🌴 The LA Grind: Week of June 1st

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

Author

Justin Gordon
June 01, 2026

👋 I’m Justin. I run The LA Grind and The SF Grind and scout for Headline.

Happy Monday! I can’t believe we’re in June already, or that we just had the one-year party for The LA Grind, or that Ambition is less than 4 months away. Time flies. We’re not slowing down either, with lots of incredible events coming up.

Let’s get to it.

Turn your ambitious concepts into reality at Silicon Beach Maker Space, Los Angeles’ premier destination for creators, engineers, and hardware startups.

Whether you need professional-grade prototyping tools or a dedicated workbench, our state-of-the-art facility has everything you need to build and innovate without limits.

Join us for our official Launch Party on July 5th at 12 PM! Enjoy food, drinks, music, and free exclusive t-shirts while touring the space.

Limited Time Offer: Get 20% OFF your membership for an entire year. Offer ends June 8th.

Upcoming Events

⭐️ Highlighted Event ⭐️

The LA Grind Dinner Club. Take a quiz, book your seat, get matched with 5 people in the LA startup community for dinner. We have upcoming dinners in Venice (June 10th), Pasadena (June 24th), and Sherman Oaks (June 25th). The last one we did was so much fun. We had about 30 people signed up, multiple dinners happening in different locations in Santa Monica, and we met up afterwards to meet the other groups. It's a great time. Try it out!

🌴 Upcoming Events I’m Hosting 🌴  

🗓️ June 3: Members Coffee Meetup. Santa Monica. 8 - 9:30 am.

🗓️ June 5: Members Poker Night. West Hollywood. 6 - 11 pm.

🗓️ June 16: K1 Race Night. Culver City. 6 - 7:30 pm.

👋 This Week 👋  

🗓️ June 5: Medicine Women. Venice. 5:30 - 7:30 pm.

👀 Events Coming Soon 👀 

🗓️ June 11: Aerospace Meetup. El Segundo. 6 - 8 pm.

🗓️ June 17: LA Health Tech Hang. Santa Monica. 6 - 9 pm.

Talk Shop Media is an LA-based tech PR agency that helps brands at any stage break through the noise and earn the coverage that actually moves the needle. From emerging startups to established names, they build and execute media strategies that get you in front of the right people, press, influencers, and beyond. If you're ready to turn your story into momentum, let's talk: talkshopmedia.com 

Marc Hankin of HPL Law 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!

Top 5 LA Startup Jobs

Executive Assistant to CEO @ Devoted Studios

Hiring?

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Additional Opportunities

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 10,000+ founders, investors, and operators.

This week’s LA Grind Club Member Spotlight is on Laide Olambiwonnu, Head of Product at Parallel Systems, a company that develops autonomous, battery-electric rail vehicles to convert freight from truck to rail.

What are you working on right now professionally?

Head of Product at Parallel Systems, an autonomous battery-electric rail freight company in DTLA. We're building a cleaner, smarter way to move freight by rail. Also still running Pickytarian, a growing eco-friendly tableware brand I started a few years back.

Biggest win so far in your career?

Joined Slabstack early and owned the product direction. We shipped the right things fast and often - 22x revenue growth later, the company landed a PE-backed exit.

Favorite LA Neighborhood?

Mid-Wilshire. Central to "almost" everything, and short distance to some of my favorite music venues.

Favorite LA Restaurant?

I don't have one yet. It's tough out there for a Pickytarian like me ;)

Favorite weekend activity?

Golfing.

How did you end up in LA?

Moved here in my teens. My parents went to college in LA and always romanticized it, so here we are.

What is a book worth reading?

So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. I read it freshman year of college when I couldn't decide on a major. The book argues that skill compounds into passion, not the other way around. It's aged really well, and decades in, I'm still a believer.

What are you obsessing over right now?

"Rein Me In" by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean. That anthemic, cinematic, slightly melancholy sound is exactly my thing - the kind of song I'll have on repeat for weeks. I've been a fan of both for almost a decade, well before they became household names, so this collab feels like they made it just for me. You're welcome, everybody.

What is the kindest thing that anyone has ever done for you?

A professor once told me to be kind and welcoming to myself. It's stuck with me ever since.

Anything else you want to share?

Justin and the LA Grind community are fantastic!

Interested in joining The LA Grind Club?

The LA Grind Club is where the LA startup community comes to life. We’re a community of 70+ founders, investors, and operators in LA who gather multiple times per month through basketball runs, poker nights, coffee meetups, dinners, and other member-only events.

Aboard, a provider of products for mobile living, raised an undisclosed amount in a Pre-Series A led by Ondine Capital and Llama Ventures.

Ember LifeSciences, Inc., a healthcare technology company that specializes in cold chain logistics, raised an undisclosed amount Series A led by Amgen Ventures and TDF Ventures.

Clouted, a company that leverages a virality engine for consumer and entertainment brands, raised a $7M Seed round led by Slow Ventures.

Hardline AI Corp., a voice-first construction technology company, raised a $2M Pre-Seed led by Mucker Capital.

‘Ôrəbella, a fragrance brand, raised an undisclosed amount in a round led by Silas Capital.

Iconic, company combines AI software with human advisors to help owners sell small businesses, raised a $6M round.

Observable Space, a company is working on the infrastructure that helps satellites and spacecraft see, track, navigate and communicate more effectively, closed a $90M Series A, led by Lux Capital and co-led by Upfront Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, Island Green Capital and RTX Ventures.

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

Featured Location

Dunsmoor. Cozy, fire-driven East LA restaurant known for live-fire California cooking, wood-roasted meats, seasonal vegetables, and a rustic-but-refined vibe. It feels intimate, unfussy, and very neighborhood-local, with excellent cocktails and one of the warmer dining rooms in LA.

Fun Events

See you next week,

Justin

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