Forget Rockets, This Long Beach Startup Spins Satellites Into Orbit

• Distributed Global co-led Superstate’s $82.5M Series B, backing the Robert Leshner - founded tokenization platform as it builds regulated, on-chain capital markets infrastructure. The round, alongside Bain Capital Crypto and other institutional investors, will help Superstate expand beyond its existing tokenized U.S. Treasury funds to a full issuance layer for SEC-registered equities on Ethereum and Solana. The company, which already manages over $1.1B in tokenized assets, plans to scale its Opening Bell platform and transfer agent stack so public companies can issue and manage compliant on-chain shares directly. - learn more

• Krew Capital participated in GIGR (Playad.ai)’s $5.4M pre-seed round, backing the San Francisco based startup as it builds multi-agent AI workflows for marketing teams. GIGR’s Playad platform starts with interactive ads, using AI agents to help marketers create, test and iterate on playable and other ad formats much faster while turning performance data into continuous creative improvement. The new funding will support product development, expansion of its AI-native creative workflow and scaling to more customers looking to cut production costs and tighten the loop between ad performance and creative decisions. - learn more

• Trousdale Ventures participated in AheadComputing’s additional $30M Seed2 round, backing the Portland-based chip startup as it reimagines CPU architecture for the AI era. AheadComputing is developing high-performance RISC-V based CPUs and breakthrough microarchitecture aimed at handling the growing wave of AI data center, workstation and embedded workloads where CPU performance has become a bottleneck. The new funding, which brings total capital raised to $53M, will support R&D, software innovation and test chip development as the company races to deliver next-generation general purpose processors. - learn more

• Untapped Ventures participated in Nexxa.ai’s $9M seed round, backing the Sunnyvale-based startup as it scales specialized AI agents for heavy-industry workflows. Nexxa’s Nitro platform layers multi-agent automation on top of existing tools used in sectors like rail, construction, manufacturing and critical infrastructure, helping engineers plan and execute complex projects without ripping out legacy systems. The new funding brings Nexxa.ai’s total capital raised to $14M and will go toward expanding deployments, forward-deployed engineering teams and support for more industrial customers. - learn more

• UP.Partners participated in Zanskar’s $115M Series C, backing the Salt Lake City based geothermal startup as it uses AI to uncover overlooked conventional geothermal resources across the Western U.S. The company has already validated several high-potential sites and plans to use the funding to expand its discovery platform and begin developing multiple greenfield power plants, with a goal of bringing significant new clean baseload capacity to the grid before 2030. - learn more

• Smash Capital participated in Stream’s $90M Series D, backing the UK based workplace finance startup as it ramps expansion into the U.S. market. Formerly known as Wagestream, Stream partners with employers to offer workers tools like earned wage access, savings, budgeting and pensions in a single app, targeting financial stress for lower and middle income employees. The new funding, led by Sofina, brings total capital raised to about $228M and will help Stream scale its multi-product platform across more brands and workers globally. - learn more

• Fika Ventures participated in Ivo’s $55M funding round, backing the San Francisco based legal AI startup alongside lead investor Blackbird and others. Ivo builds contract intelligence tools for in-house legal teams and enterprises, using a highly structured approach that breaks reviews into hundreds of smaller AI tasks to boost accuracy and reduce hallucinations. The new capital, which reportedly values the company at around $355M, will go toward accelerating product development and hiring more sales and go-to-market talent to meet growing demand. - learn more

• Amplify.LA participated in Overworld’s latest funding round, backing the AI startup as it unveils a real-time diffusion world model for playable, AI-native worlds. Overworld’s system runs locally and generates persistent, interactive environments on the fly, aiming to become core infrastructure for next-generation games, simulations and creative tools built around world models rather than static assets. The new capital will support further development of its Waypoint 1 research preview and help the team expand its platform for researchers, engineers and builders working on interactive AI experiences. - learn more

• Dangerous Ventures participated in Carbogenics’ $3M investment and grant funding round, backing the Edinburgh-based bio-carbon startup as it scales its carbon removal technology. Carbogenics turns difficult-to-recycle organic waste into CreChar, a biochar product that boosts biogas production, supports wastewater treatment and locks away carbon. The new funding will help the company expand manufacturing in the US, grow its centralized UK operations and deploy its biocarbon products across the UK, Europe and North America. - learn more

LA Exits

• Farcaster is being acquired by Neynar, the infrastructure company that already powers much of the Farcaster ecosystem, in a full-stack handoff from Merkle Manufactory. Neynar will assume control of the decentralized social protocol’s smart contracts, code repositories, official app and Clanker client, while Farcaster co-founders Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan step back from day-to-day operations after five years. The deal keeps the network running without disruption and sets Neynar up to roll out a new, builder-focused roadmap for on-chain social. - learn more

• ScribbleVet has been acquired by Instinct Science, which is folding the veterinary AI-scribing startup into its Instinct EMR platform to create what it calls an “intelligent-native” practice management system. The combined offering aims to move traditional PIMS beyond record-keeping by embedding AI scribing, workflow automation and clinical decision support in one system, reducing documentation burden and helping veterinary teams focus more on patient care. ScribbleVet’s team is joining Instinct, with founder and CEO Rohan Relan taking on a key role leading product strategy for intelligence features across the platform. - learn more

• Blue Bear Capital joined Hydrosat’s $60M Series B, backing the thermal infrared satellite data company alongside lead investors Hartree Partners, Subutai Capital Partners and Space 4 Earth. The funding will help Hydrosat expand its constellation beyond its two current satellites, ramp global coverage and deepen its AI-powered “thermal intelligence” products for water resource management, agriculture, civil government and defense customers worldwide. - learn more

• Elysian Park Ventures led a $12M growth round for Diamond Kinetics, backing the Pittsburgh-based baseball tech company as it doubles down on youth development. The new capital will help Diamond Kinetics scale sidelineHD, its AI-powered youth baseball and softball live streaming and highlights platform, and expand its broader suite of training tools as MLB’s Trusted Youth Development Platform. - learn more

• MANTIS Ventures participated in Depthfirst’s $40M Series A round, backing the San Francisco based applied AI lab alongside lead investor Accel, Alt Capital, BoxGroup, Liquid 2 Ventures and SV Angel. Depthfirst is building an AI-native “General Security Intelligence” platform that uses autonomous agents to detect, triage and remediate software vulnerabilities across code and infrastructure, aiming to outpace a new wave of AI-powered cyberattacks. The fresh capital will fund R&D, go-to-market efforts and hiring as the company scales its security platform for enterprise customers. - learn more

• Cedars-Sinai Health Ventures participated in Vista AI’s $29.5M Series B, joining a slate of leading health systems backing the company’s automated MRI scanning software. The Palo Alto-based startup will use the funding to expand its FDA-cleared cardiac MRI platform to additional anatomies like brain, prostate and spine, and to roll out remote scanning services that let hospitals without in-house MRI expertise offer advanced imaging while easing backlogs and technologist shortages - learn more

• Fourward Ventures is leading a new strategic growth investment in Mermaid Gin, backing the Isle of Wight–based premium spirits brand as it accelerates expansion in the U.S. market. The round brings Fourward’s founder Will Ward onto the board as lead investor and is paired with a national distribution partnership with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, plus the appointment of longtime Moët Hennessy veteran Jim Clerkin as CEO for the U.S. push. The capital and partnership are aimed at scaling Mermaid Gin in the fast-growing U.S. super-premium gin segment while preserving its sustainability-focused, Isle of Wight roots. - learn more

• Hyperion Capital joined Haiqu’s $11M seed round, backing the quantum software startup alongside Primary Venture Partners, Collaborative Fund, Alumni Ventures, Qudit Ventures, Silicon Roundabout Ventures, Harlow Capital, Toyota Ventures and MaC Venture Capital. Haiqu is building a hardware-aware quantum operating system and middleware layer that boosts the performance of today’s noisy quantum hardware, with the new funding going toward productizing its platform and enabling near-term commercial use cases in areas like finance, cybersecurity and scientific computing. - learn more

• Sound Ventures led WitnessAI’s $58M strategic funding round, backing the Mountain View based AI security and governance platform alongside investors including Fin Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung Ventures and Forgepoint Capital Partners. The company will use the capital to accelerate global go-to-market efforts and expand its platform, which secures AI agents and models by monitoring agent activity, linking human and agent actions, and blocking prompt injection and other attacks in real time. WitnessAI also unveiled new agentic AI governance tools that give enterprises deeper observability and policy control as they scale AI agents across their operations. - learn more

• Alexandria Venture Investments joined Proxima’s oversubscribed $80M seed financing, backing the newly rebranded AI-native biotech (formerly VantAI) alongside lead investor DCVC, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture arm), Braidwell, Roivant and others. Proxima is building a generative AI driven platform for “proximity-based medicines” that modulate protein protein interactions, including molecular glues and PROTACs, to go after historically undruggable targets in oncology, immunology and beyond. The new capital will accelerate its NeoLink structural proteomics and Neo AI model stack, and advance a pipeline of first-in-class proximity-modulating therapeutics toward the clinic. - learn more

• Clocktower Technology Ventures participated in WeatherPromise’s oversubscribed $12.8M Series A, backing the weather-guarantee startup alongside lead investor Maveron, 1Sharpe, Lerer Hippeau, Commerce Ventures, MS Transverse, Start Ventures, 1Flourish and others. WeatherPromise partners with major travel brands like Marriott, Expedia and JetBlue to offer “weather guarantees” that automatically refund trips when conditions are worse than promised, driving demand for travel, events and outdoor experiences. The new capital will accelerate product development, expand strategic partnerships and scale the platform across more consumer categories. - learn more

• MANTIS Ventures participated in Sandstone’s $10M seed round, backing the AI-native legal tech startup alongside lead investor Sequoia Capital and others. Sandstone is building an operating system for in-house legal teams that uses AI agents to route requests, draft and review contracts, and surface answers directly inside tools like email, Slack and Salesforce, turning institutional legal knowledge into reusable workflows. The new capital will help the Brooklyn-based company scale its product and grow its customer base of corporate legal departments. - learn more

• Strong Ventures participated in Hupo’s $10M Series A round, backing the Singapore-based AI sales coaching startup alongside lead investor DST Global Partners, Collaborative Fund, January Capital and Goodwater Capital. Hupo’s platform uses AI to coach frontline banking, insurance and financial services sales teams in real time, helping them ramp faster and close more deals across highly regulated markets in APAC and Europe. The new funding will support product development, expansion of its coaching features and scaling enterprise deployments as the company eyes broader international growth. - learn more

• Freeflow Ventures joined Vivere Oncotherapies’ more than $10M funding round, backing the UC Berkeley spinout alongside YK Bioventures, Pillar, Berkeley Frontier Fund and the National Cancer Institute. Vivere is developing targeted immunotherapies for “cold” solid tumors like colorectal and ovarian cancers, aiming to activate the immune system against tumors that typically evade detection and resist existing treatments. The new capital will support advancement of its proprietary bioengineering platform and pipeline of therapies for patients with few effective options today. - learn more

• Alexandria Venture Investments joined Precede Biosciences’ $63.5M Series B equity round, part of an $83.5M total financing package that also includes a $20M strategic, non-dilutive credit facility. The Boston based precision diagnostics and data company is scaling its blood-based platform, which measures target expression and pathway activity to support next-generation cancer therapies like drug, radio and immune conjugates. The new capital will help Precede meet growing demand from biopharma partners developing these precision medicines and accelerate commercialization and health system adoption. - learn more

• Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Recludix Pharma’s new equity financing round alongside Access Biotechnology, NEA and Westlake BioPartners, with additional strategic investment from Eli Lilly. The San Diego based, clinical-stage biotech will use the $123M in total equity raised to advance clinical development of its novel SH2 domain inhibitor pipeline for inflammatory diseases and to tap Lilly’s TuneLab AI/ML platform to accelerate discovery across its broader SH2 domain program. - learn more

• BOLD Capital Partners participated in MagicCube’s $10M funding round, backing the Cupertino-based software security company alongside strategic investor Verifone and other existing backers. MagicCube plans to use the capital to expand beyond its core tap-to-phone payments offering into biometrics, identity verification and AI-driven device security, while scaling its Software Defined Trust platform that delivers hardware-grade protection through software on standard mobile and IoT devices.- learn more

LA Exits

• Webalo is being acquired by Prometheus Group, which is folding the Los Angeles based “no-code for the frontline” platform into its enterprise asset management software suite. The deal will combine Webalo’s mobile, real-time workflows for frontline workers with Prometheus Group’s planning and scheduling tools, aiming to create a closed-loop digital execution platform that connects shopfloor actions directly back into systems of record like SAP and Oracle. - learn more

• Plus Capital joined Pomelo Care’s $92M Series C, backing the New York based virtual care company at a $1.7B valuation alongside lead investor Stripes, Andreessen Horowitz, Atomico, BoxGroup and SV Angel. Pomelo, which already covers about 25 million lives and nearly 7% of U.S. births, will use the funding to take its proven, outcomes-driven maternity model and expand it across women’s and children’s health more broadly, from reproductive care and pediatrics through hormonal health, perimenopause and menopause. - learn more

• Kittyhawk Frontier is leading a $2M seed round in Denver based encoord, joining new and existing investors to back the company’s grid-planning software platform. encoord’s flagship product, SAInt, is designed to give utilities, developers, data centers and grid operators an integrated financial and operational view of the power system, helping cut interconnection timelines by up to five years and optimize capital planning. The new capital will go toward expanding the team, advancing the platform and scaling into key markets as demand for smarter, electrification-ready grid planning tools accelerates. - learn more

• Alexandria Real Estate Equities participated in Mediar Therapeutics’ oversubscribed $76M Series B, joining new investors like Longwood Fund and Asahi Kasei Pharma Ventures in a round co-led by Amplitude Ventures and ICG. The Boston-based biotech will use the funding to advance its first-in-class fibrosis portfolio, including MTX-474, now in a global Phase 2a trial for systemic sclerosis, and MTX-439, which is moving into Phase 1 studies for fibrosis associated with chronic kidney disease, alongside its partnered MTX-463 program with Eli Lilly. - learn more

• GordonMD Global Investments joined Soley Therapeutics’ $200M Series C, backing the South San Francisco based biotech as it advances its AI-enabled cell stress sensing platform and oncology pipeline. The round, led by Surveyor Capital with participation from new and existing investors, will fund IND-enabling work and early clinical trials for Soley’s lead acute myeloid leukemia (AML) program and a second solid-tumor asset, while also expanding non-oncology programs in neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases and scaling the platform. - learn more

LA Exits

• CareRev is being acquired by IntelyCare, which is combining its post-acute healthcare staffing platform with CareRev’s on-demand workforce marketplace for acute care. The deal creates one of the more comprehensive clinical labor platforms in the market, spanning clinician-facing job boards, internal resource pool tools, contingent labor and recruiter solutions to help health systems manage permanent and flexible staff in one place. Both brands will continue operating under their existing names while integrating offerings for hospitals, health systems and clinicians. - learn more