🔦 Spotlight
Hey Los Angeles.
If you were looking for a quiet week, this was not it. LA is backing a portable nuclear reactor, Netflix just took a big step closer to owning Warner Bros. Discovery’s future, and Snapchat is basically handing the city a mirror and saying, “Here is what you did with your attention all year.”
Let’s dive in.
Radiant’s microreactors and LA’s new nuclear moment
Radiant Nuclear raised more than $300M in a Series D round to build Kaleidos, a one megawatt portable nuclear microreactor that is designed to roll off a factory line, ship in a standard container and replace diesel generators at remote sites, military bases and disaster zones. The new capital will fund a full scale test at Idaho National Lab and the build out of Radiant’s R 50 factory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which aims to produce up to 50 reactors a year starting later this decade.
For LA’s climate and infrastructure ecosystem, this is a big tell. The city that got rich on pipelines of content is now funding pipelines of electrons, betting that small, modular nuclear can be part of the grid story that powers everything from data centers to defense. It is a very different flavor of LA tech, but the pattern is familiar: take a frontier technology, wrap it in product thinking and try to make it feel as boring and reliable as a utility bill.
Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery: one step closer
On the media front, Netflix just received an official recommendation from Warner Bros. Discovery’s board to proceed with the planned acquisition of WBD’s studios and streaming business. The board reaffirmed that the Netflix deal, which would fold Warner Bros. film and TV, HBO and HBO Max into Netflix, is in the best interest of shareholders, even as competing ideas swirl around what to do with the company.
Practically, this does not mean the deal is done. It means the process has moved from “big idea in a press release” into the slower, more serious phase of shareholder approvals and regulatory review. For Los Angeles, every incremental step like this reinforces the likely end state: a world where a handful of global platforms control not just distribution but also the studios and libraries that defined Hollywood’s last century.
Snapchat’s 2025 Recap and the attention economy in our backyard
Then there is Snapchat, which used its 2025 Recap to show off what its mostly Gen Z and Gen Alpha users actually did on the app this year. The company is leaning into personalized “year in review” stories that highlight top chats, memories, maps moments and creator content, while quietly reminding brands and investors that Snap still owns a very specific slice of youth attention that is hard to find anywhere else.
For LA, Snapchat’s recap is more than a cute end of year product. It is a reminder that some of the most important social infrastructure for the next generation is being built and iterated a short drive from Santa Monica Boulevard. While the grown ups argue about nuclear reactors and studio mergers, Snap is training the next wave of consumers how to communicate, create and remember their lives on a platform that barely existed fifteen years ago.
Taken together, this week says a lot about what “LA tech” means in 2025. On one end, you have Radiant trying to change how we power the physical world. On the other, Netflix and Snapchat are fighting over how we package and monetize the stories that live in our heads. Somewhere in the middle are the founders, investors and operators here who see all of this as raw material.Now keep scrolling for this week’s LA venture deals, fund announcements and acquisitions.
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
- Fixated secured a $50M strategic investment from Eldridge Industries to fuel what it calls the “next era of creator-led empires.” The company says the capital will help it expand its capabilities and partnerships that support creators in building and scaling their own brands and businesses beyond traditional sponsorship deals. - learn more
- Vital Lyfe raised $24M in financing, including more than $18M in seed funding, in a round led by Interlagos and General Catalyst with participation from Generational Partners, Cantos, Space.VC and Also Capital. The Hawthorne based startup, founded by former SpaceX engineers, will use the capital to ramp manufacturing of its portable, autonomous “water making” systems, expand early deployments with partners like maritime operators and NGOs, and prepare for its first consumer ready products in 2026. - learn more
- Molly Sims’ YSE Beauty closed a $15M Series A growth equity round led by Silas Capital, with participation from L Catterton and existing backers Willow Growth Partners and Halogen Ventures. The clinically tested skincare brand, which targets women 35+ and recently rolled out nationally at Sephora, will use the funding to fuel product development, expand across Sephora doors in the U.S., and grow its direct-to-consumer e-commerce business. - learn more
- Ember LifeSciences raised a $16.5M Series A led by Sea Court Capital, with participation from Cardinal Health, Carrier Ventures and other strategic investors including former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The Los Angeles based cold chain tech company will use the funding to launch its next generation Ember Cube 2 shipping system and expand globally, helping pharma and healthcare customers cut temperature related losses and waste in medicine distribution. - learn more
- Strada, a Los Angeles–based media collaboration startup, received a strategic investment from Other World Computing (OWC) to accelerate its product roadmap. The company’s peer-to-peer platform lets video pros access, share and review large files directly from local drives anywhere in the world, without uploading to the cloud. The partnership will also include co-marketing efforts, joint NAB 2026 presence, and bundled offerings that pair Strada’s software with OWC’s storage and workflow hardware. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- Calibrate Ventures participated in Manifold’s Series B round, backing the company as it scales its AI technology platform. Manifold plans to use the new capital to accelerate product development, deepen its capabilities for enterprise customers, and grow its team to support broader commercial rollout. - learn more
- SmartGateVC participated in NeuraWorx’s oversubscribed seed round, which was led by Nexus NeuroTech to back the company’s neurotechnology based therapies for central nervous system (CNS) disorders. NeuraWorx plans to use the capital to advance its R&D and early clinical work, build out its technology and product pipeline, and expand its team as it moves toward bringing new CNS treatments to market. - learn more
- Kinship Ventures participated in Lovable’s $330M Series B, which values the Stockholm based “vibe coding” platform at $6.6B in a round co-led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures’ Anthology fund. The company lets non developers build full stack software from natural language prompts, and says it will use the new capital to scale its AI native platform globally, deepen enterprise features and integrations, and support a fast growing base of business users building production apps on Lovable. - learn more
- B Capital participated in MoEngage’s $180M Series F follow-on, which brings the customer engagement platform’s total Series F raise to $280M. The round was led by ChrysCapital and Dragon Funds, with Schroders Capital and TR Capital also joining, and will be used to accelerate MoEngage’s Merlin AI product roadmap, expand go-to-market teams across North America and EMEA, and pursue strategic acquisitions while also funding an employee and early-investor liquidity program. - learn more
- O'Neil Strategic Capital led HEN Technologies’ $22M financing, which combines a $20M oversubscribed Series A with $2M in venture debt, to build what the company calls the industry’s first operating system for fire defense. The Hayward based startup will use the capital to scale its IoT enabled hardware and Fluid IQ predictive AI platform, capture a comprehensive operational fire dataset, and expand global deployments with distributors and agencies as it aims to make fire suppression faster, more efficient and data driven. - learn more
- Core Innovation Capital participated in Transparency Analytics’ second funding round, backing the company alongside lead investor Deciens Capital, Allianz Life Ventures, Mouro Capital, FJ Labs and SUM Ventures. Transparency Analytics, which provides quantitative, tech enabled credit ratings and benchmarking for private credit, will use the funding to scale its platform, refine go to market strategy and build out products like its private credit index as the asset class grows. - learn more
- Upfront Ventures participated in Nanit’s $50M growth round, which was led by Springcoast Partners with support from JVP. The company will use the funding to expand its AI powered Parenting Intelligence System and related tools that give parents real time, personalized insight into a baby’s sleep, health and development between pediatric visits. - learn more
- Integrity Growth Partners fully funded Fluency’s $40M Series A, coming in as the company’s first major institutional investor. Fluency, a “digital advertising operating system,” centralizes and automates paid media across Google, Meta, TikTok, programmatic and more, already powering nearly $3B in annual ad spend and over 250,000 monthly campaigns. The company plans to use the capital to enhance its automation and agentic AI capabilities, expand integrations with publishers and tech partners, and grow its team. - learn more
- JAM Fund joined Last Energy’s oversubscribed $100M+ Series C, backing the advanced nuclear startup as it pushes to commercialize its factory built microreactors. The round was led by Astera Institute with investors including Gigafund, The Haskell Company, AE Ventures, Ultranative, Galaxy Interactive and Woori Technology. Last Energy plans to use the capital to complete its PWR-5 pilot reactor under the U.S. DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program, ramp manufacturing in Texas, and advance its larger PWR-20 units toward commercial deployment in the U.S. and U.K. - learn more
LA Exits
- NextWave is being acquired by Pattern, bringing the TikTok-focused commerce agency under Pattern’s umbrella to strengthen its TikTok Shop and creator-led commerce capabilities. The deal folds NextWave’s expertise in TikTok Shop strategy, operations and creator partnerships into Pattern’s broader ecommerce platform, giving brands a single partner to manage marketplace, DTC and social shopping channels. - learn more
- Ubiquitous is being acquired by Humanz as part of Humanz’s broader push to build a next-gen, data driven creator economy platform alongside its recently announced $15M funding round. The deal folds Ubiquitous’ creator marketing and TikTok/native social expertise into Humanz’s influencer analytics and campaign tooling, giving brands a more end-to-end partner for strategy, creator management and performance measurement across major social channels. - learn more
- Silver Tribe Media is being acquired by TPG-backed Initial Group, which is folding the company into its broader sports and entertainment platform. The deal brings Silver Tribe’s storytelling, production and athlete brand work under Initial Group’s umbrella, giving it more capital and distribution while expanding Initial’s in-house content capabilities around teams, athletes and sponsors. - learn more
- Duffl, the YC-backed campus delivery startup, is being acquired by Rev Delivery, bringing its “10M campus delivery pioneer” operation under Rev’s umbrella. The acquisition folds Duffl’s college-focused, ultra-fast delivery network and playbook into Rev’s hyper-growth delivery operators, with the goal of scaling on-demand service across more campuses and strengthening Rev’s position in student-centered last-mile logistics. - learn more
Image Source: Apex
Image Source: Observable Space