2025 LA Hard Tech 50
Highlighting the leaders shaping LA's hard tech ecosystem
The LA Hard Tech 50 is back and bigger than ever. The momentum in Southern California’s hardware industrial ecosystem continues to accelerate, with more hardware engineers flocking to LA to build the next big company solving problems in aerospace, defense, manufacturing, energy, critical resources, and more.
The 50 companies included were the 50 companies that a select group of LA-based hard tech investors collectively deemed to have had the most consequential year in 2025. Combined, these 50 companies raised $7.8 billion in 20251 (not including SpaceX secondaries!), secured billions in government contracts, and recruited hundreds, if not thousands, of engineers.
When it comes to industrial hardware, LA reigns supreme.
2025 Selection Process
In 2023 and 2024, Upfront put together a list of what we believed were the 50 hard tech companies based in LA that had the most outstanding year. The ecosystem was starting to hit its stride, and we had not seen that full list aggregated in one place. We curated a list and rigorously, but admittedly subjectively, decided which companies we believed deserved a spot.
As we continue to produce this list annually, we will continue to iterate on the way we decide on selectees. This year, we invited 9 other LA-based hard tech investors that we believe are prominent stewards of the community to submit their own votes, in addition to our own. We aggregated all the votes together and are publishing the master list based on who received the most votes.
We did this to:
Spotlight some of our favorite collaborators in the LA hard tech investor community.
Share the collective wisdom and celebrate the accomplishments of this community.
Minimize bias and subjectivity.
Inclusion criteria
Company must be headquartered in LA: Must be in LA County, Orange County, Ventura County, Riverside County, or San Bernardino County.2
Company must not be in stealth: The company must have a public presence or the CEO has the company featured by name on their LinkedIn page. We’re not interested in blowing anyone’s cover.
Company had a “notable” year: The intent of the LA Hard Tech 50 is not to pick companies we like, but the 50 companies that had the most consequential year this year.
2025 Voting Participants
There were eleven LA-based hard tech investors that submitted votes to participate in the selection of the LA Hard Tech 50 this year:
Shahin Farshchi, Partner at Lux Capital
Shaun Maguire, Partner at Sequoia Capital
Will Coffield, General Partner at Riot Ventures
Patrick Maloney, Managing Partner & CEO at CIV
Xander Oltmann, Managing Partner at Commodity Capital
Mike Palank, General Partner at MaC Ventures
Asher Kraut, Partner at Generational Partners
Caie Kelley, Partner at Lowercarbon Capital
Grant Gregory, Partner at Cantos
Jacques Sisteron, Partner at Upfront Ventures
Nick Kim, General Partner at Upfront Ventures
Quick Hits
Out of all eleven participants, 99 companies received at least one vote. 31 companies remained on the list from last year, 13 new companies made the list that had never made it before, and 6 companies returned to the list after skipping a year.
Congratulations to the 50 companies that made the list, and a special congratulations to the 7 companies that received unanimous votes from all 11 participating voters: SpaceX, Anduril, Apex, Varda, Senra Systems, Radiant, and General Matter!
And with that, we present you with the 2025 LA Hard Tech 50. We can’t wait for 2026.
LA Hard Tech 50
Space Launch
SpaceX
CEO & Key People: Elon Musk, Gwynne Shotwell, Mark Juncosa
Stage: Late growth
Founded: 2002
Hawthorne, CA
Designer and manufacturer of reusable medium-lift and super heavy-lift orbital launch vehicles and LEO satellite communications technology.
23 years into their journey as the defining new space company of our generation, the company that started the LA hard tech revolution, by all appearances, SpaceX is showing no signs of slowing down. SpaceX launched their workhorse Falcon 9 rocket a record-shattering 165 times in 2025, and landed the first stage of those rockets 162 times. Falcon 9 also broke its record for most individual launches for the same booster with 32 launches. Falcon 9’s remarkable launch cadence led SpaceX to being responsible for 81% of all mass the entire world launched into orbit in 2025, including all corporations and sovereign nations.
SpaceX continues to invest heavily in the development of their new super heavy-lift fully reusable launch vehicle Starship, and completed 5 important test launches of the new vehicle this year.
Starlink has also demonstrated tremendous growth. Starlink’s customer base grew from ~4.5M to over 9M customers in 2025, and serves over 155 countries and territories. There are now over 9,000 Starlink satellites, which is over 75% of all operational satellites in orbit.
At the end of 2025, SpaceX reportedly launched a secondary tender offer at a valuation of $800B, and revealed that they plan to IPO in 2026, seeking to raise $30-40B at a $1.5T valuation in order to build a space-based datacenter constellation.
Rocket Lab
CEO & Key People: Peter Beck
Stage: Public
Founded: 2006
Long Beach, CA
Designer and manufacturer of small and medium-lift orbital launch vehicles, satellite buses, and satellite subsystems.
Rocket Lab was no slouch either in the commercial launch business. Rocket Lab continues to be the only new launch company successfully launching payloads to orbit outside of SpaceX. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket had 18 successful orbital launches and 3 successful suborbital launches in 2025. They also continued development of their new medium-lift, partially reusable rocket Neutron, completing construction on their new launch complex in Virginia, and passing key development milestones, although they missed their target of a 2025 launch.
Rocket Lab is also moving aggressively outside of the launch market. They recently won an enormous $816M prime contract with the US Space Development Agency to design and manufacture a constellation of tracking satellites for missile defense. They also acquired Geost, an electro-optical and infrared components provider, for $275M and announced their intent to acquire Mynaric, a laser communication equipment provider. Rocket Lab also had a hallmark year on the public markets, with its market cap tripling from $12.7B to $37.2B over 2025 (as I write this post, it sits at $45B).
Relativity
CEO & Key People: Eric Schmidt, Kevin Wu, Zach Dunn
Stage: Late growth
Founded: 2015
Long Beach, CA
Designer and manufacturer of a heavy-lift, partially reusable orbital launch vehicle.
After pivoting away from their vision to 3D print orbital rockets to accelerate manufacturing to a more conventional manufacturing process and struggling to raise capital to continue the development of their heavy-lift rocket Terran R, Relativity found new life in 2025 when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly bought a majority of the company and joined the company as its new CEO in March 2025. Schmidt has also revealed ambitions to move into the space-based datacenter market.
Orbital Infrastructure & Mobility
Apex
CEO & Key People: Ian Cinnamon, Max Benassi
Stage: Series D
Founded: 2022
Playa Vista, CA
Manufacturer of productized and configurable satellite buses with transparent pricing.
Apex continued to accelerate in 2025. They kicked off the year with the announcement of a $45.9M firm-fixed-price contract with the Space Force for multiple satellites in multiple orbits. They unveiled their new Comet satellite bus, the largest product in the portfolio with >6kW of power and 500kg of payload capacity. They also revealed Project Shadow, Apex’s demonstration of a space-based interceptor technology, where an Apex satellite bus will deploy two high-thrust interceptors.
Apex also raised and announced two massive financing rounds in 2025: in April they announced a $200M Series C led by Point72 and 8VC and in September their $200M Series D round led by Interlagos, with other participating investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Washington Harbour, StepStone Group, and Upfront Ventures. With this capital, they plan to expand Factory One into over 100,000 sq. ft. and be able to produce >200 satellites per year.
Impulse Space
CEO & Key People: Tom Mueller, Eric Romo
Stage: Series C
Founded: 2021
Redondo Beach, CA
Designer and manufacturer of an orbital kickstage for maneuvering orbits and last-mile payload delivery, and high-maneuverability satellite buses.
Impulse successfully launched their second and third missions to space, LEO Express-2 & LEO Express-3, aboard their Mira satellite bus in 2025. These missions deployed CubeSats for several customers to their target orbits, and obtained flight heritage for various new components. Impulse also collaborated with Starfish Space on their Remora mission to demonstrate an autonomous rendezvous and proximity operation between two Mira buses. Commercially, Impulse also announced a multi-launch agreement for their upcoming kickstage Helios to provide services for SES, a large communications satellite operator.
Impulse announced a $300M Series C round led by Linse Capital in June, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, RTX Ventures, DCVC, Airbus Ventures, Trousdale Ventures, and more.
K2 Space
CEO & Key People: Karan Kunjur, Neel Kunjur
Stage: Series C
Founded: 2022
Torrance, CA
Leveraging cheaper and more available heavy-lift launch to manufacture larger and more massive satellite buses.
K2 raised impressive back-to-back venture rounds in 2025, raising their $110M Series B led by Lightspeed and Altimeter in February, and a $250M Series C led by Redpoint in December. The financing was raised on the back of over $500M in signed contracts with commercial and government customers for K2’s 30kW power and 3,000 kg Mega-class satellite, and their gargantuan 110 kW and 15,000 kg Giga-class satellite. While K2 has yet to launch one of these satellites to orbit, they demonstrated several subsystems and components on orbit in early 2025, and made technical progress hotfiring their proprietary 20 kW Hall-effect thrusters.
Vast
CEO & Key People: Max Haot, Jed McCaleb
Stage: Privately funded
Founded: 2021
Long Beach, CA
Builder of the world’s first commercial space station for space agencies, research, manufacturing, and private individuals.
Vast achieved the most important milestone a new space company can achieve in 2025: attaining space heritage. Vast launched and deployed their Haven Demo mission on a SpaceX rideshare in November. Haven Demo is an in-orbit testbed designed to validate the performance of many of the key components and subsystems that will power their first space station, Haven-1, targeted for launch in May, 2026. Vast announced new commercial and research partnerships with ISS National Lab, and received an investment from In-Q-Tel, who is joining as a board observer.
Fortastra
CEO & Key People: Michael Smayda
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2025
Torrance, CA
Developing intelligent spacecraft that maneuver, assess, and take action to defend assets in space.
Fortastra came out of stealth in December 2025, announcing their $8M Seed round led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from Generational Partners, Forward Deployed VC, Bloomberg Beta, and Wave Function Ventures. Founder Mike Smayda, who previously co-founded the hypersonic jet startup Hermeus, founded Fortastra to develop spacecraft that can provide physical security for government and commercial assets on orbit.
New Space-Enabled Applications
Varda
CEO & Key People: Will Bruey, Delian Asparouhov
Stage: Series C
Founded: 2020
El Segundo, CA
Developing a space-based platform for manufacturing pharmaceuticals on-orbit and re-entry vehicles to return to Earth.
Following up on their first successful launch and reentry in 2024, Varda launched four additional re-entry capsules in 2025 serving commercial pharmaceutical customers and government customers including the Air Force Research Laboratory. Two of those missions, W-2 & W-3, both successfully returned to Earth, landing in Australia, with W-4 & W-5 continuing to perform their missions on orbit with planned returns in 2026. From W-4 onward, Varda also notably shifted away from purchasing Rocket Lab satellite buses towards a vertically-integrated, in-house build.
Varda also announced a $187M Series C fundraise in July 2025, led by Natural Capital and Shrug Capital, and with participation from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, Caffeinated Capital, and Also Capital.
Reflect Orbital
CEO & Key People: Ben Nowack, Tristan Semmelhack
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2021
Hawthorne, CA
Building a constellation of reflective satellites to deliver targeted sunlight to Earth at night.
Reflect Orbital announced their $20M Series A round in May 2025 led by Lux Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital and Starship Ventures. The company has expanded their Hawthorne development facility, and received over 260,000 applications from users across 157 countries for sunlight reflecting services.
Ground Segment & Space Communications
Observable Space
CEO & Key People: Dan Roelker, Rick Hedrick, Connor Poole
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2024
Los Angeles, CA
Designer and manufacturer of ground-based telescope systems and space optics components for space observation, space domain awareness, and laser communication.
Observable Space came out of stealth in January 2025, born out of a merger between PlaneWave Instruments, a manufacturer of advanced telescopes, and OurSky, a venture-backed space domain awareness startup that builds software and hardware to network telescopes to produce better space observational data. Observable Space serves many government agencies and commercial entities including NASA, the Space Force, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman for both space observation and laser communication applications.
AnySignal
CEO & Key People: John Malsbury, Ricky Medina, Jeffrey Osborne
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2022
El Segundo, CA
Provider of full-stack radiofrequency connectivity hardware and software products for space and defense, including flight radios, ground stations, and software.
AnySignal announced their $24M Series A round led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from Also Capital, BlueYard Capital, First In Ventures, and Balerion Space Ventures in December. AnySignal produced flight hardware and software for many space customers in 2025, bolstering their flight heritage. AnySignal plans to use this new capital to scale manufacturing of their radios and build new systems for ground and airborne use.
Northwood
CEO & Key People: Bridgit Mendler, Griffin Cleverly, Shaurya Luthra
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2023
Torrance, CA
Developer of phased array ground stations to facilitate rapid and efficient satellite data transmission between Earth and space.
In April 2025, Northwood announced their $30M Series A round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Alpine Space Ventures, with participation from Also Capital, Founders Fund, StepStone, BoxGroup, Banter Capital, and others. In June, they tested their production phased array antenna system, Portal, successfully demonstrating collection of a data broadcast from a US Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellite. They’re using their new funding to expand into a 35,000 square foot manufacturing facility, and plan to expand their ground station network to 6 continents in 2026.
Multi-Domain Defense
Anduril
CEO & Key People: Brian Schimpf, Palmer Luckey, Matt Grimm, Trae Stephens
Stage: Series G
Founded: 2017
Costa Mesa, CA
Building interoperable and software-enabled sensors and autonomous systems to deliver new capabilities to the battlefield for the DOW and allies.
Anduril continues to scale, release new products, win key contracts, and attract capital at breakneck speed. New announcements are made almost daily. On the product side, Anduril announced Copperhead, a high-speed autonomous underwater vehicle, Seabed Sentry, an underwater sensing and communications platform, EagleEye, a mixed-reality helmet for soldiers, Omen, a hover-to-cruise autonomous air vehicle with >1000 miles of range, Menace-T, a field-deployable command and control system, and Pulsar-L, a lightweight electronic warfare system. Three companies were acquired: Numerica, a radar and signal processing company, Klas, an edge computing and tactical communications company, and American Infrared Solutions, a high-performance infrared camera company.
Commercially, Anduril announced a broad range of large defense contract wins as well: they won a $159M prototyping award for a night-vision mixed-reality headset for the Soldier Borne Mission Command program, a $642M anti-drone contract with the Marine Corps, an $86M autonomy software integration contract with SOCOM, a $1.1B program of record with the Royal Australian Navy for a fleet of Ghost Shark AUVs, a $99.6M OTA with the US Army for a next-generation command & control prototype, a $14M award from the Defense Production Act to build solid rocket motors, and more.
In June, Anduril closed a $2.5B Series G at a $30.5B valuation led by Founders Fund.
Picogrid
CEO & Key People: Zane Mountcastle, Martin Slosarik
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2020
El Segundo, CA
Developer of a unified data integration layer that connects sensors, end effectors, and autonomous systems, backed by a suite of native hardware platforms.
2025 marked several key commercial wins with the Department of War for Picogrid. Picogrid won a $3.2M program with the US Air Force to use their Legion data integration platform to integrate different autonomous systems, a $2.7M award from the Air Force to modernize command and control capabilities, a $1.1M contract with the US Army to support system integration, and a $1.75M AFWERX STTR Phase II with MIT to help first responders track wildfires. They also announced new partnerships and integrations with drone manufacturer Skydio, night vision startup Deep Night, Palantir’s Maven Smart System, Northrop Grumman’s AiON system, and CX2, and expanded into a new 25,000 sq. ft. facility in El Segundo.
Domain Awareness & Electronic Warfare
Epirus
CEO & Key People: Andy Lowery, Mick Jaggers, Dan Kultran
Stage: Series D
Founded: 2018
Torrance, CA
Developing high-power microwave directed energy systems for counter-electronics and counter-UAS.
In March, Epirus announced their $250M Series D led by 8VC and Washington Harbour to scale production of their Leonidas counter-UAS system. They also announced important contract wins, including a $43.5M contract with the US Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office for high-power microwave systems.
Chaos
CEO & Key People: John Tenet, Bo Marr, Brett Cummings
Stage: Series D
Founded: 2022
Hawthorne, CA
Designer and manufacturer of counter-drone coherent distributed networking radar systems for defense and commercial customers.
Chaos raised two enormous back-to-back financing rounds in 2025, with a $275M Series C led by NEA and Accel announced in May, and a $510M Series D led by Valor Equity Partners at a $4.5B valuation in November. Commercially, Chaos announced a $1.9M AFWERX TACFI award to adapt their ASTRIA product into a multi-object tracking instrumentation radar, and a new partnership with defense autonomy company Forterra.
CX2
CEO & Key People: Nathan Mintz, Porter Smith, Mark Trefgarne, Lee Thompson
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2024
El Segundo, CA
Builder of advanced RF sensing systems designed to detect RF emitters and enhance situational awareness on the battlefield.
CX2 announced a $31M Series A round in May led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, Upfront Ventures, and Pax Ventures. Later in the year, they unveiled their first two products: Vadris, an RF-sensing payload attachment to FPV drones that enables operators to detect and seek the pilots of adversarial drones, and Wraith, a proprietary drone outfitted with electronic warfare capabilities designed to identify hostile emitters and provide RF spectrum awareness in battlefield environments. Vadris was downselected for the Defense Innovation Unit’s Project G.I. following live demonstrations with warfighters.
Andrenam
CEO & Key People: Matej Cernosek, Alex Chu
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2024
Hawthorne, CA
Developer of an AI-powered distributed maritime acoustic sensing network for underwater and surface security and defense.
In June, Andrenam announced that they closed a $10M Seed round led by First Round Capital, with participation from Long Journey, Also Capital, Banter Capital, Wave Function Ventures, and others. The ex-SpaceX team was chosen to participate in the ANTX Coastal Trident exercise in Port Hueneme in August, conducted by the US Navy’s Naval Surface Warfare Center, to demonstrate their ability to track various unmanned underwater vehicles and surface vessels.
Unmanned Aerial Systems & Missiles
Neros
CEO & Key People: Soren Monroe-Anderson, Olaf Hichwa
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2023
El Segundo, CA
Designing and manufacturing American-made FPV drones to enhance unmanned defense capabilities for the U.S. military and allied forces.
In 2025, Neros raised two large financing rounds as they look to scale up their manufacturing of US-made FPV drones. They announced a $35M Series A led by Vy Capital in March, and a $75M Series B led by Sequoia Capital in November with participation from Interlagos. These financings came on the heels of multiple important contract wins. Neros was selected as one of the US Army’s primary manufacturers of FPV drones with their Archer drone for the Purpose-Built Attritable Systems program, they were awarded a multi-million delivery order contract with the Marine Corps to produce advanced small unmanned aerial systems, they were selected by the Defense Innovation Unit to produce prototypes for their Electromagnetic Interference project, they were verified as compliant under the NDAA to be added to the Blue UAS List of DOW approved drones, and were awarded a contract to deliver 6,000 of their Archer drones to the Ukrainian military.
Castelion
CEO & Key People: Bryon Hargis, Sean Pitt, Andrew Kreitz
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2022
Torrance, CA
Designing and manufacturing hypersonic missiles and subsystems with rapid iteration.
Castelion raised both a $100M Series A led by Lightspeed in January and an enormous $350M Series B co-led by Altimeter and Lightspeed in December, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lavrock Ventures, Interlagos, Cantos, Space VC, and more to advance their ability to manufacture next-generation hypersonic munitions at scale. Castelion was awarded integration contracts for their Blackbeard weapon system with the US Army and US Navy, the Army requested $25M for its FY26 budget for Blackbeard development, and Castelion won a STRATFI award from the Air Force.
Mach Industries
CEO & Key People: Ethan Thornton
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2020
Huntington Beach, CA
Creating advanced energetics and propulsion systems for defense and aerospace applications, enabling higher performance and precision in critical missions.
Mach Industries raised a $100M Series B round led by Khosla Ventures and Bedrock Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital. They were also awarded a contract with the US Army to develop vertical-takeoff cruise missiles as part of their Strategic Strike Program. Mach announced their plans to build Mach Propulsion, a new division where they will develop propulsion systems for UAS, and unveiled their VTOL cruise missile platform Viper.
Advanced Components
Salient Motion
CEO & Key People: Vishaal Mali
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2022
Torrance, CA
Designer and manufacturer of critical actuation and motion control component systems for commercial aviation and defense.
Salient Motion expanded into a larger new assembly facility in Torrance, CA and company headcount grew to over 35 full-time employees. They have components flying on active military aircraft, and as of November were working on their first FAA-certified actuation system for Boeing and Airbus aircraft.
Amca
CEO & Key People: Jai Malik, Eli Giovanetti
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2024
El Segundo, CA
Manufacturing company that acquires and modernizes legacy aerospace and defense component suppliers.
Amca came out of stealth in 2025, and announced their mission to build a new aerospace business where they plan to acquire legacy component suppliers and apply advanced design and manufacturing techniques to components overlooked by the rest of the market. They announced $76.5M in combined Seed and Series A funding from Caffeinated Capital, Founders Fund, Lux, and Andreessen Horowitz, and acquired their first four component suppliers: Electro-Mech Components, an LA-based electromechanical avionics component supplier, Cal-Draulics, a Riverside County-based hydraulic and pneumatic components company, ACPI, an Iowa-based pressure switch supplier, and Electrocube, an electronic components supplier.
Factories of the Future
Hadrian
CEO & Key People: Chris Power
Stage: Series C
Founded: 2020
Torrance, CA
Software-defined, automated factories producing high-precision machined parts for aerospace and defense.
In July, Hadrian announced the closing of a $260M Series C led by Founders Fund Lux Capital, and Morgan Stanley with participation from Altimeter, 1789 Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Construct Capital, and 137 Ventures. With this warchest, Hadrian plans to expand beyond CNC machining into other manufacturing methods like casting, welding, and additive, and spin up new divisions dedicated to maritime manufacturing, munitions, missile systems, and UAS. They also announced expansion into a new 270,000 sq. ft. facility in Mesa, AZ.
Divergent
CEO & Key People: Lukas Czinger, Kevin Czinger, Cooper Keller
Stage: Series E
Founded: 2013
Torrance, CA
Developer of end-to-end production systems, including software and hardware for additive manufacturing and assembly in automotive, aerospace, and defense.
After a couple of years of quiet progress, Divergent had several major announcements in 2025. In September they raised a $290M Series E led by Rochefort Asset Management at a $2.3B valuation. Divergent announced new partnerships with defense companies including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Atomics, and Saab. They announced a collaboration with prime contractor CoAspire to use their adaptive additive manufacturing system to manufacture RAACM cruise missiles.
Machina Labs
CEO & Key People: Ed Mehr
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2019
Chatsworth, CA
Provider of robotic manufacturing platforms that can scan, shape, and trim sheet metal into large and complex geometries.
2025 marked Machina’s expansion into the automotive market, when they struck a new partnership with Toyota to pilot their roboforming technology for automotive body panel manufacturing, alongside an investment from Toyota’s growth-stage investment vehicle Woven Capital. Machina also signed a partnership with Abu Dhabi’s Strategic Development Fund to explore a joint venture where Machina could locally apply their robotic manufacturing techniques to aerospace, defense, and mobility sectors, which came with a $35M initial investment. Domestically, Machina also secured a multiyear contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory for defense sustainment.
Senra Systems
CEO & Key People: Jordan Black, Ben Shanahan
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2023
Redondo Beach, CA
Streamlined manufacturer of wire harnesses, enabling convenient, transparent, and rapid delivery.
Senra Systems closed a $25M Series A co-led by Dylan Field (co-founder & CEO of Figma) and CIV in June, with participation from General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Pax. Senra will use this funding to expand into a large new facility and continuing to scale software-defined manufacturing of complex wire harnesses.
Rangeview
CEO & Key People: Cameron Schiller, Aeden Gasser-Brennan
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2020
El Segundo, CA
Automated foundry that uses robotics and materials science to improve investment casting of metal parts.
In 2025, Rangeview substantially increased the company’s footprint by expanding into much larger new facility in El Segundo. They manufactured parts for many new DOW programs, including selection for a $1.4M SBIR with the Air Force Research Laboratory to use their advanced digital investment casting technology to produce high-precision, low-cost turbine components.
Food & Water Abundance
Rainmaker
CEO & Key People: Augustus Doricko
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2023
El Segundo, CA
Addressing water scarcity with drone-enabled cloud seeding weather modification technology.
Rainmaker skyrocketed into the public eye in 2025, and picked up serious momentum in their goal to save the West from drought. Between January and April, Rainmaker ran their first cloud seeding operation in Utah in partnership with Utah State University, flying 14 missions over 80 hours of flight time and testing their Eden deployable weather station, Elijah drone system, and Prophet software platform. In May, they announced the close of a $25M Series A led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from Long Journey, Starship Ventures, and others, and in July, they announced a partnership with Atmo, an AI weather forecasting company. Towards the end of the year, Rainmaker announced that they would be kicking off the largest cloud seeding program in modern US history, funded by Utah’s Bear River Basin Cloud Seeding Program, to help replenish the Great Salt Lake.
Shinkei
CEO & Key People: Saif Khawaja, Reed Ginsberg
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2022
El Segundo, CA
Developer of robotics-enabled fish processing solutions that improve efficiency, improve quality, and minimize waste.
Shinkei announced a $22M Series A led by Founders Fund and Interlagos, with participation from Cantos, Mantis, CIV, and more in June. They expanded into a new 15,000 sq. ft. facility in El Segundo, and their affiliated brand and grade of high-quality ethically processed fish, Seremoni, picked up commercial momentum in culinary world and in the media.
Vital Lyfe
CEO & Key People: Jonathan Criss, Andrew Harner
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2024
Hawthorne, CA
Designer and manufacturer of modern and portable desalination and water filtration systems.
Founded by long-time ex-SpaceXers Jon Criss and Andrew Harner, Vital Lyfe came out of stealth and announced a $24M Seed round led by General Catalyst and Interlagos in December, with participation from Generational Partners, Also Capital, Cantos, and Space VC. Vital Lyfe’s goal is to provide affordable, decentralized access to clean water around the world.
Nuclear Reactors & Fuel
Valar Atomics
CEO & Key People: Isaiah Taylor
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2023
Hawthorne, CA
Building gigasites with hundreds of small modular reactors to unlock economies of scale for data center power, heavy industrial power, and clean hydrocarbon fuels.
After declaring that they were suing the NRC in April, Valar Atomics was one of ten new nuclear companies selected for the US DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program, initiated by a Trump administration executive order, for three advanced nuclear reactors to reach criticality outside of national labs by July 4, 2026. They didn’t let up the momentum, and achieved an important milestone when they announced that their NOVA Core achieved zero-power criticality at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s National Criticality Experiments Research Center in November. Valar Atomics raised back-to-back financing rounds this year, with a $19M Seed round in January led by Riot Ventures, Initialized Capital, and AlleyCorp, and a $130M Series A in December led by Snowpoint, Day One Ventures, and Dream Ventures, with participation from Palmer Luckey, Shyam Sankar, Contrary, DTX, and others.
Radiant
CEO & Key People: Doug Bernauer, Tori Shivanandan
Stage: Series D
Founded: 2019
El Segundo, CA
Designer and manufacturer of 1.2 Megawatt scale nuclear fission modular microreactors for austere environments and off-grid backup use-cases.
Radiant was also one of ten companies selected for the US DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program for three new nuclear fission reactors to reach criticality by July 4, 2026. In parallel, Radiant was already tracking towards a 2026 test at the Idaho National Laboratory DOME facility for their Kaleidos reactor, and in April 2025 Radiant was selected by the DOE to receive high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel for that upcoming test. Commercially, Radiant signed a 20 reactor pre-order agreement for data center deployments with Equinix, and signed an agreement with the Defense Innovation Unit and the US Air Force to deliver a nuclear microreactor to a US military base by 2028. Radiant also announced the close of their $165M Series C led by DCVC in May, and a $300M Series D led by Draper Associates and Boost VC in December.
Antares
CEO & Key People: Jordan Bramble, Julia DeWahl
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2023
Torrance, CA
Designer and manufacturer of kilowatt-scale micro-fission reactors for defense and space applications.
Antares was also selected for the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program for three new fission reactors to be fired by July 4, 2026. Over the summer, Antares completed an important technical milestone when they conducted an electrically heated demonstration of their heat pipe based reactor at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama in collaboration with NASA. Antares was also selected for the Defense Innovation Unit’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations initiative to deploy a microreactor to a military base by 2028, and received a HALEU allocation from the DOE in August. In December, Antares announced the close of a $96M Series B led by Shine Capital, with participation from Alt Capital, Caffeinated Capital, and more, to continue development of the R1 microreactor and reach a full-scale electricity-producing prototype by 2027.
General Matter
CEO & Key People: Scott Nolan, Lee Robinson
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2023
El Segundo, CA
Building domestic uranium enrichment technology to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for advanced nuclear reactors.
General Matter made a big splash when they came out of stealth in April, as the most recent Founders Fund-incubated startup since Varda in 2020 and Anduril in 2017, with the goal of rebuilding American uranium enrichment capacity for next-generation nuclear fuels and with Founders Fund partner Scott Nolan at the helm. Founders Fund led a $50M round into the company, with Peter Thiel joining the board. In August, they announced that they had signed a lease with the US DOE to develop a $1.5B commercial uranium enrichment facility in Paducah, Kentucky, and in the first week of January 2026 were awarded a $900M IDIQ contract with the DOE to supply HALEU.
Vehicle Electrification
Harbinger
CEO & Key People: John Harris, Phillip Weicker, Will Eberts, Ben Dusastre
Stage: Series C
Founded: 2021
Garden Grove, CA
Electrification of commercial and specialty vehicle segments with a vertically integrated medium-duty electric vehicle platform.
Harbinger raised large back-to-back financing rounds in 2025, with a $100M Series B co-led by Capricorn and Leitmotif in January, and a $160M Series C co-led by FedEx (alongside a 53 vehicle order), Capricorn, and THOR Industries announced in November. Their factory in Garden Grove, CA officially started production in April, and Harbinger announced that they had manufactured more than 100 vehicle chassis for THOR, ETHERO, Bruckner’s Truck, and more.
Rivian
CEO & Key People: RJ Scaringe
Stage: Public
Founded: 2009
Irvine, CA
Designer and manufacturer of electric consumer vehicles and fleet delivery vehicles.
In 2025, Rivian reported 42,247 total electric vehicle deliveries for the year, (an 18% year over year reduction due to EV market headwinds and expiration of EV tax credits). Rivian also began selling its commercial van product to all fleet customers, and secured a $6.6B loan from the DOE to help fun a new manufacturing facility in Georgia to scale production for upcoming R2 and R3 models. Rivian’s market cap also nearly doubled from $13.7 to $24.2B.
Parallel Systems
CEO & Key People: Matt Soule
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2020
Los Angeles, CA
Builder of autonomous and decarbonized freight system with zero-emissions rail vehicles.
Parallel Systems passed important regulatory and technical milestones this year, with the attainment of US Federal Railroad Administration approval and the commencement of field testing in Georgia and California. Parallel also announced the close of their $38M Series B led by Anthos Capital, with participation from Riot Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Congruent Ventures, and more.
Clean Industrials
Terraform Industries
CEO & Key People: Casey Handmer
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2021
Burbank, CA
Creating modular synthetic fuel production systems powered by renewable energy to enable scalable carbon capture and utilization.
Terraform got off to a great start in January 2025 with the finalization of a $26M capital raise to complete development of their Mark One Terraformer and deploy it to a test site. They completed additional key technical milestones throughout the year, including demonstrating their integrated high pressure reactor injection system and qualifying their electrolyzer stack.
Karman Industries
CEO & Key People: David Tearse, Chiranjeev Kalra
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2024
Long Beach, CA
Developing advanced electric heat pumps inspired by rocket turbomachinery to replace traditional industrial boilers, aiming to reduce manufacturing costs and mitigate onsite emissions.
In January 2025, Karman Industries announced their $7.5M Seed round led by Riot Ventures, with participation from Space VC, Wonder Ventures, and 8090 Industries, to accelerate development of their Thermal01 electric heat pump system. In January 2026 they announced their $20M Series A fundraise led by Riot Ventures and their new 10MW Heat Processing Unit (HPU) product.
Built World Technology
Cover
CEO & Key People: Alexis Rivas
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2014
Gardena, CA
Building a factory-manufactured, panel-based, modular construction system for homes.
In the aftermath of the catastrophic fires in LA in January 2025 in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, Cover led the charge on helping residents rebuild homes. In October, they announced that they were near completion on the first custom home rebuild following the Pacific Palisades fires, highlighting the speed and versatility of their system.
Advanced Spade Company
CEO & Key People: Daniel Kimminau
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2024
Long Beach, CA
Detects magnetic fields underground to provide utility locating and utility undergrounding services to commercial entities and municipal governments.
Founder and CEO of Advanced Spade Company, Daniel Kimminau, has been obsessed with digging holes, and how to maintain positioning while doing so, since his time at the Boring Company. While still operating quietly, Advanced Spade has been picking up steam providing utility locating services in the greater LA area, mapping out the underground environment in fire-stricken Altadena and the Palisades, and also raised some unannounced capital. They were selected as a finalist in PG&E’s 2025 Pitch Fest.
Claros
CEO & Key People: Daniel Kultran, Grant Verstandig, David Silverman
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2025
Torrance, CA
Developer of power management technology to optimize power delivery, increase compute performance, and maximize efficiency of data centers.
The latest startup to be incubated by Red Cell Partners, Claros emerged from stealth in February with $9.75M of seed funding from Red Cell, General Catalyst, and more. They plan to use this capital to design and manufacture proprietary integrated voltage regulators that will improve power consumption efficiency and minimize heat conversion loss in data centers.
General-Purpose Robotics
Field AI
CEO & Key People: Ali Agha, David Fan, Shayegan Omidshafiei, Duncan McIntyre
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2023
Irvine, CA
Developing general-purpose embodied AI foundation models enabling robots to operate autonomously in complex industrial environments.
Field AI roared onto the scene in 2025, announcing consecutive Series A and A1 rounds totaling $405M at a $2B valuation, giving Southern California its own robotics lab to challenge the large Bay Area labs. Investors included Gates Frontier, Bezos Expeditions, Emerson Collective, NVentures, Intel Capital, Khosla Ventures, and others. They’ll use this capital to accelerate development of their Field Foundation Models designed to control robots in diverse industrial environments. They also expanded into a new 41,000 sq. ft. facility in Irvine.
Software for Hardware
Quilter
CEO & Key People: Sergiy Nesterenko
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2022
Los Angeles, CA
Building a physics-driven AI model that leverages reinforcement learning to accelerate and automate the electronics hardware design process.
Quilter announced a $25M Series B in October led by Index Ventures, to continue development of their AI-enabled and physics driven electronics design software for printed circuit boards. In December, they announced that Quilter’s AI system had facilitated the design of a Linux single board computer with 843 parts and dual-PCBs in just one week, a process that ordinarily would have taken 3 months.
Nominal
CEO & Key People: Cameron McCord, Bryce Strauss, Jason Hoch
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2022
Culver City, CA
Developer of an engineering observability platform to improve testing, reliability, and performance monitoring for hardware systems.
In June, Nominal announced the close of their $75M Series B round led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Lightspeed, Lux Capital, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, and others. This financing came on the heels of reported 10x growth in revenue and 6x growth in customers year-over-year across aerospace, defense, energy, robotics, and manufacturing.
Revel
CEO & Key People: Scott Morton
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2024
Marina Del Rey, CA
Modern software tools that help engineers write, test, and operate control software for complex hardware systems.
Revel emerged from stealth in April 2025, announcing their mission to build better software for controlling physical systems, with $30M of funding across a Seed round led by Felicis and Abstract Ventures and a Series A round led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Dylan Field, Commodity Capital, and Earthrise Ventures. They also announced their first customer, fellow ex-SpaceX LA hard tech company Impulse Space.
Sift
CEO & Key People: Karthik Gollapudi, Austin Spiegel
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2022
El Segundo, CA
Developer of an observability platform for hardware sensor data, enabling engineers to accelerate development and streamline data review.
2025 was a year of foundational scaling for Sift. Working alongside industry leaders like K2 Space, Impulse, Astranis, and major US defense primes, Sift tackled complex data challenges for large-scale programs. SIFT is now used to build everything from batteries to satellites to launchers to space capsules to carbon-negative building materials. Beyond the data challenges they are conventionally solving, Sift is also now trusted to operate mission-critical assets in the field, spanning missions on Earth all the way to the moon. Capping off a year of progress and strategic bets, Sift will soon be announcing their recent series B.
Galvanick
CEO & Key People: Josh Steinman, Feliks Pleszczynski, Brandon Park
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2021
Culver City, CA
Extended detection and response platform for securing industrial operations from cyberattacks.
In April 2025, Galvanick CEO and co-founder Josh Steinman testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to highlight the importance of robust cybersecurity for industrial systems. Galvanick also announced new strategic partnerships with edge computing company Armada and IT security company Zip Security.
Disclaimer
Upfront Ventures Management, LLC and its affiliated funds (“Upfront”) have invested in several companies on this list, including Apex, Fortastra, Observable Space, AnySignal, and CX2. As investors in such companies, Upfront and its personnel have a financial interest in the success of these companies and may benefit financially if they increase in value. The inclusion of any Upfront portfolio company should not be viewed as an independent or unbiased assessment. This list was compiled based on votes submitted by eleven Los Angeles-based venture capital investors, including Upfront partners. Voting participants were not compensated. Certain voters have co-invested with Upfront and/or with each other in companies on this list, which may create additional conflicts of interest. This article is for informational purposes only. Nothing herein constitutes investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any security, or a solicitation to invest in any company or fund. Company information, including funding amounts, valuations, and contract values, is based on publicly available sources and has not been independently verified by Upfront. References to fundraising rounds, valuation changes, contract wins, or other company achievements should not be construed as representations of investment performance by Upfront Ventures or any other investor. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Pitchbook
We narrowed the focus to exclude San Diego and Santa Barbara counties this year, given the high volume of high quality companies in LA alone.
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Great post
Thanks Jacques, this is great