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On the heels of a record-setting year for Southern California’s startup environment, we asked more than 30 leading Los Angeles-based investors for their take on the city’s top venture capitalists. (Specifically, we prompted: “Which L.A.-based VCs impress you the most?”) They responded with the names of 45 peers that they admire—14 of whom made the following list by receiving two or more votes.
The results offer an insider’s view of the L.A.’s startup scene in 2022—which, even as it rapidly expands, remains an insular world led by a handful of key dealmakers, like the venture capital industry at large. This year, TenOneTen partner Minnie Ingersoll and Bonfire Ventures managing director Mark Mullen tied for the top spot, with five votes apiece; they were followed by Wonder Ventures managing partner Dustin Rosen, who received four votes. Behind them, five VCs tied for third place with three votes each, while another six investors round up the list with two votes apiece.
Like last year’s list (which also featured Bonfire’s Mullen in the top spot), the below results are sorted by the number of votes each VC received; where there were ties, we list the investors alphabetically by their last names. As always, we asked survey participants not to vote for any of their colleagues—and vetted the list to ensure they stuck to that rule.
Without further ado ado, here are LA’s top VCs of 2022, as judged by their peers.
Minnie Ingersoll, TenOneTen Ventures
Minnie Ingersoll is a partner at early-stage venture firm TenOneTen, whose recent investments include crypto travel rewards startup FlyCoin. Prior to TenOneTen, she co-founded Shift Technologies, an online marketplace for buying and selling used cars. Ingersoll also spent more than a decade at Google, where she focused on the tech giant’s fiber optic, advertising and charitable efforts. (She also hosts dot.LA’s LA Venture podcast.)
Mark Mullen, Bonfire Ventures
Mark Mullen is co-founder and managing director of Bonfire Ventures, an early-stage venture firm that backs business-to-business (B2B) software startups. (Recent investments include cloud communications startup Telgorithm.) Mullen previously managed venture funds Double M Partners and Mull Capital. In January, an SEC filing revealed that Bonfire aimed to raise $165 million for its third fund. (Disclosure: Mullen is an investor in dot.LA.)
Dustin Rosen, Wonder Ventures
Dustin Rosen is the founder and managing partner of Wonder Ventures, an early stage investor in companies including L.A.-based unicorns Whatnot and Bird. Earlier in his career, Rosen founded the fashion app Pose and was a senior associate at the Mail Room Fund. Last month, Wonder launched a $31 million fund focused exclusively on early-stage L.A. startups.
Jim Andelman, Bonfire Ventures
Alongside Mark Mullen, Jim Andelman is a co-founder and managing director at Bonfire Ventures, an early-stage venture firm focused on B2B software startups. Previously, he oversaw software deals for Bay Area investment firm Broadview Capital Partners.
Anna Barber, M13
Anna Barber is a partner at M13, a venture firm focused on early-stage consumer tech companies. (Recent investments include NFT startup Unblocked.) Barber is also an advisor to the USC Marshall Venture Fund. She previously led Techstars LA as its managing director and co-founded Scribble Press, a New York-based book publishing startup. (Disclosure: M13 is an investor in dot.LA.)
Eva Ho, Fika Ventures
Eva Ho is a general partner at Fika Ventures, a seed-stage firm that focuses on sectors including AI, automation and big data. Ho formerly worked at Google and served as entrepreneur-in-residence for the city of Los Angeles.
Jeff Morris, Chapter One
Jeff Morris is the founder and managing partner of Chapter One, a venture firm targeting early-stage web3 startups. The former Tinder executive’s previous investments include Dapper Labs, Lyft, Cameo and PearPop.
Dana Settle, Greycroft
Dana Settle is a co-founder and managing partner at Greycroft, which has backed consumer-focused startups including Acorns, Goop and Bumble. The Lehman Brothers alum helped Greycroft close two funds worth nearly $700 million combined in late 2020. (Disclosure: Greycroft is an investor in dot.LA.)
Josh Diamond, Walkabout Ventures
Josh Diamond is a general partner at Walkabout Ventures, a seed-stage venture firm that primarily targets fintech startups. Diamond previously served as a principal investor at Clocktower Technology Ventures.
Buck Jordan, Wavemaker Labs
Buck Jordan is the founder and CEO of Wavemaker Labs, which funds and incubates startups in partnership with larger corporations. Wavemaker has especially targeted the food industry supply chain space—backing automated technologies at both the agricultural and food preparation stages that deploy AI and robotics.
Kara Nortman, Upfront Ventures
Kara Nortman is a managing partner at Upfront Ventures. An alum of IAC, Battery Ventures and Microsoft, Nortman previously co-founded children’s ecommerce startup Moonfrye and also helped launch women’s professional soccer club Angel City FC. Upfront raised $177 million for a new fund in January; local portfolio companies include GOAT, Creator Now and Endgame. (Disclosure: Upfront Ventures is an investor in dot.LA.)
Spencer Rascoff, 75 & Sunny
Spencer Rascoff is a co-founder and general partner at 75 & Sunny, a venture firm and startup incubator. Focused on sectors including proptech and ecommerce, Rascoff previously co-founded Zillow, Hotwire.com and real estate platform Pacaso (Disclosure: Rascoff is the co-founder and executive chairman of dot.LA.)
Adriana Saman, Clocktower Technology Ventures
Adriana Saman is a principal at Clocktower Technology Ventures, a venture firm investing in early-stage fintech startups across the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Saman was previously an analyst at JPMorgan Chase.
Sara Zayani, Global Founders Capital
Sarra Zayani is a partner at Global Founders Capital. The Greycroft alum has led Global Founders’ investments in local startups including Cann, Universal Hydrogen and Pacaso.
Hello LA.
The entertainment industry has spent the past several years debating what generative AI could take from creators.
This week, some of its biggest companies put money behind an AI startup promising to build something for them instead.
Los Angeles-based Stability AI raised $76M in Series B funding from an investor group that includes Electronic Arts, Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. AMD Ventures and Pacific Alliance Ventures also joined the round, while LA-based MANTIS Capital and Sound Ventures are among the company’s existing backers.
The financing brings Stability AI’s total funding under CEO Prem Akkaraju to $232M, including two equity rounds and convertible notes. The company plans to use the new capital to expand its creative production tools, applied research and professional services across music, gaming and entertainment.
The amount is notable. The names attached to it are the bigger story.
Generative AI’s arrival in entertainment has been anything but quiet. Artists have questioned whether their work was used to train models without permission. Studios have faced pressure over how the technology could affect jobs. Record labels have pursued AI companies in court while simultaneously exploring how the same technology might fit into their businesses.
Now, several of the world’s largest entertainment companies are investing directly in one.
That does not mean the industry has resolved its concerns about AI. It means some of its biggest players would rather help shape the technology than wait to see what it becomes.
Stability AI is positioning itself for that opening. Rather than focusing solely on general-purpose models, the company is building tools specifically for professional creatives. Its recently launched Stable Audio 3.0 was trained on fully licensed music and lets artists generate, edit and arrange audio through a web platform or directly inside digital audio workstations.
Image Source: Stability AI
That licensed-data approach is central to the pitch. The next phase of creative AI will not be decided only by which company produces the most impressive model. It will also depend on which companies can earn the trust of the artists, studios and rights holders whose work gives those models value.
For its new strategic investors, the round offers more than financial upside. It creates a closer view into how generative AI may change production, a voice in how the tools develop and an opportunity to establish rules before those rules are established for them.
For Stability AI, the backing provides something equally important: credibility inside industries that have every reason to scrutinize what it is building.
The company now has capital and access to some of the largest catalogs, franchises and creative workforces in entertainment. What it does with that access will determine whether this becomes a meaningful alliance or simply an impressive collection of logos.
Either way, the industry is no longer watching from a safe distance.
It has entered the room.
LA’s Air-Taxi Plans Are Coming Downtown
While Stability AI is trying to change how entertainment gets made, Archer Aviation wants to change how people get to it.
AEG and Archer announced plans to develop downtown Los Angeles’ first vertiport at L.A. LIVE, creating a potential new stop in Archer’s proposed electric air-taxi network ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Image Source: Archer
The planned site would sit beside Crypto.com Arena and allow passengers to travel to and from the entertainment district aboard Archer’s Midnight aircraft. The company says its network could turn drives that take an hour or longer into electric flights lasting approximately 10 to 20 minutes.
Archer has already identified SoFi Stadium, USC and Hollywood Burbank Airport as possible locations, with its recently acquired Hawthorne Airport expected to serve as the network’s central operating hub. As the official air-taxi provider of LA28 and Team USA, Archer has an unusually visible deadline for turning those plans into something tangible.
AEG and Archer have completed an initial feasibility study of the L.A. LIVE site, including reviews of land use, airspace, power availability and community impact. The next phase will examine operations and the passenger experience.
There is still a substantial distance between a proposed vertiport and a functioning air-taxi network. The infrastructure must be built, regulatory approvals must be secured and passengers must be persuaded that flying across the city is safer and more practical than staying on the ground.
Still, few locations could make that future feel more real than L.A. LIVE. Millions of people already pass through the district for concerts, games and major events. Placing a vertiport there would bring urban air mobility out of the concept stage and directly into public view.
Together, this week’s announcements show Los Angeles becoming a testing ground for two technologies still moving from promise toward everyday use.
One could reshape how entertainment is created. The other could reshape how Angelenos reach it.
In a city famous for both its creative industries and its traffic, that feels appropriately on brand.
More from this week’s LA startup and venture scene below.
LA Companies
LA Exits
Happy Friday, Los Angeles.
Castelion has spent the past four years trying to prove that hypersonic missiles do not need to take decades to develop or cost so much that the military can only afford a limited supply.
Now comes the harder part: producing them at scale.
The Torrance-based defense startup raised a $1B Series C at a $13B valuation. The financing includes $800M in equity and a $250M revolving credit facility, making it one of the largest recent raises for an LA defense technology company.
JPMorganChase’s Strategic Investment Group, Andreessen Horowitz and Carlyle co-led the round. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Lavrock Ventures, Altimeter, General Catalyst, T. Rowe Price and LA-based Interlagos Capital also participated.
Castelion will use the capital to ramp production of Blackbeard, its low-cost hypersonic strike missile, while developing a longer-range precision weapon and new defensive systems. Hundreds of millions of dollars will go toward expanding manufacturing at Project Ranger, the company’s 1,000-acre production campus in New Mexico.
Image Source: Castelion
Blackbeard was designed in California, will be built in New Mexico and is expected to enter service in 2027. Castelion says it has already secured more than $500M in U.S. military contracts over the past 18 months and moved the missile from a clean-sheet concept to an official program in fewer than four years.
That timeline is central to Castelion’s pitch. Traditional defense programs are often associated with long development cycles, limited production runs and eye-watering costs. Castelion is applying the rapid testing and vertically integrated manufacturing approach popularized by commercial space companies to weapons production.
But a $13B valuation changes the standard. Castelion is no longer being judged as a promising startup with an impressive prototype. It is being funded like a company expected to become a major part of the American defense industrial base.
The question is no longer whether a startup can build a hypersonic missile. It is whether one can manufacture thousands of them without losing the speed, discipline and cost advantages that made it disruptive in the first place.
For LA’s defense ecosystem, that shift matters. The region has become home to a growing number of companies promising to modernize how America builds critical hardware. Castelion now has the capital, contracts and facilities to show what happens when that promise reaches the factory floor.
The next test will not be in a pitch deck. It will be in production.
More from this week’s LA startup and venture scene below.
LA Companies
