🌴 The LA Grind: Week of November 3rd

Upcoming events, venture deals, LA opportunities, and more in Los Angeles this week.

Author

Justin Gordon
November 03, 2025

👋 I’m Justin. I run The LA Grind and scout for Headline. I’ve lived in LA since 2018, earned my MBA from USC (✌️), and I’m probably out running when I’m not writing this.

Starting today, I’m working with a new sponsor for the newsletter, Clarify. You’ll be seeing them all of November (And beyond 🤞). They’re an AI CRM that I’ve been loving and I’m excited to be working with them!

If you’d also like to become a sponsor, fill out this form or check out the new direct sponsorships I’m offering. I’m currently lining up annual sponsors with a mix of newsletter, social media, and event exposure.

Also, as I mentioned last week, the price of the LA Grind Club membership has increased for new members and I just added a couple of new events!

Lastly, before we dive in, would love your feedback:

Which event should I host soon? (That you'd actually attend)

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Let’s get to it.

A CRM That Finally Clicked for Me

I’d been running The LA Grind on a scrappy Airtable setup. It worked… until it didn’t.

As part of this sponsorship, I tried Clarify. It pulled deals straight from my email and just worked.

For the first time, I’m actually committing to a CRM to set The LA Grind up for what’s next.

Clarify is self-updating: it records calls, enriches contacts, and updates deals automatically, so you can sell, not babysit a system.

Upcoming Events

⭐️ Featured Event ⭐️

Want your event featured here with a longer blurb? Sign up here.

🌴 Upcoming Events I’m Hosting 🌴 

🗓️ November 5: Members Coffee Meetup. Santa Monica. 8 - 9:30 am.

🗓️ November 11: Startup Community Mixer. Santa Monica. 6 - 8 pm. Thanks to Weinberger & Logan PC and JP Consulting Group for sponsoring!

🗓️ November 16: Founders LA Rams vs. Seattle Seahawks Game. Thanks to Weinberger and Logan PC for sponsoring! We’ll have a curated group of founders who get a free ticket to the game thanks to our sponsor! Room for one more sponsor.

🗓️ November 18: Seed to Series B Founder Dinner. Hollywood. 6:30 - 9 pm. Sponsored by Reku. Taking place at a private residence, we’ll have a curated group of venture-backed founders join us for a dinner prepared by a private chef.

🗓️ November 19: Members Coffee Meetup. San Marino. 8 - 9 am.

🗓️ November 22: LA Startup Community Hike. Hollywood. 8 - 9:30 am.

🗓️ December 11: Startup Community Holiday Party. Hollywood. 7 - 10 pm. Taking place at a beautiful private residence, this will be one of our biggest events of the year!

🗓️ December 18: Members Poker Night ♣️ 🃏. Hollywood. 6 - 11 pm.

👋 This Week 👋 

🗓️ November 4: Beauty & Wellness Rooftop Cocktail Party. Century City. 5:30 - 7:30 pm.

🗓️ November 4: Cursor Workshop Los Angeles. Gardena. 5:30 - 7:30 pm.

🗓️ November 4: Meadow Pitch Party. Highland Park. 6:30 - 9 pm.

🗓️ November 5: OUT/FORM Summit. USC. 1 - 6 pm.

🗓️ November 5: 7BC Global VC Demo Day. Santa Monica. 3:30 - 9 pm.

🗓️ November 6: AI Cafe: Ask Kimono your private AI. Venice. 8:45 - 11 am.

🗓️ November 7: AI Unfiltered: Founder Fridays. Beverly Hills. 5 - 7 pm.

🗓️ November 7: League of Originals // LA Summit. DTLA. 11 am - 6 pm.

🗓️ November 8: Women Vibecode Gathering: Get on the Bus. Venice. 9:30 am - 12:30 pm.

🗓️ November 8: Data Con LA 2025. Long Beach. 8 am - 5 pm.

Want to submit an event for consideration in the next edition? Fill out this form.

Top 5 LA Startup & VC Firm Jobs

AI Tech Lead @ Core VC

Investment Opportunity

Know a founder or investor in Los Angeles who is raising capital or searching for a co-founder? Reply to this email with more details that I could share in this newsletter for 6,000+ founders, investors, and operators.

The LA Grind’s first Community Partner is Marc Hankin of HPL Law!

Marc advises inventors and high-growth teams on patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and licensing. Before your next fundraise, launch, or M&A chat, know where you stand by talking with Marc, who you can reach at [email protected].

Marc can often be found at startup events in LA and has been one of the biggest supporters of The LA Grind since its inception!

Whatnot, the live-auction marketplace, raised $225M at an $11.5B valuation in a round co-led by DST Global and CapitalG.

Blueprint, Bryan Johnson’s longevity startup turning his personal health regimen into a consumer platform, raised $60M from a celebrity-heavy group of backers.

Rarity PBC, a biotech company developing a one-time autologous blood-stem-cell gene therapy for ADA-SCID (“bubble baby” disease), raised a $4.6M seed round led by Steve Oliveira of Nemean Asset Management.

Fruitist, an LA-based superfruit brand with roughly $400M in trailing sales, raised $150M led by a vehicle managed by J.P. Morgan Asset Management with participation from Aliment Capital and Ray Dalio’s family office.

Homecourt, the luxury home and personal fragrance brand founded by Courteney Cox, raised an $8M Series A led by CULT Capital.

Send any fundraising news for LA-based companies or funds, including your own, to [email protected].

Featured Location

Lucia. This stunning Afro-Caribbean restaurant is a place I’d go for the vibe alone. Add in a menu that includes wagyu beef, coconut fried chicken, and oxtail pepper pot, and it’s a place worth trying out.

Featured Company

Outer. Shoutout to Outer, the Santa Monica-based startup making outdoor furniture you actually want to spend time on. I had co-founder Jiake Liu on my podcast a few years ago and loved hearing how Outer was built. If looking for high-quality outdoor furniture, I highly recommend them.

Fun Events

See you next week,

Justin

P.S. Want to connect?

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