

👋 I’m Justin. I run The SF Grind, The LA Grind, 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! Quick shoutout to the early partners who have supported The SF Grind: Lightfield, Fidelity Private Shares, Mercury, Chargebee, Rho, Hankin Patent Law, and Aspire. If your company wants to sponsor events or this newsletter and get in front of this community, hit reply to this email.
Let’s get to it.

Safeguard Your Startup’s IP Now
Have you double-checked that your patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and license agreements are truly secure? A quick mistake can cost millions later.
HPL Law’s IP Check-Up makes sure:
Ownership is in your current company’s name
Every assignment is signed and recorded with the right agency
Renewal and maintenance fees are paid on time and calendared for the future
You have one clean dashboard that shows what you own, the correct numbers, where the evidence lives, and who is on the hook for updates
Skip the guesswork. Know exactly where your creative assets stand before your next fundraise, product launch, or M&A convo.
Need a pro to walk you through it?
Email Anooj Patel at [email protected] today and protect what you have in mind.
Reply to this email if you want to sponsor this newsletter.

🌁 Upcoming Events We’re Hosting 🌁
🗓️ February 19: Curated Founder Dinner. SF. 6:30 - 9 pm. Sponsored by Fidelity Private Shares and Mercury.
🗓️ February 20: Curated Founder Breakfast. SF. 8 - 10 am. Sponsored by Fidelity Private Shares and Chargebee.
🗓️ February 22: The SF Grind: Curated Female Founder Morning Collective. Marina. 9 - 11 am. Sponsored by Chargebee.
🗓️ March 19: Curated Founder Dinner. SF. 6:30 - 9 pm. Sponsored by Rho.
🗓️ March 20: Curated Founder Breakfast. SF. 8 - 10 am.
👋 This Week in SF 👋
🗓️ February 9: Vapi AI x Lovable x Hathora | Build & Deploy Your Voice Agent Workshop + Hackathon. Mid-Market. 5 - 9 pm.
🗓️ February 9: WorkOS AI Night w/ The Pragmatic Engineer. Union Square. 5:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 10: Selling in the Age of AI: Fireside Chat with Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas and Tech GTM Expert Rich Liu. Financial District. 5:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 10: Women in AI: San Francisco Happy Hour hosted by Anything. Union Square. 5:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 10: Highs, Lows, and Mania: The Science of Creativity. Oakland. 7 - 9 pm.
🗓️ February 11: Consciousness, Intelligence & Spirituality with Swami Sarvapriyananda. South Beach. 4:30 - 6 pm.
🗓️ February 11: Tech Skills 001: OpenClaw Tutorial (Playful Sincerity Events). Mid-Market. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 11: AI Healthtech Night | Anthropic, DigitalOcean, & Workato. Mission Bay. 6 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ February 12: Women Founders Pitch Night. Financial District. 5 - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 12: Founder Mixer. Palo Alto. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 12: Ski Camp AI: Building Agents and MCP. Mid-Market. 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ February 12: Fin x Cartesia: Building Voice AI Products. SoMa. 6- 9 pm.
🗓️ February 12: SF Hardware & Manufacturing Happy Hour. Fort Mason. 6 - 9 pm.
🗓️ February 12: Heartware — Technology in Service of Human Flourishing. Mid-Market. 7 - 9 pm.
🗓️ February 13: SF Startup Community Hike. Golden Gate Park. 8 - 10 am.
🗓️ February 13: Artifact Festival. Fort Mason. 4 - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 13: Bad Ideas Pitch Competition — A Playful Sincerity Event. Mid-Market. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 14: AI Meets Robotics – Launch & Fund Your Own Startup (Edition 1). Mission Dolores. 8 am - 8 pm.
🗓️ February 14: Build What You Love - Women in Tech Hackathon. SoMa. 9 - 5 pm.
🗓️ February 14-15: Vibe Buildathon. Mid-Market.
🗓️ February 15: HealthTech Connect by Max Health. Mid-Market. 6 - 9:30 pm.
👀 Coming Soon 👀
🗓️ March 5: Snafu Conference. Oakland. Register with the code SFGRIND for a free ticket.
Reply to this email to submit an event for consideration in the next edition

Top 5 SF Startup & VC Firm Jobs
Product Engineer @ Lamar Health
Sales Development Representative @ Intryc
General Partner @ Scalator Ventures Inc.
Customer Growth Associate @ Vendra
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer @ Verse Medical
👋 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 1,500+ subscribers of this newsletter.

Linkup, a developer of a web search and retrieval platform for AI products, raised a $10M Seed round led by Gradient.
Nixtla, a time series intelligence company, raised a $16M Series A led by Energize Capital.
Forerunner, an AI-powered platform for governments that manage their built environment, raised a $12.7M Series A led by Union Square Ventures and a $26.3M Series B led by Wellington Management.
Adaption Labs, an adaptive intelligence startup, raised a $50M seed round led by Emergence Capital Partners.
Sapiom, a developer of a machine-native financial infrastructure platform, raised a $15.75M Seed round led by Accel.
Nullify, a provider of an AI workforce for product security, raised a $12.5M Seed round led by SYN Ventures.
Fundamental, an AI company building Large Tabular Model to drive predictions from enterprise data, raised a $255M Series A led by Oak HC/FT.
Goodfire, a developer of interpretability tools for AI models, raised a $150M Series B led by B Capital.
Turnstile, a provider of a quote-to-cash platform for sales-led startups, raised a $29M round backed by First Round, OMERS Ventures and others.
Accrual, a provider of an AI-native accounting platform, raised a $75M round led by General Catalyst.
Feltsense, an AI agent services company, raised a $5.1M Seed round led by Draper Associates.
Bedrock Robotics, an autonomous construction technology company, raised a $270M Series B led by CapitalG and the Valor Atreides AI Fund.
Fibr AI, a company building an agentic web experience layer service to generate revenue, raised a $7.5M Seed round led by Accel.
Resolve AI, an SRE & Engineering startup, raised a $125M Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
TRM Labs, a company that develops artificial intelligence solutions to counter criminal networks and national security threats, raised a $70M Series C led by Blockchain Capital.
Naoma, a developer of an AI video sales agent, raised a $440k pre-seed round led by ULTRA VC.
Ares Interactive, a game developer and publisher, raised a $70M Series A led by General Catalyst.
RapidFort, a company which specializes software supply chain security, raised a $42M Series A led by Blue Cloud Ventures and Forgepoint Capital.
Midi Health, a women’s telehealth company, raised a $100M Series D led by Goodwater Capital.
Kindred, a provider of a global home swapping platform, raised a $40M Series B co-led by NEA and Dylan Field, CEO of Figma, and an $85M in Series C led by Index Ventures.
Derapi, a software company building the connective infrastructure for the distributed energy ecosystem, raised a $7M Seed round led by Earthshot Ventures.
Principle, a provider of a strategic foresight AI platform that enables companies to simulate competitive futures before committing resources, raised a $2M Pre-Seed led by SMRK VC and SMOK VC.
Fieldguide, a provider of an agentic AI-native platform for audit and advisory, raised a $75M Series C led by Growth Equity.
Varo Bank, an all-digital nationally chartered bank in the U.S., raised a $123.9M Series G led by Warburg Pincus and Coliseum Capital Management, LLC.
BizTrip AI, an AI-powered travel management technology, raised a $1.5M Pre-Seed round led by RRE Ventures.
Loop AI, an enterprise-grade AI platform purpose-built for the restaurant and retail back office, raised a $14M Series A led by Nyca Partners.
GrubMarket, an AI-powered technology enabler and digital company for the American food supply chain industry, raised a $50M Series H backed by Future Food Fund, Portfolia Funds and more.


Featured Location
Coqueta. Stylish Spanish restaurant right on The Embarcadero with great cocktails, tapas, and paella in a lively setting.
Fun Events
See you next week,
Justin
P.S. Want to connect? Book a Call | Twitter | LinkedIn


