CompaniesLos Angeles
38 recordsDefense, Intelligence & Government
Castelion
● El Segundo, CA
Hypersonic weapons manufacturing company. Herndon VA. Lavrock early backer. Raised $350M Series B Dec 2025 led by Altimeter + Lightspeed. Lavrock unicorn #2. Blackbeard program + Project Ranger. Mass-production approach to hypersonics.
Defense, Intelligence & Government
Chaos Industries
● Los Angeles, CA
CHAOS Industries — next-generation defense and national-security systems (sensing, electronic warfare). Founded 2022 by John Tenet, Brett Cummings, Gavin Hood and Bo Marr; Los Angeles, CA. ~$1B raised at ~$4.5B valuation. Investors incl. Valor Equity Partners, 8VC, Accel, NEA, StepStone Group.
Defense, Intelligence & Government
Smack Technologies
● El Segundo, CA
Smack Technologies — national-security "frontier AI lab" building domain-specific deep-RL models in synthetic warfare environments for DoD decision dominance. Founded 2024 by Andrew Markoff and Clint Alanis (MARSOC veterans); CTO Dan Gould; El Segundo, CA. $32M Series A led by Geodesic Capital and Costanoa Ventures with Point72 Ventures, Felicis, Bloomberg Beta, Washington Harbour.
Energy & Climate / Environment
Aboard
● Orange, CA
AI Transformation Consulting & Custom Software | Aboard: Your partner for AI transformation. Aboard offers <strong>strategic consulting, roadmapping, and custom software solutions</strong>. Modernize your stack at record speed. | Aboard | LinkedIn: Report this company · Aboard is <strong>an AI-powered data management platform</strong> that makes digital life less messy for users and accelerates software development for enterprises. Aboard helps users organize and collaborate on any kind of data, whether ... | About - Aboard, Defining the Future of Custom Software: Aboard <strong>delivers profe
Defense, Intelligence & Government
Anduril
● Costa Mesa, CA
Anduril raised at $61B valuation in round led by Thrive Capital and a16z.. Anduril. Google Alert - a16z investment
Defense, Intelligence & Government
Anduril Industries
● Costa Mesa, CA
Costa Mesa CA. Defense tech platform company. Founded by Palmer Luckey (Oculus) + Trae Stephens + others. Lattice OS: AI-powered command-and-control platform integrating sensors, drones, autonomous systems. Products: Sentry Tower (border surveillance), Ghost (autonomous drone), Altius (loitering munition), Pulsar (electronic warfare), Roadrunner (reusable interceptor). IQT investment 2017. Series F $1.5B Aug 2023 at $8.5B valuation. Revenue $500M+. Palmer Luckey TIME 100 AI 2024. Now partnered with Palantir on DOD AI consortium.
Consumer / Retail
Bidbus
● Irvine, CA
Bidbus raised $15 million Series A led by Ibex Investors, with participation from Mucker Capital, FJ Labs, Motley Fool Ventures, Data Point Capital, Walter Ventures, and Yossi Levi. The company operates a digital marketplace where dealerships compete to buy consumers' used cars.
Energy & Climate / Environment
Bluecore Energy
● Long Beach, CA
Developing compact, portable nuclear reactors deployed on a barge to advance clean nuclear power generation. Raised a $10M round led by Slauson & Co., with participation from Precursor Ventures, Harlem Capital, LMNT Ventures, Chris Larsen, and Michael Brune of the Clean Break Fund.
Finance
BondIt Media Capital
● Los Angeles, CA
Film and media finance provider offering debt financing, gap financing, and tax-credit financing for independent productions.
Enterprise / General Business
Bonfire Ventures
● Los Angeles, CA
LA B2B software specialist. Seed and Series A. Focus: enterprise-focused founders. Partner: Jim Andelman.
AI Application
Clouted
● Los Angeles, CA
Clouted is a distribution marketing platform that uses AI agents to create, clip, and distribute content across social media channels for entertainment, music, gaming, and tech brands. The platform automates video clipping, influencer seeding, fan page management, and performance advertising while learning from campaign performance to optimize future distributions.
Healthcare & Life Sciences
CONNECT San Diego
● San Diego, CA
Premier SD innovation accelerator (founded 1985). Merged with San Diego Venture Group 2019. Springboard program for tech and life sciences. CEO Mike Krenn (founder of Tech Coast Angels and EvoNexus). 400+ VC relationships. $800M+ raised for SD companies.
AI Application
Corner Health
● Santa Monica, CA
Corner Health, which develops AI tools for nurse practitioners looking to open their own practices, received a $25 million Series A led by Oak HC/FT.
Enterprise / General Business
Cylance
● Irvine, CA
Irvine CA. AI-native endpoint security — prevention-first approach using ML to predict and prevent threats. IQT portfolio (George Hoyem board). Acquired by BlackBerry for $1.4B (2019). Pioneered ML-based malware prevention vs signature-based AV. Now BlackBerry Cylance.
Defense, Intelligence & Government
Divergent
● Torrance, CA
Builds an AI-driven adaptive manufacturing platform (DAPS) that 3D-prints application-specific-alloy structural nodes and robotically assembles them into complex parts for automotive, aerospace, and defense customers.
Hardware Manufacturer
DreamWorks Animation
● Glendale, CA
Glendale animation studio (Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda) and a render-tech operation: built and open-sourced the MoonRay production renderer, runs large render farms. Part of LA's render/compute spine alongside Disney.
Defense, Intelligence & Government
Epirus
● Redondo Beach, CA
Epirus — high-power microwave directed-energy systems (Leonidas) for counter-UAS and electronic warfare. Founded 2018 (co-founder Joe Lonsdale); Redondo Beach, CA; CEO Andy Lowery. ~$550M raised; Series D co-led by 8VC and Washington Harbour, with General Dynamics, StepStone, T. Rowe Price and NightDragon.
Finance
Farcaster
● Los Angeles, CA
Farcaster is a decentralized, blockchain-based social network protocol.
Consumer / Retail
Fender
● Los Angeles, CA
Designs and manufactures electric guitars, basses, amplifiers, and related musical instruments and accessories.
Finance
General Compute
● Covina, CA
General Compute secured $400 million loan from Upper90 backed by inference chips, first-of-its-kind financing reflecting demand for cheaper alternatives to Nvidia GPUs.