Sonos’ John MacFarlane: Never Be Satisfied

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

Sonos’ John MacFarlane: Never Be Satisfied

This episode was originally released in June 2017. Press Play above to listen.

About this episode's guest:

  • Served as CEO of Sonos from 2002-2017
  • Sonos is known for its high-quality speakers that stream music from popular services
  • Currently works in an advisory role at the company
  • In his new role, he plans to potentially expand Sonos' commitment to STEM education
  • Fan of hip-hop, country and Taylor Swift


Topics covered in this episode:

Press Play to hear the full conversation or check out the transcript below. You can also subscribe to Office Hours on Apple Podcasts and Google Play.

Spencer Rascoff: John, it's great to be sitting here with you. Thanks a lot for taking the time.

John MacFarlane: It's an honor. Thank you.

Rascoff: Let's start off with you just describing the company and the service for those listeners that might not be as familiar with Sonos. What does it do? How does it work from a consumer standpoint?

MacFarlane: The Sonos mission is fill every home with music. Our brand promise, what we promise to do for our music lovers at home, is deliver an ultimate home music experience. That's our focus. Let's bring music into – really, it's bring the artist that you like into your home to wake up to, go to bed to, make dinner to, whatever you like.

Rascoff: I love that, when describing your company, you start with the mission statement. We're going to come back to that because that's so important to me that that's right where you begin with the company description. How many employees are there? How long has the company been around? How large is it?

MacFarlane: Fourteen hundred, fifteen hundred, right in that range. We're all over the world. There are three big offices in China. There are three big offices in the U.S. and a couple through Europe with the main footprint in the Netherlands. It's 15 years for me, so it started in 2002. I had just come off of a company called Software.com. There are four co-founders. This was the common uniting theme of that group of four and about 12 people we wanted to work with that we'd been tracking for quite a while.

Rascoff: Are those co-founders all still heavily involved in the business?

MacFarlane: One certainly is, the first one, Craig Shelburne. Three, including me, are involved but maybe in lesser roles now. Probably the eight, like one of the early software people, they're still – yeah, almost of them are still here.

Rascoff: Has management continuity at the top been an important part of Sonos' success?

MacFarlane: When you go from four people to 1,500, you have a variety of different roles to cover because when you're four to 40, you've got much more generalist, if you will. I'd say at 1,500 now still collaboration is a pretty key role, but people have to play swim lanes a little better. You have really deep specialists in various areas so it's a really different set of needs. So, I would say learning agility would be the number one thing I'd attach to anybody that lasted that whole time. Anybody that didn't, I'd say like you might hire someone out of one of the big CE companies.

There are people, like the guy that runs the product team now started as a software developer and through his whole career here accelerated faster than the company did. You've done high-growth companies. You know that's rare.

Rascoff: That's why I asked. The interesting and challenging thing about high-growth companies is everyone's role and functional area is changing every three or six months. So, you'll have someone who's great at a particular stage and then either they don't scale with the company or the role changes.

I encourage my direct reports to think of their direct reports, knowing what you know about that person today, would you hire them today for that role over the next two years? At least every couple months, every couple quarters be thinking about rehiring all of those people because sometimes they're not right for the role anymore. That's hard.

MacFarlane: I graduated undergrad in the late '80s. A bunch of my classmates went off to GE and IBM. GE, a high achiever, every two years they'd move you. As you know very well, at high growth, you don't need to move people every two years because in two years the job is totally different that you're standing in. So, yeah, you're right. It's a completely different environment.

But also, it depends on what the roles are, too. I'm sure you've dealt with all of this. It's both managing the person's expectations because sometimes someone walks in, and they think I'm not advancing unless my role is going up. You're sitting there helping them understand. Actually, if you look at what's underneath you, it's way broader than it was one year ago.

MacFarlane: The other thing is people need direct management skills and indirect management skills in the right measure are really important. So, sometimes, you need to put somebody in a role where they influence managing. If you don't learn how to do that, you're missing a big set of tools.

Rascoff: What do you mean by that? I assume what you mean is that somebody controls their functional area but in order for that to be successful, they need somebody off to the side, some other group, to support them in some way. So, they have to manage by influence throughout the organization.

MacFarlane: Yeah.

Rascoff: How do people do that successfully here at Sonos?

MacFarlane: I don't think it's unique to Sonos. People do it successfully by understanding what the other person is trying to do and fitting your win-win goal. But that's a different skillset than telling someone what to do. Even if you're a great delegator, you're still in a position of power and you're telling them here are your goals. That goal you made, let's tune it this way. You have a lot of influence over them. When you can't set a person's goals, you've got to get them to change their goals. I think it's a mixture of both. You need both those skillsets.

We do a lot of work. In the mission filling your home with music, that music comes from streaming services these days. So, there really isn't any Sonos without a bunch of our partners, Apple, Music, Spotify and Google. Those guys all have different cultures, and you have to influence them. So, there's a whole lot of work we do that's influence management.

The music industry is going through a huge transition. We can't tell them what to do, but we can help influence it.

Rascoff: Let's talk about that external environment, that kind of landscape. You are in such an interesting, challenging, dynamic area where you have these huge giants from Apple to Amazon to Google and others. You have the record labels. I feel there are these giants dancing all around you, and Sonos is doing this incredibly masterful job of bobbing and weaving to chart its course in context as these behemoths all around you do what they do. That's from the outside looking in. How have you navigated the change in the competitive landscape? Are these companies partners? Spotify and Apple and Alexa/Amazon, are they partners, competitors, both?

MacFarlane: It's actually a really interesting time at Sonos because the whole industry is going through a big change that changes the competitive landscape. When we started, the dominant players were the traditional consumer electronics, like Denon, Yamaha, Sony, and Bose. Samsung was a little bit but there were probably 20 labels. Harman Kardon was a fairly big player at that time. They went into the car audio.

What's happening now with the advent of streaming and things like voice response from Amazon is the speakers are getting a lot smarter. They look a lot more like a platform. You're still buying something that produces sound, but it's a lot more useful to a person in their home if it can respond to your smartphone, and to your voice, and use all the different music services. That looks a lot more like a general computer than it does inside itself. Of course, it can't look that way to a user.

Rascoff: Fundamentally, what Sonos sells are speakers.

MacFarlane: Yeah. That's right.

Rascoff: Now that speaker is controlled by your phone. It can put music onto that speaker from any of these services, from Spotify, from Pandora.

MacFarlane: We like to say you can play anything ever made anywhere. If you like QQ music, you can use QQ music from China. If you like a radio station in Brazil, you can listen. My parents listen to a radio classic in Paris. That's the fun of the internet meets home audio. So, it makes a different competitive set because it's not just your old home stereo system, if that makes any sense.

Rascoff: When the early smartphones got their own internal speakers – I remember the first couple generations of iPods and iPhones didn't have speakers. I remember the first iTouch got a speaker as the successor to iPod. I assume that didn't concern you very much because it's so low quality. But when Amazon launches Echo and the speaker quality is good, certainly not Sonos speaker quality – you can obviously use Sonos through the Echo and I do. But there, they're a partner and a competitor, right?

MacFarlane: Yeah.

Rascoff: How do you approach that? Even just internally with employees, how do you navigate that dichotomy with employees to try to talk about these dichotomies?

MacFarlane: None of these companies are a persona. Even when Steve [Jobs] ran Apple, you'd partner with them in one part. Probably the most strategically dangerous period for Sonos, if you recall, Apple made an iPod Hi-Fi. They had come out with the iPod. They were pivoting the company. It no longer was the Apple computer company. It became the Apple consumer electronics company around the iPod.

They came out with this dock for the iPod that was the iPod Hi-Fi. Now, fortunately, by Apple standards it failed. It was too early. But that was a dangerous time for us because had that thing been successful we would've had a battle for our lives at a time when we weren't really ready to battle with Apple.

Now, pretty much all the traditional consumer electronics guys are gone because they don't have the right DNA.

Rascoff: They're not selling their own speakers.

MacFarlane: Or they're teeny. They're irrelevant. Bose is probably the one left of the legacy and it's holding on with really Bluetooth products and stuff like that. But you're right. Amazon Echo, the Google Home, you'll see Apple come out with something at some point. For me, they're the Beats group or otherwise. There you're partnering with them. You're partnering with Apple Music. Maybe they come out with something that competes, too.

We made a really important decision early on which was we wouldn't take any money from the music services or the voice assistance. So, we're an open platform for them. We work great with Spotify, and we've earned their respect to present Spotify into your home, if you're a Spotify user. It's the same with Google Play Music. It's the same with Apple Music. We're the only integrated party for Apple Music.

Rascoff: To navigate this complexity, you've stayed neutral, in an open platform, as you said. You've also built an incredible brand. That's one of the other things that have allowed you to flourish, even in the face of this competition from these big players.

MacFarlane: Those are one and related. Anybody would tell you a great brand comes from great products that people love and then you're building on that. So, those are highly related, if that makes sense.

Rascoff: In my research about your brand I learned a new word. Now I'm forgetting it, of course, which is Sonos is a word that can be turned sideways.

MacFarlane: Palindrome or an ambigram.

Rascoff: An ambigram, yes. An ambigram is a word that can be turned at a 45-degree angle and still be legible. Was that intentional?

MacFarlane: No. What was intentional is we knew we were building a consumer electronics company. A brand is, at the beginning, an empty vessel or the brand like that. So, we went out and got, I'd say, the best guy in the industry, David Placek from Lexicon. If you look at Lexicon naming, they did so many names you'd recognize. It was really fortunate because it was at the end of 2002. That's when the Silicon Valley dot-com crash really had played fully out. The hopper was just empty of new companies. People were really slowing their investments. So, he gave us a good deal. We worked and worked and worked it until he was about to fire us and out popped Sonos. Everybody knew it was the right thing.

Rascoff: I love these empty vessel names. Zillow is one of them. Zillow is zillions of pillows, which is meant to evoke the data, the quant side of real estate, and the touchy-feely, squishy, emotional side of real estate.

MacFarlane: So, you guys did the same thing. You put a lot of effort into it.

Rascoff: We did and it has the high-value scrabble letter of Z and W. Sonos is an anagram, an ambigram, I guess.

MacFarlane: I love your name. I remembered it from the first time I heard it, which is what you're trying to do.

Rascoff: Let's talk about the office environment at Sonos. Having spent a little bit of time here, I can see that the culture is a lot like Zillow, generally open spaced, emphasis on collaboration, a lot of glass walls. You also have a pretty distributed workforce. You have a couple thousand employees but they're in Santa Barbara, Boston, Seattle, and abroad. How would you describe the culture at the company?

MacFarlane: That's a really broad statement. We'd first have to agree on what the word culture means. I would say culture is as culture does.

Rascoff: You're right to say define culture. Culture is how decisions get made and how resources get allocated. That's what I think of for culture. Is it meritocratic or autocratic? Is it centralized or decentralized? How do decisions get made?

MacFarlane: You covered this with Dick Costolo in one of your earlier podcasts. One of the biggest challenges is getting everybody on board so we're all pulling in the same direction. It's amazing when you are and it's terrible when you're not.

Rascoff: That's where the mission statement comes in. Make sure everyone agrees on the mission.

MacFarlane: Yeah. That's exactly right. The mission, the values of the company, values are really important. So, our values are experience first. Start at what experience you're trying to deliver for the customer, for the employee, for the partner. It just takes you out of your shoes and puts you in theirs, at the beginning, so, experience first. Relentlessly progressive. Some people accuse me of being progressively relentless but you need to be moving forward constantly. You guys know that.

Rascoff: That means just never being satisfied with status quo.

MacFarlane: Yeah, never be satisfied when you finish something. When you make physical products or cognitive/physical products, which we do, you always want to stop and collect. What would we do differently? Some of our products we've killed. You never want to be afraid of that. Talk about the things you did wrong.

Rascoff: Can you think of a time when your employees' understanding of the mission statement and the values resulted in a good decision being made that wasn't under your thumb?

MacFarlane: You know very well I just stepped down as the CEO. So, I feel comfortable around that. A lot of the criteria for the team that was taking over was do they really believe in, express, and use the values? They're not real values unless you see them applied all the time. I don't think there's anybody at Sonos, including myself, that's perfect at all three of those values. What you want is to give everybody permission. Are you really thinking about the experience first? In a meeting where that's maybe the most junior person in the meeting and they have license to ask that question because that's values working. It happens quite a bit.

Rascoff: When I think about other tech companies, I mean, it's true of all industries. But in all industries, if the employee base doesn't understand the mission and share the values, things go bad quick. In tech, it's even worse.

MacFarlane: You better have strong command and control.

Rascoff: That's right. Let's wrap up by talking about your decision to hand the reins over to someone else and to step aside as CEO. Fourteen years after founding the company, why did you think it was time to do that?

MacFarlane: In the first 15 years of Sonos, the music services we mostly marketed to our customers, their customers were a lot younger. People used to say young people don't pay for music. The average age of a Spotify paid user was under 25 so they did pay. It's just that the industry hadn't offered a great product until Spotify and Apple came along.

Those weren't our demographic. Ours was a little older than that because you needed to be settled in your first home, rent or whatever, but you were in a home. So, as the shift to streaming services happened, that opened up a much bigger market because that's a global market, not a U.S., UK. When that happens, you pat yourself on the back for a second. Then you sit there and think about what the company needs to do over the next stage.

I thought the group was ready to take it there. I'd just come off of balancing – we were late to recognize the impact of the Echo, and the Echo Dot, and voice assistance overall. I think the magic Amazon did was cleared that undefinable bar of usability. All the voice response systems before that weren't. Being able to walk into your home and say I want to listen to KCLU or KCRW or whatever, the Ruen Brothers radio, that's a really nice way to control your music system. That's definitely part of an ultimate home music experience. So, we needed to get there.

We pivoted the company. The company did a really good job of pivoting. The team was ready to step up. When you pivot a company like that, it was much more me driving. As you know well, using the forces of a founder are dangerous things because people rely on that. You want the team to be able to next time go this is really important. How do we incorporate this in? As much as it was important to pivot, it was also important that I put a bunch of people in charge. They felt the accountability over it. They weren't looking for me to find the next pivot.
My title is the intern. I'm here for anybody that wants help, contacts, or any mentoring. I love the company. I love what we're doing. I love helping, but I wanted to get out of the way of leading.

Rascoff: Let's talk about the day that it dawned on you that Echo was going to challenge your ability to achieve your mission. Prior to that, voice recognition, whether it's Siri or others, was inadequate. It wasn't ready for prime time.

MacFarlane: It didn't stick.

Rascoff: But then, you must have come into the office one day and somebody had an Echo. They said “play music by the Rolling Stones," and it played music from Amazon. You said uh-oh. What happened at that moment?

MacFarlane: I had a board member, Mike Volpe, who was playing with it early on. There were a variety of employees inside that were playing with it. So, there was a cacophony of voices about it. What happened maybe the day that happened is I finally decided we were moving too slowly to change. We had just come off of the calendar Q4 sales cycle.

The Echo definitely impacted our ability to sell because we didn't really have a story with the Echo. It was, yeah, someday voice response will happen. It's not like the Echo and the Sonos are really competitive. They're complementary I think you'll see over time. We just hadn't worked on doing that at all. We had a full plate of stuff that we were working on. The Echo just wasn't one of them.

So, actually getting the company to pivot around that then was a day. I had gone to an Allen and Company conference in Arizona. It's right around this time of year. I just talked with a bunch of other CEOs about how to do change control for this kind of thing. Everybody said the biggest mistake I've made in doing that is not – make the mistakes on getting too aggressive because the way you're describing it, John, you need to embrace it, not status quo.

Rascoff: A couple quick wrap-up questions. What music service do you use to listen to music through Sonos?

MacFarlane: I use all of them. I have a favorite of the moment. I would say probably if I want programmed radio I'll still fall back on Pandora mostly although Google Play's radio stations are getting really good. If I want playlists, I'll use Spotify or maybe Tidal some because Tidal has got some really good ones. If I want serendipity, I'll use the 4U from Apple. So, it really varies.

Rascoff: What kind of music do you listen to?

MacFarlane: It'd be more a question of what don't I listen to. I like hip-hop. I like some country. I like anything from Taylor Swift to the Ruen Brothers to Q-Tip's new album, the Roots.

Rascoff: Eclectic.

MacFarlane: Yeah. It's pretty eclectic.

Rascoff: What's on top of the list of things that you want to do next in life?

MacFarlane: Hang around here and help it be the next 10x growth that I know it's capable of. Music is such a fantastic spot. I think it'll be bigger than it's ever been. It's so much fun seeing it through the darkest of times and now it's opening back up. I love music. That's great for the artists. Everybody wins, finally.

Rascoff: I love your mission: Fill every home with music. It's something that I do almost every day with Sonos. Thanks a lot for speaking with me, John.

MacFarlane: It's my pleasure. It's my honor.

Rascoff: Thank you.

The post Sonos' John MacFarlane: Never Be Satisfied appeared first on Office Hours.

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Tinder, Starlink, and Apple’s New Studio: This Week in LA

🔦 Spotlight

Happy Independence Day, Los Angeles! 🇺🇸

While you're celebrating freedom, here are some electrifying updates lighting up LA’s tech, satellite, and music scenes:

🔥 Tinder mandates Face Recognition in California

  Image Source: Tinder

Tinder is now requiring all new users in California to complete a biometric face check, a brief video selfie processed via FaceTec, to verify profiles are genuine. The video is deleted post-verification, though an encrypted face map remains while the account is active. This West Hollywood based move could redefine trust, safety, and privacy in mainstream consumer apps.

🌐 Starlink clears hurdle to launch in India

Elon Musk’s SpaceX backed Starlink has cleared most regulatory and licensing hurdles with India’s Department of Telecommunications, marking a key step toward launching satellite broadband in one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Final approvals from the national space regulator are pending, and services, expected to deliver high speed connectivity to underserved regions, could launch in the coming months. This is a major milestone for Starlink’s global expansion.

🎧 Apple Music opens Culver City creative hub

  Image Source: Apple

Apple Music is celebrating its anniversary by launching a brand new 15,000 square foot, three story studio in Culver City. The facility, featuring a 4,000 square foot soundstage, spatial audio suites, podcast booths, and more, is designed by Eric Owen Moss and slated to open mid August. It solidifies LA’s reputation as a creative powerhouse and reaffirms Apple’s commitment to investing in and nurturing our city's cultural ecosystem.

From dating apps to deep space to sound stages, LA isn’t just watching the future unfold, we’re building it.

Here’s to independence, imagination, and everything this city dares to launch next. Happy Fourth, Los Angeles.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

  • Castelion has raised a $350M Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners alongside Altimeter Capital to scale its hypersonic missile production capabilities. The El Segundo-based defense startup plans to use the funds to expand manufacturing, accelerate testing through its SpaceX-inspired rapid development model, and position itself as a cost-effective supplier of hypersonic weapons to the U.S. military and its allies. - learn more
  • Earth Sama, a Calabasas, California–based climate-tech platform that helps rural farming and Indigenous communities generate and manage carbon credits, secured investment from Omtse Ventures. The funding will support the rollout of Earth Sama’s blockchain-powered field app, climate-creator platform, and smart-contract tools to scale community-led carbon credit projects globally under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 framework. - learn more

            LA Venture Funds

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            • BOLD Capital Partners participated as a founding investor in Syntis Bio’s $33M Series A round, with an additional $5M in NIH grants. The Boston-based biotech is developing oral therapies for obesity and rare diseases, and the funding will help advance its SYNT platform, moving its lead obesity treatment, SYNT-101, into Phase 1 trials and supporting development of SYNT-202 for homocystinuria. - learn more
            • BAM Ventures participated in Cred’s $15M seed round for its predictive intelligence startup. San Francisco based Cred uses AI to unify company data with real time market signals and deliver actionable insights for sales and operations. The funding, led by defy.vc, will be used to scale Cred’s platform, expand its customer base, and grow team and product capabilities. - learn more
            • BOLD Capital Partners participated in Gallant’s $18M Series B round to advance its ready-to-use stem cell therapies for pets. The funding, led by Digitalis Ventures with additional support from NovaQuest Capital, will help Gallant bring its off-the-shelf regenerative treatments to market. - learn more
            • Rebel Fund joined the seed round for Rocketable, contributing to the $6.5M raised to build a portfolio of fully automated SaaS companies. San Francisco-based Rocketable, backed by True Ventures and others, uses AI agents to operate acquired software products, and Rebel’s support will help scale both the platform and acquisitions. - learn more 
                    LA Exits
                    • Leasepath, a cloud-first provider of equipment lease and loan management software, has been acquired by Solifi to enhance its mid-market offerings. The deal allows Solifi to expand Leasepath’s Microsoft Dynamics-based platform into new global markets while keeping Leasepath’s team and leadership in place. - learn more

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                              Senra Raises $25M to Rewire LA's Aerospace Supply Chain

                              🔦 Spotlight

                              Hello Los Angeles,

                              In the shadow of LA’s booming space and defense scene, a new kind of hardware startup is scaling up. And it's not building flying cars or flashy robots. It’s building the infrastructure that builds everything else.

                              This week, Senra Systems announced a $25 million Series A led by Dylan Field and CIV, with participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Pax Ventures. Their Redondo Beach-based facility is using custom automation, software, and new design tools to quadruple production speed. The goal is to solve a notoriously manual, bottleneck-prone part of the supply chain: wire harness manufacturing.

                              The company also launched Amp, a CAD software platform that bridges the gap between harness design and physical production. It's a process that has historically been slow, fragmented, and hard to scale. In other words, Senra isn’t just building machines. They’re rewiring the very systems that power aerospace, defense, and industrial tech.

                              It’s not sci-fi. It’s supply chain innovation. And it’s very LA.

                              Catch the latest LA venture deals, acquisitions, and fund updates below.

                              🤝 Venture Deals

                              LA Companies

                              • 2wai, co-founded by actor Calum Worthy and producer Russell Geyser, has emerged from stealth with the launch of its avatar-based social app, allowing users to create lifelike “HoloAvatars” in under three minutes for real-time, multi-language conversations. The platform gives individuals, especially creators and entertainers, control over their digital likeness by restricting avatar responses to pre-approved information, helping counter deepfake threats. The launch follows a $5 million pre-seed raise and sets the stage for broader use by celebrities, brands, and educational partners. - learn more
                              • Superfiliate secured a $2M strategic growth round led by HappyStack to fuel its rapid expansion in the creator commerce space. The platform, which automates influencer and affiliate marketing for CPG and DTC brands via deep Meta and TikTok integrations, has achieved an impressive 400% year-over-year growth. The investment will support scaling its automation engine, deepening social commerce partnerships, and onboarding more e-commerce brands. - learn more
                              • Gemist, a Los Angeles–based jewelry-tech startup, secured $6M in seed funding from Entrada Ventures, Artemis Fund, and Collide Capital, bringing its total funding to $9M. The platform offers real-time 3D visualizations, dynamic pricing, and integrated e-commerce for custom fine jewelry, and is used weekly by over 14,000 customers to design personalized pieces. The new capital will enhance its visualization tools, pricing engine, and commerce features as Gemist expands its footprint. - learn more
                              • Chronicle Studios has raised an oversubscribed $11.6M seed round co-led by Patron and Point72 Ventures to fuel the development of original, audience-driven franchises. Founded by former DreamWorks and Warner Bros. exec Chris deFaria and tech entrepreneur Aaron Sisto, the LA-based studio plans to invest in independent creators and build AI-powered tools, like automated YouTube thumbnails and social analytics, to help storytellers grow and monetize their IP. - learn more
                              • Stackup, a developer platform for crypto applications, has raised a $4.2M in seed funding round led by 1kx. Stackup helps crypto businesses build better user experiences and manage on-chain user data, and the funding will be used to grow its engineering team and expand support for more blockchain networks. - learn more
                              • Doên, a fashion brand known for its vintage-inspired, California aesthetic, has closed a growth equity round led by Silas Capital. The funding will help the company expand its retail footprint, grow its team, and scale operations. Doên plans to continue building its community-driven brand while deepening its commitment to sustainability and women's empowerment. - learn more
                              • Root has raised a $9M seed funding round led by Konvoy and Headline, to develop its platform for managing online communities. The app, currently in closed beta, enables users to build custom tools like raid planners and task trackers right into their social experience. The fresh capital will fuel team expansion and product development ahead of a broader rollout. - learn more
                              • AndrenaM, a defense-tech startup founded by a former SpaceX engineer, raised $10M in just 36 hours. The company is building an AI-powered maritime sensing network using sonar-equipped buoys to provide real-time underwater surveillance. The funding, led by First Round Capital, will support team expansion, custom hardware development, and scaled deployments off the California coast. - learn more

                                      LA Venture Funds

                                      • Westlake Village BioPartners joined Neuron23’s $96.5M Series D financing round. The capital will fund the global Phase 2 NEULARK trial of NEU‑41, a brain-penetrant LRRK2 inhibitor for early-stage Parkinson’s disease, as well as support commercial and R&D scale-up. Neuron23 also announced that the first patient has been dosed in the NEULARK study, with initial results expected in 2027. - learn more
                                      • Fika Ventures participated in Spinwheel’s recent $30 M Series A round led by F‑Prime Capital. The funds will be used to accelerate their AI-powered platform that streamlines debt and credit management, reducing friction in account authentication, automating payments, and integrating liability data, all to deliver instant, developer-friendly credit APIs. This investment supports rapid growth across fintech and banking partners aiming to improve consumer credit outcomes. - learn more
                                      • Chaac Ventures participated in a $7M seed funding round for Meridian, a New York and Miami‑based startup using its AI-powered deal management platform to help private equity firms streamline sourcing, automate workflows, and improve diligence efficiency. The funding will accelerate product enhancements, expand the global go‑to‑market strategy, and deepen its traction with large institutional investors. - learn more
                                      • WME joined a debut funding round for haircare disruptor isima, which raised over $12M to accelerate its launch. Shakira-backed and science-driven, isima will use the capital to scale operations, expand product development, and roll out via isima.com and placements at Ulta Beauty (U.S. in July; Mexico in August), debuting across nearly 30 global markets. - learn more
                                      • M13 participated in Maven AGI’s Series B round, which raised $50M to expand its Business AGI platform for enterprise use. The funding brings Maven’s total capital raised to $78M. The company will use the investment to accelerate product development and go-to-market efforts as it scales its AI platform that unifies customer journeys across support, sales, and operations. - learn more
                                      • Alexandria Venture Investments joined GeneCentric Therapeutics’ $8M Series C round. The funding will support the commercial launch of GenomicsNext™, a groundbreaking liquid biopsy platform that combines extensive gene expression profiling with high‑fidelity DNA variant detection from ctDNA. This capital is expected to carry GeneCentric through 2026 and to help it scale predictive biomarker development for oncology applications. - learn more
                                      • MTech Capital and B Capital participated in COVR Global’s $2.5M seed round, led by MTech Capital. The funding will help COVR develop its AI-powered Decision Engine—a modular platform that enables insurers to make instant, data-driven claims decisions, such as coverage validation, liability assessment, and settlement automation. The investment will fuel product development and team growth as COVR scales across the UK, Spain, Japan, and Australia - learn more
                                      • Bedrock and Khosla Ventures co-led Mach Industries’ $100M Series B round. The defense-tech startup will use the capital to ramp up production at its Forge Huntington factory, grow its Mach Propulsion engine division, and further develop and deploy its advanced unmanned systems—Viper, Glide, and Stratos. This funding brings Mach’s total raised to about $185M as it scales vertically integrated defense manufacturing. - learn more
                                      • Fifth Wall participated in Juniper Square’s Series D funding round, which secured $130M at a $1.1 billion valuation. The investment will be used to accelerate the development and deployment of JunieAI, an AI-powered, agentic platform tailored specifically for private markets general partners to streamline investor relations, reporting, and fund administration. - learn more
                                      • Mucker Capital led CarePilot’s $2.5M seed round, with participation from KCRise Fund. The Overland Park-based startup will use the funding to further develop its AI-powered tools including its new “ProblemAssist” diagnostic and coding tool and expand its team as it scales solutions for healthcare providers. - learn more
                                      • Prototype Capital participated in Sunrise Robotics’ seed round, which raised $8.5M to emerge from stealth and advance its factory automation technology. The Ljubljana-based startup develops dual‑arm robotic cells trained in simulated environments, enabling rapid, cost-effective deployment and continuous learning across a fleet. The funds will be used to scale AI and simulation capabilities, expand team and manufacturing across Europe, and deepen customer deployments in sectors like electronics, supercars, and battery production. - learn more
                                            LA Exits
                                            • Comco, the pioneer behind the MicroBlaster® micro-precision sandblasting system, has been acquired by Medical Manufacturing Technologies (MMT), a portfolio company of Arcline Investment Management. This strategic move integrates Comco’s advanced abrasive technology into MMT’s suite, expanding its capabilities in precision microblasting for medical, aerospace, microelectronics, and industrial applications. MMT CEO Robbie Atkinson emphasized that the acquisition strengthens their end-to-end manufacturing offerings, while Comco President Colin Weightman joins MMT to drive continued innovation and customer growth. - learn more
                                            • 3BlackDot, the creator-first gaming and digital media studio known for popular YouTube franchises like Gaming While Black and Alpha Betas, has been acquired by Offscript Worldwide, the parent company of Revolt. With an audience of over 128 million subscribers, the acquisition marks Offscript’s entry into the $347 billion gaming industry and strengthens its creator-led IP development and distribution capabilities. 3BlackDot will now leverage Offscript’s infrastructure to scale its cultural impact while maintaining its creator-first approach. - learn more
                                            • Dr. Squatch, the fast-growing natural men’s grooming brand known for its social-first marketing and strong DTC presence, is being acquired by Unilever from Summit Partners. The move gives Unilever access to a brand with viral campaigns, influencer collaborations, and revenues reportedly around $400M, enhancing its premium personal care offerings. The deal is expected to close later this year pending regulatory approvals. - learn more
                                            • CloudSoda has been acquired by Diskover Data, combining CloudSoda’s intuitive data orchestration and automation with Diskover’s enterprise-scale indexing, metadata enrichment, and AI-ready infrastructure. This comes alongside Diskover’s $7.5M seed round, led by Snowflake Ventures and NetApp, positioning the company to accelerate unified, intelligent management of unstructured data. - learn more
                                            • Inspire Clean Energy has been acquired by Rhythm Energy, significantly expanding Inspire’s reach beyond its original markets. The merger creates one of the largest independent green energy retailers in the U.S., combining Inspire’s subscription-based, 100% renewable electricity plans with Rhythm’s technology-driven platform. This union positions the combined company to serve millions more customers nationwide, offering enhanced digital tools, demand-response programs, and time-of-use pricing to promote clean energy adoption. - learn more

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                                                    Mattel Isn’t Just Playing Anymore

                                                    🔦 Spotlight

                                                    Hello Los Angeles,

                                                    AI just became Mattel’s newest playmate.

                                                    This week, Mattel announced a new partnership with OpenAI, setting the stage for a toy box transformation powered by artificial intelligence. The El Segundo-based toy giant will use ChatGPT to breathe new life into its iconic brands, including Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Masters of the Universe. The collaboration will start with interactive AI experiences and creative tools to support product development internally.

                                                    It's a bold move for Mattel, which has been steadily shifting its identity from a traditional toy maker to a modern entertainment company. Between box office hits like Barbie and now this AI integration, Mattel is showing that legacy brands can still lead the charge into the future. The partnership supports CEO Ynon Kreiz’s long-term vision to expand Mattel's intellectual property into a broader, multi-platform universe. OpenAI is now playing a key role in that strategy.

                                                    This also points to a larger trend unfolding in Los Angeles. The lines between tech, entertainment, and consumer products are blurring quickly. AI isn’t coming to the mainstream; it’s already here. And if Barbie is getting an upgrade, other LA-born icons may not be far behind.

                                                    We’re keeping an eye on how this unfolds and whether it becomes more than just a flashy concept. One thing’s certain: Mattel isn’t just playing around.

                                                    Catch the latest LA venture deals, acquisitions, and fund updates below.

                                                    🤝 Venture Deals

                                                    LA Companies

                                                    • Coco Robotics, a Santa Monica-based startup specializing in last-mile autonomous delivery robots, has raised $80M in a strategic funding round led by angel investors Sam Altman and Max Altman, with participation from Pelion Venture Partners, Offline Ventures, Ryan Graves, and others. The company will use the funding to scale its AI-powered platform, grow its zero-emission robot fleet to 10,000 vehicles by 2026, expand partnerships with delivery platforms like Uber and DoorDash, and broaden its presence in more cities across the U.S. and internationally. - learn more
                                                    • PopID, a fintech startup specializing in biometric payment and loyalty authentication using face and palm recognition, has closed a new equity financing round backed by major strategic investors including Verifone, PayPal, Commerce Ventures, Chipotle’s Cultivate Next, and Visa Ventures. The fresh capital will support the expansion of its global biometric network by leveraging Verifone’s terminal infrastructure to integrate secure and seamless biometric payments and loyalty programs across merchants worldwide. - learn more
                                                    • Rosebud, an AI-powered journaling app designed to serve as a personal growth mentor, has raised $6M in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The funds will be used to expand the team, advance its proprietary memory-driven AI engine, and pursue partnerships with therapists, educational institutions, businesses, and clinics to enhance access and deepen the app’s reflective capabilities. - learn more
                                                    • Impulse Space, the in-space mobility startup founded by ex-SpaceX engineer Tom Mueller, has raised $300M in a Series C funding round led by Linse Capital with participation from Trousdale Ventures and others, bringing its total financing to $525M. The company designs and builds orbital transfer vehicles—like Mira and upcoming Helios—to transport satellites between orbits, and the new funds will scale production, hire new staff, accelerate R&D (including electric propulsion), and fulfill a backlog of over 30 commercial and government contracts worth nearly $200 million. - learn more
                                                    • dataplor, a Manhattan Beach, CA-based provider of global location intelligence, has secured a $20.5M Series B round led by F‑Prime Capital. The funds will help dataplor scale its privacy-focused point-of-interest and foot traffic mobility products, expand global coverage, enhance data capabilities, and accelerate product growth for enterprise clients seeking real-time consumer insights. - learn more

                                                          LA Venture Funds

                                                          • WndrCo participated in Meter’s $170M Series C financing. Meter provides a full-stack, enterprise-grade internet infrastructure solution that covers routing, switching, WiFi, and cellular for businesses ranging from single offices to large data centers. The new funds will accelerate global expansion, grow its channel partnerships with companies like CDW, Microsoft, and WWT, and support further deployment and R&D. - learn more
                                                          • Sound Ventures participated in Landbase’s $30M Series A round, co-leading the investment alongside Picus Capital. Landbase uses AI, leveraging a GPT‑4o-based model trained on 40 million marketing campaigns, to automate and enhance outbound sales outreach, helping small and mid‑size businesses build trust and scale customer acquisition. The funding will support expansion of its team, product development, and go‑to‑market efforts as it rapidly grows its customer base. - learn more
                                                          • Rebel Fund participated in Outset’s $17M Series A round, which was led by 8VC. Outset uses AI-powered agents to conduct and analyze in-depth video interviews at enterprise scale, serving clients like Nestlé, Microsoft, and WeightWatchers. The new funding will accelerate growth by expanding its go‑to‑market and engineering teams, enhancing its AI agent capabilities, and scaling its platform globally. - learn more
                                                          • Anthos Capital returned as a participant in Laurel’s $100M Series C round, led by IVP. Laurel, the world’s first AI-powered “Time Platform” for professional services firms, automates time tracking and links how employees spend their time directly to business outcomes. The new funding will be used to scale the platform globally, enhance AI-driven time categorization and analytics, and help firms optimize resource allocation and profitability. - learn more
                                                          • Vamos Ventures participated in Trustible’s $4.6M Series Seed round led by Lookout Ventures. Trustible provides an AI governance platform that helps enterprises inventory AI use cases, manage risk, comply with regulations like the EU AI Act, and accelerate responsible adoption. The funding will power product development, hire engineering and go‑to‑market talent (particularly in the D.C. area), and scale operations to help enterprise and public-sector customers deploy AI safely. - learn more
                                                          • Village Global participated in Qanooni’s $2M pre‑seed round, joined by Oryx Fund, TA Ventures, and a group of strategic angels. Qanooni, founded in 2024 and based in the UAE, builds an AI-powered legal platform that integrates directly into Microsoft Outlook and Word to help lawyers draft, review, and manage documents using their own style and standards. The new funding will fuel expansion into the UAE and UK and advance its proprietary AI engine tailored for legal workflows. - learn more
                                                          • Muse Capital and Rocana Venture Partners participated in Eli Health’s $12M USD Series A round, led by BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund, boosting the company’s total funding to around $20M USD. Eli Health has developed the Hormometer™, a real-time, saliva-based hormone monitoring system currently in beta for cortisol with plans to expand to progesterone and other biomarkers. The new capital will scale production, add biomarkers, support commercialization, and accelerate global rollout of its instant hormone health platform. - learn more
                                                          • Crossover VC participated in ai.work’s $10M seed round led by A* and lool ventures. ai.work has emerged from stealth to launch an “AI Workers” platform—autonomous agents designed to streamline enterprise workflows across IT, HR, Legal, Finance, and more. The funding will be used to scale operations, accelerate product development, and deploy AI Workers into pilot programs with large enterprises. - learn more
                                                          • MANTIS Venture Capital participated in AIM’s $50M funding round. The company has built the first embodied AI platform that retrofits heavy machinery, like bulldozers and excavators, for autonomous operation, aiming to boost safety, efficiency, and productivity in construction and mining. The new capital will help AIM scale deployments, advance its AI technology, and expand its plug-and-play autonomy solutions across heavy equipment fleets worldwide. - learn more
                                                          • Watertower Ventures led Finofo's $3.3M seed round, with continued backing from Motivate Venture Capital, SaaS Ventures, and several angel investors. Finofo offers a modern business banking platform that automates accounts payable, treasury, and global receivables, enabling seamless, low-fee payments across more than 90 countries with ERP integration. The funds will support expanded AP and AR automation features, the launch of a small-business plan, and hiring across product, engineering, and go-to-market teams. - learn more
                                                          • Finality Capital Partners participated in RISE Chain’s latest $4M raise, bringing its total funding to $8M. RISE Chain is building an ultra-fast Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain using "Shreds" architecture to deliver sub-5 millisecond transaction confirmations and scale toward 100,000 transactions per second. The new capital will support the mainnet launch, accelerate product and app development, and expand its real-time performance capabilities for advanced DeFi and high-frequency applications. - learn more
                                                          • Emerging Ventures participated in Taiv’s $14.4M CAD (≈ $10.5 M USD) Series A round, led by Denmark’s IDC Ventures. Taiv equips bars, restaurants, and retail venues with free hardware that transforms existing TVs into targeted advertising and content delivery tools, then shares ad revenue with the venues. The funding will power expansion across North America (starting in Canada this summer), grow the team, and enhance its AI-driven content delivery platform. - learn more
                                                          • Matter Venture Partners led an $18.4M investment in Kargo. The company offers an AI-driven inventory management system, including hardware like "Towers" and Lifts, that automatically captures and processes freight data at warehouse loading docks to improve accuracy, real-time visibility, and operational efficiency. The new funding will be used to develop new products, expand deployment across their customer base, and scale their computer vision platform in global supply chains. - learn more
                                                          • Bam Ventures and Trust Fund participated in the $10.6M funding round for Nectar Social, a Seattle-based startup that helps brands convert social media engagement into revenue using AI-powered “social copilot” agents. The platform consolidates comments, DMs, mentions, influencer outreach, and analytics into one interface to streamline brand interactions and boost performance. The funding will support product development, team expansion, and scaling operations with enterprise customers. - learn more
                                                          • MTech Capital participated in Voxel’s $44M Series B funding round. The company has developed an AI-powered workplace safety platform that integrates with existing cameras to detect hazards and unsafe behavior in real time, reducing accidents and operational risks. The new funding will accelerate R&D in computer vision, deepen its AI capabilities, and grow its team of industry experts to scale deployments across high-risk industries such as manufacturing, logistics, and ports. - learn more
                                                              LA Exits
                                                              • Hennessey Digital, a leading legal marketing agency known for its SEO, digital PR, PPC, and web design services, has been acquired by Herringbone Digital. The acquisition expands Herringbone’s platform into the legal marketing space while retaining Hennessey’s leadership and team. With added resources and support, Hennessey Digital plans to scale its services and integrate new AI-driven marketing tools to better serve law firms nationwide. - learn more
                                                              • Prosthetic Records has been acquired by MNRK Music Group and will now operate under its MNRK Heavy division. The deal brings Prosthetic’s extensive heavy metal catalog - featuring pioneering acts like Lamb of God, Animals as Leaders, and The Acacia Strain - under MNRK’s umbrella. MNRK plans to amplify the label’s legacy through anniversary reissues, remastered editions, curated collections, and new releases from standout acts such as Pupil Slicer and God Alone. - learn more
                                                              • RKO Pictures, the legendary film studio behind classics like King Kong and Citizen Kane, has been acquired by Concord Originals, the film and TV division of Concord. The deal gives Concord derivative and adaptation rights to over 5,000 RKO titles, including sequels, remakes, stage adaptations, and unproduced screenplays. RKO will continue as an imprint under Concord Originals, co-led by Sophia Dilley and Mary Beth O’Connor, with plans to revive its storied catalog through reissues, new productions, and adaptations. - learn more
                                                              • StartADAM has been acquired by LeapXpert, bringing its AI-powered chat agent technology and founding team into LeapXpert’s fold. The acquisition enhances LeapXpert’s communication intelligence platform with advanced AI features, new messaging channel support, and deeper CRM integrations. StartADAM’s founders, including co-founder Adam Stone, who became LeapXpert’s VP of AI Product will lead development to scale these capabilities globally. - learn more
                                                              • CASHét has been acquired by Entertainment Partners, integrating its suite of digital payment services including p-cards, automated accounts payable, and vendor verification into EP’s production finance ecosystem. The acquisition ensures that CASHét will continue supporting productions worldwide, regardless of their payroll or accounting systems, while expanding its services into new global markets. With this move, EP enhances its end-to-end financial workflow offerings, bringing faster, more secure, and fraud-resistant payment tools to film and TV productions. - learn more
                                                              • Element Brand Group has been acquired by The Lede Company, with founder Heather Leeds Greenfield joining as a partner and head of brand partnerships. Greenfield’s senior team, including two SVPs, will move over to expand The Lede Company’s integrated marketing and communications offerings. The acquisition strengthens Lede’s cultural campaign capabilities and equips both firms with enhanced resources and scale for brand-driven initiatives. - learn more

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