gaming

🎮 Riot Games' Valorant Finals Are Another Jewel In LA's Gaming Crown

Wil Chockley
WIl Chockley is a partner at 75 & Sunny, where he evaluates potential investment opportunities across sectors and works with founders to build their strategy and execute on their vision.
🎮 Riot Games' Valorant Finals Are Another Jewel In LA's Gaming Crown
Photo courtesy of Riot Games

🔦 Spotlight

🎮💥🔫 “USA, USA, USA!” If you wandered into the Kia Forum this past Saturday and listened to the cheers, you might have thought you had stumbled into a secret Olympic Games, and honestly you’d kind of be right.

That not-so-secret Olympics was the Valorant Champions Tour Grand Final, hosted by LA-based gaming giant Riot Games.

I was lucky enough to attend, and, as I sat in the sold-out crowd of 11,500 screaming fans, watching (real) fire erupt from the stage and (CGI) explosions and gunshots flash on the jumbotrons, I felt like a kid on his first day at a new school. Everyone around me seemed to know exactly what to do, and I was just sitting there, confused and overwhelmed, looking exactly like this emoji → 😮

For those of you not familiar with Valorant, it’s a first person shooter game (á la Call of Duty) where two teams of five compete to shoot each other or finish various tasks while avoiding being shot by the other team (sorry to all of the Valorant fans out there for butchering this description). Last month, more than 20 million people played the game, and over a million fans tuned in online to watch the Championship Finals live, according to Riot. While those numbers are obviously huge, Valorant is tiny compared to Riot’s flagship game League of Legends, which counted over 150 million players last month.

So why the “USA, USA, USA!” chant? For the same reason traditional pro sports teams are built around cities. People love cheering for the home team. Riot has organized the professional Valorant league (Valorant Champions Tour or VCT) into regional teams. Saturday’s eventual champion was the North American team, Evil Geniuses - an underdog who triumphed against the heavily favored Southeast Asian Paper Rex team. Fans couldn’t get enough of both sides, though “EG” was the definitely a little more hometown love.

These fans didn’t just come for the 3+ hour actual competition, though. Attendees started showing up more than four hours before the Grand Finals started, hanging out in the baking hot parking lot at the Riot-organized “Fan Fest” before watching the wildly impressive opening musical acts performing Riot-created music from the Valorant game. It was, dare I say it? A Riot of a good time.

So what does this all mean…

This competition is living proof of how gaming is now the largest category in entertainment, and it’s not even close. The industry’s estimated $192B in 2022 revenue is double the size of the TV and movie businesses, and more than 7x the size of the music industry.

It also demonstrates the strength of gaming as one of LA’s core tech sectors. Riot is an LA company, through and through. It was born out of founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill’s USC dorm room, opened its first office in Santa Monica in 2006, and maintains its headquarters on Olympic Blvd in West LA to this day. For more evidence of LA’s gaming prowess, look no further than our Around the Internet section below. 😎

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Startups

  • LA-based Trellis, a provider of state trial court data, raised $15m in Series B funding led by Top Tier Capital Partners, with participation from Okapi Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, Craft Ventures, Revel Partners and Sky Dayton - learn more
LA VCs
  • MFast, a financial services distribution network, raised a $6M Series A led by LA-based Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Krungsri Innovate, Headline Asia and insiders Do Ventures, JAFCO Asia and Ascend Vietnam Ventures - learn more
  • Pi-xcels, a startup that manufactures an NFC-enabled point of sale device that can issue interactive e-receipts, raised a $1.7M Seed Round led by LA-based Wavemaker Partners, and joined by Hustle Fund, Amand Ventures, and Black Kite Capital - learn more
  • TeamSense, a platform that helps manufacturers manage the attendance of their deskless workers, raised a $4M Seed Round led by LA-based Bonfire Ventures, with additional funds provided by Operator Collective - learn more
New LA Funds
  • Black Ostrich Ventures, an LA-based venture capital firm, has launched a $20 million pre-seed and seed stage fund to support African founders to grow their businesses in the cleantech, supply chain, ag-tech, and edtech sectors. The newly created firm says it will mainly support startups in Tanzania, Zambia, Morocco and Uganda, with check sizes ranging from $50,000 to $200,000. - learn more

⚒️ Open Roles

Operations Associate @ Techstars Space Accelerator

Techstars Space Accelerator is hiring a Los Angeles based Operations Associate. This role is responsible for the administrative duties and operational execution throughout the duration of the accelerator program. Logistics experience as well as familiarity with the early stage venture backed company ecosystem is preferred. A willingness to learn and comfort tackling new problems is a must.

It’s a chance to get amazing experience, broaden your network in ways you could never imagine, get exposure to some of the greatest up and coming companies and teams in the country. Historically, most associates end up being employed by one of the teams or by someone they met during the span of the three months. Many also go on to build their own companies. Apply directly here.

✨Featured Event✨

Plug In South LA is hosing its Accelerator Cohort 4 Founder Showcase on September 14th.

Hosted by our friends at Plug In, this event will showcase Early Stage Black and Brown Founders rolling out new service and platform solutions in Digital Health/Healthcare Tech, FinTech, Digital Media, PropTech, and EdTech.

🚀 For Early Stage Investors looking to diversify their portfolios with high-potential companies led by Black and Brown Entrepreneurs, this showcase is a must-attend. We also extend a warm welcome to the LA Tech community, including LPs, Corporate Executives & Foundations, and Family Offices.

🎟️ Secure your spot now and immerse yourself in a night of innovation, inspiration, and boundless opportunities. Register for the Plug In Accelerator Cohort 4 Founder Showcase here.


📅 LA Tech Calendar

Tuesday, September 5th

  • Tacos and Tech 🗽 - ScaleHealth’s monthly happy hour for tech and healthcare innovators.

Thursday, September 7th

Other events to add to the calendar

🗽 - Free

🌍 Around The Internet

Over the past few years, there has been a shift in startup dynamics that has resulted in a dispersion of funding across the country. This geographical redistribution of seed investments mirrors the evolving landscape of venture capital, propelled by trends such as remote work and the strength of emerging startup ecosystems.

Unsurprisingly the Bay Area stands as the preeminent force in startup funding taking the top spot for capital invested in 7 of the 10 verticals listed below. That being said Los Angeles had a strong showing in the first half of 2023 and dominated the gaming vertical. Total capital raised by gaming companies based in Los Angeles during in the first half of 2023 was nearly $85M, more than 4X the next leading market, Dallas/Fort Worth. 🎮👾🕹️

Read More

Source: Carta

📙 What We’re Reading

  • SEC Settles First NFT Enforcement Action, Against Media Company Impact Theory. - read more
  • Completion of the $2 billion automated people mover project at Los Angeles International Airport has been pushed back to fall of next year. - read more
gaming
los angeles tech news

$100M and a Space Force Deal: Northwood’s One-Two Punch

Grace Lee
$100M and a Space Force Deal: Northwood’s One-Two Punch

🔦 Spotlight

Hello Los Angeles

The most underrated part of the space boom isn’t what gets launched, it’s what happens after. A satellite can be flawless in orbit and still be functionally useless if you can’t talk to it fast, often, and reliably, especially when something breaks.

Torrance is proving the next space race is won on the ground

Northwood Space, operating out of a 35,000-square-foot facility in Torrance, just landed a rare one-two punch: a $100M Series B and a roughly $49.8M U.S. Space Force contract tied to upgrades for the Satellite Control Network, the system that supports launches, early operations, tracking and control, and emergency support when satellites go sideways. The Series B was led by Washington Harbour Partners, co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, and included participation from Alpine Space Ventures, Founders Fund, StepStone, Balerion, Fulcrum, Pax, 137 Ventures, and others.

Image Source: Northwood Space

What’s intriguing here isn’t just the dollars, it’s the thesis. Northwood is arguing that the next wave of space companies won’t be constrained by rockets, but by operations and connectivity, meaning the ground layer becomes the strategic choke point. Their approach combines vertically integrated ground infrastructure with phased-array systems (“Portal”) that can steer multiple beams electronically and support missions across LEO, MEO, and GEO, aiming to make ground access feel less like bespoke aerospace procurement and more like scalable infrastructure.

Why this matters right now

In a market where “space” headlines often center on what’s above the atmosphere, this week’s signal is that the decisive advantage may live down here. If Northwood can make satellite communications more frequent, more flexible, and easier to scale, it doesn’t just help one mission, it changes the economics of operating entire fleets.

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

🤝 Venture Deals

      LA Companies


      • Origin, a pelvic floor physical therapy and women’s musculoskeletal care provider, raised a Series B led by SJF Ventures with participation from Blue Venture Fund and Gratitude Railroad, plus financing from California’s IBank and several angel investors. The company says it will use the funding to expand access to its hybrid model of in-person clinics and nationwide virtual care, and to invest in AI-enabled clinical tools, clinician training through Origin University, and additional clinical research. - learn more
      • OpenDrives announced new funding led by IAG Capital Partners to support growth of its software platform for video data management used by media, sports, and enterprise teams. Alongside the investment, the company named longtime COO Trevor Morgan as CEO as it continues shifting from a hardware-first business to a software-focused platform. - learn more

                LA Venture Funds

                • MANTIS Venture Capital participated in Rogo’s $75M Series C, a round led by Sequoia that values the AI “agent” platform at about $750M. The company says it will use the new funding to scale its AI system for investment-banking workflows and accelerate its European expansion, including opening its first international office in London. - learn more
                • B Capital led PaleBlueDot AI’s $150M Series B, pushing the AI compute platform’s valuation to over $1B. The company says it will use the funding to deepen its core tech and platform engineering, expand go-to-market, and scale across North America and Asia to meet rising enterprise demand for cost-efficient AI infrastructure. - learn more
                • Rebel Fund participated in Modelence’s seed round, which raised $3M and was led by Y Combinator alongside other investors. Modelence is building an all-in-one TypeScript toolkit that bundles essentials like auth, databases, hosting, and LLM observability to reduce the “stitching things together” headaches that come with vibe-coding and modern app infrastructure. - learn more
                • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in TRexBio’s oversubscribed $50M financing alongside several new investors and existing backers. The company says it will use the funds to advance TRB-061, its TNFR2 agonist designed to selectively activate regulatory T cells, in an ongoing Phase 1a/b study for atopic dermatitis, and to move preclinical programs TRB-071 and TRB-081 toward the clinic. - learn more
                • Bonfire Ventures led Risotto’s $10M seed round to help the startup bring AI into help desk workflows and make ticketing systems easier to use. Risotto aims to autonomously resolve support tickets by sitting between tools like Jira and a company’s internal systems, using an AI layer designed to keep model outputs reliable and controlled. - learn more
                • Calibrate Ventures participated as a returning investor in Grid Aero’s $20M Series A, which was co-led by Bison Ventures and Geodesic Capital. The aerospace and defense startup says it will use the funding to move its Lifter Lite autonomous aircraft from testing into operational deployments, supporting major exercises and early customer use cases as it scales long-range, low-cost autonomous airlift for contested environments. - learn more

                        LA Exits

                        • Bridg is being acquired by PAR Technology (from Cardlytics) in a deal valued at $27.5M in PAR stock, with the price potentially adjusting up to $30M, and it’s expected to close in Q1 2026. PAR plans to integrate Bridg’s identity-resolution capabilities so restaurants and retailers can unify loyalty and non-loyalty purchase data, recognize previously anonymous customers, and run and measure marketing more effectively. - learn more
                        • Assembly, an employee recognition and rewards platform founded in 2018 and used by 500+ organizations, is being acquired by talent-management provider Quantum Workplace. The deal adds built-in rewards to Quantum Workplace’s suite and is intended to connect recognition data with engagement, performance, development, and retention insights so leaders can better spot impact, reinforce values, and invest in keeping top talent. - learn more

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

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

                                              🔦 Spotlight

                                              Happy Friday, Los Angeles. 💳

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

                                              From college dropouts to a multibillion exit

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

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

                                              Why this looks like a win

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

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

                                              What it signals for LA’s ecosystem

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

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

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

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

                                              🤝 Venture Deals

                                                  LA Companies


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

                                                          LA Venture Funds

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

                                                                LA Exits

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

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                                                                                    JetZero Just Raised $175M to Rewrite How We Fly

                                                                                    Grace Lee
                                                                                    JetZero Just Raised $175M to Rewrite How We Fly

                                                                                    🔦 Spotlight

                                                                                    Happy Friday, Los Angeles ✈️

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

                                                                                    Image Source: JetZero

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

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

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

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

                                                                                    🤝 Venture Deals

                                                                                        LA Companies


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

                                                                                              LA Venture Funds

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

                                                                                                    LA Exits

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

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