

👋 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! We’ve got a lot of events coming up this week and next, starting with our mixer on Wednesday night and ending with our coffee meetup for Deep Tech Week next week Monday. I’m trying to provide more meaningful opportunities for people to make some worthwhile connections and have some fun in SF!
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 Event We’re Hosting 🌁
🗓️ June 17: The SF Grind: Founder, Investor, & Operator Mixer. Mission District. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ June 18: The SF Grind: Founder, Operator, & Investor Dinner. Marina District. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ June 19: SF Startup Community Coffee Meetup. Union Square. 9 - 11 am.
🗓️ June 22: The SF Grind: Deep Tech Week Coffee Meetup. Union Square. 9 - 11 am.
🗓️ July 1: The SF Grind: Startup Community Trivia Night. Pacific Heights - 6:30 - 9 pm.
👋 This Week in SF 👋
🗓️ June 15: Build with Claude AI. Lead Without Burning Out. Mid-Market. 6 - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 16: ClickHouse Cafe @ Data & AI Summit. SoMa. 8 am - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 16: Stripe Startups Build Day San Francisco—featuring Wen Sang, co-founder/COO of Genspark. South SF. 9:30 am - 4 pm.
🗓️ June 16: Codex Community Meetup. South Beach. 5 - 9 pm.
🗓️ June 16: Foundry Live Demo Night. South Beach. 5 - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 16: OTR: SF Founder Dinner. Financial District. 6:30 - 9:30 pm.
🗓️ June 17: Pioneer P26 Welcome Party. Mission Bay. 5:30 - 8:30
🗓️ June 17: Artificially Unintelligent: SF Tech Comedy Show. Mission District. 7 - 10 pm.
🗓️ June 18: Agentic Engineering Summit. Financial District. 9 am - 6:30 pm.
🗓️ June 18: Render localhost:2026 SF. SoMa. 9 am - 7 pm.
🗓️ June 18: How to get press without a PR agency: a workshop for early-stage founders. SoMa. 12 - 13:30 pm.
🗓️ June 18: Claude Code & Coffee @ Corgi Cafe. Union Square. 1 - 4 pm.
🗓️ June 18: Life Sciences / BioTech - INNOVIT Demo Day. Embarcadero. 4:30 - 8 pm.
🗓️ June 18: Power of Single-Cell-Multi-Omics : from Bench to Bedside (Includes a special address). San Carlos. 5 - 7:30 pm.
🗓️ June 18: Agents in Action: GTM Engineer Edition. Embarcadero. 7 - 8:30 pm.
🗓️ June 19: OFFLINE. SoMa. 6:30 - 9 pm.
🗓️ June 19: AI Executive Dinner. Los Altos. 7 - 9:30 pm.
🗓️ June 19-20: Inference-Time Compute Hackathon. Mid-Market.
👀 Events Coming Soon 👀
🗓️ June 22: SF Founders & Operators in Stealth Dinner. Fillmore District. 6:30 - 9:30 pm.
🗓️ June 23: Civic tech meetup @ Config 2026. Union Square. 3 - 5 pm.
🗓️ June 23: AI Champions Dinner. SF. 6 - 9 pm.
🗓️ June 24: Welcome to the Stratosphere (feat. Cheat Codes). SF. 7 - 11 pm.
Reply to this email to submit an event for consideration in the next edition.

Top 5 SF Startup Jobs
Founding Head of Channel Partnerships @ Hyperbound
Tech Sales (SDR) @ Surface Labs
Founding Design Engineer @ Jinba
Senior Software Engineer, Hub Team @ Weekend
Talent Lead @ Agave
👋 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 3,500+ subscribers of this newsletter.

Prometheus, a developer of physical artificial intelligence and autonomous engineering systems, raised a $12B round backed by Jeff Bezos, JPMorgan Chase, and more.
PhoenixAI, company developing an agentic AI database, raised a $80M Series B led by Sky9 Capital.
Coram AI, a provider of an AI-native physical security platform, raised a $35M Series B led by Ansa Capital and Battery Ventures.
Leaf, a company developing solution supporting agricultural and food companies to analyze their farm data, raised a £13M Series B co-led by Leaps by Bayer and a group of industry strategics.
Poetic, a company building a new class of software that learns like AI but runs like code, raised a $50M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins.
Pi Security, an agentic AI security startup, raised a $35M round led by Brightmind Partners and Third Point Ventures.
Billables AI, a provider of an AI-native operational intelligence platform built for law firms, raised a $10.2M Series A led by Avenue Growth Partners.
Beren Therapeutics, a developer of cyclodextrin-based cholesterol trafficking therapeutics, raised a $135M round backed by Wellington Partners, JIC Venture Growth Investments.
SonoThera, a biotechnology company developing new genetic medicines, raised a $125M in Series B led by Vida Ventures.
Maneva, a physical AI solution provider specializing in video-to-action intelligence for manufacturing, raised a $27M Series A led by U.S. Venture Partners.
Fearn, a provider of an AI-native patent platform, raised a $5.5M Seed round led by Kindred Ventures.
Upriver, an AI-native data engineering platform provider, raised a $14M Seed round led by Valley Capital Partners and Hetz Ventures.
Cellares, an Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), received a $20M investment from ARK Invest.
Mesoware, a company developing automation solutions for manufacturers, raised $1.5M in Pre-Seed round led by Pillar VC.
Soffi, a provider of a collaborative development environment for enterprise product teams, raised a $4.6M Pre-Seed round led by Innovation Endeavors.
SyntheticFi, a provider of a fintech platform for registered investment advisors (RIAs) to access low-cost, tax-efficient financing solutions for clients, raised a +$13M round backed by Y Combinator, Social Leverage and more.
Antogen, Inc., a life sciences tools and diagnostics company, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding led by iGrow Venture Partners.
Reset, a provider of an embedded earned wage access platform built for credit unions and community banks, raised a $6M Seed round backed included Georgia’s Own Credit Union, InTouch Credit Union, and more.


Featured Location
The Devil’s Acre. A cozy Gold Rush–themed cocktail bar in North Beach with excellent classic drinks, a dimly lit atmosphere, and a great date-night vibe.
Fun Events
See you next week,
Justin


