. Honor uses AI‑enhanced, mobile-first courses and credentialed programs to improve engagement and leadership development. The funding will be used to scale AI capabilities, personalize learning experiences, and expand the company’s operations and customer‑success teams to meet rising demand. - learn more
  • Wasserman Ventures participated in a $7M seed round for Fantasy Life, the fantasy sports platform founded by Matthew Berry. The funding will support the launch of Fantasy Life’s revamped platform, featuring new “Guillotine Leagues,” a modernized app experience, and enhanced content and tools to scale its audience and technology offerings. - learn more

LA Exits
  • El Segundo based Kaye Capital Management, a fee only RIA with approximately $700M in assets under management and $300M in assets under advisement, was acquired by Modern Wealth Management, marking its 17th acquisition and pushing its total AUM over $8.5B. The deal strengthens Modern Wealth’s presence in California and adds Kaye’s institutional retirement plan expertise to its suite of financial and retirement solutions for clients. - learn more
  • NIRx Medical Technologies was acquired by Gilde Healthcare’s private equity fund and combined with Artinis Medical Systems to form a world-leading neuroimaging group. Both companies will retain their brands and locations while collaborating on R&D, product development, and global expansion of their functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) tools to advance research in mental health, neurodegenerative diseases, and stroke rehabilitation. - learn more
  • Emotive, a conversational SMS marketing platform, has been acquired by Privy to create a unified solution for e-commerce brands that combines email, SMS, pop-ups, and real-time customer conversations. The integrated platform will help over 10,000 merchants simplify their marketing, personalize customer interactions, and strengthen relationships with dedicated strategists and transparent pricing. - learn more

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Tinder, Starlink, and Apple’s New Studio: This Week in LA

🔦 Spotlight

Happy Independence Day, Los Angeles! 🇺🇸

While you're celebrating freedom, here are some electrifying updates lighting up LA’s tech, satellite, and music scenes:

🔥 Tinder mandates Face Recognition in California

  Image Source: Tinder

Tinder is now requiring all new users in California to complete a biometric face check, a brief video selfie processed via FaceTec, to verify profiles are genuine. The video is deleted post-verification, though an encrypted face map remains while the account is active. This West Hollywood based move could redefine trust, safety, and privacy in mainstream consumer apps.

🌐 Starlink clears hurdle to launch in India

Elon Musk’s SpaceX backed Starlink has cleared most regulatory and licensing hurdles with India’s Department of Telecommunications, marking a key step toward launching satellite broadband in one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Final approvals from the national space regulator are pending, and services, expected to deliver high speed connectivity to underserved regions, could launch in the coming months. This is a major milestone for Starlink’s global expansion.

🎧 Apple Music opens Culver City creative hub

  Image Source: Apple

Apple Music is celebrating its anniversary by launching a brand new 15,000 square foot, three story studio in Culver City. The facility, featuring a 4,000 square foot soundstage, spatial audio suites, podcast booths, and more, is designed by Eric Owen Moss and slated to open mid August. It solidifies LA’s reputation as a creative powerhouse and reaffirms Apple’s commitment to investing in and nurturing our city's cultural ecosystem.

From dating apps to deep space to sound stages, LA isn’t just watching the future unfold, we’re building it.

Here’s to independence, imagination, and everything this city dares to launch next. Happy Fourth, Los Angeles.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

  • Castelion has raised a $350M Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners alongside Altimeter Capital to scale its hypersonic missile production capabilities. The El Segundo-based defense startup plans to use the funds to expand manufacturing, accelerate testing through its SpaceX-inspired rapid development model, and position itself as a cost-effective supplier of hypersonic weapons to the U.S. military and its allies. - learn more
  • Earth Sama, a Calabasas, California–based climate-tech platform that helps rural farming and Indigenous communities generate and manage carbon credits, secured investment from Omtse Ventures. The funding will support the rollout of Earth Sama’s blockchain-powered field app, climate-creator platform, and smart-contract tools to scale community-led carbon credit projects globally under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 framework. - learn more

            LA Venture Funds

            • Plassa Capital participated in Metafide’s $3.275M funding round. Miami based Metafide, the creator of SURGE, a gamified trading platform that combines AI neural networks and human insight, will use the funds to scale and launch SURGE into the market. - learn more
            • BOLD Capital Partners participated as a founding investor in Syntis Bio’s $33M Series A round, with an additional $5M in NIH grants. The Boston-based biotech is developing oral therapies for obesity and rare diseases, and the funding will help advance its SYNT platform, moving its lead obesity treatment, SYNT-101, into Phase 1 trials and supporting development of SYNT-202 for homocystinuria. - learn more
            • BAM Ventures participated in Cred’s $15M seed round for its predictive intelligence startup. San Francisco based Cred uses AI to unify company data with real time market signals and deliver actionable insights for sales and operations. The funding, led by defy.vc, will be used to scale Cred’s platform, expand its customer base, and grow team and product capabilities. - learn more
            • BOLD Capital Partners participated in Gallant’s $18M Series B round to advance its ready-to-use stem cell therapies for pets. The funding, led by Digitalis Ventures with additional support from NovaQuest Capital, will help Gallant bring its off-the-shelf regenerative treatments to market. - learn more
            • Rebel Fund joined the seed round for Rocketable, contributing to the $6.5M raised to build a portfolio of fully automated SaaS companies. San Francisco-based Rocketable, backed by True Ventures and others, uses AI agents to operate acquired software products, and Rebel’s support will help scale both the platform and acquisitions. - learn more 
                    LA Exits
                    • Leasepath, a cloud-first provider of equipment lease and loan management software, has been acquired by Solifi to enhance its mid-market offerings. The deal allows Solifi to expand Leasepath’s Microsoft Dynamics-based platform into new global markets while keeping Leasepath’s team and leadership in place. - learn more

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                              Senra Raises $25M to Rewire LA's Aerospace Supply Chain

                              🔦 Spotlight

                              Hello Los Angeles,

                              In the shadow of LA’s booming space and defense scene, a new kind of hardware startup is scaling up. And it's not building flying cars or flashy robots. It’s building the infrastructure that builds everything else.

                              This week, Senra Systems announced a $25 million Series A led by Dylan Field and CIV, with participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Pax Ventures. Their Redondo Beach-based facility is using custom automation, software, and new design tools to quadruple production speed. The goal is to solve a notoriously manual, bottleneck-prone part of the supply chain: wire harness manufacturing.

                              The company also launched Amp, a CAD software platform that bridges the gap between harness design and physical production. It's a process that has historically been slow, fragmented, and hard to scale. In other words, Senra isn’t just building machines. They’re rewiring the very systems that power aerospace, defense, and industrial tech.

                              It’s not sci-fi. It’s supply chain innovation. And it’s very LA.

                              Catch the latest LA venture deals, acquisitions, and fund updates below.

                              🤝 Venture Deals

                              LA Companies

                              • 2wai, co-founded by actor Calum Worthy and producer Russell Geyser, has emerged from stealth with the launch of its avatar-based social app, allowing users to create lifelike “HoloAvatars” in under three minutes for real-time, multi-language conversations. The platform gives individuals, especially creators and entertainers, control over their digital likeness by restricting avatar responses to pre-approved information, helping counter deepfake threats. The launch follows a $5 million pre-seed raise and sets the stage for broader use by celebrities, brands, and educational partners. - learn more
                              • Superfiliate secured a $2M strategic growth round led by HappyStack to fuel its rapid expansion in the creator commerce space. The platform, which automates influencer and affiliate marketing for CPG and DTC brands via deep Meta and TikTok integrations, has achieved an impressive 400% year-over-year growth. The investment will support scaling its automation engine, deepening social commerce partnerships, and onboarding more e-commerce brands. - learn more
                              • Gemist, a Los Angeles–based jewelry-tech startup, secured $6M in seed funding from Entrada Ventures, Artemis Fund, and Collide Capital, bringing its total funding to $9M. The platform offers real-time 3D visualizations, dynamic pricing, and integrated e-commerce for custom fine jewelry, and is used weekly by over 14,000 customers to design personalized pieces. The new capital will enhance its visualization tools, pricing engine, and commerce features as Gemist expands its footprint. - learn more
                              • Chronicle Studios has raised an oversubscribed $11.6M seed round co-led by Patron and Point72 Ventures to fuel the development of original, audience-driven franchises. Founded by former DreamWorks and Warner Bros. exec Chris deFaria and tech entrepreneur Aaron Sisto, the LA-based studio plans to invest in independent creators and build AI-powered tools, like automated YouTube thumbnails and social analytics, to help storytellers grow and monetize their IP. - learn more
                              • Stackup, a developer platform for crypto applications, has raised a $4.2M in seed funding round led by 1kx. Stackup helps crypto businesses build better user experiences and manage on-chain user data, and the funding will be used to grow its engineering team and expand support for more blockchain networks. - learn more
                              • Doên, a fashion brand known for its vintage-inspired, California aesthetic, has closed a growth equity round led by Silas Capital. The funding will help the company expand its retail footprint, grow its team, and scale operations. Doên plans to continue building its community-driven brand while deepening its commitment to sustainability and women's empowerment. - learn more
                              • Root has raised a $9M seed funding round led by Konvoy and Headline, to develop its platform for managing online communities. The app, currently in closed beta, enables users to build custom tools like raid planners and task trackers right into their social experience. The fresh capital will fuel team expansion and product development ahead of a broader rollout. - learn more
                              • AndrenaM, a defense-tech startup founded by a former SpaceX engineer, raised $10M in just 36 hours. The company is building an AI-powered maritime sensing network using sonar-equipped buoys to provide real-time underwater surveillance. The funding, led by First Round Capital, will support team expansion, custom hardware development, and scaled deployments off the California coast. - learn more

                                      LA Venture Funds

                                      • Westlake Village BioPartners joined Neuron23’s $96.5M Series D financing round. The capital will fund the global Phase 2 NEULARK trial of NEU‑41, a brain-penetrant LRRK2 inhibitor for early-stage Parkinson’s disease, as well as support commercial and R&D scale-up. Neuron23 also announced that the first patient has been dosed in the NEULARK study, with initial results expected in 2027. - learn more
                                      • Fika Ventures participated in Spinwheel’s recent $30 M Series A round led by F‑Prime Capital. The funds will be used to accelerate their AI-powered platform that streamlines debt and credit management, reducing friction in account authentication, automating payments, and integrating liability data, all to deliver instant, developer-friendly credit APIs. This investment supports rapid growth across fintech and banking partners aiming to improve consumer credit outcomes. - learn more
                                      • Chaac Ventures participated in a $7M seed funding round for Meridian, a New York and Miami‑based startup using its AI-powered deal management platform to help private equity firms streamline sourcing, automate workflows, and improve diligence efficiency. The funding will accelerate product enhancements, expand the global go‑to‑market strategy, and deepen its traction with large institutional investors. - learn more
                                      • WME joined a debut funding round for haircare disruptor isima, which raised over $12M to accelerate its launch. Shakira-backed and science-driven, isima will use the capital to scale operations, expand product development, and roll out via isima.com and placements at Ulta Beauty (U.S. in July; Mexico in August), debuting across nearly 30 global markets. - learn more
                                      • M13 participated in Maven AGI’s Series B round, which raised $50M to expand its Business AGI platform for enterprise use. The funding brings Maven’s total capital raised to $78M. The company will use the investment to accelerate product development and go-to-market efforts as it scales its AI platform that unifies customer journeys across support, sales, and operations. - learn more
                                      • Alexandria Venture Investments joined GeneCentric Therapeutics’ $8M Series C round. The funding will support the commercial launch of GenomicsNext™, a groundbreaking liquid biopsy platform that combines extensive gene expression profiling with high‑fidelity DNA variant detection from ctDNA. This capital is expected to carry GeneCentric through 2026 and to help it scale predictive biomarker development for oncology applications. - learn more
                                      • MTech Capital and B Capital participated in COVR Global’s $2.5M seed round, led by MTech Capital. The funding will help COVR develop its AI-powered Decision Engine—a modular platform that enables insurers to make instant, data-driven claims decisions, such as coverage validation, liability assessment, and settlement automation. The investment will fuel product development and team growth as COVR scales across the UK, Spain, Japan, and Australia - learn more
                                      • Bedrock and Khosla Ventures co-led Mach Industries’ $100M Series B round. The defense-tech startup will use the capital to ramp up production at its Forge Huntington factory, grow its Mach Propulsion engine division, and further develop and deploy its advanced unmanned systems—Viper, Glide, and Stratos. This funding brings Mach’s total raised to about $185M as it scales vertically integrated defense manufacturing. - learn more
                                      • Fifth Wall participated in Juniper Square’s Series D funding round, which secured $130M at a $1.1 billion valuation. The investment will be used to accelerate the development and deployment of JunieAI, an AI-powered, agentic platform tailored specifically for private markets general partners to streamline investor relations, reporting, and fund administration. - learn more
                                      • Mucker Capital led CarePilot’s $2.5M seed round, with participation from KCRise Fund. The Overland Park-based startup will use the funding to further develop its AI-powered tools including its new “ProblemAssist” diagnostic and coding tool and expand its team as it scales solutions for healthcare providers. - learn more
                                      • Prototype Capital participated in Sunrise Robotics’ seed round, which raised $8.5M to emerge from stealth and advance its factory automation technology. The Ljubljana-based startup develops dual‑arm robotic cells trained in simulated environments, enabling rapid, cost-effective deployment and continuous learning across a fleet. The funds will be used to scale AI and simulation capabilities, expand team and manufacturing across Europe, and deepen customer deployments in sectors like electronics, supercars, and battery production. - learn more
                                            LA Exits
                                            • Comco, the pioneer behind the MicroBlaster® micro-precision sandblasting system, has been acquired by Medical Manufacturing Technologies (MMT), a portfolio company of Arcline Investment Management. This strategic move integrates Comco’s advanced abrasive technology into MMT’s suite, expanding its capabilities in precision microblasting for medical, aerospace, microelectronics, and industrial applications. MMT CEO Robbie Atkinson emphasized that the acquisition strengthens their end-to-end manufacturing offerings, while Comco President Colin Weightman joins MMT to drive continued innovation and customer growth. - learn more
                                            • 3BlackDot, the creator-first gaming and digital media studio known for popular YouTube franchises like Gaming While Black and Alpha Betas, has been acquired by Offscript Worldwide, the parent company of Revolt. With an audience of over 128 million subscribers, the acquisition marks Offscript’s entry into the $347 billion gaming industry and strengthens its creator-led IP development and distribution capabilities. 3BlackDot will now leverage Offscript’s infrastructure to scale its cultural impact while maintaining its creator-first approach. - learn more
                                            • Dr. Squatch, the fast-growing natural men’s grooming brand known for its social-first marketing and strong DTC presence, is being acquired by Unilever from Summit Partners. The move gives Unilever access to a brand with viral campaigns, influencer collaborations, and revenues reportedly around $400M, enhancing its premium personal care offerings. The deal is expected to close later this year pending regulatory approvals. - learn more
                                            • CloudSoda has been acquired by Diskover Data, combining CloudSoda’s intuitive data orchestration and automation with Diskover’s enterprise-scale indexing, metadata enrichment, and AI-ready infrastructure. This comes alongside Diskover’s $7.5M seed round, led by Snowflake Ventures and NetApp, positioning the company to accelerate unified, intelligent management of unstructured data. - learn more
                                            • Inspire Clean Energy has been acquired by Rhythm Energy, significantly expanding Inspire’s reach beyond its original markets. The merger creates one of the largest independent green energy retailers in the U.S., combining Inspire’s subscription-based, 100% renewable electricity plans with Rhythm’s technology-driven platform. This union positions the combined company to serve millions more customers nationwide, offering enhanced digital tools, demand-response programs, and time-of-use pricing to promote clean energy adoption. - learn more

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