👋 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! I can’t believe we’re in March already. This year is going by way too fast. Since launching The SF Grind in December, we’ve hosted 5 events and have grown to 2,200 email subscribers! Quick question for you before we dive in:

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 🌁

🗓️ March 19: Curated Seed+ Founder Dinner. SF. 6:30 - 9 pm. Sponsored by Rho and Fidelity Private Shares.

⭐️ Featured Upcoming Events ⭐️

🗓️ March 5: Snafu Conference. Oakland. Register with the code SFGRIND for a free ticket.

👋 This Week in SF 👋

🗓️ March 3: Founder Happy Hour. Financial District. 5:30 - 7 pm.

🗓️ March 5: -1 to Elad Gil. South Beach. 4 - 5 pm.

🗓️ March 6: ClawHack. Mid-Market. 9 am - 9 pm.

🗓️ March 6: Residency Community Dinner. Mission District. 5:30 - 7:30 pm.

Reply to this email to submit an event for consideration in the next edition

Top 5 SF Startup & VC Firm Jobs

👋 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 2,000+ subscribers of this newsletter.

VITURE, a company developing XR solutions, raised $100M in a round led by Legend Capital.

Dots, a provider of a global payouts platform for marketplaces and service-based businesses, raised $8.9M Series A led by DCM.

BreezeBio, a biotechnology company developing genetic medicines, raised an undisclosed amount in Series B led by Yuanta Investment and DSC Investment.

T54 Labs, a provider of a layer service for the agentic economy, raised a $5M Seed round led by Anagram, PL Capital and Franklin Templeton.

NationGraph, an AI-native intelligence platform for businesses selling to the government, raised a $18M Series A led by Menlo Ventures.

Prophet Security, a developer of an agentic AI platform for Security Operations Centers (SOC), raised an undisclosed amount backed by Amex Ventures, Citi Ventures.

Avisi Technologies, an ophthalmic medical device company, raised a $10.7M Series A led by MedVenture Partners.

Rowspace, a developer of an AI platform for institutional financial data, raised a $50M combined Seed round, led by Sequoia, and Series A, co-led by Sequoia and Emergence Capital.

Quill a privacy-focused desktop application that transcribes, summarizes, and generates actionable notes from meetings directly on devices, raised a $6.5M Seed round led by Basis Set Ventures.

Chariot Defense, a defense technology company, raised a $34M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Abram Scientific, a medical device company, raised $11.75M Series A led by Octapharma AG.

Kris@Work, a provider of an AI-native Go-To-Market (GTM) execution platform for enterprise revenue teams, raised a $3M Seed round led by Infoedge Ventures.

Koah, a provider of a platform that embeds ads into AI search and chat apps, raised a $20.5M Series A led by Theory Ventures.

Giant, a provider of an interactive storytelling platform, raised a $8M Seed round led by Matrix, Decasonic, and Griffin Gaming Partners.

Humand, a provider of an AI-powered operating system for deskless workforces, raised a $66M Series A led by Kaszek and Goodwater Capital.

Potpie AI, a provider of a foundational context layer service, raised a $2.2M Pre-Seed round led by Emergent Ventures.

Reload, a provider of an AI workforce management platform, raised a $2.275M Pre-Seed round led by Anthemis.

AdZen, a provider of a technology platform developing a monetization engine for Large Language Models (LLMs), raised an undisclosed amount in a Seed round led by Fiat Ventures, Inventus Capital Partners and Silicon Valley Quad.

Portkey, a provider of a unified control plane for production AI, raised a $15M Series A led by Elevation Capital.

Inscope, a provider of an AI-powered financial reporting platform built for accounting firms and enterprises, raised a $14.5M Series A led by Norwest.

Featured Location

Equal Parts. A lively North Beach spot with shareable, creative New American plates and cocktails, great for dinner with friends.

Fun Events

See you next week,

Justin

P.S. Want to connect? LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

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