👋 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 teased the idea of hosting a big summit in early 2027. It’ll likely happen. My vision would be 300-500 people, amazing speakers (Successful founders & investors), and a unique experience people remember, not only for the event itself, but for the connections they make there. It would take place in LA the first year (I think). There’s a lot to figure out, but I think it’d be worthwhile. Next steps: Figuring out the theme, locking down initial sponsors and speakers, and getting early-bird tickets live. I’ll keep you updated, but would love your feedback below:
Would you attend a big summit in LA in early 2027?
Let’s get to it.
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🌁 Upcoming Events We’re Hosting 🌁
🗓️ April 30: Curated Seed+ Founders Dinner. SF. 6:30 - 9 pm. Sponsored by Sprinto and Highland Academy.
🗓️ 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 6: Easter Coworking - Build Anything. Financial District. 10:30 am - 12:30 pm.
🗓️ April 6: Day 1 of HumanX｜Meet the Minds in the Room. Financial District. 1:30 - 4:30 pm.
🗓️ April 6: Generative UI Night—by WorkOS x CopilotKit. Union Square. 5:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 6: SCALE at GMI — Kickoff Day. Corona Heights. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 6: Pebblebed's Builders Late Night Café. Mission District. 7:30 pm - 12 am.
🗓️ April 7: Frontier Day: Year One of Frontier Tower. Mid-Market. 10 am - 1 pm.
🗓️ April 7: Fireside Chat with Michele Catasta, President and Head of AI at Replit. Stanford. 12 - 1 pm.
🗓️ April 7: The Future of AI Scientist with Hugo Larochelle, Scientific Director, Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. Menlo Park. 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ April 7: AI Happy Hour @ SPIN SF | Render x Exa x Greptile. Financial District. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 7: HumanX 2026 After Hours: The Open-Source AI Stack — Models, Inference & Beyond. SoMa. 6 - 9 pm.
🗓️ April 7: Slow Pour, Fast Ideas: A Night with LTX. SoMa. 7 - 10 pm.
🗓️ April 8: AI After Hours - Let's keep HumanX going. SoMa. 4 - 7 pm.
🗓️ April 8: Fireside Chat with Dr. Jennifer Hamilton. Berkeley. 6 - 7 pm.
🗓️ April 8: Founder Skybar Social @HumanX w/ Intercom, Elevenlabs, Brex, Render, Newmark. Financial District. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 8: The Rise of Vibe Design | Women in AI x Lovart. Civic Center. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 8: Rho x Pump: Founder Dinner. Mission Bay. 6:30 - 9:30 pm.
🗓️ April 9: Agentic + AI Observability Meetup SF. Financial District. 5 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 9: Death by Deployment: A Builder Dinner + Live Mystery Experience. SoMa. 5:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 9: SPC Demo Night. Bayside Village. 6:30 - 9 pm.
🗓️ April 10: Cline gave an AI Agent Access to Blender. Mid-Market. 1 - 3 pm.
🗓️ April 10: Farcaster Feature Launch! Social Mixer + Buildathon! Mid-Market. 5 - 9 pm.
🗓️ April 11: Rho Runs SF. Dolores Heights. 11 am - 1 pm.
🗓️ April 11: ChatGPT for Robots Summit. Mid-Market. 12 - 6 pm.
🗓️ April 11: Lovable X talk. GTM Hackathon. 2 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ April 12: Human Enhancement Hackathon Demo Day. Mid-Market. 12 - 4 pm.
🗓️ April 12: ChatGPT for Robots Summit. Mid-Market. 12 - 6 pm.
🗓️ April 12: The Oakland Join-Up Activity Fair. Oakland. 1 - 4 pm.
👀 Events Coming Soon 👀
🗓️ April 13: Hire or Get Hired - AI Matching Your Next Role. Union Square. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ April 14: The 60-Second Showdown | $50K+ Pitch Competition in services. Mission District. 5 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ April 14: Anatomy and Physiology for Biohackers. Mid-Market. 6 - 7:30 pm.
🗓️ April 15: AI Executive Dinner. Los Altos. 7 - 9:30 pm.
🗓️ April 16: V11 x Link Ventures: Robotics & RW Training Data Dinner. Financial District. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
Reply to this email to submit an event for consideration in the next edition
Top 5 SF Startup Jobs
Senior Full Stack Engineer @ LiveFlow
Product Manager - AI @ Dynamo AI
Founding Product Designer @ Parrot
Senior Technical Recruiter @ Shepherd
👋 Hiring? Reply to this email to feature your job in this newsletter.
Other Opportunities
April 16 - $100K AI Startup Pitch-Off @ Chargebee Beelieve
Chargebee, in partnership with The Founder Initiative, is hosting a live pitch competition at their annual conference at Fort Mason, San Francisco. 10 pre-Series A AI founders pitch to a panel of enterprise buyers - CXOs & VPs from Gong, Superhuman, Cribl, Okta, and others - get feedback from real buyers, and compete for a $100K cash prize.
Even if you're not pitching, it's worth being in the room. Applications to pitch close April 3, and registration includes a full pass to the Beelieve conference on April 15-16. Apply or register.
A friend of mine is raising a $500K strategic round for their logistics intelligence platform for ecommerce brands. $500K ARR, 4x YoY growth. If you invest in ecommerce or logistics infrastructure, reply to this email, and I'll send more details.
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.
Alien, a startup building trust infrastructure for the agentic economy, raised a $7.1M Pre-Seed round led by Initialized Capital and Finality.
Numos, a provider of an AI platform built for enterprise finance teams, raised a $4.25M Seed round led by General Catalyst.
daydream, an AI-native agency for organic search, raised a $15M Series A led by WndrCo.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and an AI infrastructure company, raised a $122B round led by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank.
Variance, a company developing AI investigative agents for risk and compliance, raised a $21.5M Series A led by Ten Eleven Ventures.
TippingPoint Biosciences, a biotechnology company, raised a $4.5M Seed round led by SOSV and LKS Fund.
Treeline, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an IT operating system, raised a $25M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Whirl AI, a company that leverages foundational intelligence supporting Enterprise AI, raised a $8.9M Seed round led by ICONIQ and angel investors.
Nomadic, a startup building the spatial intelligence layer for physical AI, raised a $8.4M round led by TQ Ventures.
depthfirst, an applied AI lab developing new security solutions, raised a $80M Series B led by Meritech Capital.
Sycamore, a company developing a system for autonomous enterprise AI, raised a $65M Seed round led by Coatue and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
OpenBox AI, a company developing solutions for enterprise AI systems, raised a $5M Seed round led by Tykhe Ventures.
Tenkara, a company building ops agents for US manufacturers, raised a $7M round led by True Ventures.
Centivax, a developer of a universal flu vaccine, raised a $37M round led by Structure Fund.
Featured Location
Morella. A bold, fusion menu that blends Argentinian and Italian cooking, centered on fire, pasta, and rich, comforting flavors.
Fun Events
See you next week,
Justin