🔦 Spotlight
Happy Friday, Los Angeles.
The next major pharmaceutical factory may not be built in Boston, New Jersey or Switzerland.
It may be orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth.
El Segundo-based Varda Space Industries raised a $251M Series D this week to advance an ambitious idea: manufacturing medicines in microgravity and returning them to patients on Earth.
The round was led by Lux Capital and Natural Capital, with participation from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst, 8090 Industries, Giant Step and Also Capital. It brings Varda’s total funding to $598M and reportedly values the company at $1.6B.
That is a considerable amount of capital for a company whose factories periodically fall out of the sky.
Then again, that is the point.
Varda builds compact spacecraft that serve as laboratories and manufacturing facilities in orbit. Its W-Series capsules carry pharmaceutical materials into microgravity, process them in space and return the results to Earth through the atmosphere at roughly 25 times the speed of sound.
Why travel that far to make medicine?
Without gravity pulling molecules downward, certain active pharmaceutical ingredients can crystallize in structures that are difficult or impossible to reproduce on Earth. Those differences could eventually enable drug formulations with improved stability, effectiveness or delivery methods.
The science is not entirely new. Researchers have studied pharmaceutical crystallization aboard the International Space Station for decades. Varda’s challenge is turning that research into something considerably less glamorous but far more valuable: a dependable commercial process.
In other words, the company does not merely want to prove that medicine can be made in space. It wants pharmaceutical companies to treat orbit as another step in the development and manufacturing pipeline.
That requires solving the less cinematic half of the space economy.
Rockets have made it increasingly routine to send cargo into orbit. Bringing commercially useful materials safely and repeatedly back to Earth remains much harder. Varda is building both sides of that equation, pairing microgravity processing with capsules capable of surviving hypersonic reentry.
Varda
Since launching its first mission in 2023, Varda says it has completed six successful reentry missions and has more than a dozen additional launches and returns planned through 2028. This week, the company also launched two W-Series spacecraft aboard the same rocket for the first time, marking another step toward operating multiple orbital factories at once.
The new funding will help Varda increase that flight cadence, expand its pharmaceutical partnerships and move closer to delivering what it hopes will become the first medicine manufactured in space for use by patients on Earth.
There is also a second business descending through the atmosphere.
Because Varda’s capsules encounter extreme hypersonic conditions during reentry, they double as research platforms for government customers testing heat shields, navigation systems and other defense technologies. That gives the company a near-term source of demand while its longer-term pharmaceutical market develops.
The combination is distinctly Southern Californian: part aerospace company, part biotechnology startup and part defense contractor, all operating from a city where building hardware for space has become almost commonplace.
But Varda’s larger opportunity depends on making the extraordinary feel routine.
A single successful space experiment is scientifically interesting. A repeatable network of orbital factories could become an industry.
With $598M raised, six reentries completed and a growing mission schedule, Varda has moved beyond asking whether manufacturing in space is technically possible. The more important question now is whether it can become economical, reliable and useful enough for pharmaceutical companies to adopt at scale.
For decades, Los Angeles helped build the machines that carried people and satellites into space.
Varda is betting the region’s next aerospace industry will be built around what those machines bring home.
More from this week’s LA startup and venture scene below.
🤝 Venture Deals
- Charter Space raised an oversubscribed $5M seed round led by Crystal Venture Partners, with participation from QED, Blank Ventures, Gaingels and Hustle Fund, bringing its total funding to $8M. The startup will use the capital to expand its sales team and develop insurance products for emerging space activities, including lunar missions, space-based nuclear power and in-orbit spacecraft servicing. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- Emerging Ventures participated in OSCP’s undisclosed Series A, led by New Science Ventures and joined by 2050 Capital. The Montréal company will use the funding to scale production, expand its engineering and sales teams and launch next-generation photonic navigation sensors designed to operate when satellite signals are jammed, spoofed or unavailable. - learn more
- Slauson & Co. participated in Satlyt’s $8M seed round, led by Non Sibi Ventures and joined by TLCOM, Antler, Launch Africa Ventures, Enza Capital and other investors. The Sunnyvale- and Nairobi-based startup will use the funding to expand its teams and develop software that runs AI directly aboard satellites, reducing costly data transmissions and eventually connecting multiple spacecraft into a shared orbital computing network. - learn more
- StoryHouse Ventures participated in Parakeet Health’s oversubscribed $10M Series A, led by Canvas Ventures and joined by Blank Space Ventures and HMC INQ. The healthcare AI company will use the funding to expand its platform, which automates patient communications and scheduling, while growing across additional medical specialties and enterprise health organizations. - learn more
- Parker89 participated in Homeward’s $120M Series D, led by Saluda Grade and joined by Citi Ventures, Norwest, LiveOak Ventures and other investors; the Austin proptech company also secured $330M in asset-backed debt. Homeward will use the financing to expand its cash-offer and bridge-lending products, improve its AI-powered underwriting platform and make its home-buying and selling services available nationwide. - learn more
- BAM Ventures participated in OuterSignal’s $22M Series A, co-led by Long Journey Ventures and Abstract Ventures and joined by Top Shelf Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures and other investors. OuterSignal will use the funding primarily to expand its team and advance its customer-intelligence platform, which helps consumer brands personalize marketing using detailed profiles built from their existing commerce and CRM data. - learn more
- Navitas Capital participated in EliseAI’s $350M funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners and joined by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Sapphire Ventures, valuing the company at $4B. EliseAI will use the capital to expand its AI platform for housing and other essential-service industries, building tools that automate leasing, resident support and property operations across more than 6.5M housing units. - learn more
- Bonfire Ventures co-led Destro AI’s $8M seed round alongside Base10 Partners, with participation from CoFound Partners. The Brooklyn startup will use the funding to expand deployments of its AI platform, which coordinates robots from different manufacturers across warehouse operations, while growing its engineering and research teams. - learn more
- TenOneTen Ventures and Wedbush Ventures participated in Meadow AI’s $7M seed round, led by Ulu Ventures and joined by York IE, Flying Fish and Leadout Capital. The Seattle startup will use the funding to expand its AI-powered “digital secret shopper,” which monitors retail and restaurant operations in real time, while growing its engineering, product and sales teams. - learn more
- Fika Ventures participated in Outmarket’s $34.5M Series B, led by SignalFire and joined by Permanent Capital Ventures, TTV Capital and Dash Fund. Raised just four months after its Series A, the funding will help Outmarket accelerate development of its AI platform, which automates insurance brokerage tasks such as policy reviews, coverage analysis, proposals and certificates. - learn more
LA Exits
- HMBradley, now operating as MBI, has been acquired by personal finance platform Monarch as the buyer surpasses $100M in annual recurring revenue and 1M members. HMBradley co-founder Zach Bruhnke will lead the newly formed Monarch Labs, where his team will develop additional financial products and services designed to help Monarch expand beyond tracking money into helping consumers manage it. - learn more
- Vision Films has been acquired by Legacy Distribution, combining the Los Angeles companies’ film, television, documentary and specialty-content libraries into a single global distribution business. The combined company will retain the Vision Films name, with Legacy CEO Dana Webber taking the helm and Vision Films founder Lise Romanoff transitioning into a consulting role. - learn more
- Creative agency Zambezi received a majority investment from health and wellness-focused private equity firm Manna Tree, with financial terms undisclosed. Zambezi will continue operating independently under its existing leadership while providing branding, media and production services to Manna Tree’s portfolio companies and pursuing new business across the broader consumer market. - learn more
- Santa Monica-based Advertise Purple was acquired by AI-powered marketing company ONAR for up to $27.8M, marking the buyer’s largest acquisition to date. The affiliate marketing agency, which generated $17.1M in 2025 revenue, will retain its leadership team while adding its Bloom analytics platform and more than 111M performance records to ONAR’s technology portfolio. - learn more
- EasyLlama was acquired through a majority recapitalization by private investment firm Inverness Graham, with financial terms undisclosed. The compliance software company, which serves more than 5,500 small and midsize businesses, plans to expand its platform, partner network and training content while pursuing growth through strategic acquisitions. - learn more
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Varda