Salad chain founded in Washington DC (Georgetown University). Revolution portfolio. IPO 2021. Founders: Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman, Nathaniel Ru — all Georgetown grads.

Premier SD innovation accelerator (founded 1985). Merged with San Diego Venture Group 2019. Springboard program for tech and life sciences. CEO Mike Krenn (founder of Tech Coast Angels and EvoNexus). 400+ VC relationships. $800M+ raised for SD companies.

Costa Mesa CA. Defense tech platform company. Founded by Palmer Luckey (Oculus) + Trae Stephens + others. Lattice OS: AI-powered command-and-control platform integrating sensors, drones, autonomous systems. Products: Sentry Tower (border surveillance), Ghost (autonomous drone), Altius (loitering munition), Pulsar (electronic warfare), Roadrunner (reusable interceptor). IQT investment 2017. Series F $1.5B Aug 2023 at $8.5B valuation. Revenue $500M+. Palmer Luckey TIME 100 AI 2024. Now partnered with Palantir on DOD AI consortium.

LA B2B software specialist. Seed and Series A. Focus: enterprise-focused founders. Partner: Jim Andelman.

Clouted is a distribution marketing platform that uses AI agents to create, clip, and distribute content across social media channels for entertainment, music, gaming, and tech brands. The platform automates video clipping, influencer seeding, fan page management, and performance advertising while learning from campaign performance to optimize future distributions.

Irvine CA. AI-native endpoint security — prevention-first approach using ML to predict and prevent threats. IQT portfolio (George Hoyem board). Acquired by BlackBerry for $1.4B (2019). Pioneered ML-based malware prevention vs signature-based AV. Now BlackBerry Cylance.

Builds an AI-driven adaptive manufacturing platform (DAPS) that 3D-prints application-specific-alloy structural nodes and robotically assembles them into complex parts for automotive, aerospace, and defense customers.

Glendale animation studio (Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda) and a render-tech operation: built and open-sourced the MoonRay production renderer, runs large render farms. Part of LA's render/compute spine alongside Disney.

Designs and manufactures electric guitars, basses, amplifiers, and related musical instruments and accessories.

$50M impact fund launched Feb 2025 by Prebys Foundation. Focus: tech and life sciences in San Diego region. Managing Director: Mike Krenn (former CONNECT CEO). Addresses critical capital gap in SD ecosystem.

Radiant — portable nuclear microreactor at shipping-container scale (Kaleidos). Founded 2020 by Doug Bernauer (CEO) and Bob Urberger; El Segundo, CA. $300M+ raised; investors incl. Andreessen Horowitz, DCVC, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund, Felicis, Chevron Technology Ventures, Washington Harbour.

Hawthorne CA. Space exploration company. Founded by Elon Musk 2002 using $100M from PayPal proceeds. Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon, Starship, Starlink. Largest private space company globally. $350B+ valuation. Reusable rocket pioneer. S-1 IPO expected 2025-2026 window.

Regional operating company (OpCo) of Sysco Corporation -- a distinct legal subsidiary per SEC filing (Exhibit 21.1, FY2020 10-K), serving the Sysco Los Angeles area.

Burbank media conglomerate, and one of LA's deepest engineering operations. Walt Disney Animation Studios runs feature render pipelines (the Hyperion renderer); Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) is the R&D/engineering arm behind audio-animatronics (since 1963) and modern robotics — autonomous "stuntronics" acrobats, free-roaming BDX droids, ride systems. Overlooked read: Disney is render compute AND a serious animatronics/robotics engineering shop — the engineering team Hollywood forgets it has.

Turion Space — small autonomous spacecraft for in-orbit services, space-object tracking, debris removal and space domain awareness. Founded 2020 by Ryan Westerdahl, Tyler Pierce and Patryk Wiatr; Irvine, CA (~200 employees). ~$113M raised; $75M Series B led by Washington Harbour with Center15 Capital, Magnetar, HOF Capital, Industrious Ventures.

Computerized maintenance management system; received investment from Accel-KKR (May 2026)

Builds autonomous, reentry-capable orbital spacecraft to manufacture pharmaceuticals (e.g. protein crystallization) in microgravity, then returns products to Earth.