This week, some of its biggest companies put money behind an AI startup promising to build something for them instead.
Los Angeles-based Stability AI raised $76M in Series B funding from an investor group that includes Electronic Arts, Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. AMD Ventures and Pacific Alliance Ventures also joined the round, while LA-based MANTIS Capital and Sound Ventures are among the company’s existing backers.
The financing brings Stability AI’s total funding under CEO Prem Akkaraju to $232M, including two equity rounds and convertible notes. The company plans to use the new capital to expand its creative production tools, applied research and professional services across music, gaming and entertainment.
The amount is notable. The names attached to it are the bigger story.
Generative AI’s arrival in entertainment has been anything but quiet. Artists have questioned whether their work was used to train models without permission. Studios have faced pressure over how the technology could affect jobs. Record labels have pursued AI companies in court while simultaneously exploring how the same technology might fit into their businesses.
Now, several of the world’s largest entertainment companies are investing directly in one.
That does not mean the industry has resolved its concerns about AI. It means some of its biggest players would rather help shape the technology than wait to see what it becomes.
Stability AI is positioning itself for that opening. Rather than focusing solely on general-purpose models, the company is building tools specifically for professional creatives. Its recently launched Stable Audio 3.0 was trained on fully licensed music and lets artists generate, edit and arrange audio through a web platform or directly inside digital audio workstations.
Image Source: Stability AI
That licensed-data approach is central to the pitch. The next phase of creative AI will not be decided only by which company produces the most impressive model. It will also depend on which companies can earn the trust of the artists, studios and rights holders whose work gives those models value.
For its new strategic investors, the round offers more than financial upside. It creates a closer view into how generative AI may change production, a voice in how the tools develop and an opportunity to establish rules before those rules are established for them.
For Stability AI, the backing provides something equally important: credibility inside industries that have every reason to scrutinize what it is building.
The company now has capital and access to some of the largest catalogs, franchises and creative workforces in entertainment. What it does with that access will determine whether this becomes a meaningful alliance or simply an impressive collection of logos.
Either way, the industry is no longer watching from a safe distance.
It has entered the room.
LA’s Air-Taxi Plans Are Coming Downtown
While Stability AI is trying to change how entertainment gets made, Archer Aviation wants to change how people get to it.
AEG and Archer announced plans to develop downtown Los Angeles’ first vertiport at L.A. LIVE, creating a potential new stop in Archer’s proposed electric air-taxi network ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Image Source: Archer
The planned site would sit beside Crypto.com Arena and allow passengers to travel to and from the entertainment district aboard Archer’s Midnight aircraft. The company says its network could turn drives that take an hour or longer into electric flights lasting approximately 10 to 20 minutes.
Archer has already identified SoFi Stadium, USC and Hollywood Burbank Airport as possible locations, with its recently acquired Hawthorne Airport expected to serve as the network’s central operating hub. As the official air-taxi provider of LA28 and Team USA, Archer has an unusually visible deadline for turning those plans into something tangible.
AEG and Archer have completed an initial feasibility study of the L.A. LIVE site, including reviews of land use, airspace, power availability and community impact. The next phase will examine operations and the passenger experience.
There is still a substantial distance between a proposed vertiport and a functioning air-taxi network. The infrastructure must be built, regulatory approvals must be secured and passengers must be persuaded that flying across the city is safer and more practical than staying on the ground.
Still, few locations could make that future feel more real than L.A. LIVE. Millions of people already pass through the district for concerts, games and major events. Placing a vertiport there would bring urban air mobility out of the concept stage and directly into public view.
Together, this week’s announcements show Los Angeles becoming a testing ground for two technologies still moving from promise toward everyday use.
One could reshape how entertainment is created. The other could reshape how Angelenos reach it.
In a city famous for both its creative industries and its traffic, that feels appropriately on brand.
More from this week’s LA startup and venture scene below.
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
- Atorie raised a $9.5M seed round from investors including a16z speedrun, Night Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Jeremy Liew. The AI-powered fashion startup connects consumers directly with luxury manufacturers to offer high-quality goods without traditional designer markups, and will use the funding to expand logistics, production and its AI shopping tools. - learn more
- Long Beach-based Maglut Heavy Industries emerged from stealth with $3.1M in pre-seed funding from Wave Function, Nova Threshold and Julian Capital. The startup is developing a chromatography-based system to process and refine rare earth elements domestically, with pilot tests producing materials at more than 99.9% purity. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- MANTIS Venture Capital participated in Voya Energy’s $35M Series A, led by Energy Impact Partners and joined by John Doerr, StepStone, Founders Fund, Overmatch and Seven Stars. The Hayward-based startup will use the funding to commercialize its aluminum-fueled generators, which provide clean, off-grid power for data centers and other energy-intensive operations without combustion or local air emissions. - learn more
- Regeneration.VC participated in eComID’s $17M seed round, led by Systemiq Capital and joined by Course Corrected, Stadium and returning investor CapitalT. The Stockholm-based startup will use the funding to expand internationally and scale its AI-powered Shopping Passport, which helps retailers personalize sizing and product discovery while reducing returns. - learn more
- Clocktower Technology Ventures participated in Helcim’s $53M Series C, led by BDC Capital’s Growth Venture Fund and joined by new investors Curql Collective and LA-based Gold House Ventures. The Calgary payments company will use the funding to expand its platform, develop additional financial services and serve more small and midsize businesses across North America. - learn more
LA Exits
- Altruist agreed to be acquired by Vanguard, giving the Los Angeles-based wealth technology and custody platform greater resources to expand its tools for independent financial advisors. Altruist will continue operating as a standalone business under its existing leadership and brand after the deal closes, which is expected later this year pending regulatory approval; financial terms were not disclosed. - learn more
- Personality AI has been acquired by WildBrain for approximately $11M in cash and 1M WildBrain shares upfront, with additional payments tied to future performance. The startup develops kid-safe conversational AI experiences for entertainment characters, including “Hey Peppa Pig,” and will help WildBrain expand its franchises into interactive products across toys, apps and digital platforms. - learn more
Impulse Space
Rockets have become remarkably good at carrying satellites beyond Earth. Once those satellites reach space, however, getting them from one orbit to another can still be slow, expensive or impossible.
Redondo Beach-based Impulse Space wants to change that, and investors are giving it considerably more fuel for the journey.
The company raised a $308M extension to its Series D, bringing the round’s total to $808M. The new financing comes just over three months after Impulse announced the initial $500M raise and pushes its total capital raised above $1.3B.
Existing investors 137 Ventures, BANNER VC, DFJ Growth, Linse Capital, Lux Capital and Valor Equity Partners participated in the extension. Impulse did not disclose a valuation, but convincing existing backers to commit another $308M so soon after an already substantial round is a strong signal of confidence in both the company and the market it is pursuing.
Founded by former SpaceX propulsion executive Tom Mueller, Impulse is building vehicles designed to move satellites and payloads after they have already reached space. If rockets are responsible for getting cargo off the ground, Impulse wants to handle what happens after delivery.
Impulse Space
Its Mira spacecraft is built for precise maneuvering, payload deployment and proximity operations in orbit. Helios, scheduled for its first flight in 2027, is a high-energy kick stage designed to move payloads from low Earth orbit to destinations such as geostationary orbit in less than a day. The company has also introduced an electric propulsion system called Electra and a rideshare service aimed at making higher-energy orbits more accessible.
Together, those products represent something larger than a collection of spacecraft. Impulse is attempting to build a transportation network for an economy that increasingly needs one.
That need is becoming harder to ignore. More satellites are reaching orbit, governments are prioritizing responsive space capabilities and commercial operators want greater flexibility after launch. A satellite that can change position, reach a different orbit or respond quickly to a new mission is significantly more useful than one permanently tied to its original destination.
The U.S. government is already putting Impulse’s thesis to work. Helios was selected for the U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 program, making it the first upper-stage prime awarded a position in the program. Impulse also received a $28M contract extension to provide two Mira spacecraft for additional Space Systems Command missions.
The company says its headcount has more than doubled over the past year as it expanded its facilities in Redondo Beach, Mojave, Boulder and Washington, D.C. The new capital will support further hiring, product development and facility growth as Impulse works to serve commercial, civil and defense customers.
It also recently appointed its first chief financial officer, Adam Townsend, who previously helped guide Vizio through an IPO and its eventual sale to Walmart. The hire is another sign that Impulse is preparing for a more complex chapter, one defined not only by engineering milestones but also by a growing capital base, government contracts and large-scale operations.
That is where this announcement becomes more interesting than its considerable price tag.
Impulse has already shown that Mira can operate in space. Now it must prove that it can turn several ambitious vehicles into dependable infrastructure. The difference between a promising spacecraft company and a transportation network is repetition: more missions, more customers and systems that work reliably enough to become part of how the space economy operates.
An $808M round gives Impulse the resources to pursue that vision. It also raises the expectations attached to it.
For Southern California, the financing reinforces the region’s role in the new space economy. Los Angeles helped build the original aerospace industry, and a new generation of companies is now developing the vehicles, factories and infrastructure intended to support life beyond the launchpad.
Impulse Space is tackling what may be the next big bottleneck. Getting to space is only the beginning.
Someone still has to get you where you are going.
More from this week’s LA startup and venture scene below.
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Venture Funds
- Riot Ventures co-led EnduroSat’s $205M funding round alongside Atreides Management, with participation from GV, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, the European Innovation Council and other investors. The Bulgarian space company will use the capital to open a high-volume satellite factory in the U.S., build a major European space and defense hub and scale production of its standardized spacecraft. - learn more
- Upfront Ventures and M13 participated in Ayble Health’s $16M Series A, led by Neon and joined by Unum Ventures, Cleveland Clinic Ventures, DigiTx and Accomplice. The virtual-care company will use the funding to expand its AI-enabled clinic for chronic digestive and autoimmune conditions across national health plans, major employers and benefits platforms, bringing its total capital raised to more than $27M. - learn more
- Blue Heron Ventures participated in Voxela’s Series A, led by Delight Ventures and joined by SOMPO Growth Partners, Happiness Capital, Archetype Ventures and ALL STAR SAAS FUND, bringing the eldercare technology company’s total funding to approximately $13.2M. Voxela will use the capital to expand hiring and develop new AI capabilities for its VCare platform, which helps care facilities monitor residents, prevent incidents and automate administrative work such as documentation and reporting. - learn more
- Clocktower Technology Ventures participated in Mainstay’s more than $18M growth round alongside new investors Parker89, Stackpoint, Alpaca VC and FJ Labs, as well as returning backers Khosla Ventures and Era Ventures. Mainstay also acquired AI-powered listing platform Truelist and will use the funding to bring its real estate data, pricing and automation infrastructure to more brokerages, agents and smaller investors. - learn more
- Amboy Street Ventures participated in Evvy’s $40M Series B, led by Catalio Capital Management and joined by new and returning investors including Rethink Impact, Muse Capital, Labcorp Venture Fund and General Catalyst. Evvy will use the funding to expand its AI-powered women’s health diagnostics and care platform, beginning with fertility, while growing distribution through physicians and strategic partners. - learn more
- Second Sight Ventures participated in Fin.com’s $20M seed round, led by Expa and Uber co-founder Garrett Camp, with backing from Coinbase Ventures and other investors. The payments infrastructure startup will use the funding to expand its cross-border network through additional acquisitions and plans to acquire a bank within six months. - learn more
- Clearlake Capital, Mantis Venture Capital and Sound Ventures participated in Factory’s $200M funding round, which valued the AI software development company at $5B and brought its total funding above $400M. Factory will use the capital to accelerate research, product development and global expansion for its platform, which enables enterprises to build, manage and improve software using autonomous AI agents. - learn more
- Navitas Capital led Scaffold’s $15M seed round, with participation from D.R. Horton, Pulte Homes, Builders FirstSource and other construction-industry investors. The Austin startup will use the funding to expand its engineering team and broaden its AI-powered platform, which connects homebuilders, contractors and suppliers to automate scheduling, purchase orders and other coordination work. - learn more
- Halogen Ventures led it’s electric’s oversubscribed bridge round, joined by Wisdom Ventures, Future Communities, E8 Angels and other new and returning investors, bringing the curbside EV-charging startup’s total funding to $15M. The financing will support its rapid expansion, including a New York City contract to install hundreds of locally manufactured chargers across all five boroughs over the next three years. - learn more
- Matter Venture Partners participated in Delos Data’s more than $100M funding round alongside Matrix, Playground Global, Socratic Partners, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund and IAG. The Palo Alto startup will use the capital to expand its engineering teams and accelerate development and sales of its Nonstop AI infrastructure, designed to reduce network bottlenecks and improve the speed and efficiency of AI inference. - learn more
- Mantis Venture Capital and Gold House participated in A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya’s $5.5M pre-seed round alongside SV Angel, BoxGroup, Quiet Capital and other investors. Founded by Spotify’s former head of innovation, the startup is developing playful music apps that let users remix, manipulate and collaboratively create sounds rather than simply stream or generate songs. - learn more
LA Exits
- Headspace has agreed to be acquired by AI healthcare company Sword in a deal expected to close by the beginning of Q4 2026; financial terms were not disclosed. The acquisition will combine Headspace’s mental health brand, global consumer base and network of more than 15,000 providers with Sword’s AI-powered clinical platform to offer more personalized and continuous care. - learn more
- Nasty Gal was acquired by WSG Brands for an undisclosed amount, adding the women’s fashion label to a portfolio that also includes Von Dutch and Allbirds. WSG plans to expand Nasty Gal internationally and into categories such as footwear, beauty, activewear and accessories while growing its direct-to-consumer, wholesale and licensing businesses. - learn more
- Converse Health was acquired by healthcare AI company Hello Patient for an undisclosed amount, bringing its back-office automation technology into the buyer’s platform. The combination will allow medical practices to use one system for patient communications and administrative work such as referral processing, chart follow-ups, authorization paperwork and medical records. - learn more