The LA Grind: Week of August 4th

Upcoming events, founder spotlight, venture deals, investment opportunities, and more.

Author

Justin Gordon
August 04, 2025

👋 I’m Justin. I run The LA Grind, host the Just Go Grind podcast, 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.

I’m still buzzing from two events I hosted last week: Founders Poker Night and the Startup Community Mixer. I have to admit though, I’m still a little upset I didn’t win poker night (I got 4th) but hey, it’s all good fun. Congrats to Revan for taking home the crown! Thanks to everyone who attended and for our sponsors who made these events possible:

Today, I’m soft launching something I’ve been toying with for weeks: a membership.

I’m calling it the LA Grind Club (that might change) and members get a couple of core benefits:

  • Free entry to member-only events (At least 2 all-member events per month)

  • Free or discounted access to select public events

I’ll be layering in more benefits over time (And will take suggestions from members) and I already have the first two members-only events on the calendar.

Why join? To feel more connected and at home in LA, meet people you actually want to see again in the LA startup community, and have that serendipity that leads to customers, collaborators, hires, partners, service pros, and friends.

You can read more details and become a member by heading over to The LA Grind event calendar.

Let’s get to it.

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Upcoming Events

🌴 Upcoming Events I’m Hosting 🌴 

🗓️ August 8: Members Coffee Meetup. ​This will be our first members-only event, exclusive to LA Grind Club members. Become a member today.

🗓️ August 9: Startup Community Basketball. Basketball with LA founders, operators, and investors. Amazing indoor court in DTLA. ~5 spots available. Full-court 5 on 5 games.

🗓️ August 17: Members Rooftop Co-Working. ​We'll do some work from my rooftop in West Hollywood, meet some interesting people, and have a productive start to the day.

🗓️ August 19: Dawn Patrol. Dawn Patrol is a morning founder event series focused on bringing together people and ideas that support startups on their journeys to raising capital. I’m looking for one more sponsor for this event.

🗓️ August 26: Startup Community Mixer. Early-bird pricing is available. We sold out all 60 tickets last month and we’re running it back! Reply to this email if you’d like to sponsor the event.

This Week

🗓️ August 5: AI Founders Social. ​Culver City. 3-5 pm.

🗓️ August 6: LA Tech Happy Hour. Marina del Rey. 6-8pm.

🗓️ August 7: Bio Techies: Life Science Happy Hour. Santa Monica. 4:30-7 pm.

🗓️ August 7: The AI Collective | AI in Ecommerce. Beverly Grove. 6-9 pm.

🗓️ August 7: AI Safety Meet-up Los Angeles. Marina del Rey. 6-8 pm.

🗓️ August 8: LA Female Founders Lunch. Culver City. 11 am - 1 pm.

🗓️ August 8: Venture Dinner Club. Beverly Hills. 6-9 pm.

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

Ian Cinnamon (Pictured on the right, with his co-founder, Max Benassi) is the co-founder and CEO of Apex, a Playa Vista startup building off-the-shelf satellite buses so companies can go from signed contract to launch pad in a matter of weeks (not years).

Apex recently raised $200 million in a Series C led by Point72 Ventures and 8VC, bringing total funding north of $300 million. The money is scaling Factory One, a 50,000-square-foot facility that will soon roll out a dozen satellite buses every month for commercial constellations and defense customers alike.

Before Apex, Ian built Synapse Technology, an AI security startup that Palantir later acquired, and logged time as an investor at Village Global. An MIT grad who straddles software and hardware, he spotted the industry’s satellite bottleneck while advising space-data companies and decided to fix it himself.

Connect with Ian on LinkedIn and tell him The LA Grind sent you!

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.

LakeFS, an open-source “Git for data” version-control platform for data lakes and AI/ML teams, raised $20M in growth funding led by Maor Investments.

[cafeteria], a consumer insights platform that matches Gen Z and Alpha with brands for private, paid feedback, raised $3M in growth funding, with investors including Marquee Ventures, Listen Ventures, Thayer Investment Partners, Imaginary Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Bertelsmann and Guy Oseary.

Ambercycle, a material innovation company turning end-of-life textiles into regenerated polyester via its cycora technology, raised strategic funding from Goldwin’s Play Earth Fund.

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

Top 5 LA Startup & Investment Jobs

Thermal Engineer II @ Relativity Space

👋 Hiring? Message me about featuring your role in this newsletter.

💼 Looking for a job? Job board coming soon!

Investment Opportunities

Confy is building the AI intelligence layer for in-person business events, helping attendees know who to meet and why. MVP via Luma is converting 20% from cold email with a repeatable GTM. Details: One-pager or book a call with the founder.

Matteo Pellegrini is the co-founder and CEO of Orange Pill App, a fast-growing social network for Bitcoiners that helps local communities connect in person. He’s currently fundraising and passionate about building real-world utility on top of Bitcoin. Best way to reach him: [email protected]

If you’re a startup founder raising capital, reply to this email with more details.

Featured Location

Pizzeria Mozza. Easily one of my favorite restaurants in LA, I discovered Pizzeria Mozza by watching Chef’s Table on Netflix, learning about chef Nancy Silverton’s obsession. I’ve hosted multiple birthday dinners here, love the private room and the bar seats, and highly suggest the fennel sausage pizza.

Fun Events

See you next week,

Justin

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