📺 'Charter'ing a Course Towards a Post-Cable Era?

Christian Hetrick

Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.

📺 'Charter'ing a Course Towards a Post-Cable Era?
Image Source: Los Angeles Times

🔦 Spotlight

The ongoing dispute between Burbank-based Walt Disney Co. and Charter Communications (parent of Spectrum cable/internet) regarding the distribution of Disney's channels, particularly ESPN, could potentially unravel the cable TV business as we know it. 🖥️🤺📺

The dispute between Walt Disney Co. and Charter Communications resembles a high-stakes chess match. Disney's CEO, Bob Iger, has publicly revealed Disney's intention to bring ESPN channels directly to consumers, signaling a strategic move away from classic cable. Charter, whose distribution agreement for Disney channels was set to expire, responded with a bold move of its own by initiating a blackout of Disney's channels for its Spectrum customers.

This battle is seen as a proxy war for the future of pay-TV. While Charter has largely agreed to Disney's financial demands, it insists on gaining more flexibility in how it delivers Disney's channels and streaming apps. This strategic standoff mirrors the dynamics of a chess match, with both sides carefully weighing their moves and considering the long-term consequences.

The broader context reveals the challenges faced by pay-TV providers as the industry shifts towards streaming. Many subscribers have cut the cord in favor of streaming services, and cable companies are grappling with the increased programming fees. This dispute exemplifies the evolving landscape of entertainment distribution.

So what does this all mean…

The outcome of this game hinges on the decisions made by both sides. If Charter agrees to Disney's terms, it may secure access to Disney's content but could face higher fees and reduced flexibility down the road. Conversely, if Charter stands firm and rejects Disney's terms, it risks losing access to highly popular channels and streaming content, potentially alienating its customer base. Will Charter flip the board and begin an entirely new type of game without cable TV? ♟️

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Startups

  • Santa Monica-based Simple Closure, a platform to help automate the shut-down process, raised a $1.5M Pre-Seed Round led by Vera Equity and Cambrian Ventures, with participation from a group of executives at various startups including Brex, Gusto and Nvidia. - learn more
  • Santa Monica-based Zeeve, a blockchain infrastructure management platform, received a $1M follow-on investment from Expert Dojo, also based in Santa Monica. - learn more

Featured Event (9/14)

Plug In South LA is hosing its Accelerator Cohort 4 Founder Showcase on September 14th (This Thursday!).

Hosted by our friends at Plug In, this event will showcase Early Stage Black and Brown Founders rolling out new service and platform solutions in Digital Health/Healthcare Tech, FinTech, Digital Media, PropTech, and EdTech.

🚀 For Early Stage Investors looking to diversify their portfolios with high-potential companies led by Black and Brown Entrepreneurs, this showcase is a must-attend. We also extend a warm welcome to the LA Tech community, including LPs, Corporate Executives & Foundations, and Family Offices.

🎟️ Secure your spot now and immerse yourself in a night of innovation, inspiration, and boundless opportunities. Register for the Plug In Accelerator Cohort 4 Founder Showcase here.


📅 LA Tech Calendar

Sunday, September 10th

  • The Data Scientist Hangout 🗽 - Ex-Amazon data scientist and podcast host, Daliana Liu, and ex-Meta machine learning engineer, Damien Benveniste, will be hosting a hangout at Royce Hall in UCLA Sunday morning.

Tuesday, September 12th

Wednesday, September 13th

  • Startup Cafe 🗽 - Meet and connect with like-minded entrepreneurs, investors, and industry professionals while enjoying a nice cup of coffee Wednesday morning in Venice.
  • LA Tech Happy Hour 🗽 - Meet and connect with like-minded entrepreneurs, investors, and industry professionals after work while enjoying refreshing drinks in Culver City.
  • Originate Poker Night & AI Cocktail Event 🗽 - Come and see what Originate has to offer you and your business at their first ever Poker Night and AI Cocktail Event in Playa Vista.

Thursday, September 14th

Other events to add to the calendar

🗽 - Free

🌍 Around The Internet

LA’s Top Tech Funding Rounds of the Summer

As summer temperatures soared in Los Angeles, the city's tech companies found themselves navigating a funding landscape that, while still dynamic, showed signs of cooling down. Nevertheless, noteworthy funding rounds took place, illustrating the resilience and adaptability of LA's tech ecosystem. Here are the top five funding rounds between Memorial Day and Labor Day that provided a glimpse into the shifting dynamics of the city's tech scene.

  1. Q-CTRL: $54M in JulyQ-CTRL, a startup that has built quantum-sensing software that helps reduce errors on quantum computers, closed out its $54M long-running Series B led by Morpheus Ventures. The funds will go toward fostering technical innovation, expanding Q-CTRL’s product portfolio and scaling the company’s operations. - Read More
  2. Impulse Space: $45M in JulyImpulse Space, the space logistics startup, raised a $45M Series A led by RTX Ventures joined by Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Airbus Ventures and Space Capital. The funds are intended to further develop Helios, it’s largest orbital maneuvering vehicle to date, into a high-energy kick stage that will be capable of bypassing geostationary transfer orbit and taking payloads directly to geostationary orbit. - Read More
  3. Karat Financial: $40M in JulyKarat, a startup building financial tools for content creators, raised a $70M Series B a combination of debt ($30 million, led by TriplePoint Capital) and equity ($40 million, led by SignalFire joined by Union Square Ventures, CRV, GGV, Commerce Ventures as well as actor Will Smith via Dreamers VC, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and YouTube co-founder Steve Chen). The funds are intended to help scale existing products and continue to build tools to help creators manage money. - Read More
  4. Mythical Games: $37M in JuneMythical Games, a next-generation gaming studio, secured $37M as part of its C1 led by Scytale Digital joined by ARK Invest, Animoca Brands, PROOF, Stanford Athletics, MoonPay, Andreessen Horowitz, Gaingels, Signum Growth, Struck Capital, and WestCap. The funds will be used to achieve profitability within 12 months and follow through Mythical’s mission of providing innovation to video games through web3 infrastructure to mainstream gamers through new economy and game models. - Read More
  5. Gardens: $31.3M in JulyGardens, a new independent game studio focused on fantasy adventure video games raised a $31.3M Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Krafton and joined by Dreamhaven, TIRTA, Rendered VC, Transcend Fund, Funplus and others. Gardens, founded in the summer of 2021, will use the funds to create a fantasy action role-playing game. - Read More

📙 What We’re Reading

  • AI-Curious, a new podcast exploring applications of AI, interviews Hollywood producers who are pioneers of using AI, not to replace writers and actors, but to optimize production and build communities: the cofounders of Toonstar Studios, CEO John Attanasio and COO Luisa Huang. - listen here
  • An increase in Los Angeles' data center demand is largely driven by artificial intelligence requirements and the continued adoption of cloud services. - read more
  • ESPN and Fanatics join the sports betting market and will challenge the FanDuel-DraftKings duopoly that currently dominates the online sports betting industry. - read more
A $26M Push Into Power in LA

🔦 Spotlight

Hello, Los Angeles.

Coachella Weekend 2 is here, which usually means LA is either heading back to the desert or happily staying put this time around. Back in the city, the focus this week is less about music infrastructure and more about something far more critical, power.

That’s where this week’s news comes in.

Critical Loop, a Los Angeles-based energy startup, raised a $26 million Series A to tackle one of the least talked about bottlenecks in tech right now, grid interconnection. In simple terms, it’s the process of getting power to where it’s needed, and increasingly, that process is too slow to keep up.

Critical Loop is building modular microgrid systems that can be deployed in days instead of years, giving industrial operators, data centers, and other energy-heavy users faster access to power without waiting on traditional grid upgrades. The round was led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover, with participation from Better Ventures, Climate Capital, Adapt Nation Capital, and Cyrus Ventures.

The timing here matters. Between AI infrastructure demands, electrification, and a broader push toward domestic energy resilience, power is quickly becoming a gating factor for growth. You can build the data center, the factory, or the next big thing, but none of it works if you can’t turn it on.

That’s what makes companies like Critical Loop worth watching. They’re not building the flashiest part of the stack, but they’re solving for the piece everything else depends on.

And in a city that knows a thing or two about scaling ambition quickly, that might be the most important layer of all.

Below are this week’s fund announcements across LA 👇


🤝 Venture Deals

LA Venture Funds

  • Anthos Capital participated in Wealth.com’s $65M Series B, backing the AI-powered estate and tax planning platform as it scales across financial institutions. The oversubscribed round included new investors like Titanium Ventures and Pruven Capital alongside existing backers, and the company plans to use the funding to expand product development, pursue acquisitions, and grow its enterprise footprint as demand rises for AI-driven wealth management solutions. - learn more
  • Anamika Ventures participated in Sage Haven’s $3M pre-seed round, backing the AI-powered messaging and calling app designed to create a safer communication environment for kids. The round was led by Anamika Ventures alongside Fabric Ventures and a group of early-stage investors, as the company launches a platform focused on preventing cyberbullying through real-time AI moderation and parent oversight tools. - learn more
  • MANTIS Venture Capital participated in Factory’s $150M Series C, backing the AI startup as it builds autonomous software engineering systems for enterprise teams. The round was led by Khosla Ventures and included firms like Sequoia Capital, Blackstone, Insight Partners, and NEA, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. Factory plans to use the funding to invest further in product development and global expansion as demand grows for AI-driven tools that can automate large portions of the software development process. - learn more
  • Rebel Fund participated in Uplane’s $4.5M seed round, backing the AI startup as it looks to replace traditional marketing agencies with a platform that automates ad creation, testing, and budget optimization. The round was led by Play Ventures with participation from Y Combinator, 20VC, and Multimodal Ventures, and the company says its technology can improve return on ad spend by automating performance marketing workflows. - learn more
  • Alexandria Venture Investments and Presight Capital participated in Alloy Therapeutics’ $40M Series E, backing the biotech infrastructure company as it scales its AI-powered platform for drug discovery and development. The round included a mix of new investors like 8VC and JIC Venture Growth Investments alongside returning backers, valuing the company at $1 billion and underscoring continued interest in platforms that combine AI, data, and lab services across the biopharma lifecycle. - learn more
  • Finality Capital Partners participated in HYFIX’s $15M seed round, backing the semiconductor startup as it builds American-made chips designed to power drones and autonomous robots. The round was led by Craft Ventures with participation from Catapult Ventures, Multicoin Capital, and Sky Dayton, and the company is developing an integrated system-on-a-chip to replace fragmented hardware stacks and reduce reliance on foreign components. - learn more
  • Rainfall Ventures participated in Stendr’s $5.4M pre-seed round, backing the Norwegian defense tech startup as it builds an AI-native platform for drone detection and counter-drone operations. The round was co-led by Rainfall alongside ACME Capital and Skyfall, with additional participation from Antler, StartupLab, and other early-stage investors, and the company plans to use the funding to accelerate development of its multi-sensor technology and expand engineering capabilities. - learn more
  • Slauson & Co. participated in Slate Auto’s $650M funding round, backing the EV startup as it works to bring a lower-cost electric pickup truck to market. The round was led by TWG Global and comes as the Bezos-backed company prepares to begin production, targeting a more affordable segment of the EV market with a customizable truck expected to launch later this year. - learn more
  • Navitas Capital co-led Primepoint’s $10M seed round, backing the AI startup as it builds a platform that reads and connects complex construction drawings to streamline project workflows. The round also included investors like Penny Jar Capital, NextView Ventures, GS Futures, and Aglaé Ventures, and the company plans to use the funding to expand its platform and grow adoption among large commercial contractors. - learn more
  • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Neomorph’s $100M Series B, backing the biotech company as it advances its molecular glue degrader platform targeting previously undruggable diseases. The round was led by Deerfield Management with participation from Regeneron Ventures, Longwood Fund, and Binney Street Capital, and the company plans to use the funding to support ongoing clinical trials and expand its broader drug development pipeline. - learn more

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Hermeus Moves In. Uber Lines Up. LA Wins.

🔦 Spotlight

Hello, Los Angeles.

This week’s transportation news says a lot about where LA is headed and who wants to build here.

Start with Hermeus, which hit a $1 billion valuation after raising $350 million as it works on high-speed aircraft for defense applications. More notably for Los Angeles, the company is moving its headquarters to El Segundo, adding to the region’s growing aerospace and defense cluster. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from returning backers including Canaan Partners, Founders Fund, RTX Ventures, Bling Capital, and In-Q-Tel, along with new investors including Cox Enterprises, Socium Ventures, Destiny Tech100, Georgia Tech Foundation, 137 Ventures, and GSBackers.

Then there’s Uber, which made two separate autonomous vehicle announcements that both put Los Angeles in the rollout map.

The first is a partnership with Zoox, Amazon’s autonomous vehicle company. Uber said the service is expected to launch in Las Vegas in summer 2026 and then come to Los Angeles by mid-2027, giving riders the option to match with a Zoox robotaxi through the Uber app.

The second is a new deal with MOIA America, which plans to deploy autonomous ID. Buzz vehicles on the Uber platform in Los Angeles by the end of 2026.

Taken together, the message is pretty straightforward: LA is not just watching the future of transportation take shape, it is increasingly being used as the place to test it, scale it, and sell it. Hermeus is bringing its headquarters here as defense aviation regains momentum. Uber is lining up autonomous partners with Los Angeles as a target market. Different companies, different timelines, same conclusion: a meaningful share of the next transportation cycle is being built with LA in mind.

Below are this week’s venture deals, fund announcements, and acquisitions across LA.


🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies
  • PeakMetrics raised a $6M Series A to scale its AI-powered narrative intelligence platform, which helps organizations track how information spreads online and identify risks from misinformation and coordinated campaigns. The round was led by Moneta Ventures with participation from Techstars, Parameter Ventures, VITALIZE Venture Capital, and Gurtin Ventures, and the company plans to use the funding to enhance its real-time detection capabilities and expand adoption across enterprise and government customers. - learn more
  • Hybron raised a $25M seed round to scale its advanced carbon fiber composite manufacturing technology, which aims to produce high-performance components faster and at lower cost than traditional methods. The round was led by Marque Ventures with participation from a mix of venture firms and strategic investors, and the company plans to use the funding to expand manufacturing capacity, grow its team, and support increasing demand from aerospace and defense programs. - learn more

LA Venture Funds

  • Emmeline Ventures participated in Osteoboost’s $8M funding round, backing the company as it expands access to its FDA-cleared wearable designed to treat low bone density in postmenopausal women. The round was led by Ambit Health Ventures with participation from Disrupt Health Impact Fund and others, and the company plans to use the capital to scale manufacturing, expand clinical research, and grow commercial adoption. - learn more
  • Bonfire Ventures led Juno’s $12M seed round, backing the AI-powered tax preparation platform as it aims to automate up to 90% of the manual work in tax filing for accounting firms. The round included participation from Impression Ventures and Xfund, and the company says its software can significantly reduce preparation time while keeping CPAs in the loop for review and advisory work. - learn more
  • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Sidewinder Therapeutics’ $137M Series B, which will help fund the company’s push to bring its precision bispecific ADC cancer programs into the clinic. The round was co-led by Frazier Life Sciences and Novartis Venture Fund, and Sidewinder said it expects to advance its lead program into clinical development in 2027. - learn more
  • Slauson & Co. participated in Flora Fertility’s $5M seed round, backing the company as it builds what it describes as an individually owned fertility insurance platform that is not tied to an employer. The round was led by ManchesterStory, and Flora plans to use the funding to scale a model aimed at making fertility coverage more portable and accessible for consumers. - learn more
  • Mucker Capital participated in Fastrflow’s $375K early funding round, backing the startup as it builds a screen-aware AI copilot designed to assist students and professionals directly within their workflows. The company is focused on creating an assistant that can understand what’s on a user’s screen in real time to provide contextual help, positioning itself as a more integrated alternative to traditional standalone AI tools. - learn more

LA Exits

  • Modern Animal has been acquired by Chewy, giving the pet e-commerce giant a much bigger physical veterinary footprint as it expands deeper into healthcare. The deal brings Chewy an additional 29 clinics, 24/7 virtual care, and a membership-based model, and is expected to grow Chewy Vet Care from 18 to 47 locations nationwide while adding more than $125 million in annualized run-rate revenue. - learn more
  • Honk has been acquired by Frontenac, with the Los Angeles roadside assistance software company simultaneously completing an add-on acquisition of CurbsideSOS as part of the deal. The combination is meant to scale Honk’s platform for roadside assistance, towing, and accident management, with former Grubhub executives including Adam DeWitt, Matt Maloney, and Eric Ferguson joining the company to lead its next phase of growth. - learn more

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Valar Atomics Wants to Power AI, Literally

🔦 Spotlight

Hello, Los Angeles.

This week’s spotlight belongs to a startup chasing one of the biggest and messiest questions in tech right now: where all the power for AI is actually supposed to come from. El Segundo-based Valar Atomics, founded by Isaiah Taylor, is reportedly raising $450 million at a $2 billion valuation to build clusters of small nuclear reactors aimed at powering data centers and other energy-hungry industrial sites.

That is not a subtle ambition. On its website, Valar says it wants to build “hundreds of nuclear reactors” on what it calls gigasites, focusing on grid-independent products including data center power, hydrogen, heavy industrial power, and clean hydrocarbon fuels. Its reactor approach is based on high-temperature gas reactor design principles using TRISO fuel, and the company is explicitly pitching its model as a way to meet the surge in power demand coming from AI.

Valar’s investor roster also helps explain why the company has drawn so much attention. The startup is backed by Palmer Luckey and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, and its earlier $130M round in November 2025 was led by Snowpoint Ventures.

What makes the story especially interesting is that this is not just another AI infrastructure company talking about faster chips or more efficient software. It is a bet that the next bottleneck is electricity itself, and that the winning response might look a lot more like hard infrastructure than cloud optimization. In a market full of startups promising to power the future metaphorically, Valar is making a much stranger and bolder claim: it wants to do it literally.

The company is also moving with unusual speed. Valar says it has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to achieve criticality on American soil by July 4, 2026 under the administration’s accelerated nuclear program, and related company materials tie its Project NOVA work to the Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program. Whether that timeline proves realistic or not, it tells you something important about the kind of company this wants to be: not a distant science project, but a startup trying to force nuclear power onto AI’s timetable.

And maybe that is the bigger LA angle here. For all the conversation around software, content, and consumer apps, Southern California keeps producing founders who are drawn to the hard stuff: defense, aerospace, energy, logistics, real-world systems with real-world constraints. Valar may still have plenty to prove, but it is hard to accuse this one of thinking small.

Now onto this week’s LA venture deals, fund announcements and acquisitions.

🤝 Venture Deals

                  LA Venture Funds

                  • Matter Venture Partners participated in Anvil Robotics’ $5.5M seed round, which it led and which also included Humba Ventures, DNX Ventures, Vivek Sodera, Spacecadet Ventures, and Position Ventures. Anvil said it is building a kind of “Legos for robots” platform for physical AI teams, with open-source custom robots that can ship in one to two days, and has already delivered more than 100 units globally while surpassing seven figures in revenue. - learn more
                  • WndrCo led daydream’s $15M Series A, backing the AI-native SEO agency alongside First Round Capital and Basis Set Ventures. daydream said the round brings total funding to $21M and will be used to accelerate hiring, product development, and go-to-market expansion as it combines SEO agents with human experts to help companies navigate both traditional search and AI search. - learn more
                  • Embark Ventures participated in Via Separations’ $36M funding round, which also brought in new strategic backing from Climate Investment, Aramco Ventures, and Marathon Petroleum Corporation. Via said the capital will help deploy more commercial projects and expand its membrane-based industrial filtration platform into refining and chemicals, building on commercial traction in pulp and paper and a pilot completed at a major Gulf Coast refinery. - learn more
                  • Finality Capital Partners co-led Alien’s $7.1M round alongside Initialized, backing the company’s push to build identity infrastructure for both humans and AI agents. According to the X post announcing the raise, Alien plans to use the funding to develop unique identity systems at a time when proving whether an entity online is human or agentic is becoming increasingly important. - learn more
                  • M13 participated in OpenFX’s $94M Series A, as the company builds API infrastructure for global FX liquidity. OpenFX said it now moves more than $45B a year across borders, settles 98% of transactions in under 60 minutes, and plans to use the funding to expand its institutional-grade, API-first platform for cross-border payments and treasury operations. - learn more
                  • M13 led Jimini Health’s $17M seed round, backing the company alongside Town Hall Ventures, LionBird, Zetta Venture Partners, and OneMind as it builds a clinician-supervised AI platform for behavioral health. Jimini said the funding will help scale Sage into more care settings and deepen partnerships with major behavioral health providers across the U.S., positioning it as a safer alternative to unsupervised consumer AI tools for mental health support. - learn more
                  • MANTIS Venture Capital participated in depthfirst’s $80M Series B, which was led by Meritech Capital and also included Forerunner Ventures, The House Fund, Accel, Box Group, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Alt Capital. The company said the new funding will be used to train additional security models, grow its AI research team, and scale enterprise adoption as it builds an AI-native platform for software security and launches its first in-house security model. - learn more
                  • Freeflow Ventures participated in TippingPoint Biosciences’ $4.5M seed round, joining SOSV, LKS Fund, Sazze Partners, StoryHouse Ventures, Sontag Innovation Fund, BrightEdge, XEIA Venture Partners, West Coast Angel Network, and others. The company said the financing will help de-risk its epigenetic discovery platform as it works to translate chromatin biology into new therapeutics. - learn more

                                    LA Exits

                                    • Warner Music Group agreed to acquire Revelator, a B2B music platform focused on digital distribution, rights management, royalty accounting, and real-time analytics for independent labels, artists, and distributors. WMG said the deal will strengthen its distribution and label services business, expand the tools available through its labels and ADA, and allow Revelator to keep serving its existing customers while scaling through WMG’s global infrastructure. - learn more
                                    • Omni Agent Solutions has been acquired by Fortress Investment Group, which said the deal will provide long-term capital and resources to expand Omni’s tech-forward platform for bankruptcy and restructuring case administration. Omni said the investment will support continued technology development and scale across services such as claims management, noticing, solicitation support, securities services, disbursements, and call center operations, while its executive and operational teams remain in place. - learn more
                                    • Apium Swarm Robotics is being acquired by Red Cat, adding its distributed control technology for autonomous swarming drones and uncrewed surface vessels to Red Cat’s broader defense platform. Red Cat said Apium will continue operating independently while its autonomy stack is integrated across the business to strengthen coordinated multi-agent operations in contested and communications-degraded environments. - learn more
                                    • HOPWTR is being fully acquired by Constellation Brands, which first invested in the non-alcoholic sparkling water brand through its venture arm in 2021. Constellation said the deal strengthens its no- and low-alcohol portfolio as consumer demand in the space grows, while HOPWTR is expected to keep operating as it does today in the near term with CEO Jordan Bass remaining involved. - learn more

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