Exclusive: Meg Whitman Talks Quibi, L.A.'s Tech Scene, and Hollywood's Renaissance

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

Exclusive: Meg Whitman Talks Quibi, L.A.'s Tech Scene, and Hollywood's Renaissance

Quibi launched this week into a world turned upside down by the novel coronavirus. How do things look on day two? dot.LA caught up with Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman – former boss of eBay and Hewlett-Packard, and one-time California gubernatorial candidate – to discuss.

Whitman shares her reaction to the initial flow of real-time data on Quibi users, what she'll be watching closely over the next few months, and what the well-heeled company's future may hold. She also forecasts how the streaming wars may play out, reflects on lessons learned about the tech world, and reveals her thoughts on the burgeoning innovation ecosystem in Los Angeles.


You've spoken about looking forward to Quibi transitioning from an organization driven by intuition and experience to one driven by data. What is the initial data telling you? 

First of all, we're really excited about our day one launch and our day one performance. The fact that we are number three in the App Store and number two in the entertainment segment of the App Store is a remarkable accomplishment. So we're thrilled.

And the social sentiment — we have social listening tools, like everyone else — the social sentiment is 80% positive, which is extraordinary. All the feedback we've been getting from users through our customer support team, they've embraced our innovative approach to what we're doing here. And Turnstyle, our technology: interestingly, the data shows 50% of the viewing was in portrait, 50% was in landscape--which is fascinating. So we're thrilled about that, super excited, and going onto day two here.

Over these next 89 days until the free trial ends and as the launch continues to unfurl, what will you be watching most closely? 

Well, because the tech platform is not a legacy platform — it was built for Quibi — we were able to instrument into our data layer just about every piece of data that we could ever imagine we would want. So we can see, not individuals, but what are the trends in how people are watching, what are our top shows, what is our customer support team telling us every single day about what people want? Then we will prioritize those observations and requests into our product roadmap and into the kind of content that we produce. So we're looking for all the signs of how people use this app and what we can learn from it. And then of course we look at the metrics of downloads, trials, net paid subscribers, number of Quibi's (Quick Bites) per day that people watch, hours per day that people watch. We'll be watching all of that data for things that we should be doing, and adapting along the way.

Now that you've launched, can you talk a bit more than you have previously about the path to profitability? 

I don't know about more than the past, but Jeffrey (Katzenberg) and I have run businesses for many, many, many years, and ultimately we know that revenues have to be greater than costs. Sometimes, not everyone subscribes to that, but we certainly do. So we've got a very clear path to profitability. The fundraise ($1.75 billion) gives us a nice long runway to get there. But we're very eye-on-the-prize in getting to a self-sustaining business. We've not told people what that number is yet, because we haven't even launched really; we're on day one. Over time, we'll communicate that to our investors and maybe even more broadly. We're very focused on getting to profitability.

When do you expect to be able to communicate the number of subscribers you're shooting for and the timeframe for doing so? 

Well, remember we're a private company; certainly our investors have a window into that. But my view is we will take stock at a year. And we'll look back and maybe we'll give a more broad report on how we did in our first year. But we'll see. We're still new at this and it's the unknown unknowns that we're trying to figure out. I can't give you an exact date but I would think after a year; I'm very focused on "where are we after a year?"

To what extent has the coronavirus affected your projections and forecasts, if at all?

It hasn't at all, really. It's affected our launch plans. We had a physical launch event; we moved to a virtual launch event. We were going to do our Daily Essentials (daily news and culture segments) every day from the studios of our content partners; most of those now are being done at home. We were originally going to do a two-week free trial; but we did if you sign up by the end of April, we now have a 90-day free trial. So we made some adjustments, but in terms of our goals and aspirations for net paid subscribers and things like that, unchanged. Because I think we'll get through this. I don't know whether it'll be the beginning of summer, end of the summer, middle of fall, but we'll get through this and I think things will ultimately return to normal. So we didn't think it made sense to change the projections just yet.

Thinking back to when Jeffrey Katzenberg first approached you with this idea, what advice would you give to that past version of Meg, with the benefit of hindsight?

I think you will appreciate this, given that you are at the intersection of tech and media: these two worlds are very different. I knew that, but the difference between the San Francisco Bay area and L.A. is even bigger than I had thought. Neither is better than the other; they're just different. I took that into account, but I don't think, until I moved to L.A. and really tried to bridge these two worlds, that I understood how different they are.

It is our superpower: putting the engineering team right next to the content team was absolutely the right decision. All the advice I got from my friends in Silicon Valley was I had to put the tech for Quibi in Silicon Valley, or Seattle, or Austin or someplace like that. And I spent about two months trying to figure out whether the bench of tech talent here in L.A. was deep enough to support the launch of Quibi, and I ultimately determined that it was. It was absolutely 100% the right move.

I think we have a huge and wonderfully burgeoning tech community here in L.A., and I hope we can be a part of having that community grow and thrive. Because there's a lot of talent here. Not as deep as in the Bay Area, but a lot of talent, and we're super glad we put the tech team and the content team together. That helped bridge two very different worlds.

To what extent does L.A.'s burgeoning scene represent some of the earlier days that you saw in the Bay Area?

Well first of all, it's a smaller community. L.A. is still probably more of an entertainment-focused city than a tech-focused city. The Bay Area is all tech, all the time. So it's a smaller community here.

What I will say that I think ultimately advantages L.A., is the number of undergraduate institutions in the community. Think about it: it's USC, it's UCLA, it's Harvey Mudd, it's Pitzer, it's Pomona, it's Cal Tech, it's Occidental, it's Loyola-Marymount, and many, many more. So I think the future here is incredibly bright, because you've got all these schools focusing on computer science, focusing on engineering, so I think there will be a huge group of next-gen engineers who went to college here and want to stay. Up in the Bay Area it's just a few schools. It's UC Santa Cruz, it's Stanford, it's Berkeley, Santa Clara University -- fantastic schools, but not as many. And I think that bodes well for the future with the next generation of engineers.

Silicon Valley has been a tech hub since 1939, with the founding of Hewlett Packard; it was founded way back in the day, so there's a lot more history there. But I don't think that means L.A. can't be fantastic in terms of a tech hub.

Keeping your forecasting hat on, as media content and platforms continue to proliferate and improve, what must companies competing in the space do to emerge on the other side among the winners? 

I think there's never been a better time to be a creator in Hollywood. There's tremendous demand for writers, directors, producers, actors, actresses, and all the people that surround these productions. It's literally like a renaissance in Hollywood. And I think the eye on the prize is always, is it a great story? Does it tell a new story, tell a story differently? And does it capture people's hearts and, secondarily, their minds? So you've got to keep your focus on the quality and the diversity of content that people want. That sounds a bit motherhood and apple pie, but I think that's always been true here and probably still is.

As an equilibrium eventually emerges in this space, how do you think that might look?

I think it depends on how things unfold. There's always been transitions in entertainment. Movies, to television, to streaming, to what we hope will be content designed and made for your phone, which opens up a whole new way to tell stories. I don't think there will necessarily be winners and losers, I think there will be big winners and good winners. Because there's such a hunger for content.

The other thing I would say is that every business now is a technology business, whether it's the entertainment industry, whether it's agriculture; every single business is a technology business. So I do think companies that focus on what are the trends in technology, what are some of the underlying trends that consumers adopt around technology — that will help them be winners and it will complement their fantastic content.

In your career, particularly with eBay, you had the tall task of getting people to be comfortable with the unfamiliar. You have a similar task here with Quibi. What have you learned about how to do that? 

If it's compelling, people do it by themselves. One of the worries about eBay was trust and safety. So we instituted this notion of trust and safety, and the feedback profile was something we did to improve people's confidence buying online. You have to remember, in 1998 people were not buying online. Amazon was a tiny little company and there were just a few ways you could buy online back in the day. Some of it's just time, some of it is features and functionality that you build in that make people feel comfortable. But much of it, often when you're doing something entirely new, it has to get out there, people have to try it, recommend it to their friends, and people have to appreciate what you have to offer. There's no way to make people feel comfortable. It's just giving people the opportunity to try it.

How do you envision our phones changing and the way we interact with them? 

The question we ask ourselves is: How can this new way to consume very high quality content on your phone continue to help enable storytellers to tell stories in new ways? The way we think about it is, what does your phone have to offer that we could take advantage of? GPS, gyroscope, camera, touchscreen, easy access to every social network. How can we take this remarkable device that has changed everything in the last 13 or 14 years, and enable storytellers to take advantage of it?

We have started with a couple interactive shows. We've got a dating show coming down the road. We've got Steven Spielberg's After Dark coming. What can we do to utilize this camera? We have a show coming in the next month or two where the horizontal view of what's happening is different than the vertical view. It's two views of the same scene, as opposed to the same view of the same scene, just told with the horizontal or vertical position of your phone. So we're really thinking through, how do we help creators do things that take unique advantage of the phone? That's going to be our focus for the next 12-18 months: what is the next Turnstyle, if you will.

---

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

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samblake@dot.la
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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