ServiceTitan Ups the AI Stakes

ServiceTitan Ups the AI Stakes

🔦 Spotlight

Hello Los Angeles,

ServiceTitan is making it clear: the trades are getting a tech glow up. At its annual Pantheon conference in Glendale, the home services software giant rolled out a bold AI vision and topped it off with a fresh acquisition that could change the way HVAC contractors do business.

First, the AI. ServiceTitan unveiled what it calls the “next evolution” of its platform, and this is not just window dressing. Think automated call summaries so techs spend less time typing, predictive scheduling that knows when your AC is likely to fail before you do, and estimates that generate faster than a homeowner can ask, “So, how much is this going to cost me?” For small and mid sized contractors, these are the kinds of tools that level the playing field against the big chains and maybe even help them get home before dinner. It is AI built not for hype, but for the day to day grind of the trades, where minutes saved can mean jobs won and customers kept.

Then came the news that ServiceTitan is acquiring Conduit Tech, a Boston startup best known for its LiDAR powered HVAC design software. Instead of squinting at tape measures and crunching numbers in clunky spreadsheets, contractors can now scan a home, generate a 3D model, and deliver a polished, ACCA certified proposal on the spot. Translation: faster bids, more trust, and fewer “I will get back to you next week” moments.

Put together, the AI rollout and Conduit deal are more than product updates. They are a signal of where ServiceTitan wants to take the industry. This is not just software that keeps the books balanced or trucks dispatched. It is an attempt to make technology an advantage in a field where labor is scarce, expectations are high, and every interaction with a customer matters. In short, ServiceTitan is not just keeping the lights on, it is rewiring how the trades get work done.

🤝 Venture Deals

      LA Companies

      • Modern Animal has hit a $100M annual run rate and closed a new $46M funding round led by Addition, True Ventures and Upfront Ventures with participation from Founders Fund. The company delivers veterinary care both in clinics and virtually, and it is using the funds to expand services such as specialty care, 24/7 virtual access, integrated pharmacy and ecommerce, along with extended urgent care hours. The company also announced a board expansion with new leadership added to support scaling operations and enhancing its technology infrastructure. - learn more
      • MarqVision raised a $48M Series B round led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from investors including Salesforce Ventures, HSG, Coral Capital, and returning backers like Y Combinator and Altos Ventures. Based in Los Angeles, MarqVision offers AI-powered brand protection tools—monitoring marketplaces, removing counterfeit listings, managing trademarks, and protecting brand reputation online. The new funds will go toward expanding its AI and engineering teams, accelerating automation, enabling enterprise-grade features, and growing its global presence in markets like Japan, Korea, China, Europe and beyond. - learn more
      • Divergent Technologies raised $290M in a Series E round led by Rochefort Asset Management, with $250M in equity and $40M in debt, bringing its valuation to about $2.3 billion. Using its proprietary DAPS (Divergent Adaptive Production System) platform, the Torrance based company builds hardware for aerospace, defense and automotive sectors by combining rapid design, additive manufacturing and automated assembly. The new capital will help Divergent scale its manufacturing capacity, build out its team and develop new capabilities for upcoming product lines. - learn more
      • Apex raised $200M in a Series D round led by Interlagos, giving the Los Angeles company a valuation above $1 billion. Apex builds configurable “satellite bus” platforms used by commercial and government clients, including for communications, sensing, and national security constellations. The capital will boost production capacity by 50 percent, expand its manufacturing footprint in Los Angeles, and strengthen vertical integration including acquiring propulsion technology and insourcing more subsystems. - learn more

        LA Venture Funds

        • Mantis Venture Capital joined Benchmark, Uncork, Y Combinator and Mayfield in backing Numeral’s $35M Series B, part of a $57M total funding haul. Numeral is an AI powered platform that automates everything around sales tax for e-commerce and SaaS brands including filing, remittance, exemption certificates, state registrations, nexus detection and more. The money will go to speeding up product innovation, building out its global compliance footprint, and adding smarter automation so finance teams can stop wrestling with tax rules and start scaling. - learn more
        • Magnify Ventures participated in Series A for Seven Starling, contributing to an $8M funding round led by Rethink Impact. Seven Starling is a virtual women’s mental health company focused on maternal mental health, offering group therapy, medication management, patient advocates, and digital tools. The new capital will fuel its expansion into more U.S. states (aiming for over 30 by the end of 2026), deepen partnerships with healthcare providers, and scale its model to help more mothers. - learn more
        • Calibrate Ventures led Vibranium Labs’ $4.6M seed round, joined by Mirae Asset and investors including a16z and Franklin Templeton. Vibranium Labs’ flagship product, “Vibe AI,” acts as a full-time AI incident engineer, monitoring, triaging, and resolving IT incidents automatically. The funds will be used to expand the engineering team, accelerate product development, and deepen integrations so Vibe AI can be embedded into more incident response systems across industries. - learn more
        • B Capital led a $20M financing round in Extend, with additional participation by March Capital, Point72 Ventures, FinTech Collective, and Commerce Ventures. Extend, a spend-and-expense management platform, allows businesses to use virtual cards with their existing bank or card programs while offering workflow tools like receipt capture, approvals, and automated reconciliation. The new capital will help Extend scale issuer partnerships, launch new expense management services, accelerate its path to profitability, and the company also added Francois Horikawa as CFO to help guide the financial strategy forward. - learn more
        • Alexandria Venture Investments joined Versant Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners USA in a $65M Series A for Dualitas Therapeutics, a South San Francisco company developing bispecific antibodies through its DualScreen discovery engine. Dualitas is advancing two lead programs, DTX-103 for allergic disease and DTX-102 for autoimmune conditions, both showing strong preclinical results. The funding will support these programs and expand the company’s platform to discover new bispecific candidates in immunology, inflammation and beyond. - learn more
        • Oversubscribed Ventures joined a syndicate that invested in Noble Mobile’s $10 million seed round. Noble Mobile, founded by Andrew Yang, is a telecom startup offering unlimited data plans while giving customers cash back when they use less data. The funds will be used to launch operations, roll out its mobile virtual network service, and build features that encourage better digital wellness. - learn more
        • Mantis Venture Capital participated in Doctronic’s $20M Series A round, which was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and also backed by Union Square Ventures, Tusk Ventures, Seven Stars, and others. Doctronic is a healthcare AI startup building a platform for fast, personalized medical advice and virtual visits with licensed physicians, aiming to reduce wait times and costs. The new funds will help the company scale its operations across the U.S., expand partnerships with insurers and health systems, and extend its reach to more patients. - learn more
        • Strong Ventures led a Series A round investing about ₩1 billion in Ares3, with Seoul National University Technology Holdings also participating. Ares3 runs florist subscription service “Honest Flower” for consumers and “FlowerGo,” a B2B platform for floral suppliers, with steady growth thanks to brand partnerships and solid demand. The new capital will help Ares3 extend its reach via offline experience locations and campaigns to shift public perception of flowers from luxury to everyday goods. - learn more
        • Gold House Ventures participated in MedSetGo’s oversubscribed $2.4M seed round led by TurboStart. MedSetGo is an AI-driven healthcare company based in San Francisco that is working to streamline patient care transitions by helping people find and schedule the right care after discharge. The funding will go toward accelerating product development and hiring, especially expanding the engineering, data science, and commercialization teams. - learn more
        • March Capital was among the investors in Lila Sciences’ $235M Series A round, which was co-led by Braidwell and Collective Global. Lila builds an autonomous science platform combining AI, robotics and software to automate the scientific method - generating hypotheses, designing experiments, running them, learning from results. The funds will be used to scale Lila’s “AI Science Factories,” expand globally in cities like Boston, San Francisco and London, and accelerate its ability to explore materials, chemistry, life sciences and diagnostics more quickly. - learn more

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          Brex’s $5.15B Deal With Capital One Marks A New Era For Fintech

          🔦 Spotlight

          Happy Friday, Los Angeles. 💳

          The first big fintech plot twist of 2026 is here. Capital One is buying Brex in a cash and stock deal valued at about $5.15 billion, in what the companies are calling the largest bank - fintech deal in history.

          From college dropouts to a multibillion exit

          Brex launched in 2017, when Brazilian founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, then in their early 20s after dropping out of Stanford, set out to fix the “startup card” problem. That project turned into an AI-native finance platform that now serves tens of thousands of companies, from early-stage startups to hundreds of public enterprises.

          A few years into that journey, both founders moved to Los Angeles and continued running Brex from here as the company embraced a fully remote model. Now that same LA-based duo is steering a multibillion-dollar acquisition that will plug their software directly into one of the biggest banks in the country. Pedro will stay on as CEO of Brex inside Capital One, with the brand and product continuing rather than disappearing into a rebrand.

          Why this looks like a win

          “Big bank buys fintech” can sound like the end of the startup story, but here it reads more like an expansion pack. Capital One gets Brex’s cloud-based spend stack, AI-powered controls and roughly $13 billion in commercial deposits. Brex gets a massive balance sheet, a regulated rails partner and access to the mainstream business market it has been edging toward for years.

          For founders and operators here, it is also quiet validation that building hard fintech infrastructure still pays off. Brex spent years doing the unglamorous work of licenses, compliance, underwriting and integrations. The outcome isn’t a hype cycle spike; it is a classic, real-money exit for a very modern stack.

          What it signals for LA’s ecosystem

          LA is not getting a new headquarters out of this. Brex has embraced a “no HQ” model. What the city does have is a pair of founders who chose to build their lives here and just proved that you can run a global finance platform from Los Angeles and end up selling it to a top-six U.S. bank.

          It also fits a broader pattern our ecosystem is leaning into. Whether it is fintech, defense tech or climate, the most interesting LA stories right now are not about front-end apps. They are about deep, regulated infrastructure that incumbents eventually need more than startups need them.

          For Brex, this is the start of a new chapter inside Capital One. For LA, it is one more data point that the city’s founders can build products the rest of the financial system has to buy.

          Scroll on for the latest LA venture rounds, fund news and acquisitions.

          🤝 Venture Deals

              LA Companies


              • L-Nutra secured a new $36.5M investment from Mubadala, bringing its total Series D proceeds to $83.5M. The company, which develops longevity-focused and medical nutrition therapies, plans to use the funding to accelerate global expansion, advance clinical research, and scale adoption of its nutrition programs across healthcare providers and consumers. - learn more
              • RiskFront AI raised $3.3M in pre-seed funding to make financial crime and compliance work far less manual. The US-based startup uses “agentic AI” to automate time-consuming tasks like research, data analysis and documentation, with its Airos platform handling much of the day-to-day workload so human analysts can focus on higher-value judgment calls. The new capital will help expand engineering and product teams and deepen integrations with banks and fintechs already piloting the system. - learn more
              • Balance Homes relaunched with a $30M investment led by Falco Group to scale its equity-sharing model for homeowners who are “house rich but cash and credit constrained.” The company buys a co-ownership stake in a home to free up trapped equity so owners can pay down mortgages and high-interest debt while staying in their homes, instead of being forced to sell. After stabilizing its existing portfolio following EasyKnock’s shutdown, Balance Homes is now resuming originations in six states, with plans to expand as affordability and household debt pressures intensify. - learn more

                      LA Venture Funds

                      • Distributed Global co-led Superstate’s $82.5M Series B, backing the Robert Leshner - founded tokenization platform as it builds regulated, on-chain capital markets infrastructure. The round, alongside Bain Capital Crypto and other institutional investors, will help Superstate expand beyond its existing tokenized U.S. Treasury funds to a full issuance layer for SEC-registered equities on Ethereum and Solana. The company, which already manages over $1.1B in tokenized assets, plans to scale its Opening Bell platform and transfer agent stack so public companies can issue and manage compliant on-chain shares directly. - learn more
                      • Krew Capital participated in GIGR (Playad.ai)’s $5.4M pre-seed round, backing the San Francisco based startup as it builds multi-agent AI workflows for marketing teams. GIGR’s Playad platform starts with interactive ads, using AI agents to help marketers create, test and iterate on playable and other ad formats much faster while turning performance data into continuous creative improvement. The new funding will support product development, expansion of its AI-native creative workflow and scaling to more customers looking to cut production costs and tighten the loop between ad performance and creative decisions. - learn more
                      • Trousdale Ventures participated in AheadComputing’s additional $30M Seed2 round, backing the Portland-based chip startup as it reimagines CPU architecture for the AI era. AheadComputing is developing high-performance RISC-V based CPUs and breakthrough microarchitecture aimed at handling the growing wave of AI data center, workstation and embedded workloads where CPU performance has become a bottleneck. The new funding, which brings total capital raised to $53M, will support R&D, software innovation and test chip development as the company races to deliver next-generation general purpose processors. - learn more
                      • Untapped Ventures participated in Nexxa.ai’s $9M seed round, backing the Sunnyvale-based startup as it scales specialized AI agents for heavy-industry workflows. Nexxa’s Nitro platform layers multi-agent automation on top of existing tools used in sectors like rail, construction, manufacturing and critical infrastructure, helping engineers plan and execute complex projects without ripping out legacy systems. The new funding brings Nexxa.ai’s total capital raised to $14M and will go toward expanding deployments, forward-deployed engineering teams and support for more industrial customers. - learn more
                      • UP.Partners participated in Zanskar’s $115M Series C, backing the Salt Lake City based geothermal startup as it uses AI to uncover overlooked conventional geothermal resources across the Western U.S. The company has already validated several high-potential sites and plans to use the funding to expand its discovery platform and begin developing multiple greenfield power plants, with a goal of bringing significant new clean baseload capacity to the grid before 2030. - learn more
                      • Smash Capital participated in Stream’s $90M Series D, backing the UK based workplace finance startup as it ramps expansion into the U.S. market. Formerly known as Wagestream, Stream partners with employers to offer workers tools like earned wage access, savings, budgeting and pensions in a single app, targeting financial stress for lower and middle income employees. The new funding, led by Sofina, brings total capital raised to about $228M and will help Stream scale its multi-product platform across more brands and workers globally. - learn more
                      • Fika Ventures participated in Ivo’s $55M funding round, backing the San Francisco based legal AI startup alongside lead investor Blackbird and others. Ivo builds contract intelligence tools for in-house legal teams and enterprises, using a highly structured approach that breaks reviews into hundreds of smaller AI tasks to boost accuracy and reduce hallucinations. The new capital, which reportedly values the company at around $355M, will go toward accelerating product development and hiring more sales and go-to-market talent to meet growing demand. - learn more
                      • Amplify.LA participated in Overworld’s latest funding round, backing the AI startup as it unveils a real-time diffusion world model for playable, AI-native worlds. Overworld’s system runs locally and generates persistent, interactive environments on the fly, aiming to become core infrastructure for next-generation games, simulations and creative tools built around world models rather than static assets. The new capital will support further development of its Waypoint 1 research preview and help the team expand its platform for researchers, engineers and builders working on interactive AI experiences. - learn more
                      • Dangerous Ventures participated in Carbogenics’ $3M investment and grant funding round, backing the Edinburgh-based bio-carbon startup as it scales its carbon removal technology. Carbogenics turns difficult-to-recycle organic waste into CreChar, a biochar product that boosts biogas production, supports wastewater treatment and locks away carbon. The new funding will help the company expand manufacturing in the US, grow its centralized UK operations and deploy its biocarbon products across the UK, Europe and North America. - learn more

                            LA Exits

                            • Farcaster is being acquired by Neynar, the infrastructure company that already powers much of the Farcaster ecosystem, in a full-stack handoff from Merkle Manufactory. Neynar will assume control of the decentralized social protocol’s smart contracts, code repositories, official app and Clanker client, while Farcaster co-founders Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan step back from day-to-day operations after five years. The deal keeps the network running without disruption and sets Neynar up to roll out a new, builder-focused roadmap for on-chain social. - learn more
                            • ScribbleVet has been acquired by Instinct Science, which is folding the veterinary AI-scribing startup into its Instinct EMR platform to create what it calls an “intelligent-native” practice management system. The combined offering aims to move traditional PIMS beyond record-keeping by embedding AI scribing, workflow automation and clinical decision support in one system, reducing documentation burden and helping veterinary teams focus more on patient care. ScribbleVet’s team is joining Instinct, with founder and CEO Rohan Relan taking on a key role leading product strategy for intelligence features across the platform. - learn more

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                                                JetZero Just Raised $175M to Rewrite How We Fly

                                                🔦 Spotlight

                                                Happy Friday, Los Angeles ✈️

                                                While everyone in tech is still busy arguing about the next AI model, one startup based out of Long Beach just raised a whole lot of money to change the shape of the airplane itself.

                                                Image Source: JetZero

                                                JetZero closed a $175 million Series B to build its blended wing body “all-wing” airliner, with B Capital leading the round alongside United Airlines Ventures, Northrop Grumman, 3M Ventures, Trucks VC and RTX Ventures. The company is working toward a full-scale Demonstrator aircraft that targets at least 30% better fuel efficiency than today’s tube-and-wing jets, with a first flight planned for 2027 and a commercial Z4 airliner to follow in the early 2030s.

                                                This is not a small bet. JetZero’s pitch is that airlines and regulators need a way to hit climate targets without waiting on sci-fi batteries or hydrogen infrastructure, and that a radically more efficient airframe is the most realistic path. It is also very much an LA story: deep aerospace talent, strategic money at the table, and a product that looks like a mashup of climate tech, defense tech and old-school manufacturing rather than another SaaS dashboard.

                                                There is still a long way to go. The next few years are about turning simulations and wind-tunnel charts into flight data, working with regulators and proving that a manta-ray-shaped jet can slot into a world built for Boeings and Airbuses. But if JetZero gets anywhere close, it will mean that one of the most ambitious hardware bets in commercial aviation is being engineered out of Long Beach.

                                                Scroll on for the latest LA venture rounds, fund news and acquisitions.

                                                🤝 Venture Deals

                                                    LA Companies


                                                    • No Agent List secured $10M in private investment to launch its AI powered real estate platform ahead of a planned Spring 2026 debut. The Los Angeles based company aims to put “agent level” tools directly in the hands of buyers, sellers and vendors, offering direct access to off market properties, FSBOs, distressed assets, foreclosures, tax liens and auctions that have traditionally been gated by agents and insiders. The funding will support product development and rollout of the platform, which promises more control over transactions while using AI to surface opportunities and streamline the deal process. - learn more
                                                    • Hadrian, the Los Angeles based advanced manufacturing startup, announced new capital led by accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates to accelerate its push to “reindustrialize” American manufacturing. The financing, which also includes Altimeter Capital, D1 Capital Partners, StepStone Group, 1789 Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, a16z, Construct Capital and others, values the company at $1.6B and will be used to expand its high-throughput factories, grow its workforce and deploy more AI, software and automation across its “factories-as-a-service” platform for aerospace, defense and critical infrastructure customers.- learn more

                                                          LA Venture Funds

                                                          • Blue Bear Capital joined Hydrosat’s $60M Series B, backing the thermal infrared satellite data company alongside lead investors Hartree Partners, Subutai Capital Partners and Space 4 Earth. The funding will help Hydrosat expand its constellation beyond its two current satellites, ramp global coverage and deepen its AI-powered “thermal intelligence” products for water resource management, agriculture, civil government and defense customers worldwide. - learn more
                                                          • Elysian Park Ventures led a $12M growth round for Diamond Kinetics, backing the Pittsburgh-based baseball tech company as it doubles down on youth development. The new capital will help Diamond Kinetics scale sidelineHD, its AI-powered youth baseball and softball live streaming and highlights platform, and expand its broader suite of training tools as MLB’s Trusted Youth Development Platform. - learn more
                                                          • MANTIS Ventures participated in Depthfirst’s $40M Series A round, backing the San Francisco based applied AI lab alongside lead investor Accel, Alt Capital, BoxGroup, Liquid 2 Ventures and SV Angel. Depthfirst is building an AI-native “General Security Intelligence” platform that uses autonomous agents to detect, triage and remediate software vulnerabilities across code and infrastructure, aiming to outpace a new wave of AI-powered cyberattacks. The fresh capital will fund R&D, go-to-market efforts and hiring as the company scales its security platform for enterprise customers. - learn more
                                                          • Cedars-Sinai Health Ventures participated in Vista AI’s $29.5M Series B, joining a slate of leading health systems backing the company’s automated MRI scanning software. The Palo Alto-based startup will use the funding to expand its FDA-cleared cardiac MRI platform to additional anatomies like brain, prostate and spine, and to roll out remote scanning services that let hospitals without in-house MRI expertise offer advanced imaging while easing backlogs and technologist shortages - learn more
                                                          • Fourward Ventures is leading a new strategic growth investment in Mermaid Gin, backing the Isle of Wight–based premium spirits brand as it accelerates expansion in the U.S. market. The round brings Fourward’s founder Will Ward onto the board as lead investor and is paired with a national distribution partnership with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, plus the appointment of longtime Moët Hennessy veteran Jim Clerkin as CEO for the U.S. push. The capital and partnership are aimed at scaling Mermaid Gin in the fast-growing U.S. super-premium gin segment while preserving its sustainability-focused, Isle of Wight roots. - learn more
                                                          • Hyperion Capital joined Haiqu’s $11M seed round, backing the quantum software startup alongside Primary Venture Partners, Collaborative Fund, Alumni Ventures, Qudit Ventures, Silicon Roundabout Ventures, Harlow Capital, Toyota Ventures and MaC Venture Capital. Haiqu is building a hardware-aware quantum operating system and middleware layer that boosts the performance of today’s noisy quantum hardware, with the new funding going toward productizing its platform and enabling near-term commercial use cases in areas like finance, cybersecurity and scientific computing. - learn more
                                                          • Sound Ventures led WitnessAI’s $58M strategic funding round, backing the Mountain View based AI security and governance platform alongside investors including Fin Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung Ventures and Forgepoint Capital Partners. The company will use the capital to accelerate global go-to-market efforts and expand its platform, which secures AI agents and models by monitoring agent activity, linking human and agent actions, and blocking prompt injection and other attacks in real time. WitnessAI also unveiled new agentic AI governance tools that give enterprises deeper observability and policy control as they scale AI agents across their operations. - learn more
                                                          • Alexandria Venture Investments joined Proxima’s oversubscribed $80M seed financing, backing the newly rebranded AI-native biotech (formerly VantAI) alongside lead investor DCVC, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture arm), Braidwell, Roivant and others. Proxima is building a generative AI driven platform for “proximity-based medicines” that modulate protein protein interactions, including molecular glues and PROTACs, to go after historically undruggable targets in oncology, immunology and beyond. The new capital will accelerate its NeoLink structural proteomics and Neo AI model stack, and advance a pipeline of first-in-class proximity-modulating therapeutics toward the clinic. - learn more
                                                          • Clocktower Technology Ventures participated in WeatherPromise’s oversubscribed $12.8M Series A, backing the weather-guarantee startup alongside lead investor Maveron, 1Sharpe, Lerer Hippeau, Commerce Ventures, MS Transverse, Start Ventures, 1Flourish and others. WeatherPromise partners with major travel brands like Marriott, Expedia and JetBlue to offer “weather guarantees” that automatically refund trips when conditions are worse than promised, driving demand for travel, events and outdoor experiences. The new capital will accelerate product development, expand strategic partnerships and scale the platform across more consumer categories. - learn more
                                                          • MANTIS Ventures participated in Sandstone’s $10M seed round, backing the AI-native legal tech startup alongside lead investor Sequoia Capital and others. Sandstone is building an operating system for in-house legal teams that uses AI agents to route requests, draft and review contracts, and surface answers directly inside tools like email, Slack and Salesforce, turning institutional legal knowledge into reusable workflows. The new capital will help the Brooklyn-based company scale its product and grow its customer base of corporate legal departments. - learn more
                                                          • Strong Ventures participated in Hupo’s $10M Series A round, backing the Singapore-based AI sales coaching startup alongside lead investor DST Global Partners, Collaborative Fund, January Capital and Goodwater Capital. Hupo’s platform uses AI to coach frontline banking, insurance and financial services sales teams in real time, helping them ramp faster and close more deals across highly regulated markets in APAC and Europe. The new funding will support product development, expansion of its coaching features and scaling enterprise deployments as the company eyes broader international growth. - learn more
                                                          • Freeflow Ventures joined Vivere Oncotherapies’ more than $10M funding round, backing the UC Berkeley spinout alongside YK Bioventures, Pillar, Berkeley Frontier Fund and the National Cancer Institute. Vivere is developing targeted immunotherapies for “cold” solid tumors like colorectal and ovarian cancers, aiming to activate the immune system against tumors that typically evade detection and resist existing treatments. The new capital will support advancement of its proprietary bioengineering platform and pipeline of therapies for patients with few effective options today. - learn more
                                                          • Alexandria Venture Investments joined Precede Biosciences’ $63.5M Series B equity round, part of an $83.5M total financing package that also includes a $20M strategic, non-dilutive credit facility. The Boston based precision diagnostics and data company is scaling its blood-based platform, which measures target expression and pathway activity to support next-generation cancer therapies like drug, radio and immune conjugates. The new capital will help Precede meet growing demand from biopharma partners developing these precision medicines and accelerate commercialization and health system adoption. - learn more
                                                          • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Recludix Pharma’s new equity financing round alongside Access Biotechnology, NEA and Westlake BioPartners, with additional strategic investment from Eli Lilly. The San Diego based, clinical-stage biotech will use the $123M in total equity raised to advance clinical development of its novel SH2 domain inhibitor pipeline for inflammatory diseases and to tap Lilly’s TuneLab AI/ML platform to accelerate discovery across its broader SH2 domain program. - learn more
                                                          • BOLD Capital Partners participated in MagicCube’s $10M funding round, backing the Cupertino-based software security company alongside strategic investor Verifone and other existing backers. MagicCube plans to use the capital to expand beyond its core tap-to-phone payments offering into biometrics, identity verification and AI-driven device security, while scaling its Software Defined Trust platform that delivers hardware-grade protection through software on standard mobile and IoT devices.- learn more

                                                                LA Exits

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

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                                                                                    Inside Tinder’s 380-Matches-Per-Second Sunday

                                                                                    🔦 Spotlight

                                                                                    Happy New Year, Los Angeles. 💘

                                                                                    If you want a clear read on how people actually behave when the calendar flips, you do not need a survey. You need Tinder’s Dating Sunday data. The numbers below are from January 2025, compared with 2024, and they show a pattern the app sees every year when millions of people log in and take their love life off pause.

                                                                                    🔥 Tinder’s Annual Traffic Spike, By The Numbers

                                                                                    On Dating Sunday, the first Sunday of the year, Tinder hit its biggest activity spike on the calendar. Compared with the app’s typical daily averages for that year, and trends versus the prior year:

                                                                                    📈 Swipes were nearly 13% higher

                                                                                    💬 Messages were nearly 10% higher

                                                                                    ❤️ Likes were over 10% higher

                                                                                    🗣️ Users had almost 7% more conversations

                                                                                    🤝 Matches climbed to about 380 matches per second, roughly a 10% lift compared to the rest of the year

                                                                                    Across Peak Season, from January 1 through February 14, Tinder saw on the order of 10 million more messages per day and roughly 40 million additional likes than its non peak baseline.

                                                                                    The figures are from last January, but the shape of this curve is remarkably consistent year after year, which is why they are a solid proxy for what is happening again at the start of 2026.

                                                                                    ⚡ Not Just More Use, Different Use

                                                                                    What makes the Dating Sunday data more interesting than a simple “usage went up” story is how behavior shifted compared with the same day the year before.

                                                                                    Users replied about 2 hours and 25 minutes faster on average while also sending more messages, more likes and starting more conversations. That looks less like background swiping and more like a concentrated intent spike, people coming back to the app with a clear goal and actually engaging.

                                                                                    From a product and infrastructure perspective, that turns this one Sunday into a full stack exercise. Ranking, recommendations, notifications, trust and safety and core scale all get hammered at once, with high signal data flooding the system over a short window. Most apps only see that kind of behavior during a one off viral moment or a big launch. Tinder sees it every January.

                                                                                    📊 What The Surge Actually Signals

                                                                                    There is plenty of talk about people being tired of apps. The behavior here tells a more nuanced story.

                                                                                    When the calendar flipped last year, people reopened Tinder, used it more, started more conversations and replied faster than they had the year before. That does not look like a category that has lost its grip on users. It looks like a mature consumer network that can still generate predictable, measurable spikes of attention and intent on cue.

                                                                                    If those patterns hold, the first few weeks of 2026 once again look less like a slow reset and more like a live load test for an LA built product at global scale.

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

                                                                                    🤝 Venture Deals

                                                                                        LA Companies

                                                                                        • Cambium, an El Segundo based advanced materials startup, raised a $100M Series B led by 8VC. The company uses AI, chemical informatics and high-performance computing to design new polymers and composites for defense, aerospace and other high-performance sectors, and will use the funding to accelerate its product pipeline and scale manufacturing capacity across the U.S. and Europe following its acquisition of SHD. - learn more

                                                                                              LA Venture Funds

                                                                                              • Plus Capital joined Pomelo Care’s $92M Series C, backing the New York based virtual care company at a $1.7B valuation alongside lead investor Stripes, Andreessen Horowitz, Atomico, BoxGroup and SV Angel. Pomelo, which already covers about 25 million lives and nearly 7% of U.S. births, will use the funding to take its proven, outcomes-driven maternity model and expand it across women’s and children’s health more broadly, from reproductive care and pediatrics through hormonal health, perimenopause and menopause. - learn more
                                                                                              • Kittyhawk Frontier is leading a $2M seed round in Denver based encoord, joining new and existing investors to back the company’s grid-planning software platform. encoord’s flagship product, SAInt, is designed to give utilities, developers, data centers and grid operators an integrated financial and operational view of the power system, helping cut interconnection timelines by up to five years and optimize capital planning. The new capital will go toward expanding the team, advancing the platform and scaling into key markets as demand for smarter, electrification-ready grid planning tools accelerates. - learn more
                                                                                              • Alexandria Real Estate Equities participated in Mediar Therapeutics’ oversubscribed $76M Series B, joining new investors like Longwood Fund and Asahi Kasei Pharma Ventures in a round co-led by Amplitude Ventures and ICG. The Boston-based biotech will use the funding to advance its first-in-class fibrosis portfolio, including MTX-474, now in a global Phase 2a trial for systemic sclerosis, and MTX-439, which is moving into Phase 1 studies for fibrosis associated with chronic kidney disease, alongside its partnered MTX-463 program with Eli Lilly. - learn more
                                                                                              • GordonMD Global Investments joined Soley Therapeutics’ $200M Series C, backing the South San Francisco based biotech as it advances its AI-enabled cell stress sensing platform and oncology pipeline. The round, led by Surveyor Capital with participation from new and existing investors, will fund IND-enabling work and early clinical trials for Soley’s lead acute myeloid leukemia (AML) program and a second solid-tumor asset, while also expanding non-oncology programs in neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases and scaling the platform. - learn more

                                                                                                  LA Exits

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

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