👋 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, honest question before we dive in today. I want to make sure The SF Grind is actually useful, not just something that hits your inbox and gets ignored. Would mean a lot if you took 2 seconds to answer this:
How would you feel if The SF Grind stopped publishing tomorrow?
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 🌁
🗓️ April 30: Curated Seed+ Founders Dinner. SF. 6:30 - 9 pm. Sponsored by Sprinto, Highland Academy, and Chargebee.
🗓️ May 1: The SF Grind: SF Startup Community Coffee Meetup. Union Square. 9 - 11 am.
🗓️ May 21: Curated Seed+ Founders Dinner. SF. 6:30 - 9 pm.
🗓️ May 22: Curated Seed+ Founders Breakfast. SF. 9 - 11 am.
👋 This Week in SF 👋
🗓️ April 20: OutRun CO2 Club @ SF Climate Week! Embarcadero. 7:45 - 9 am.
🗓️ April 20: -1 to Palo Alto Networks with Nikesh Arora. South Beach. 2:30 - 4:30 pm.
🗓️ April 20: SF Climate Week 2026: Founders, Investors & LP Happy Hour. Mid-Market. 6 - 9 pm.
🗓️ April 21: SF Climate Week Breakfast Ride with Union Peak VC, G2 Venture Partners, and Congruent Ventures. Main Post. 7:30 - 10:30 am.
🗓️ April 21: Clean Energy Deep Tech Across Borders. Mid-Market. 9:30 am - 12 pm.
🗓️ April 21: AI for Nature Mini-Summit: Ancestral Intelligence & AI Foundation Models. SoMa. 1 - 5:30 pm.
🗓️ April 21: SF Climate Week: Building Transatlantic Bridges. Financial District. 5 - 7 pm.
🗓️ April 22: Climate Debate: The Road to Wisdom. Financial District. 9 - 11:30 am.
🗓️ April 22: Bay Area Frontier Research Club. Stanford. 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ April 22: AI Builders Social Night: Building with SKILLS. Mid-Market. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 22: Cost of Compute - SFCW Dinner. North Beach. 7 - 9 pm.
🗓️ April 23: Zero to Unicorn: Shef Founder Fireside. SF. 5 - 7 pm.
🗓️ April 23: AI Builders Social Night: What makes a great AI product. Mid-market. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 23: Sofra Series: A dinner for founders. Civic Center. 6. - 9 pm.
🗓️ April 23: Door 3: April Founder Elevator Pitch. Union Square. 6 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ April 24: Ship to Prod - Agentic Engineering Hackathon. Financial District. 9:30 am - 7:30
🗓️ April 25: SF Minecraft LAN for AI builders by Silicon Mania & Ascii.dev. Mid-Market. 9:30 am - 6 pm.
🗓️ April 25: Climate Stakeholder Gathering: Morning Run. Financial District. 7 - 9 am.
🗓️ April 25: Release Before Ready Hackathon. Mid-Market. 10 am - 9 pm.
🗓️ April 26: BETA 2026Hackathon. 9 am - 10 pm.
🗓️ April 26: Climate Stakeholder Gathering: Networking Mixer. Union Square. 5:30 - 9 pm.
👀 Events Coming Soon 👀
🗓️ April 28: Global Founder & Investor Happy Hour (Startup Grind Bar Crawl). Redwood City. 5 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ April 28: Anatomy and Physiology for Biohackers. Mid-Market. 6 - 7:30 pm.
🗓️ April 29: AI Champions Dinner. Potrero Hill. 6 - 9 pm.
🗓️ April 29: Fintech x AI Pitch Competition. Financial District. 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ April 30: Unicorner Presents: SF Seed+ Founders Dinner. SoMa. 6 - 9 pm.
Reply to this email to submit an event for consideration in the next edition
Top 5 SF Startup Jobs
Product Manager, B2B Growth @ Forage
Founding Sales Hire @ Hellometer
Account Executive @ Rippling
Senior iOS Developer @ Shape
Manufacturing Engineer @ iSono Health
👋 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 3,000+ subscribers of this newsletter.
Mintlify, a startup that is building the knowledge infrastructure for AI, raised a $45M Series B co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Salesforce Ventures.
Factory, an agentic AI startup, raised a $150M round led by Khosla Ventures.
Slash Financial, Inc., a provider of a banking platform, raised a $100M Series C led by Ribbit Capital.
Expo, a provider of an open-source platform empowering React Native development for developers, raised a $45M Series B led by Leadout Capital, A.Capital Ventures and Red Swan Ventures.
Resolv, an AI-native software and services company that automates back-office operations for home services contractors, raised a $1M Pre-Seed round co-led by Redbud VC and EquipmentShare.
Ulysses, a maritime robotics company developing high-volume autonomous surface and underwater vehicles for maritime operations, received an undisclosed amount investment from Booz Allen Hamilton.
Solidroad, a provider of an AI platform that helps companies evaluate and improve every human and AI customer conversation, raised a $25M Series A led by Hedosophia.
Balerion AI, a provider of an agentic AI platform built for mortgage loan origination, raised a $6M Seed round led by Kleiner Perkins.
Worki, a healthcare workforce infrastructure company, raised a $2.75M Pre-Seed round led by Redesign Health and Healthliant Ventures.
Resolve AI, a developer of AI for running and operating software in production, raised a $40M Series A Extension led by DST Global and Salesforce Ventures
Phonely, a provider of an AI voice platform for businesses, raised a $16M Series A led by Base10 Partners.
Hilbert, a provider of an agentic AI platform that connects data across teams, raised a $28M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Terremoto Biosciences, a biotechnology company developing highly targeted, small molecule medicines, raised a $108M Series C backed by RA Capital Management, Deep Track Capital and more.
Gitar, a developer infrastructure company building AI agents for code review and continuous integration workflows, raised a $9M round led by Venrock.
HockeyStack, a provider of an enterprise revenue agent platform, raised an undisclosed amount led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Y Combinator and Uncorrelated Ventures.
Spiral Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage company developing novel therapies for inner ear disorders, raised a $27M Series B led by Gund Investment.
Ratio, a provider of an AI Fintech platform for B2B scale-ups, raised a $15.8M round backed by Streamlined Ventures, Cervin Ventures and more.
Featured Location
Copra. Vibrant coastal South Indian cuisine, with spice-driven dishes centered on seafood, coconut, and bold flavors. Designed for sharing and inspired by traditional recipes from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Sri Lanka.
Fun Events
See you next week,
Justin