LA Is Betting on Nukes, Netflix and Next-Gen Attention

🔦 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

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Disney Picks AI, Paramount Picks a Fight

Grace Lee

🔦 Spotlight

Happy Friday, Los Angeles.

If last week felt like Netflix bought the script for Hollywood’s future, this week Disney and Paramount walked in with rewrites. One is handing its most valuable characters to an AI model. The other is trying to yank Warner Bros. away from Netflix with an all cash offer. Underneath both headlines is the same fight over who really owns the audience.

Disney, OpenAI and the AI powered vault

The Walt Disney Company struck a multiyear agreement with OpenAI that turns Sora into a kind of licensed imagination engine for more than 200 characters across Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars. Fans will be able to generate short, Sora made videos and images featuring Mickey, Moana, Darth Vader and others, with Disney curating select clips onto Disney Plus, while ChatGPT also rolls out inside the company.

For a studio that has spent years guarding its IP with lawyers, this is a big tone shift. Disney is telling the next generation of fans that playing with the characters happens through an AI model, not just a camera or sketchbook. That could create new formats and jobs, but it also blurs the line between human made and machine made work and puts fresh pressure on ongoing union conversations about training data, credits and compensation.

Paramount crashes the Netflix and Warner Bros. story arc

On the deal side, Warner Bros. Discovery is suddenly the lead in a love triangle. After Netflix announced plans to buy WBD’s studios and streaming business for a mix of cash and stock, Paramount Skydance came in with a hostile, all cash tender offer at 30 dollars per share for the entire company, including linear networks like CNN, TNT Sports and Discovery.

So WBD investors are looking at two very different futures. A Netflix deal would bolt Warner’s IP and production engine onto the world’s largest streaming platform and strip away cable. A Paramount deal would fuse two legacy Hollywood houses and keep more of the old bundle intact. For creators and crews in LA, both paths point to the same reality: fewer, bigger buyers with more control over what gets made, how it is distributed and who gets paid.

Taken together, Disney’s OpenAI partnership and the escalating fight over Warner Bros. are not just AI news or M&A news. They are signals that the next version of Hollywood will be built by a tight circle of platforms that own the IP, the channels and now the models that sit between creators and audiences.

Now keep scrolling for this week’s LA venture deals, fund announcements and acquisitions.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

K2 Space, a Torrance-based startup building large, high-power satellite platforms, raised a $250M Series C at a $3B valuation in a round led by Redpoint with participation from T. Rowe Price–advised accounts, Hedosophia, Altimeter, Lightspeed and Alpine Space Ventures. The company says the funding will accelerate deployment of its next generation “heavy-lift era” spacecraft, built to deliver far more power and capability than typical smallsats and to support missions across LEO, MEO and GEO for commercial and U.S. government customers, where it already has over $500M in signed contracts. - learn more

Stic raised a $10M bridge round led by Accretion Capital, bringing the Los Angeles based out of home adtech startup’s valuation to $200M. The company, which turns everyday drivers into mobile ad inventory for brands, plans to use the funding to expand across more than 30 U.S. states and Canada, deepen relationships with national advertisers and agencies, and strengthen its operations in new markets. - learn more

Machina Labs secured a strategic investment and initial partnership agreement from Abu Dhabi’s Strategic Development Fund, the investment arm of EDGE Group, as part of a plan to deploy its AI driven robotic manufacturing technology in the UAE. The deal includes an initial capital infusion with potential funding of up to AED 125 million as the parties explore a joint venture to produce advanced metal structures for sectors like aerospace, defense, and mobility. Machina Labs’ software defined RoboCraftsman platform will anchor the collaboration, enabling rapid, flexible production of complex metal components closer to regional demand. - learn more

AnySignal raised a $24M Series A led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from Also Capital, BlueYard Capital, Balerion Space Ventures, First In Ventures and other strategic backers. The Los Angeles based company plans to use the funding to scale production of its space communications and RF systems, expand its national security product lines, and build a new LA area facility that brings everything from algorithm design to high rate manufacturing under one roof. - learn more

Saviynt raised a $700M Series B growth round at an approximately $3B valuation, in a financing led by KKR with participation from Sixth Street Growth, Ten Eleven, and existing backer Carrick Capital Partners. The Los Angeles based identity security company says it will use the capital to accelerate product development and integrations as enterprises lean on its AI powered platform to govern human, machine, and AI agent identities across applications, data, and infrastructure. - learn more

Haven Energy raised $40M in new funding to accelerate its push into distributed residential power, combining an equity round led by Giant Ventures with a debt facility from Turtle Hill and additional backing from investors including the California Infrastructure Bank, Carnrite Ventures, Chaac Ventures, Comcast Ventures, and Lerer Hippeau. The Los Angeles based company plans to use the capital to deepen partnerships with utilities and community choice aggregators, expand its solar plus battery leasing model and Channel Partner Program for local installers, and scale one of the nation’s largest residential virtual power plant networks, building on more than 10 MW installed and over 50 MW in development for 2026. - learn more

Diald AI raised $3.75M in funding to expand its AI powered real estate due diligence and underwriting platform for investors and lenders. The company says it will use the capital to deepen its data coverage, enhance underwriting automation, and grow its customer base of institutional and private real estate investors looking to analyze deals faster and with more consistency across markets. - learn more

Hot Smart Rich, Maggie Sellers Reum’s fast growing “female ambition” media brand, has secured a seven figure strategic investment from Steven Bartlett’s media and investment company FlightStory. The partnership aims to turn HSR into a transatlantic platform that connects culture, content, capital, and community, with ambitions to 10x revenue and headcount across production, marketing, product, ecommerce, and membership. In under a year, Hot Smart Rich has already built a cult following with around 1.8M downloads and roughly 500,000 audience members by blending money and business talk with an intimate, group chat tone. - learn more

LA Venture Funds

Mucker Capital backed Orion Sleep’s $18M seed round, joining investors including Browder Capital and Second Sight to support the launch of the company’s AI powered Smart Cover. The startup’s mattress cover fits over any standard bed, uses built in sensors to track heart rate, breathing and sleep stages, and automatically heats or cools each side of the bed to optimize deep and REM sleep. Orion says the funding will help scale production and commercialization of its system, which starts at $2,295 and is designed as a more accessible alternative to fully replacing a mattress. - learn more

B Capital led Fervo Energy’s oversubscribed $462M Series E, backing the Houston based company’s push to make next generation geothermal a core source of always on, carbon free power. Fervo says the round will accelerate buildout of its flagship Cape Station project in Utah, expected to reach 500 MW by 2028, and support early development of additional plants as rising AI and electrification demand strain the grid. - learn more

Trousdale Ventures joined Vatn Systems’ $60M Series A, a round led by BVVC that the Rhode Island based defense tech company says is one of the largest financings in the autonomous underwater vehicle space. Vatn plans to use the capital to expand its team, accelerate R&D, and scale manufacturing of its Skelmir AUV platforms and INStinct navigation system as it deepens work with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps and grows its international customer base. - learn more

Morpheus Ventures participated in Nu Quantum’s $60M Series A, an oversubscribed round led by National Grid Partners with Gresham House Ventures also joining to back the company’s distributed quantum networking platform. Nu Quantum says it will use the capital to accelerate its “Entanglement Fabric” roadmap, scale its team, and expand globally as it connects multiple quantum processors into a modular, fault tolerant “quantum datacenter” architecture. - learn more

Morpheus Ventures joined Fresco’s €15M Series C round, backing the company’s push to power AI driven cooking experiences across a growing network of connected kitchen appliances. The round, which also included new and existing investors like Middleby, ACT Venture Capital, AE Ventures and Alsop Louie Partners, will help Fresco scale its AI Cooking Companion and KitchenOS platform globally, integrate more OEM partners, and deliver personalized, cross brand cooking guidance to home cooks. - learn more

Rainfall Ventures participated in Zed’s $16.5M Series A, a round led by Accel that brings the company’s total funding to $22.5M. The husband and wife founded fintech, is building a digital bank for young professionals across Asia, and plans to use the new capital to expand its APAC footprint, grow its team in San Francisco and Manila, and deepen its AI driven underwriting and credit products for this demographic. - learn more

GroundForce Capital invested in RTZN Brands, the company behind Righteous Felon, to help scale its cleaner, craft-first jerky and meat snack portfolio. The funding follows a year of triple digit sales growth and expanding national distribution, and will support broader retail rollout, deeper club and grocery partnerships, and new high protein, clean ingredient products as Righteous Felon pushes to become a defining brand in the better for you meat snack category. - learn more

Amplify.la participated in Pryzm’s $12.2M seed round, which was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism fund with additional backing from XYZ Venture Capital and Forum Ventures. Pryzm is building an AI powered operating system for federal procurement that helps government agencies discover, evaluate, and acquire emerging technology faster, while giving contractors a unified view of opportunities and capture workflows. The company plans to use the funding to scale its platform across more defense and civilian agencies and grow its team in key hubs like Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York. - learn more

Saban Ventures joined Lin Health’s $11M oversubscribed Series A, backing the company’s virtual, neuroscience based chronic pain recovery platform alongside lead investor Proofpoint Capital and other new and existing backers. Lin Health plans to use the funding to advance product innovation, strengthen partnerships with major health systems and payers, and expand nationwide access to its non opioid, physician led and coach supported programs for conditions like migraines, IBS, and back and joint pain. - learn more

LA Exits

tvScientific is being acquired by Pinterest, which has entered into a definitive agreement to buy the connected TV performance advertising platform as it pushes deeper into CTV. Pinterest plans to integrate tvScientific’s outcome based CTV buying, automation and attribution tools into its Performance+ and other AI powered ad products, giving advertisers a clearer view of how connected TV contributes to performance campaigns. The deal, which is subject to regulatory review and expected to close in the first half of 2026, will see tvScientific continue operating under its own brand while tapping Pinterest’s intent rich audience data across 600 million monthly users. - learn more

VuePlanner has been acquired by Cadent, which is folding the YouTube ad planning and measurement startup into its predictive advertising platform to strengthen what it calls a “Total Video” strategy across linear TV, CTV, and YouTube. The deal gives Cadent’s clients access to VuePlanner’s AI and expert curated tools for contextual targeting, quality scoring, and independent measurement on YouTube, so advertisers can plan and activate campaigns across premium creator content and traditional TV from a single, end to end workflow. - learn more

Cinapse is being acquired by Wrapbook and will join the film and TV payroll and production accounting platform to create a more “connected back office” that links scheduling, payroll, and accounts payable in one system. The deal brings Cinapse’s modern, cloud based scheduling tools and track record across more than $6 billion in productions into Wrapbook’s financial infrastructure, with the goal of giving producers, ADs, and studios a unified way to plan shoots and track every dollar from schedule to spend. - learn more

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The Streaming Era Just Ate the Studio Era

Grace Lee

🔦 Spotlight

Hello Los Angeles!

In a week where everyone was already arguing about what “the future of entertainment” is supposed to look like, Netflix decided to skip the debate and buy a giant piece of the past and, possibly, the future. Netflix announced a definitive agreement to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s Studios and Streaming business, including Warner Bros. film and television studios plus HBO and HBO Max. This is not just another media merger. It is a power transfer, from the studio era where the gatekeepers were greenlight committees to the platform era where the gatekeepers are subscriber relationships, home screens, and retention math.

Here are the bones of the deal. WBD shareholders would receive $27.75 per share, made up of $23.25 in cash and $4.50 in Netflix stock, with the stock portion subject to a symmetrical collar. Netflix puts the transaction at roughly $72 billion in equity value and $82.7 billion in enterprise value, and expects it to close in 12 to 18 months, but only after WBD completes its planned separation of its Global Networks business into Discovery Global, now expected in Q3 2026.

Now zoom in on why this matters in Los Angeles specifically.

LA’s creative engine is about to be run by a single, very efficient distribution machine

Warner Bros. is not just a studio. It is an institutional muscle memory for how to develop, package, and produce at scale, plus a library and franchises that can carry a business through multiple economic cycles. Netflix is not just a distributor. It is the largest direct to consumer entertainment subscription platform on earth, built around global reach, product iteration, and data feedback loops. Put them together and you get a company that can create, market, distribute, and monetize premium entertainment without needing anyone else’s permission.

That will sound exciting to some creators and terrifying to others, often for the same reason. When the same entity owns the audience relationship and the content factory, it can take bigger swings because it has more margin for error. It can also take fewer swings because it does not need to. The incentive shifts from “What is culturally important?” to “What makes people stay?” Those are sometimes the same question. Sometimes they are not.

This deal won’t be decided in a writers’ room. It’ll be decided by regulators.

This is exactly the type of consolidation regulators have been itching to interrogate. A combined Netflix plus HBO Max instantly raises questions about market power, competition, and pricing, plus downstream effects on theaters, independent studios, and negotiating leverage with talent. Even if Netflix vows to maintain current operations and keep the consumer experience strong, the political story is straightforward: fewer giant buyers typically means less bargaining power for everyone who sells into the system.

Also worth noting, Reuters reports a termination fee of $5.8 billion under certain circumstances, which tells you both sides are bracing for a drawn out, high scrutiny process.

The quiet subtext: the bundle is coming back, just wearing a streaming hoodie

Netflix will almost certainly pitch this as more choice and better value. Regulators will hear less competition. Consumers will hear how much is this going to cost me. The most plausible end state is not a single mega app on day one. It is a reimagined bundle: separate brands, packaged pricing, shared sign on, cross promotion, and eventually tighter integration if the politics and churn math allow it.

The real disruption is not whether HBO Max keeps its name. It is whether Netflix becomes the default front door to premium scripted entertainment globally.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

Castelion, a Torrance based defense technology startup, raised a $350M Series B round led by Altimeter Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lavrock Ventures, Space VC, Avenir and Interlagos Capital. The money will be used to scale production of its Blackbeard hypersonic weapon, stand up its Project Ranger manufacturing campus in New Mexico, and support multiservice testing and integration with U.S. Army and Navy platforms starting in 2026. - learn more

Antares announced a $96M Series B to accelerate an iterative “build, test, iterate” approach to developing nuclear reactors quickly, with the funding going toward hardware and subsystem testing, fuel fabrication, manufacturing, and the infrastructure to turn on a reactor. The company says it plans a low-power “Mark-0” reactor demonstration in 2026 at Idaho National Laboratory, with a pathway to a full-power electricity-producing reactor as early as 2027 and a commercial prototype microreactor (“Mark-1”) after the Mark-0 milestone. - learn more

LA Venture Funds

With FirstLook Partners participating, Flex raised a $60M Series B led by Portage, bringing its total equity raised to $105M to build an AI native finance platform for middle market business owners. The company says it will use the new funding to accelerate product expansion and scale its AI agent infrastructure across areas like private credit, business finance, personal finance, payments, and ERP. - learn more

Led by MTech Capital, Curvestone AI raised a $4M seed round with participation from Boost Capital Partners, D2 Fund, and Portfolio Ventures to scale its AI automation platform for regulated industries like financial services, legal, and insurance. The company says it’s tackling the “compound error” problem that makes multi step AI workflows unreliable, and will use the funding to accelerate product development and go to market expansion. - learn more

Co-led by CIV, Unlimited Industries raised a $12M seed round (alongside Andreessen Horowitz) to scale its “AI-native construction” approach to designing and building major infrastructure projects. The company says its platform can generate and evaluate massive numbers of design configurations to optimize for cost, safety, and performance, cutting pre-construction engineering timelines from months to weeks, and it is initially focusing on projects that rapidly expand U.S. power capacity for things like data centers, critical minerals, and advanced manufacturing. - learn more

With Hyperion Capital participating (alongside Amplify Venture Partners, Spark Capital, Tamarack Global and others), Antithesis raised a $105M Series A led by Jane Street, which is both an investor and an existing customer. The company says it will use the capital to accelerate its deterministic simulation testing platform and scale go to market efforts across North America, Europe, and Asia, positioning the product as “critical infrastructure” for teams running complex distributed systems. - learn more

With XO Ventures participating, Orq.ai raised an oversubscribed €5M seed round led by seed + speed Ventures and Galion.exe to help enterprises build, deploy, and manage production grade AI agents with stronger control over data, behavior, and compliance. The company says the funding will accelerate expansion of its platform, including its newly launched Agent Studio and managed runtime, as it pushes to close the “AI production gap” for companies moving beyond demos into real deployment. - learn more

Untapped Ventures participated in Lemurian Labs’ oversubscribed $28M Series A, co-led by Pebblebed Ventures and Hexagon, as the company builds a software-first platform designed to run AI workloads efficiently across any hardware and across edge, cloud, and on-prem environments. Lemurian says the funding will help it expand engineering, accelerate product development, and deepen ecosystem collaborations aimed at reducing vendor lock in and infrastructure costs. - learn more

Fifth Wall and Park Rangers Capital participated in Ridley’s $6.4M seed round, which Fifth Wall led, backing the company’s push to rebuild the real estate process around consumers with fewer commission-heavy frictions. Ridley says the capital will help launch an AI-powered buy-side experience that surfaces private, for-sale, and “soon-to-be-listed” homes using predictive analytics, while also expanding its commission-free seller tools and “Preferred Agents” network for on-demand support. - learn more

Anthos Capital participated in Kalshi’s $1B Series E at an $11B valuation, a round led by Paradigm with other backers including Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Meritech, IVP, ARK Invest, CapitalG, and Y Combinator. Kalshi says its trading volume now exceeds $1B per week across 3,500+ markets, and it will use the new capital to accelerate consumer adoption, integrate more brokerages, strike news partnerships, and expand product offerings. - learn more

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Perelel, the LA startup quietly fixing women’s health

Grace Lee

🔦 Spotlight

Happy Friday LA!

While the market obsesses over the latest AI tool, one of the most interesting checks this week went to something more basic and much harder to fake: women’s health.

Perelel, a doctor founded, research backed supplement company for women, just raised 27 million dollars in growth funding led by Prelude Growth Partners, with existing investors including Unilever Ventures, Willow Growth Partners and Selva Ventures coming back in. Co founded by CEO Victoria Thain Gioia, who comes from a background in finance and operating roles at consumer brands, former media executive Alex Taylor, and OB GYN Dr. Banafsheh Bayati, the company has spent the last five years quietly building a profitable business that has doubled revenue year over year and has some of the strongest subscriber retention in its category.

Image Source: Perelel

The wellness aisle is crowded with influencer brands and one size fits all multivitamins. Perelel is trying to be the adult in the room. The team designs products with OB GYN input, clinical backing and formulas tailored to specific chapters of a woman’s hormonal life, from fertility and pregnancy to postpartum, perimenopause and beyond. Most of its line now carries a Clean Label Project Purity Award, which is a polite way of saying they’re willing to have someone else check what’s actually in the bottle.

This round is less about a splashy launch and more about upgrading the cap table and the support system. The founders used the raise to buy out early angel investors and bring in Prelude Growth, a women-founded firm with a track record in modern consumer health and beauty. The new capital is aimed at deeper research, more life stage specific products and broader distribution rather than chasing the trend of the month.

In a category that has historically treated women’s health as an afterthought, a clinically serious, women led company raising growth capital to build a full lifecycle platform feels like a meaningful data point. Scroll down for this week’s LA venture deals, funds and acquisitions.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Venture Funds

Anthos Capital participated in Kalshi’s new $1B funding round, which values the CFTC-regulated prediction market platform at $11B and was led by returning investors Sequoia Capital and CapitalG alongside Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm and Neo. The capital will help Kalshi scale its event-contracts exchange, expand beyond politics into areas like macro data and business events, and compete more aggressively with rival prediction platforms as institutional and retail interest in trading real-world outcomes grows. - learn more

UP Partners participated in Point One Navigation’s $35M Series C round, backing the San Francisco-based precise location startup alongside lead investor Khosla Ventures and fellow existing investors IA Ventures and Alumni Ventures. The company provides centimeter-level GNSS correction and positioning services for “physical AI” applications like autonomous vehicles, robots and smart equipment, and plans to use the new funding to expand its Polaris RTK network, enhance its location platform and grow its team across R&D, OEM integrations and international operations. - learn more

Embark Ventures participated in QSimulate’s latest seed financing, which brings the Boston-based quantum simulation startup’s total funding to just over $11M. The company also launched QUELO v2.3, a new generation of its quantum-powered drug discovery platform that uses real-time quantum mechanics to model drug–protein interactions far faster than traditional methods, and it plans to use the capital to scale operations and support growing collaborations with major pharma and tech partners. - learn more

Cultivate Next, Chipotle Mexican Grill’s venture fund, participated in Athian’s $4M Series A round, backing the Indianapolis-based startup alongside Ajinomoto Group Ventures, Mondelēz International’s Sustainable Futures platform and a roster of existing strategic investors from across the livestock and food value chain. Athian, founded in 2022, operates a platform that aggregates, verifies and monetizes on-farm greenhouse gas reductions so food brands can hit their Scope 3 climate targets, and it says it has already facilitated $18M in payments to farmers as it expands its protocols, species coverage and international footprint. - learn more

Fika Ventures joined Coverbase’s $16M Series A as a returning investor from the seed round, backing the company alongside lead investor Canapi Ventures and others. The San Francisco based startup uses AI agents to automate vendor procurement and third-party risk review for regulated enterprises, serving customers like Coinbase, Okta and Nationwide, and the new funding will help it expand into contract management, continuous security monitoring and a larger go-to-market team. - learn more

BroadLight Capital and HeartBeat Ventures are among the investors backing Function Health’s $298M Series B round, which values the company at $2.5B and supports its push to become a new standard in proactive, data-driven healthcare. The Austin-based startup offers a membership platform that combines extensive lab testing with AI to help people track and manage their health, and it’s using the new capital to launch its Medical Intelligence Lab, an initiative aimed at turning that data into personalized medical insights at scale. - learn more

Hallwood Media joined Menlo Ventures and other investors in Suno’s $250M Series C round, which values the AI music startup at $2.45B. The Cambridge based company lets users generate fully produced songs from text prompts and is using the new funding to expand tools like its Suno Studio workstation and next-generation music models, even as it navigates high-profile copyright lawsuits from major record labels. - learn more

Upfront Ventures joined the $7M seed round for alphaXiv, investing alongside co-leads Menlo Ventures and Haystack, plus Shakti VC, Conviction Embed and several high-profile angels. The San Francisco based company runs a platform that helps AI practitioners and researchers discover, compare and apply cutting-edge AI papers, benchmarks and implementations, and it plans to use the new funding to further bridge the gap between fast-moving AI research and real-world production deployments. - learn more

Regeneration.vc joined TULU’s $37M Series A extension as an existing investor, backing the company alongside GreenSoil PropTech Ventures, Bosch Ventures, New Era Capital Partners and others. TULU runs an AI powered product access platform that installs shared, IoT enabled units inside residential and commercial buildings so residents can rent or buy items like appliances, e scooters and household essentials on demand, and the new funding will help the company scale its “TULU Brain” data engine and expand its footprint beyond the 500,000 residents it already serves across North America and Europe. - learn more

WndrCo has joined Method Security’s $26M combined seed and Series A round, alongside Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Blackstone Innovations and others. The startup, which operates out of New York and Washington DC, is building an autonomous cyber platform that combines offensive and defensive tools into a digital twin of an organization, helping US government agencies, the Department of Defense and large enterprises continuously test and strengthen their defenses against AI driven threats, a thesis that fits neatly with WndrCo’s focus on infrastructure and security. - learn more

Coral Tree Partners has led a new Series B round for KERV.ai, backing the Austin based company as it scales its AI-powered contextual commerce and video advertising platform. The funding will be used to invest in R&D, technology, talent and infrastructure so KERV.ai can further expand its interactive, shoppable video solutions and first-party data targeting tools for brands, agencies and publishers, while pushing into new markets and strategic partnerships. - learn more

CIM Group and Group 11 are backing Venn’s new $52M Series B, with CIM co-leading the round alongside NOA and Group 11 re-upping as an existing investor. The New York and Tel Aviv based company builds an operating system for multifamily housing that unifies data and workflows so landlords and operators can run buildings more efficiently and treat them like modern consumer brands. Over the last 18 months, Venn says it has expanded across dozens of U.S. states, partnered with hundreds of owners and operators, and grown annual recurring revenue ninefold, setting up this round to fuel further product development and market expansion. - learn more

Walkabout Ventures led Barker’s $3.5M seed round, backing the New York based fintech as it builds warrantied AI valuations for illiquid, hard-to-price assets in asset-backed lending. Barker’s platform uses an “agentic valuation system” and insurance from Munich Re to warranty its AI-generated prices on assets like aircraft, equipment, art and GPUs, so lenders are protected if the collateral ultimately sells for less than the model predicted, and the new funding will help the company expand into more asset classes and deepen partnerships across banks and private lenders. - learn more

Freeflow Ventures joined Erg Bio’s $6.5M seed round, investing alongside lead Azolla Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, Plug and Play and other strategic backers. Erg Bio is developing its Aspire platform, a flexible, low-temperature pretreatment and catalytic process that turns agricultural and forestry waste into intermediates for synthetic aviation fuel and critical biobased chemicals, and the new capital will help scale the technology, expand engineering and bioprocessing teams, and move toward pilot-scale demos. - learn more

Pinegrove Venture Partners participated in Ramp’s new $300M financing round, joining Lightspeed Venture Partners and a long list of existing and new backers as the company’s valuation hit $32B. The New York based spend management and corporate card platform now generates over $1B in annualized revenue, serves more than 50,000 business customers and processes upwards of $100B in annual purchase volume, and this fresh capital will support continued product expansion and enterprise growth. - learn more

Alexandria Venture Investments and B Capital joined Solve Therapeutics’ new $120M financing round, backing the San Diego based biotech alongside lead investor Yosemite and a broader syndicate that includes Merck & Co. and other life sciences funds. The company is developing next-generation antibody-drug conjugates for solid tumors using its proprietary CloakLink linker platform, and it plans to use the capital to advance its lead programs SLV-154 and SLV-324 through Phase 1b trials and further build out its ADC and diagnostics pipeline. - learn more

Factorial Funds joined Sakana AI’s $135M Series B round, backing the Tokyo-based startup as it doubles down on building efficient, Japan-focused AI models rather than chasing ever-larger, compute-heavy systems. The financing, which values Sakana at about $2.65B, will help expand its “sustainable AI” research and grow its team as it rolls out sovereign, culturally tailored AI solutions for Japanese enterprises and sectors like finance, manufacturing, and government. - learn more

Smash Capital joined AVP and other investors in backing Flatpay’s latest round, which raised roughly €145–170M and crowned the Danish SMB payments startup as Europe’s newest fintech unicorn at around a €1.5B valuation. The company, which offers flat-rate card terminals and POS systems for small merchants, has scaled to roughly 60,000 customers and over €100M in ARR, and will use the fresh capital to accelerate European expansion, deepen its product stack and significantly grow headcount. - learn more

Fusion joined No Barrier’s oversubscribed $2.7M seed round, investing alongside lead backers A-Squared Ventures, Esplanade Ventures and Rock Health Capital to scale the company’s AI-first approach to medical interpretation. The San Francisco based startup integrates real-time, HIPAA-compliant language interpretation into hospital systems and EHRs across 40+ languages, and will use the new funding to expand deployment across U.S. care settings and further reduce health disparities for patients with limited English proficiency. - learn more

Matter Venture Partners joined Vertex Ventures and other global investors in backing Ruochuang Technology’s Pre A round, which totals tens of millions of dollars to fuel the company’s next stage of growth. The startup develops low speed robotics and related IoT hardware, spanning technology R and D, device manufacturing and sales, and this new capital will help it deepen intelligent hardware research and expand its market footprint as demand for smart manufacturing and IoT applications accelerates. - learn more

B Capital joined Shipday’s $7M Series A as a participating investor, re-upping after leading the company’s 2023 seed round and backing the Menlo Park–based startup alongside co-leads ECP Growth and Ibex Investors. Shipday provides an AI-powered last-mile delivery and logistics platform for SMBs like restaurants and local retailers, and it plans to use the new funding to build out features such as its AgentFlow automation engine, deepen integrations, and expand its global reach beyond the 5,000 businesses it already serves in 100+ countries. - learn more

MANTIS Venture Capital participated in Bedrock Data’s $25M Series A round, joining lead investor Greylock Partners alongside Mangusta Capital, Pier 88 Investment Partners and others to back the Menlo Park based data security startup. Bedrock Data provides an AI-native, data-centric security and governance platform powered by its “Metadata Lake,” and it plans to use the new funding to accelerate product development and expand go-to-market efforts as enterprises look to secure data across cloud, SaaS and AI systems at multi-petabyte scale. - learn more

TenOneTen Ventures and Wedbush Ventures joined Meadow AI’s $6M in total funding, including a $4.5M seed round they backed alongside co-lead Leadout Ventures and other investors. The Seattle-based startup is emerging from stealth with a multimodal AI platform that helps restaurants and retailers monitor real-time operations and automate “secret shopper” audits across 10–300-location chains, already driving more than $2.5M in contracted ARR as it targets further growth in physical retail. - learn more

LA Exits

Neotech, a long-time provider of high-reliability electronic manufacturing services, has been acquired by private equity firm Arkview Capital in a deal that marks a major new chapter for the company. With Arkview as its new owner, Neotech plans to strengthen its balance sheet, invest in next-generation manufacturing, and expand its capabilities across core markets like defense, aerospace, medical and industrial electronics, while continuing to emphasize quality, reliability and customer service. - learn more

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