🛰️LA Is Emerging as a Space Powerhouse—And Investors Are Lining Up

• Alexandria Venture Investments participated as an existing investor in Ten63 Therapeutics’ latest strategic financing, which also included participation from Morpheus Ventures and added new backers such as Chugai Venture Fund and the Gates Foundation, bringing total funding to more than $45M. Ten63 says it will use the capital to scale BEYOND, its AI-driven “Large Quantum Chemistry Model” platform for designing small-molecule drugs against historically “undruggable” targets, including programs in oncology and an HPV-focused effort supported by the Gates Foundation.- learn more

• B Capital participated in Code Metal’s $125M Series B, a round led by Salesforce Ventures that valued the company at $1.25B, alongside investors including Accel, J2 Ventures, Shield Capital, Smith Point Capital, and others.Code Metal says it will use the new capital to expand engineering, accelerate product development, grow government and commercial partnerships, and scale go-to-market for its “verifiable” AI code generation and translation platform used in mission-critical environments. - learn more

• Bonfire Ventures co-led Odynn’s $9.5M seed round alongside 8VC, with participation from Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst. Odynn says it’s building personalized AI infrastructure for travel companies, aiming to replace one-size-fits-all booking portals with dynamic experiences that tailor search, recommendations, and conversion flows to each traveler. - learn more

• MTech Capital led Qumis’s $4.3M oversubscribed seed round, which also brought in American Family Ventures as a new strategic investor and pushed total funding to $6.75M. The company says it’s building an attorney-trained AI platform for commercial insurance “coverage intelligence,” and will use the funding to expand go-to-market and deepen product capabilities as adoption grows among large brokers and carriers (including NFP). - learn more

• WndrCo participated in Mansa’s seed funding round, which the company says totaled $12M and was led by MaC Venture Capital. Mansa is now launching a vertical “micro-drama” format inside its app, debuting with the 27-episode original series The Heiress, The Baller & The Secret Society and positioning the feature as a mobile-first way to release serialized stories globally. - learn more

• Alpha Edison co-led Ownwell’s $50M Series B, with Wonder Ventures participating alongside investors including Mercato Partners, Intuit Ventures, Left Lane Capital, First Round Capital, Long Journey Ventures, and PROOF Fund. The round includes $30M in equity and $20M in debt financing from Western Alliance Bank, and Ownwell says it will use the capital to expand nationally and simplify the property-tax appeal process through a new “National Appeals Packet” product. - learn more

• Three Six Zero participated as an existing investor in Hook’s $10M Series A, which was led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Point72 Ventures, Imaginary Ventures, and Waverley Capital, bringing Hook’s total funding to $16M. Hook is an artist-first social platform that lets fans legally remix licensed songs using simple AI-powered tools and share them across social platforms, and it says the new capital will fund user growth plus product expansion like an Android app, richer creation formats, and deeper ecosystem integrations. - learn more

• Overture Ventures participated as an existing investor in Zero Homes’ $16.8M Series A, which was led by Prelude Ventures alongside SJF Ventures and the Exelon Foundation. Zero Homes says it’s using the funding to expand into new markets, broaden its home-upgrade offerings, and grow its contractor network, powered by a smartphone-based “digital twin” approach that produces upgrade designs and pricing remotely. - learn more

• Rebel Fund participated in Sphinx’s $7.1M seed round, which was led by Cherry Ventures alongside Y Combinator, Deel Ventures, and Singularity Capital. Sphinx is building browser-native compliance agents that work inside banks’ and fintechs’ existing tools to automate AML, KYC, and KYB work, with the new funding earmarked to scale that “agentic compliance workforce.” - learn more

• Matter Venture Partners led ChipAgents’ oversubscribed $50M Series A1, bringing total capital raised to $74M, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Micron, MediaTek, and Ericsson. ChipAgents says it will use the new funding to scale its agentic AI platform for chip design and verification, expand engineering and research, and accelerate global deployment of multi-agent “chip teams,” alongside a new HQ buildout in Santa Clara. - learn more

• MemorialCare Innovation Fund participated in SpendRule’s $2M round, which was led by Abundant Venture Partners with additional backing from Zeal Capital Partners. SpendRule is emerging from stealth with an AI-driven platform that helps hospitals validate invoices against complex contract terms before payments go out, aiming to reduce overspending and “contract leakage” across purchased services. The company says early customers include health systems like MemorialCare, Kettering Health, and MUSC Health. - learn more

LA Exits

• Fred Segal is being acquired by Aritzia, which is buying the brand’s rights/IP (terms not disclosed) and planning a revival under its ownership. Melrose Avenue is central to the deal too, since Aritzia is also taking a lease on Fred Segal’s iconic ivy-covered site at 8100 Melrose as part of the comeback plan. - learn more

• The Expert is being acquired by Havenly in an all-equity deal (terms not disclosed), bringing The Expert’s high-end virtual designer consultations and trade-oriented marketplace into Havenly’s broader home and commerce ecosystem. Lee Anne Blake will join Havenly as chief commercial officer, and while The Expert will remain a standalone website, Havenly plans to plug in its tech to strengthen The Expert’s purchasing and procurement tools for designers. - learn more

• Allomer Capital Group participated in TRUCE Software’s newly closed Series B, a round led by Yttrium with additional backing from New Amsterdam Growth Capital. The company did not disclose the amount, but says it will use the funding to scale go-to-market for two mobile-first product suites: an AI video telematics platform for commercial fleets that runs on standard smartphones, and TRUCE Family, a software approach to limiting student phone distractions in K–12 schools. - learn more

• Wonder Ventures participated in The Biological Computing Company’s $25M seed round, which was led by Primary Venture Partners alongside Builders VC, Refactor Capital, E1 Ventures, Proximity, and Tusk Ventures. The startup is commercializing “biological compute,” connecting living neurons to modern AI systems to make certain tasks dramatically more energy-efficient, and says its first product shows a 23x retained improvement in video model efficiency while also helping discover new AI architectures. - learn more

• Bonfire Ventures co-led Santé’s $7.6M seed round, with backing from Operator Collective, Y Combinator, and Veridical Ventures. Santé is building an AI- and fintech-driven operating system for wine and liquor retailers that brings POS, inventory, e-commerce, delivery orders, and invoice workflows into one platform to replace a lot of manual, fragmented processes. - learn more

• B Capital co-led Apptronik’s initial 2025 Series A and participated again in the company’s new $520M Series A extension, bringing the total Series A to $935M+ (nearly $1B raised overall). The company says it will use the fresh capital to ramp production and deployments of its Apollo humanoid robots and invest in facilities for robot training and data collection, with the extension also bringing in new backers like AT&T Ventures, John Deere, and Qatar Investment Authority alongside repeat investors including Google and Mercedes-Benz. - learn more

• WndrCo participated in Inertia Enterprises’s new $450M Series A, a round led by Bessemer Venture Partners with additional investors including GV, Modern Capital, and Threshold Ventures. The company says it will use the milestone-based financing to commercialize laser-based fusion built on physics proven at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, including building its “Thunderwall” high-power laser system and scaling a production line to mass-manufacture fusion fuel targets. - learn more

• Riot Ventures participated as a returning investor in Integrate’s $17M Series A, which was led by FPV Ventures with participation from Fuse VC and Rsquared VC. Integrate is pitching an ultra-secure project management platform built for classified, multi-organization programs, and says it has become a requirement for certain U.S. Space Force launch efforts. The company plans to use the new funding to ship additional capabilities for government customers and scale go-to-market across the defense tech sector. - learn more

• MANTIS Ventures participated in Project Omega’s $12M oversubscribed seed round, which was led by Starship Ventures alongside Buckley Ventures, Decisive Point, Slow Ventures, and others. Project Omega is emerging from stealth to build an end-to-end nuclear fuel recycling capability in the U.S., aiming to turn spent nuclear fuel into long-duration power sources and critical materials, with early lab demonstrations underway and an ARPA-E partnership to validate a commercially viable recycling pathway. - learn more

• Plus Capital participated in Garner Health’s $118M round, which was led by Khosla Ventures with additional backing from Founders Fund and existing investors including Maverick Ventures and Thrive Capital, valuing the company at $1.35B. Garner says it helps employers steer members to high-quality doctors using its “Smart Match” provider recommendations and a reimbursement-style incentive called “Garner Rewards,” and it will use the funding to expand its offerings, grow its care team, and scale partnerships with payers and health systems. - learn more

• Emerging Ventures co-led Taiv’s $13M Series A+ alongside IDC Ventures, with continued support from investors including Y Combinator and Garage Capital. Taiv says it will use the funding to scale its “Business TV” platform, which uses AI to detect and swap TV commercials in venues like bars and restaurants with more relevant ads and on-screen content, as it expands across major North American markets. - learn more

LA Exits

• Mattel163 is being acquired by Mattel, which is buying out NetEase’s remaining 50% stake and valuing the mobile games studio at $318M. The deal gives Mattel full ownership and control of the team behind its IP driven mobile titles, strengthening its in-house publishing and user acquisition capabilities as it expands its digital games business. - learn more

• DJ Mex Corp. is set to be acquired in part by Marwynn Holdings, which signed a non-binding letter of intent to purchase a 51% stake in the U.S.-based e-waste sourcing and logistics company. The deal would bring DJ Mex into Marwynn’s EcoLoopX platform to expand its asset-light “reverse supply chain” services for recyclable materials, though it’s still subject to due diligence and final agreements. - learn more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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