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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VC Giants Back LA Defense Tech Startup

🔦 Spotlight

Hello Los Angeles, and happy Friday!

Memorial Day Weekend is finally here, and it seems even PCH got the memo, just in time for those coastal drives to kick off summer, traffic jams included. Speaking of navigation, El Segundo based startup CX2 has charted its own impressive course this week, securing $31 million in a Series A round led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Pax Ventures, to boost its mission in electronic warfare.

Electronic warfare (EW), for those of us who aren't regulars at the Pentagon, involves the tactical use of electromagnetic energy to control the spectrum, essentially jamming or confusing enemy communications and radar systems. CX2 was founded by a diverse and experienced group: Nathan Mintz, who brings deep expertise in defense technology from previous ventures such as Epirus and Spartan; Mark Trefgarne, a software entrepreneur known for a successful acquisition by Meta; Lee Thompson, an expert RF engineer previously with SpaceX; and Porter Smith, whose practical insights stem from his background as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot and subsequent experience as an investor.

The new funds will help CX2 scale its team and accelerate the development of advanced tools, including autonomous drones and specialized signals-intelligence systems. These innovations promise precision interference without collateral disruptions, addressing critical defense capability gaps identified by industry experts.

With tensions escalating globally, there's big demand for next-gen defense solutions, and CX2’s technology positions them as a major player in shaping future electronic battlespaces.

Dive deeper into the details and check out this week's roundup of LA’s venture deals and acquisitions below.

Here's to a weekend filled with sunshine, clear roads (fingers crossed), and tech that keeps pushing boundaries!

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

  • Axle Health, founded by former Uber execs, raised $10M in Gaa Series A round led by F-Prime Capital to expand its AI-powered logistics platform for home healthcare. The software streamlines scheduling, routing, and patient engagement, and is now used by major health systems and agencies across all 50 states. The company has seen 10x revenue growth over the past year. - learn more
  • Promise, a generative AI studio based in Venice, California, has secured a strategic investment from Google's AI Futures Fund, alongside contributions from The North Road Company, and others. This funding will support Promise's integration of advanced AI technologies into its proprietary production platform, MUSE, and facilitate collaborations with Google's DeepMind researchers to push the boundaries of AI-driven storytelling. The studio plans to commence production on its first feature-length film this year, marking a significant step in its mission to blend human creativity with cutting-edge AI tools in filmmaking. - learn more
  • Final Boss Sour, a Los Angeles-based snack brand blending gaming nostalgia with sour fruit treats, raised $4M in a Seed 2 round. The funds will go toward expanding distribution, product innovation, and creator partnerships. The company also launched a new tropical sampler box featuring real fruit flavors like mango, pineapple, and kiwi. - learn more
  • VUZ, a UAE-based immersive media platform, raised $12M in a pre-Series C round led by the International Finance Corporation with participation from CrossWork.us, among others, to fuel global expansion and enhance its AI-powered streaming experiences. The funding brings its total raised to over $35M and will support growth across the U.S., Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. VUZ, now EBITDA positive, hosts 30,000+ hours of immersive content and has exclusive deals with leagues like LaLiga and Serie A. - learn more

      LA Venture Funds

      • B Capital co-led Data Sutram's $9M Series A funding round, supporting the company's expansion of its AI-driven fraud detection platform into sectors like cryptocurrency, gaming, and insurance. The investment will also aid in strengthening Data Sutram's AI capabilities and facilitating its international growth into markets such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia. - learn more
      • Upfront Ventures led Clair's $23.2M Series B funding round, reinforcing its commitment to the fintech startup it initially backed during the seed stage. Clair provides embedded earned wage access (EWA) solutions, allowing employees to access their earnings instantly through integrations with payroll and workforce management platforms like Gusto and TriNet. The new funding will support Clair's expansion across more than 29,000 business locations and enhance its partnerships with additional HR and payroll providers. - learn more
      • Rebel Fund participated in Keep's recent C$108M funding round, supporting the Toronto-based fintech's mission to modernize small business banking in Canada. Keep offers an all-in-one financial platform tailored to Canadian small businesses, addressing challenges like outdated systems and limited access to credit. The funding will help Keep expand its services, which include business credit cards, expense tracking, and multi-currency accounts, to more entrepreneurs across the country. - learn more
      • MarcyPen Capital Partners participated in SparkCharge's $30.5M funding round, supporting the expansion of its mobile, off-grid EV charging services across North America. This investment will help SparkCharge scale its Charging-as-a-Service model, enabling fleets to adopt electric vehicles without the need for permanent infrastructure. - learn more
      • Matter Venture Partners participated in Biostate AI's $12M Series A funding round, supporting the Houston-based startup's mission to revolutionize molecular diagnostics through affordable RNA sequencing and generative AI. Biostate AI aims to build a comprehensive RNA sequencing dataset to train AI models capable of predicting disease progression and treatment responses, thereby advancing precision medicine. - learn more
      • Prototype Capital participated in Sensmore's €6.5M funding round, supporting the German robotics startup's mission to retrofit heavy machinery with AI-driven automation. Sensmore's technology enables real-time automation of complex tasks in industries like construction and mining. The investment will help expand Sensmore's Physical AI platform, enhancing productivity and safety in industrial operations. - learn more

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            Forget Traffic: Air Taxis Are Coming to LA28

            🔦 Spotlight

            Hello Los Angeles,

            The future just got a flight plan, and it includes skipping traffic for the 2028 Olympics.

            Image Source: Archer

            This week, Santa Clara-based Archer Aviation made headlines (and history) by being named the official air taxi provider for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Team USA. Yes, that means electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft will be soaring above the gridlocked freeways, whisking athletes, officials, and perhaps a few lucky spectators through LA’s famously congested skies.

            This isn’t just a flashy PR stunt (although, let’s be honest, it is peak LA). It’s a strategic move to redefine how we move around the city, especially during one of the largest global events ever to hit Southern California. In partnership with the LA28 Organizing Committee, Archer plans to deploy its Midnight aircraft, an all-electric air taxi that promises ultra-quiet, zero-emission rides from point A to point OMG-I’m-not-in-traffic.

            While Archer is headquartered in Santa Clara, it has deep ties to the LA tech ecosystem. United Airlines, one of its major partners, has previously announced plans to establish eVTOL routes between downtown and LAX. Pair that with this new Olympic milestone and we’re looking at LA as ground zero for what could become the world’s first large-scale urban air mobility network.

            Of course, there are still regulatory hurdles, infrastructure needs, and airspace coordination issues to iron out before we can book our sky ride to the Coliseum. But make no mistake, this announcement is a moonshot moment for LA tech, mobility, and the future of Olympic-scale transportation.

            We’ll be keeping our feet on the ground (for now), but we’ll definitely be watching the skies.

            Catch you next week ✈️✨

            🤝 Venture Deals

            LA Companies

            • Akido, a Los Angeles-based health tech company, has raised $60M in Series B funding led by Oak HC/FT to expand the reach of its AI-powered clinical tool, ScopeAI. The platform assists physicians by generating clinical questions, documenting patient responses, and drafting care plans in real time. The funding will help Akido scale its technology across its provider network and expand into new markets like New York City. - learn more
            • Reflect Orbital, a startup developing satellite-based sunlight delivery systems, has raised $20M in a Series A round led by Lux Capital. The company plans to use the funding to expand its team, scale operations, and prepare for its first satellite launch in Spring 2026. Reflect Orbital’s technology aims to reflect sunlight from space to Earth, enabling nighttime illumination for energy, remote operations, and civil infrastructure. - learn more
            • Rolli, an AI-powered platform designed to support fact-based journalism, has received an investment from the NYU Impact Investment Fund (NIIF). This marks NIIF's first investment in a media company, underscoring its commitment to backing ventures that enhance democratic institutions through innovation. Rolli's platform connects journalists with a diverse range of vetted experts, aiming to streamline news production and promote equitable representation in media. The funding will help Rolli expand its reach and further develop tools that empower journalists to produce accurate and impactful reporting. - learn more

              LA Venture Funds

              • CIV and Wonder Ventures participated in The Nuclear Company’s $46.3M Series A round to support its plan to develop large-scale nuclear reactor sites across the U.S. CIV co-founder Patrick Maloney also co-founded the company, which is taking a “design-once, build-many” approach to modernize nuclear construction. The funding will help meet rising energy demands from sectors like AI and data centers. - learn more
              • WndrCo participated in Cartwheel's recent $10M funding round. Cartwheel is an AI-driven 3D animation startup that enables creators to generate rigged animations from text prompts and videos. The funding will support Cartwheel's efforts to simplify and democratize 3D animation production. - learn more
              • Crosscut Ventures participated in Solestial's $17M Series A funding round, which aims to scale the company's production of radiation-hardened, self-healing silicon solar panels for space applications. Solestial plans to increase its manufacturing capacity to 1 megawatt per year, matching the combined annual output of all U.S. and EU III-V space solar companies. This investment supports the growing demand for cost-effective, high-performance power systems in the expanding space industry. - learn more
              • Upfront Ventures participated in Tern's $13M Series A funding round, adding to its earlier $4M seed investment in the travel tech startup. Tern offers an all-in-one platform for travel advisors, streamlining itinerary building, CRM, and commission tracking. The new funding will help Tern enhance its product offerings and expand support for its growing user base. - learn more
              • Dangerous Ventures participated in Verdi's $6.5M seed funding round, supporting the Vancouver-based agtech startup's mission to modernize farm irrigation systems through AI-powered automation. Verdi's technology retrofits existing infrastructure, enabling precise, row-level control of irrigation, which helps farmers reduce water usage and labor costs. The investment aligns with Dangerous Ventures' focus on climate resilience and sustainable food systems. - learn more
              • Pinegrove Capital Partners participated in Saildrone's recent $60M funding round, supporting the company's expansion of its autonomous maritime surveillance technology into Europe. The investment will aid in deploying Saildrone's uncrewed surface vehicles for enhanced maritime security and defense applications across European waters. - learn more
              • Starburst Ventures participated in a €2 million seed funding round for French defense tech startup Alta Ares, which specializes in embedded AI and MLOps solutions for military applications. Alta Ares' technologies, including the Gamma platform for real-time video analysis and the Ulixes platform for managing operational data lifecycles, operate autonomously without the need for internet or cloud connectivity. This funding will support the industrialization of these solutions and expand their deployment across European armed forces and NATO allies. - learn more
              • Nomad Ventures participated in Stackpack’s recent $6.3M seed funding round, supporting the company's mission to streamline vendor management for modern businesses. Stackpack offers an AI-driven platform that provides finance and IT teams with a centralized system to oversee third-party vendors, manage renewals, and mitigate compliance risks. The investment will enable Stackpack to expand its operations, enhance its platform, and introduce new features like the "Requests & Approvals" tool, aimed at simplifying vendor onboarding and procurement processes. - learn more
              • Tachyon Ventures participated in Stylus Medicine's $85M Series A funding round, supporting the biotech company's development of in vivo genetic medicines. Stylus aims to simplify gene editing by enabling precise, durable CAR-T therapies delivered directly inside the body, potentially transforming treatment for various diseases. - learn more
              • Up.Partners led a $28M Series A funding round for WakeCap, a construction tech startup that uses sensor-powered platforms to deliver real-time workforce visibility and site intelligence. WakeCap’s system tracks labor hours, safety, and productivity across large-scale projects, with over 150 million labor hours already monitored. The new funding will help the company expand globally, enhance product features, and grow its engineering and customer success teams. - learn more


                LA Exits

                • MediaPlatform, a leading provider of enterprise video solutions, has been acquired by Brandlive, a company renowned for bringing the magic of television to business communications. This strategic acquisition aims to enhance Brandlive's capabilities in delivering high-scale, reliable CEO town halls and global corporate broadcasts. By integrating MediaPlatform's robust infrastructure with Brandlive's creative video tools and production services, the combined entity seeks to offer more engaging and authentic internal content experiences for enterprise clients. - learn more
                • RHQ Creative, a studio renowned for its competitive Fortnite training maps, has been acquired by JOGO, the game development company founded by popular creator Typical Gamer (Andre Rebelo). This acquisition aims to bolster JOGO's expansion into the competitive gaming arena by integrating RHQ's expertise in skill-building and training map design. RHQ Creative, co-founded by Fortnite pro Quinn Gannon (RichHomieQuinn) and Sean Lugo, has achieved over 20 million map visits and 200 million hours of playtime. The deal includes full ownership of RHQ's map catalog and the addition of its team to JOGO, enhancing the company's capabilities in developing high-quality, competitive gaming experiences. - learn more

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                    This LA Startup Wants to Make It Rain and Just Raised $25M to Do It

                    🔦 Spotlight

                    Hello LA!

                    While most tech headlines are busy chasing AI chatbots and flying taxis, one startup in El Segundo is aiming a little higher. Literally.

                    Rainmaker just secured$25 million in Series A funding to expand its cloud-seeding drone technology. The round was led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from Starship Ventures, 1517 Fund, Long Journey Ventures, Naval Ravikant, and others.

                    Their idea is simple but urgent. Instead of relying on old-school aircraft to spray rain-making particles across the sky, Rainmaker uses AI-powered drones that find and seed clouds with pinpoint accuracy. It is faster, more affordable, and could reshape how regions fight back against droughts.

                    California's ongoing water struggles have made it clear that simply "saving" water is not enough. Cities and entire economies need new tools to create it. Rainmaker plans to use the funding to grow its fleet, invest in atmospheric science, and expand commercial partnerships with utilities and governments searching for solutions.

                    Bigger picture, Rainmaker is part of a growing shift in LA's tech ecosystem. While software remains dominant, more investors and founders are quietly betting on "hard tech" that addresses real-world problems like water, energy, and infrastructure.

                    It is not just about apps anymore. It is about survival tech.

                    With the skies getting hotter and the reservoirs getting lower, the next great tech export out of LA might not be entertainment or social media. It could be rain.

                    Stay tuned…

                    🤝 Venture Deals

                    LA Companies

                      • SimpleClosure, a Santa Monica-based startup that automates the business shutdown process, has raised a $15M Series A funding round led by TTV Capital. The company, which launched publicly in late 2023, helps startups and businesses navigate legal, regulatory, and compliance hurdles when closing down, using AI to streamline paperwork and communications. The new funding will support SimpleClosure’s platform growth and product expansion, as rising economic pressures create heightened demand for efficient dissolution solutions. - learn more

                        LA Venture Funds

                        • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Haya Therapeutics’ $65M Series A funding round. Haya Therapeutics, which is developing precision RNA-guided medicines for chronic and age-related diseases, will use the capital to advance its lead therapeutic programs targeting heart failure and fibrosis. The company plans to expand its pipeline, invest in its discovery platform, and grow its team to accelerate clinical development. - learn more
                        • Griffin Gaming Partners led a $7M funding round for Fuse Games, a gaming studio focused on developing new original IP. Fuse Games, founded by industry veterans with experience at major gaming companies, plans to use the funds to accelerate production of its first title and expand its team as it builds ambitious new gaming experiences. - learn more
                        • Shamrock Capital has made a strategic growth investment in Neocol, a leading consulting platform that specializes in sales and AI-driven software solutions for subscription businesses. Neocol, which helps companies optimize revenue operations and digital transformations, plans to use the investment to accelerate its growth, expand its services, and further strengthen its leadership position in the Salesforce ecosystem. - learn more
                        • Trust Fund participated in a $7.2M seed funding round for Agree.com, an all-in-one platform that combines e-signature and integrated payments, aiming to streamline and speed up service agreements. The company plans to use the new capital to grow its engineering team, expand integrations, and enhance payment capabilities to help service providers close deals faster. - learn more
                        • Hyperlink Ventures participated in Orca AI’s $72.5M funding round. Orca AI, headquartered in London, develops AI-based navigation and collision-avoidance solutions to improve safety and efficiency for commercial shipping fleets. The funding will help Orca AI scale its autonomous shipping technologies, expand its team, and support global growth efforts. - learn more


                        LA Exits

                        • StoryFire, a social storytelling and video platform with over 2.5M users, has been acquired by Flashy Finance to launch a new platform called Flashy Social. The move aims to merge content creation with blockchain-powered financial tools, allowing creators to monetize through token incentives, streaming features, and community engagement. This acquisition supports Flashy Finance’s broader vision of building a cultural, creator-led financial ecosystem. - learn more
                        • Jaanuu, Inc., a Los Angeles-based medical apparel brand known for its stylish and functional scrubs, has been acquired in an asset sale by VentureOn Management, LLC. The acquisition includes substantially all of Jaanuu's assets, encompassing its intellectual property, inventory, and customer relationships. VentureOn Management plans to continue Jaanuu's operations, focusing on delivering high-quality medical apparel to healthcare professionals. - learn more
                        • Skechers has agreed to be acquired by 3G Capital in a deal valued at approximately $9.4 billion. Shareholders will receive either $63 per share in cash or $57 plus an equity unit in a new private parent company. Following the acquisition, Skechers will become privately held, maintain its Manhattan Beach headquarters, and continue to be led by its current management team. - learn more

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