Просмотр новости
Найдите то, что Вас интересует
Спутники
РН
SpaceX
Роскосмос
NASA
СпутникиРНSpaceXРоскосмосNASA
🔦 SpotlightHello, Hello. This week, one of LA’s most recognizable consumer brands packed its biggest bag yet.Samsonite Group has agreed to acquire an 85% stake in BÉIS for $178.5M, valuing the Los Angeles-based travel and lifestyle brand at approximately $210M. The deal is expected to close in Q4, pending regulatory approval.Founded by actress and entrepreneur Shay Mitchell and incubated by LA-based Beach House Group in 2018, BÉIS has grown from a digitally native luggage startup into a profitable business that generated approximately $210M in sales last year. Along the way, it built the kind of fiercely loyal online following that legacy brands spend years and considerable marketing budgets trying to manufacture. Image Source: BÉIS That may be the most interesting part of this deal. Samsonite is not simply acquiring another luggage line. It is buying access to a younger, predominantly female customer base, a sophisticated direct-to-consumer operation and a brand that knows how to turn social media attention into actual sales. The suitcases are useful; the cultural relevance is the real carry-on.BÉIS will continue operating as a standalone brand under CEO Adeela Hussain Johnson and its existing management team. Mitchell will retain a 15% ownership stake and continue guiding the company’s creative and product vision, while Samsonite brings the global distribution, sourcing and logistics infrastructure needed to take the brand further.For LA’s startup community, the acquisition is another reminder that valuable technology companies do not always look like software companies. BÉIS built its advantage through digital distribution, community and an unusually sharp understanding of its customer. Now, one of the world’s largest luggage companies wants what it created.Sometimes the strongest exit starts with knowing exactly what people want to pack.More from this week’s LA startup and venture scene below.🤝 Venture DealsLA CompaniesHeaviside Industries raised a $60M Series B to accelerate the development and production of its autonomous precision munitions for U.S. and allied forces. The company also announced a strategic partnership with defense manufacturer Nammo, combining Heaviside’s autonomous weapons technology with Nammo’s expertise in propulsion, warheads and large-scale munitions production. - learn moreAlex Cooper and Matt Kaplan’s media company Unwell received its first outside investment from WTSL, giving the profitable business a $500M pre-money valuation. Unwell, which reaches a reported 70M women each month through podcasts, film and television, live events, consumer products and a creative agency, will use the capital to pursue acquisitions, make investments and expand into new business lines. - learn moreNeros raised a $250M Series C at a $2.5B valuation, with participation from LA-based Interlagos, MANTIS Venture Capital and Thiel Capital. The El Segundo defense startup will use the funding to scale its autonomous strike and interceptor drone programs, expand production and strengthen its domestic supply chain as demand grows from the U.S. military and allied forces. - learn moreFriskAI raised $3.6M from MaC Venture Capital to expand its observability and security platform for AI agents. The startup helps companies monitor what autonomous agents do in real time, giving teams greater visibility into agent behavior and helping them identify errors, risks and unexpected actions. - learn moreDiald raised $1M in follow-on funding led by Feedback Ventures, bringing its total funding to $4.75M. The company also launched a rebuilt conversational AI platform that lets commercial real estate investors create pro formas and evaluate zoning, permits, neighborhood sentiment and other property risks through plain-language prompts. - learn moreLA Venture FundsAlexandria Venture Investments participated in Khartis Therapeutics’ $50M Series B, led by Forge Life Science Partners, bringing the San Diego biotech’s total funding to $95M. Khartis will use the capital to advance its lead oral treatment for thyroid eye disease and expand its pipeline of small-molecule immunology drugs. - learn moreFinality Capital Partners co-led Entravel Group’s $7.5M funding round alongside Ethereal Ventures, with participation from GSR, Varrock, G1 Ventures, Seier Capital, Veris Ventures, Funfair Ventures and WTG Ventures. The traveltech company will use the capital to expand its white-label hotel-booking infrastructure beyond crypto platforms and develop a stablecoin-powered system for settlement, treasury and working-capital financing. - learn moreRegeneration.VC participated in Clarity Systems’ $4.4M seed round, led by LMnT Ventures and joined by Humba Ventures and Massive Technology Ventures. Clarity uses X-ray imaging, computer vision and AI to detect counterfeits, product swaps and other forms of returns fraud in seconds without opening the package. - learn moreCIV participated in AGent Energy’s $11M Series Seed round alongside existing investor Zero Infinity Partners, with Spero Ventures and MassMutual Ventures co-leading and Intrepid Investment Management also joining. The Houston startup uses AI-powered hardware and software to turn largely idle backup generators into on-demand grid capacity during emergencies, and the new funding brings its total raised to $17M. - learn moreSmash Capital co-led CodeRabbit’s $143M Series C alongside Atomico, valuing the AI code-review company at $1.5B. CodeRabbit will use the funding to expand internationally and develop its new Agentic Change Management platform, which helps companies review, govern and monitor software created by both humans and AI agents. - learn moreMultiball Capital backed Soctera’s $4M seed round alongside Anorak Ventures, with additional participation from 9Yards Capital, Mana Ventures and Red Bear Ventures. The Cornell spinout will use the funding to develop heat-efficient power amplifiers designed to improve the range, signal quality and reliability of radar, electronic warfare, satellite and telecommunications systems. - learn moreWndrCo participated in Genera’s $10M seed round, which was led by First Round Capital and also included BoxGroup, Carpenter Capital and Success Venture Partners. Genera will use the funding to scale its AI platform, which automates the often labor-intensive process of deploying enterprise software, including customer discovery, data migration and system configuration. - learn moreM13 co-led Baselayer’s $20M Series A alongside Koro Capital, bringing the fintech startup’s total funding to approximately $47M. Baselayer will use the capital to enhance its AI-powered platform, which helps banks, fintech companies and government agencies automate business verification, risk assessment and fraud monitoring. - learn moreDownload the dot.LA App
Happy Friday, LA.
The largest checks in tech are increasingly going toward companies trying to build their way out of America’s biggest physical constraints.
This week, two Los Angeles startups raised a combined $2.37 billion in equity to tackle two particularly urgent ones: how the country manufactures critical hardware and where it will find enough electricity to power the AI era.
Torrance-based Hadrian is building highly automated factories for defense and aerospace. El Segundo’s Valar Atomics wants to manufacture nuclear reactors at scale. Different industries, same underlying bet: the next generation of technology will depend on our ability to produce physical infrastructure much faster than we do today.
Hadrian raised $1.37 billion in Series D funding, bringing its valuation to $7.87 billion. The company plans to use the capital to open new factories, expand research and development, and increase its capacity to produce critical defense, aerospace and industrial systems.
Hadrian’s pitch is straightforward, if wildly ambitious: America needs to relearn how to build things and build them quickly.
Its factories combine skilled workers with AI, robotics and proprietary software to manufacture precision components and, increasingly, complete mission-critical systems. Its customers include defense giants such as Lockheed Martin and RTX, along with newer players like Anduril.
The company has come a long way from simply making aerospace parts. Hadrian is positioning itself as a piece of America’s industrial infrastructure, offering manufacturers a way to rapidly scale domestic production at a time when wars abroad, strained supply chains and growing defense demands have made the country’s manufacturing gaps increasingly difficult to ignore.
Investors are clearly buying the argument. The new round comes just over a year after Hadrian raised $260 million, suggesting that “reindustrialization” has officially graduated from venture capital buzzword to billion-dollar investment thesis.
Meanwhile, roughly 15 miles away in El Segundo, Valar Atomics is moving even faster than its enormous ambitions suggested.
When we last wrote about Valar, the company was reportedly raising $450 million at a $2 billion valuation and racing to prove that nuclear energy could move on AI’s timetable. Now, it has closed a $1 billion Series B led by Sequoia Capital, secured an additional $200 million credit facility and reportedly reached a $6 billion valuation.
Valar is developing standardized, factory-built nuclear power plants designed to avoid the enormous costs and decades-long construction timelines associated with traditional nuclear projects. Its goal is not merely to build a working reactor, but to eventually manufacture fleets of them.
That ambition also sounds considerably less theoretical than it did when we first covered the company. In June, Valar’s Ward 250 reactor achieved a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. Just one week later, the company demonstrated the reactor generating electricity to power an Nvidia Blackwell system. Valar now says the new funding will help it move from proving its technology works to producing reactors at scale.
The timing is no coincidence. AI’s enormous appetite for electricity is forcing the tech industry to confront a basic reality: the cloud still has to plug into something. Training models and operating massive data centers will require far more reliable power, and nuclear energy is rapidly becoming one of Silicon Valley’s favorite answers.
Hadrian and Valar may be solving different problems, but their unusually large rounds point to the same shift. AI can design, predict and automate, but it cannot manufacture a missile component or generate a megawatt of electricity on its own. That requires factories, energy systems, supply chains and a great deal of capital.
For years, venture-backed companies competed to build the software layer. Now, some of the biggest bets are being placed on the infrastructure underneath it.
The future may run on AI. But first, someone has to build what keeps it running.
More from this week’s LA startup and venture scene below.
🤝 Venture DealsLA Venture Funds
LA Exits
| # | Наименование новости | Тональность | Информативность | Дата публикации |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heaviside Raises $28M for Autonomous Precision Munitions | 0 | 9.6 | 15-05-2026 |
| 2 | Hermeus Moves In. Uber Lines Up. LA Wins. | 0 | 11.48 | 10-04-2026 |
| 3 | This LA Startup Just Raised $49M for the Chaos Behind High-Stakes Lawsuits | 0 | 9.4 | 27-03-2026 |
| 4 | Arc’s $50M Push Into Commercial Maritime | 0 | 8.82 | 20-03-2026 |
| 5 | From Rocket Motors to Consumer AI | 0 | 6.79 | 22-05-2026 |
| 6 | Match Goes Niche With $100M Move | 0 | 8.55 | 01-05-2026 |
| 7 | This LA Startup Wants Dealers to Fight Over Your Car | 0 | 7.64 | 10-07-2026 |
| 8 | LA’s New Defense Startup Comes Out Swinging | 0 | 8.42 | 17-07-2026 |
| 9 | A $26M Push Into Power in LA | 0 | 9.98 | 18-04-2026 |
| 10 | Netflix Doubles Down on LA | 0 | 7.3 | 24-04-2026 |