👋 I’m Justin. I run The SF Grind, The LA Grind, host the Ambition Podcast and the Ambition Summit, and scout for Headline. I live in LA but spend a lot of time in San Francisco meeting founders, hosting gatherings, and enjoying the wonderful city.
Happy Monday! Excited to welcome FinStrat as our newest partner. They give founders a fractional CFO and finance team, from bookkeeping and financial models to investor reporting and fundraising prep. If your back office is held together with spreadsheets, check them out below.
We’re also lining up partners for 2027 across The SF Grind, The LA Grind, the Ambition Podcast, and the Ambition Summit. If your company wants to get in front of founders, investors, and ambitious builders, just reply to this email.
Let’s get to it.
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👋 This Week in SF 👋
🗓️ October 27: SEV0 - The reliability conference (SF). Civic Center. 8:30 am - 6 pm.
🗓️ October 27: How Partners Build on Lovable w/ Dan O'Leary. South Beach. 5 - 8 pm.
🗓️ October 27: Running Production with Agents w/ Rootly AI, NVIDIA, Replit, & WorkOS. Dogpatch. 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ October 27: Who Controls the Future of AI Coding? Financial District. 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ October 27: Women in AI | Factory x Sapienne x Sequoia. South Beach. 7 - 9 pm.
🗓️ October 28: Scaling Intelligence —Modal x Gray Area Commissions — OPENING NIGHT. Dolores Heights.
🗓️ October 28: Builders on the Green. Fort Mason. 6 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ October 28: Robotics and Physical AI Hardware Founder Dinner with Rho @ Mission Robotics. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ October 28: Drinks Around The Fire: Cartesia x Lorikeet x Speak. Mission District. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ October 29: Entire Espresso with Gergely Orosz and Thomas Dohmke. Marina District. 9 - 11 am.
🗓️ October 29: Pancake AI x Corgi. Belden Place. 5 - 10 pm.
🗓️ October 29: Text-to-Screech: Haunted TTS Launch Event. Financial District. 5 - 8 pm.
🗓️ October 29: Founder Dinner with Gigsafe & Rho. Mission District. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ October 29: Designers & Machines October 2026. South Beach. 6:30 - 9:30 pm.
🗓️ October 30: Night Hack by Founders, Inc. Fort Mason. 4 - 11 pm.
🗓️ October 30: Cafe Compute: The Night Before RSI. 6:30 - 11 pm.
👀 Events Coming Soon 👀
🗓️ November 4: The Pragmatic Engineer Unplugged, presented by WorkOS. Civic Center. 5 - 7:30 pm.
🗓️ November 4: Driverless: What Waymo Can Teach Voice AI About Going to Production | Founder Dinner with Coval & Rho. Embarcadero. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ November 5: Braintrust CEO Ankur and Greylock Partner Corinne on how agents are changing evals. Embarcadero. 6 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ November 10: After Tokens. Rincon Point. 8 am - 5 pm.
🗓️ November 11: Stripe Startups Build Day San Francisco. South SF. 9:30 am - 4 pm.
Reply to this email to submit an event for consideration in the next edition.
Building a startup? Your finances need to keep pace.
FinStrat pairs founders with a fractional CFO and finance team to build reliable financials, sharpen forecasts, and prepare for fundraising. From bookkeeping and financial models to investor reporting and raise strategy, we bring the people and processes you need, without hiring a full-time finance department.
Spend less time piecing together your back office and more time building your company. Learn how you can partner with FinStrat here.
Top 5 SF Startup Jobs
UX / Product Designer @ TrainLoop
Technical Product Manager @ Knowtex
Founding People and Talent Leader @ Legion Health
Product Engineer @ Lance
MTS - Founding Designer @ Aside
👋 Hiring? Reply to this email to feature your job in this newsletter.
Other Opportunities
Know a founder or investor in SF who is raising capital or searching for a co-founder? Reply to this email with more details that I could share with the 4,000+ subscribers of this newsletter.
The Ambition Podcast is 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.
The latest episode is on Ernest Shackleton. He came within 97 miles of the South Pole and turned back so his men wouldn't starve. In 1915, his ship Endurance was crushed by the ice of Antarctica's Weddell Sea, stranding 28 men with no way to call for help. To get them rescued, he sailed a 22-foot open boat about 800 miles across the Southern Ocean to South Georgia, then crossed the island's uncharted mountains on foot. Every one of his men made it home.
Available now on all podcasting platforms including: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, YouTube and more.
Warp Sciences, a provider of a domestic chemistry contract research organization (CRO) platform, raised a $215M round led by Lightspeed.
BioStack, a provider of a data infrastructure network for healthcare and medical AI, raised a $9.5M in Seed round backed by Peak XV, Afore Capital and more.
Familiar Therapeutics, a biotechnology company bringing human medicines to dogs and cats, raised a $5M Seed round led by Pioneer Fund, Icehouse Ventures, and BreakTHRU.
Coherence Neuro, a developer of AI-powered oncology medical devices, raised a $45M Series A co-led by Founders Fund and the OpenAI Startup Fund.
Optivolt, a power electronics company building the intelligence layer for solar, raised a $32M Series A led by VXI Capital.
DashFuel, a provider of an operating platform for petroleum wholesalers, carriers, and retailers, received an undisclosed amount as investment from Five Elms Capital.
Watchtower Labs, a provider of AI-native applications for military operations and decision-making, raised a $35M Seed round led by Shield Capital and Conviction.
Longeye, a provider of an AI-powered investigative workspace for the justice system, raised a $20M Series A led by N47.
Mojo Vision, a provider of a flexible micro-LED technology platform, raised $24.4M in government funding.
Mach9, an AI CAD platform for civil engineering, raised a $34M Series A co-led by First Round Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.
Blacksmith, a provider of an infrastructure platform for building and testing code, raised a $66M Series C led by Sequoia Capital.
CapitalOS, a provider of a money orchestration layer service for B2B platforms, raised a $21.9M Series A led by LGVP.
Vectorial, a human behavior simulation platform for software products and digital experiences, raised a $3M Seed round backed by Smilegate, SenseAI Ventures and more.
Otter.ai, a provider of an AI notetaker and conversational knowledge platform, received a $320M investment by General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF).
Arda Industries, a provider of an AI platform for manufacturing engineering, raised a $160M Series A co-led by Altimeter, Accel, and Khosla Ventures and a $72M Seed round led by Accel and Founders Fund.
Electric Plant Company, a provider of an AI foundation model for plant electrophysiology, raised a $11.2M Seed round led by Onto Ventures and Climactic.
Reliable Robotics, a company which specializes in autonomous aircraft systems, raised a $115M round led by Nimble Partners.
AuxoAI, a provider of enterprise AI services and engineering solutions, raised a $20.7M Series A led by NTTVC.
Daytona, a provider of an agent cloud platform that builds computers for AI agents, raised a $60M Series B led by FirstMark.
Different, a provider of an AI marketing system that runs end-to-end demand generation for lean marketing teams, raised a $48M Seed round led by General Catalyst.
Town, a provider of an AI assistant platform built for teamwork, raised a $108M Series B co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Menlo Ventures.
Kodama Systems, a robotics company building physical AI for forestry, raised a $7M round co-led by Konvoy Ventures and Breakwater Ventures.
Prolific Machines, a biotechnology company advancing biologics development and manufacturing, raised a $50M Series B2 led by Atoms & Bits and Nant Capital.
Tolan, a developer of a voice-first artificial intelligence companion, raised a $30M round backed by Union Square Ventures (USV), Khosla Ventures, and Homebrew.
Dream Labs, a provider of an AI platform that builds foundation models for robots, raised a $90M Seed round led by B Capital.
ZAP Surgical Systems, Inc., a San Carlos, CA-based provider of non-invasive robotic brain surgery platforms, raised a $36M round led by Catalio Capital Management.
Origin, a full-stack physical AI company building general-purpose robots for interior construction, raised a $20M round co-led by Accel and Zacua Ventures.
Lightsprint, a provider of a platform that empowers non-engineers to make changes directly to existing software, raised a $6.1M Seed round led by 645 Ventures.
Featured Location
Son & Garden. A whimsical, floral-themed restaurant, serving creative brunch favorites, Asian-inspired dishes, fresh seafood, and colorful cocktails in a playful setting.
Fun Events
See you next week,
Justin