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Here Are LA's Top VCs, According to Their Peers
Ben Bergman
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
Though Silicon Valley is still very much the capital of venture capital, Los Angeles is home to plenty of VCs who have made their mark – investing in successful startups early and reaping colossal returns for their limited partners.
Who stands out? We thought there may be no better judge than their peers, so we asked 28 of L.A.'s top VCs who impresses them the most.
The list includes many familiar names. Dana Settle, founding partner of Greycroft, and Mark Mullen, founding partner of Bonfire Ventures, garnered the most votes.
Settle manages West Coast operations for Greycroft, a New York firm with $1.8 billion in assets under management. She is one of only nine of the top 100 VCs nationally who are women, according to CB Insights.
Mullen is a founding partner of Bonfire Ventures, which closed a $100 million second fund in September to continue funding seed stage business-to-business (B2B) software startups. Mullen has also been an angel investor and is an LP in other funds focusing on other sectors, including MaC VC and BAM Ventures.
Below is the list of the top ranked investors by how many votes each received from their peers. When there was a tie, they appear in alphabetical order according to their last name:
Mark Mullen, Bonfire Ventures
Mark Mullen is a founding partner of Bonfire Ventures. He is also founder and the largest investor in Mull Capital and Double M Partners, LP I and II. A common theme in these funds is a focus on business-to-business media and communications infrastructures.
In the past, Mullen has served as the chief operating officer at the city of Los Angeles' Economic Office and a senior advisor to former Mayor Villaraigosa, overseeing several of the city's assets including Los Angeles International Airport and the Los Angeles Convention Center. Prior to that, he was a partner at Daniels & Associates, a senior banker when the firm sold to RBC Capital Markets in 2007.
Dana Settle, Greycroft
Dana Settle is a founding partner of Greycroft, heading the West Coast office in Los Angeles. She currently manages the firm's stakes in Anine Bing, AppAnnie, Bird, Clique, Comparably, Goop, Happiest Baby, Seed, Thrive Market, Versed and WideOrbit, and is known for backing female-founded companies.
"The real change takes place when female founders build bigger, independent companies, like Stitchfix, TheRealReal," she said this time last year in an interview with Business Insider. "They're creating more wealth across their cap tables and the cap tables tend to be more diverse, so that gives more people opportunity to become an angel investor." Prior to founding Greycroft, she was a venture capitalist and startup advisor in the Bay Area.
Erik Rannala, Mucker Capital
Erik Rannala is a founding partner at Mucker Capital, which he created with William Hsu in 2011. Before founding Mucker, Rannala was vice president of global product strategy and development at TripAdvisor and a group manager at eBay, overseeing its premium features business.
"As an investor, I root for startups. It pains me to see great teams and ideas collapse under the pressure that sometimes follows fundraising. If you've raised money and you're not sure what comes next, that's fine – I don't always know either," Rannala wrote in a blog post for Mucker.
Mucker has a portfolio of 61 companies, including Los Angeles-based Honey and Santa Monica-based HMBradley.
William Hsu, Mucker Capital
William Hsu is a founding partner at the Santa Monica-based fund Mucker Capital. He started his career as a founder, creating BuildPoint, a provider of workflow management solutions for the commercial construction industry not long after graduating from Stanford.
In an interview with Fast Company, he shared what he learned in the years following, as he led product teams at eBay, Green Dot and Spot Runner, eventually becoming the SVP and Chief Product Officer of At&T Interactive: "Building a company is about hiring correctly, adhering to a timeline, and rigorously valuing opportunity. It's turning something from inspiration and creative movement into process and rigor."
These are the values he looks for in founders in addition to creativity. "I like to see the possibility of each and every idea, and being imaginative makes me a passionate investor."
Jim Andelman, Bonfire Ventures
Jim Andelman is a founding partner of Bonfire Ventures, a fund that focuses on seed rounds for business software founders. Andelman has been in venture capital for 20 years, previously founding Rincon Venture Partners and leading software investing at Broadview Capital Partners.
He's no stranger to enterprise software — he also was a member of the Technology Investment Banking Group at Alex. Brown & Sons and worked at Symmetrix, a consulting firm focusing on technology application for businesses.
In a podcast with LA Venture's Minnie Ingersoll earlier this year, he spoke on the hesitations people have about choosing to start a company.
"It's two very different things: Should I coach someone to be a VC or should I coach someone to enter the startup ecosystem? On the latter question, my answer is 'hell yeah!'"Josh Diamond, Walkabout Ventures
Josh Diamond founded Walkabout Ventures, a seed fund that primarily focuses on financial service startups. The firm raised a $10 million fund in 2019 and is preparing for its second fund. Among its 19 portfolio companies is HMBradley, which Diamond helped seed and recently raised $18 in a Series A round.
"The whole reason I started this is that I saw there was a gap in the funding for early stage, financial service startups," he said. As consumers demand more digital access and transparency, he said the market for financial services is transforming — and Los Angeles is quickly becoming a hub for fintech companies. Before founding Walkabout, he was a principal for Clocktower Technology Ventures, another Los Angeles-based fund with a similar focus.
Kara Nortman, Upfront Ventures
Kara Nortman was recently promoted to managing partner at Upfront Ventures, making her one of the few women – along with Settle – to ascend to the highest ranks of a major VC firm.
Though Upfront had attempted to recruit her before she joined in 2014, she had declined in order to start her own company, Moonfrye, a children's ecommerce company that rebranded to P.S. XO and merged with Seedling. Upfront invested in the combination, and shortly after, Nortman joined the Upfront team.
Before founding Moonfrye, she was the SVP and General Manager of Urbanspoon and Citysearch at IAC after co-heading IAC's M&A group.
In an interview with dot.LA earlier this year, she spoke on how a focus for her as a VC is to continue to open doors for founders and funders of diverse backgrounds.
"Once you're a woman or a person of color in a VC firm, it is making sure other talented people like you get hired, but also hiring people who are not totally like you. You have to make room for different kinds of people. And how do you empower those people?"
Brett Brewer, Crosscut Ventures
Brett Brewer is a co-founder and managing director of Crosscut Ventures. He has a long history in entrepreneurship, starting a "pencil selling business in 4th grade." In 1998, he co-founded Intermix Media. Under their umbrella were online businesses like Myspace.com and Skilljam.com. After selling Intermix in 2005, he became president of Adknowledge.com.
Brewer founded Santa Monica-based Crosscut in 2008 alongside Rick Smith and Brian Garrett. His advice to founders on Crosscut's website reflects his experience: "Founders have to be prepared to pivot, restart, expect the unexpected, and make tough choices quickly... all in the same week! It's not for the faint of heart, but after doing this for 20 years, you can spot the fire (and desire) from a mile away (or not)."
Eva Ho, Fika Ventures
Eva Ho is a founding partner of Fika Ventures, a boutique seed fund, which focuses on data and artificial intelligence-enabled technologies. Prior to founding Fika, she was a founding partner at San Francisco-based Susa Ventures, another seed-stage fund with a similar focus. She is also a serial entrepreneur, most recently co-founding an L.A. location data provider, Factual. She also co-founded Navigating Cancer, a health startup, and is a founding member of All Raise, a nonprofit that supports and provides resources to female founders and funders.
In an interview with John Livesay shortly before founding Fika, Ho spoke to how her experience at Factual helped focus what she looks for in founders. "I always look for the why. A lot of people have the skills and the confidence and the experience, but they can't convince me that they're truly passionate about this. That's the hard part — you can't fake passion."
Brian Lee, BAM Ventures
Brian Lee is a co-founder and managing director of BAM Ventures, an early-stage consumer-focused fund. In an interview with dot.LA earlier this year, Lee shared that he ended up being the first investor in Honey, which was bought by PayPal for $4 billion, through investing in founders and understanding their "vibe."
"There's certain criteria that we look for in founders, a proprietary kind of checklist that we go through to determine whether or not these are the founders that we want to back…. [Honey's founders] knew exactly what they were building, and how they were going to get there."
His eye for the right vibe in a founder is one gleaned from experience. Lee is a serial entrepreneur, founding LegalZoom.com, ShoeDazzle.com and The Honest Company.
Alex Rubalcava, Stage Venture Partners
Alex Rubalcava is a founding partner of Stage Venture Partners, a seed venture capital firm that invests in emerging software technology for B2B markets. Prior to joining, he was an analyst at Santa Monica-based Anthem Venture Partners, an investor in early stage technology companies. It was his first job after graduating from Harvard, and during his time at Anthem the fund was part of Series A in companies like MySpace, TrueCar and Android.
He has served as a board member in several Los Angeles nonprofits and organizations like KIPP LA Schools and South Central Scholars.
"Warren Buffett says that he's a better businessman because he's an investor, and he's a better investor because he's a businessman. I feel the same way about VC and value investing. Being good at value investing can make you good at venture capital, and vice versa," Rubalcava said in an interview with Shai Dardashti of MOI Global.
Mark Suster, Upfront Ventures
Mark Suster, managing partner at Upfront Ventures, is arguably L.A.'s most visible VC, frequently posting on Twitter and on his blog, not only about investing but also more personal topics like weight loss. In more normal years, he presides over LA's biggest gathering of tech titans, the Upfront Summit. Before Upfront, he was the founder and chief executive officer of two software companies, BuildOnline and Koral, which was acquired by Salesforce. Upfront backed both of his companies, and eventually he joined their team in 2007.
In a piece for his blog, "Both Sides of the Table," Suster wrote about the importance of passion — not just for entrepreneurs and their businesses, but for the VCs that fund them as well.
"On reflection of the role that I want to play as a VC it is clearly in the camp of passion. I really want to start my journeys only with people with whom I want to work closely with for the next 5–7 years or more. I only want to work on projects in which I believe can produce truly amazing change in an industry or in the world."
Lead art by Candice Navi.
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Ben Bergman
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
https://twitter.com/thebenbergman
ben@dot.la
Senra Raises $25M to Rewire LA's Aerospace Supply Chain
07:07 AM | June 27, 2025
🔦 Spotlight
Hello Los Angeles,
In the shadow of LA’s booming space and defense scene, a new kind of hardware startup is scaling up. And it's not building flying cars or flashy robots. It’s building the infrastructure that builds everything else.
This week, Senra Systems announced a $25 million Series A led by Dylan Field and CIV, with participation from General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Pax Ventures. Their Redondo Beach-based facility is using custom automation, software, and new design tools to quadruple production speed. The goal is to solve a notoriously manual, bottleneck-prone part of the supply chain: wire harness manufacturing.
The company also launched Amp, a CAD software platform that bridges the gap between harness design and physical production. It's a process that has historically been slow, fragmented, and hard to scale. In other words, Senra isn’t just building machines. They’re rewiring the very systems that power aerospace, defense, and industrial tech.
It’s not sci-fi. It’s supply chain innovation. And it’s very LA.
Catch the latest LA venture deals, acquisitions, and fund updates below.
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
- 2wai, co-founded by actor Calum Worthy and producer Russell Geyser, has emerged from stealth with the launch of its avatar-based social app, allowing users to create lifelike “HoloAvatars” in under three minutes for real-time, multi-language conversations. The platform gives individuals, especially creators and entertainers, control over their digital likeness by restricting avatar responses to pre-approved information, helping counter deepfake threats. The launch follows a $5 million pre-seed raise and sets the stage for broader use by celebrities, brands, and educational partners. - learn more
- Superfiliate secured a $2M strategic growth round led by HappyStack to fuel its rapid expansion in the creator commerce space. The platform, which automates influencer and affiliate marketing for CPG and DTC brands via deep Meta and TikTok integrations, has achieved an impressive 400% year-over-year growth. The investment will support scaling its automation engine, deepening social commerce partnerships, and onboarding more e-commerce brands. - learn more
- Gemist, a Los Angeles–based jewelry-tech startup, secured $6M in seed funding from Entrada Ventures, Artemis Fund, and Collide Capital, bringing its total funding to $9M. The platform offers real-time 3D visualizations, dynamic pricing, and integrated e-commerce for custom fine jewelry, and is used weekly by over 14,000 customers to design personalized pieces. The new capital will enhance its visualization tools, pricing engine, and commerce features as Gemist expands its footprint. - learn more
- Chronicle Studios has raised an oversubscribed $11.6M seed round co-led by Patron and Point72 Ventures to fuel the development of original, audience-driven franchises. Founded by former DreamWorks and Warner Bros. exec Chris deFaria and tech entrepreneur Aaron Sisto, the LA-based studio plans to invest in independent creators and build AI-powered tools, like automated YouTube thumbnails and social analytics, to help storytellers grow and monetize their IP. - learn more
- Stackup, a developer platform for crypto applications, has raised a $4.2M in seed funding round led by 1kx. Stackup helps crypto businesses build better user experiences and manage on-chain user data, and the funding will be used to grow its engineering team and expand support for more blockchain networks. - learn more
- Doên, a fashion brand known for its vintage-inspired, California aesthetic, has closed a growth equity round led by Silas Capital. The funding will help the company expand its retail footprint, grow its team, and scale operations. Doên plans to continue building its community-driven brand while deepening its commitment to sustainability and women's empowerment. - learn more
- Root has raised a $9M seed funding round led by Konvoy and Headline, to develop its platform for managing online communities. The app, currently in closed beta, enables users to build custom tools like raid planners and task trackers right into their social experience. The fresh capital will fuel team expansion and product development ahead of a broader rollout. - learn more
- AndrenaM, a defense-tech startup founded by a former SpaceX engineer, raised $10M in just 36 hours. The company is building an AI-powered maritime sensing network using sonar-equipped buoys to provide real-time underwater surveillance. The funding, led by First Round Capital, will support team expansion, custom hardware development, and scaled deployments off the California coast. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- Westlake Village BioPartners joined Neuron23’s $96.5M Series D financing round. The capital will fund the global Phase 2 NEULARK trial of NEU‑41, a brain-penetrant LRRK2 inhibitor for early-stage Parkinson’s disease, as well as support commercial and R&D scale-up. Neuron23 also announced that the first patient has been dosed in the NEULARK study, with initial results expected in 2027. - learn more
- Fika Ventures participated in Spinwheel’s recent $30 M Series A round led by F‑Prime Capital. The funds will be used to accelerate their AI-powered platform that streamlines debt and credit management, reducing friction in account authentication, automating payments, and integrating liability data, all to deliver instant, developer-friendly credit APIs. This investment supports rapid growth across fintech and banking partners aiming to improve consumer credit outcomes. - learn more
- Chaac Ventures participated in a $7M seed funding round for Meridian, a New York and Miami‑based startup using its AI-powered deal management platform to help private equity firms streamline sourcing, automate workflows, and improve diligence efficiency. The funding will accelerate product enhancements, expand the global go‑to‑market strategy, and deepen its traction with large institutional investors. - learn more
- WME joined a debut funding round for haircare disruptor isima, which raised over $12M to accelerate its launch. Shakira-backed and science-driven, isima will use the capital to scale operations, expand product development, and roll out via isima.com and placements at Ulta Beauty (U.S. in July; Mexico in August), debuting across nearly 30 global markets. - learn more
- M13 participated in Maven AGI’s Series B round, which raised $50M to expand its Business AGI platform for enterprise use. The funding brings Maven’s total capital raised to $78M. The company will use the investment to accelerate product development and go-to-market efforts as it scales its AI platform that unifies customer journeys across support, sales, and operations. - learn more
- Alexandria Venture Investments joined GeneCentric Therapeutics’ $8M Series C round. The funding will support the commercial launch of GenomicsNext™, a groundbreaking liquid biopsy platform that combines extensive gene expression profiling with high‑fidelity DNA variant detection from ctDNA. This capital is expected to carry GeneCentric through 2026 and to help it scale predictive biomarker development for oncology applications. - learn more
- MTech Capital and B Capital participated in COVR Global’s $2.5M seed round, led by MTech Capital. The funding will help COVR develop its AI-powered Decision Engine—a modular platform that enables insurers to make instant, data-driven claims decisions, such as coverage validation, liability assessment, and settlement automation. The investment will fuel product development and team growth as COVR scales across the UK, Spain, Japan, and Australia - learn more
- Bedrock and Khosla Ventures co-led Mach Industries’ $100M Series B round. The defense-tech startup will use the capital to ramp up production at its Forge Huntington factory, grow its Mach Propulsion engine division, and further develop and deploy its advanced unmanned systems—Viper, Glide, and Stratos. This funding brings Mach’s total raised to about $185M as it scales vertically integrated defense manufacturing. - learn more
- Fifth Wall participated in Juniper Square’s Series D funding round, which secured $130M at a $1.1 billion valuation. The investment will be used to accelerate the development and deployment of JunieAI, an AI-powered, agentic platform tailored specifically for private markets general partners to streamline investor relations, reporting, and fund administration. - learn more
- Mucker Capital led CarePilot’s $2.5M seed round, with participation from KCRise Fund. The Overland Park-based startup will use the funding to further develop its AI-powered tools including its new “ProblemAssist” diagnostic and coding tool and expand its team as it scales solutions for healthcare providers. - learn more
- Prototype Capital participated in Sunrise Robotics’ seed round, which raised $8.5M to emerge from stealth and advance its factory automation technology. The Ljubljana-based startup develops dual‑arm robotic cells trained in simulated environments, enabling rapid, cost-effective deployment and continuous learning across a fleet. The funds will be used to scale AI and simulation capabilities, expand team and manufacturing across Europe, and deepen customer deployments in sectors like electronics, supercars, and battery production. - learn more
LA Exits
- Comco, the pioneer behind the MicroBlaster® micro-precision sandblasting system, has been acquired by Medical Manufacturing Technologies (MMT), a portfolio company of Arcline Investment Management. This strategic move integrates Comco’s advanced abrasive technology into MMT’s suite, expanding its capabilities in precision microblasting for medical, aerospace, microelectronics, and industrial applications. MMT CEO Robbie Atkinson emphasized that the acquisition strengthens their end-to-end manufacturing offerings, while Comco President Colin Weightman joins MMT to drive continued innovation and customer growth. - learn more
- 3BlackDot, the creator-first gaming and digital media studio known for popular YouTube franchises like Gaming While Black and Alpha Betas, has been acquired by Offscript Worldwide, the parent company of Revolt. With an audience of over 128 million subscribers, the acquisition marks Offscript’s entry into the $347 billion gaming industry and strengthens its creator-led IP development and distribution capabilities. 3BlackDot will now leverage Offscript’s infrastructure to scale its cultural impact while maintaining its creator-first approach. - learn more
- Dr. Squatch, the fast-growing natural men’s grooming brand known for its social-first marketing and strong DTC presence, is being acquired by Unilever from Summit Partners. The move gives Unilever access to a brand with viral campaigns, influencer collaborations, and revenues reportedly around $400M, enhancing its premium personal care offerings. The deal is expected to close later this year pending regulatory approvals. - learn more
- CloudSoda has been acquired by Diskover Data, combining CloudSoda’s intuitive data orchestration and automation with Diskover’s enterprise-scale indexing, metadata enrichment, and AI-ready infrastructure. This comes alongside Diskover’s $7.5M seed round, led by Snowflake Ventures and NetApp, positioning the company to accelerate unified, intelligent management of unstructured data. - learn more
- Inspire Clean Energy has been acquired by Rhythm Energy, significantly expanding Inspire’s reach beyond its original markets. The merger creates one of the largest independent green energy retailers in the U.S., combining Inspire’s subscription-based, 100% renewable electricity plans with Rhythm’s technology-driven platform. This union positions the combined company to serve millions more customers nationwide, offering enhanced digital tools, demand-response programs, and time-of-use pricing to promote clean energy adoption. - learn more
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Tinder, Starlink, and Apple’s New Studio: This Week in LA
10:27 AM | July 04, 2025
🔦 Spotlight
Happy Independence Day, Los Angeles! 🇺🇸
While you're celebrating freedom, here are some electrifying updates lighting up LA’s tech, satellite, and music scenes:
🔥 Tinder mandates Face Recognition in California
Image Source: Tinder
Tinder is now requiring all new users in California to complete a biometric face check, a brief video selfie processed via FaceTec, to verify profiles are genuine. The video is deleted post-verification, though an encrypted face map remains while the account is active. This West Hollywood based move could redefine trust, safety, and privacy in mainstream consumer apps.
🌐 Starlink clears hurdle to launch in India
Elon Musk’s SpaceX backed Starlink has cleared most regulatory and licensing hurdles with India’s Department of Telecommunications, marking a key step toward launching satellite broadband in one of the world’s fastest growing markets. Final approvals from the national space regulator are pending, and services, expected to deliver high speed connectivity to underserved regions, could launch in the coming months. This is a major milestone for Starlink’s global expansion.
🎧 Apple Music opens Culver City creative hub
Image Source: Apple
Apple Music is celebrating its anniversary by launching a brand new 15,000 square foot, three story studio in Culver City. The facility, featuring a 4,000 square foot soundstage, spatial audio suites, podcast booths, and more, is designed by Eric Owen Moss and slated to open mid August. It solidifies LA’s reputation as a creative powerhouse and reaffirms Apple’s commitment to investing in and nurturing our city's cultural ecosystem.
From dating apps to deep space to sound stages, LA isn’t just watching the future unfold, we’re building it.
Here’s to independence, imagination, and everything this city dares to launch next. Happy Fourth, Los Angeles.
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
- Castelion has raised a $350M Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners alongside Altimeter Capital to scale its hypersonic missile production capabilities. The El Segundo-based defense startup plans to use the funds to expand manufacturing, accelerate testing through its SpaceX-inspired rapid development model, and position itself as a cost-effective supplier of hypersonic weapons to the U.S. military and its allies. - learn more
- Earth Sama, a Calabasas, California–based climate-tech platform that helps rural farming and Indigenous communities generate and manage carbon credits, secured investment from Omtse Ventures. The funding will support the rollout of Earth Sama’s blockchain-powered field app, climate-creator platform, and smart-contract tools to scale community-led carbon credit projects globally under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6.4 framework. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- Plassa Capital participated in Metafide’s $3.275M funding round. Miami based Metafide, the creator of SURGE, a gamified trading platform that combines AI neural networks and human insight, will use the funds to scale and launch SURGE into the market. - learn more
- BOLD Capital Partners participated as a founding investor in Syntis Bio’s $33M Series A round, with an additional $5M in NIH grants. The Boston-based biotech is developing oral therapies for obesity and rare diseases, and the funding will help advance its SYNT platform, moving its lead obesity treatment, SYNT-101, into Phase 1 trials and supporting development of SYNT-202 for homocystinuria. - learn more
- BAM Ventures participated in Cred’s $15M seed round for its predictive intelligence startup. San Francisco based Cred uses AI to unify company data with real time market signals and deliver actionable insights for sales and operations. The funding, led by defy.vc, will be used to scale Cred’s platform, expand its customer base, and grow team and product capabilities. - learn more
- BOLD Capital Partners participated in Gallant’s $18M Series B round to advance its ready-to-use stem cell therapies for pets. The funding, led by Digitalis Ventures with additional support from NovaQuest Capital, will help Gallant bring its off-the-shelf regenerative treatments to market. - learn more
- Rebel Fund joined the seed round for Rocketable, contributing to the $6.5M raised to build a portfolio of fully automated SaaS companies. San Francisco-based Rocketable, backed by True Ventures and others, uses AI agents to operate acquired software products, and Rebel’s support will help scale both the platform and acquisitions. - learn more
LA Exits
- Leasepath, a cloud-first provider of equipment lease and loan management software, has been acquired by Solifi to enhance its mid-market offerings. The deal allows Solifi to expand Leasepath’s Microsoft Dynamics-based platform into new global markets while keeping Leasepath’s team and leadership in place. - learn more
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