🌴 The LA Grind: Week of July 27th

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

Author

Justin Gordon
July 27, 2026

👋 I’m Justin. I run The LA Grind and The SF Grind, host the Ambition Podcast, and scout for Headline.

Happy Monday! Hope you’re staying cool with this heat wave we’ve been having. We’re about 8 weeks out from the Ambition Summit, announced our latest speaker last week, Shamin Walsh of BAM Ventures, and have another speaker to announce this week! We still have sponsorship opportunities, a limited number of service provider tickets, and other tickets available. Apply to join here.

Let’s get to it.

What happens when you put 150 ambitious founders, investors, and operators in one room for a full day?

We're about to find out.

On September 24th, Ambition 2026 takes over a private venue in Santa Monica. One day, one room, no filler panels. Speakers include Mehul Nariyawala (Matic), Dee Murthy (Ghost), Jessica Chang (Upwards), Shamin Walsh (BAM Ventures) with more announcements coming very soon (Been working on these for weeks and we’re very close).

This isn't a massive conference you wander through with a lanyard. It's curated, it's capped at 150, and attendees have already signed up from across the US and as far as Australia.

VIP tickets include an intimate dinner the night before with some of the speakers and as many great people as I can talk into showing up.

Help Bring Dialog Home

After a major water main rupture flooded their West Hollywood café, they were forced to close indefinitely.

Your support will help care for their team, begin rebuilding Dialog, and explore a temporary nearby location while they work to bring Dialog home.

Upcoming Events

🌴 Upcoming Events I’m Hosting 🌴  

🗓️ July 29: Coffee Meetup. Santa Monica. 8 - 9:30 am.

🗓️ August 7: The LA Grind: Game Night. Hollywood. 7 - 11 pm.

🗓️ August 21: The LA Grind: Poker Night. Hollywood. 6 - 11 pm.

👋 This Week 👋  

🗓️ July 30: IT and SecOps Happy Hour. Santa Monica. 5:30 - 8 pm.

👀 Events Coming Soon 👀

🗓️ August 4: Made You Look Tour: The LA Edit. Arts District. 10:30 am - 1:30 pm.

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

Software Engineer @ Epsilon3

Startup Raising

Elvina Beck, Founder of Deadline, is raising capital. Deadline is a private hotel marketplace where verified travelers place blind bids on unsold rooms. Hotels protect their brand with hidden pricing while unlocking new revenue from inventory that would otherwise expire empty. Connect: [email protected]

Hiring?

Feature your job in The LA Grind newsletter or reach out to our partners:

  • RJR Partners: Experts in helping startups scale their teams with high quality hires. Their team is comprised of tech industry veterans, allowing them to source and vet candidates directly through their personal networks. Their industry expertise also enables a deeper understanding of the needs of clients and candidates on a level unmatched by other firms.

  • Relay Human Cloud: Deploy dedicated global teammates. Fully supported, ready fast, no long-term commitment. Relay handles everything behind your teammates so you just manage their work. Every seat comes fully provisioned; your teammates show up ready, supported, and embedded in your workflows from day one.

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 11,000+ founders, investors, and operators.

I started the Ambition Podcast a few weeks ago, spending 100+ hours on the project already. It’s a show about the world's most ambitious people from history, and the lessons you can take from their lives and use in your own work and life.

Each episode is deeply researched, built around the definitive biography of one person (or in some cases, two), with dozens of hours spent reading, synthesizing, and pulling out what actually matters.

First episodes of Ambition:

Available now on all podcasting platforms including:

Merit, a provider of a cosmetics platform provider and brand, received an undisclosed amount as investment from SEMCAP Beauty & Wellness.

Atoms, a industrial robotics and automation company, raised a $1.7B round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Vikk AI, a provider of an AI-powered legal discovery platform building, raised a $700k Pre-Seed round and a $3.5M Seed round led by MagnaSci Ventures, Ronson Shamoun, Joe Samo, Brad Jowell, and Cooper Collins.

Final Boss Sour, a gaming-themed snack brand, raised a $4M round backed by Evolution VC Partners, The Angel Group and more.

Andrenam, a maritime defense startup, raised an $18M Series A led by Upfront Ventures.

Bluecore Energy, a company developing small modular nuclear reactors that can operate aboard floating barges and deliver zero-emission power to ports, data centers and other critical infrastructure, raised a $10M round led by Slauson & Co.

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

Featured Location

71 Above. Fine dining on the 71st floor of the U.S. Bank Tower, offering floor-to-ceiling windows and panoramic city views.

Fun Events

See you next week,

Justin

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