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- The LA Grind: Week of June 9th
The LA Grind: Week of June 9th
Upcoming events, founder spotlight, venture deals, investment opportunities, and more.
Justin Gordon
June 09, 2025
Curated events and standout stories for LA’s most ambitious founders, builders, and investors.
👋 I’m Justin. I run The LA Grind, host the Just Go Grind podcast with 360+ founder and investor interviews, 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.
Want to connect?
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What I’ve got for you this week:
📅 Upcoming Events
💡 Founder spotlight on Augustus Doricko
💰 Recent LA startup funding announcements
👋 LA career & investment opportunities
🎉 Fun this week in LA
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Thinking out loud…
This is only the 4th edition of The LA Grind, but I’ve been thinking about launching a paid membership tied to the events I already host — poker night, beach day, dinners, breakfasts, coffee meetups, hikes, runs, comedy shows, and more.
The idea: Access to 2-4 curated events per month with the most kind and interesting founders, operators, and investors in LA.
I’ll still host free events too, this would just allow me to do more, with better curation and tighter groups.
Would you be interested in a curated LA events membership? |
Let’s get to it.
🌴 Upcoming Events I’m Hosting 🌴
🗓️ June 20: Startup Community Coffee Meetup. A super casual opportunity to grab a coffee and meet some interesting founders, operators, and investors in the LA startup ecosystem.
🗓️ June 24: Startup Community Mixer. Taking place at one of my favorite locations in Santa Monica! Only room for 40 people. Early bird pricing ends June 10th.
🗓️ July 8: Curated Founder Dinner. Our first one filled up fast, so I’m organizing another! Finalizing a brand sponsor to cover the cost. Message me if interested in sponsoring.
🗓️ July 12: LA Startup Community Hike. We had our first one in months this past weekend so we’re running it back again.
This Week
🗓️ June 11: LA Female Founders Lunch. A monthly, in-person networking event designed exclusively for female entrepreneurs in Los Angeles.
🗓️ June 11: Ace Connections: MPs, GPs & LPs Presented by Gunderson #AdventureCapitalists. An invite-only event for women in venture capital. Held at a private Bel Air residence, it features dinner, drinks, and a poker workshop to foster genuine, pitch-free connections.
🗓️ June 12: Pitch & Run LA: Run Club for Founders, Investors, and Tech. A founder-friendly Thursday morning run (with coffee after) I personally recommend and attend most weeks.
🗓️ June 12: Demo Day LA. A startup pitch event in Venice Beach showcasing LA’s top early-stage startups.
🗓️ June 12: Global AI Council Summit Los Angeles. A morning summit in Downtown LA hosted by the Global AI Council, featuring panels on AI’s impact across industries and a keynote by E! co-founder Larry Namer.
🗓️ June 12: Los Angeles Design & Development Meetup No.13. A quarterly gathering for designers, developers, and product builders, hosted by LA Design Events.
🗓️ June 12: Breaking Into the Business of Biotech: Los Angeles Startup Spotlight. A networking and learning event for LA biotech founders and researchers.
🗓️ June 12: Climate Techies Networking Event - Q2 2025. A networking event for climate tech professionals across Southern California, hosted by ClimateTechiesSocal at Culture Brewing Co. in Manhattan Beach.
🗓️ June 14: Founders Running Club :: LA. Founders Running Club (FRC) brings founders, investors, tech, creative people and startup enthusiasts together for weekly easy runs and networking.
Coming Soon
🗓️ June 18: No Decks, Just Dough. Hosted by Anthony Mauceri, the event focuses on fostering genuine conversations among creators, hackers, and indie makers, without the formalities of slides or pitches.
🗓️ June 18: Women's Leadership Symposium & Awards 2025. A half-day event celebrating and empowering women in leadership across various industries. Hosted by the Los Angeles Business Journal.
Want to submit an event for consideration in the next edition? Fill out this form.
LA Tech Walks are here!
Presenting the 2025 Summer Series powered by WeAreLATech.
A curated community of tech professionals exploring LA's most stunning landscapes while building meaningful connections.
Walks span across all areas of Los Angeles, north to south and east to west.
Augustus Doricko is the founder of Rainmaker, a Los Angeles-based startup specializing in drone-based cloud seeding to address water scarcity.
His approach modernizes traditional cloud seeding by using drones equipped with heating elements to deliver nucleation agents, aiming to increase precipitation efficiently and cost-effectively.
Rainmaker has secured significant backing, including a recent $25M Series A led by Lowercarbon Capital.
Before founding Rainmaker, Doricko co-founded Terra Seco, a company focused on automating regulatory compliance for groundwater wells. He left UC Berkeley just two months shy of graduation to pursue this venture full-time. His work at Terra Seco highlighted the limitations of current water policies, prompting him to explore alternative solutions like cloud seeding.
Connect with Augustus on X and tell him The LA Grind sent you.
Know a founder worth spotlighting? Submit yourself or a friend here.
Notable LA Startup Deals the Last Few Weeks
Dataplor raised $20.5M in Series B funding round led by F-Prime.
Bezel recently secured a $670K investment from Hyperspace Ventures as part of a broader $6.8M funding initiative.
Sansbank raised a Seed round with BoCG Ventures and Maracuja.
Axle Health announced a $10 million Series A round led by F-Prime Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Pear VC, and Lightbank.
Please send any fundraising news for LA-based companies or funds to [email protected].
Career Opportunities
Robot Fleet Engineer @ Yondu
Director of Product @ Cairns Health
GTM Operations Lead @ Substack
Product Manager @ BlueCargo
Engineering Manager, Account Services @ Crunchyroll
Founding Researcher @ Yondu
Enterprise Account Executive @ Gusto
Fullstack Engineer @ Sapling.ai
Ad Operations Manager @ GoodRx
AI Engineer @ Heroic Story
Investment Opportunities
LA Startup Investment Opportunity #1
Offside is the solution to content-market fit for media teams, automating pre-production by turning audience data and internet trends into real-time insights, actionable content suggestions, and production materials.
LA Startup Investment Opportunity #2
An LA-based founder friend of mine raised a $1M pre-seed for her startup a year ago, a platform transforming the way Gen Z shops online, and is now raising a seed round after growing quickly.
Email me at [email protected] if you want to know more about any of these opportunities.
Are you or your portfolio company hiring in LA? Looking for a co-founder? Raising capital? We’d love to help you. Fill out this form to get started.
Zebulon Café Concert. Found in the Frogtown neighborhood, Zebulon is a hybrid space combining a café, bar, and live music venue.
Book Soup. An iconic independent bookstore located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.
June 9: Los Angeles Sparks vs. Golden State Valkyries at Crypto.com Arena.
June 9: Red Carpet BET Awards Afterparty @ Skybar. A celebrity-filled event at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood, offering music, networking, and post-awards celebration.
June 12: Night Market at the Bungalow. It runs weekly every Thursday from 5–11 p.m. through August 28th.
June 13, 14, 15: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium.
June 15: Sunday Reading Club. A relaxed, bring-your-own-book meetup hosted by Anna Seirian at Fern Dell in Griffith Park.
Is there a cool place or fun event we should know about? Email me at [email protected]
What did you think of this edition? |
See you next week,
Justin
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