🌁 The SF Grind: Week of September 14th

👋 I’m Justin. I run The SF Grind, The LA Grind, host the Ambition Podcast, 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! The full Ambition Summit schedule is live: 8 sessions, September 24th, Santa Monica. 10 days out and the room is filling with an incredible group of venture-backed founders, bootstrapped founders, investors, and operators. Apply to join today.

Want to attend the Summit free? I need 10-15 volunteers on September 24th. Free ticket, lunch covered, done by 5:30 before the closing party. Past LA Grind event attendees get priority. Sign up here.

Let’s get to it.

Read online

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.

Learn more

Reply to this email if you want to sponsor this newsletter.

🌁 Upcoming Event We’re Hosting 🌁

🗓️ September 24: Ambition Summit. Los Angeles.

👋 This Week in SF 👋

🗓️ September 14: What is Law in the Age of AI? Civic Center. 5:30 - 8:30 pm.

🗓️ September 14: GTM Series #01: Evan Cassidy (Decagon). SoMa. 6 - 8:30 pm.

🗓️ September 14: Women + AI x Luxfit Collab: Oh, She Lifts. Mission Rock. 6 - 8:30 pm.

🗓️ September 15: AI-native platforms for industries software forgot, Real World Data & Robotics Luncheon. Mountain View. 12 - 1 pm.

🗓️ September 15: Foundry Live Demo Night. South Beach. 5 - 8 pm.

🗓️ September 15: Josette Melchor // Newtemporary: Designing in the Space Between New and Next. Berkeley. 5:30 - 6:30 pm.

🗓️ September 15: All Things Agent Setups. Financial District. 5:30 - 8:30 pm.

🗓️ September 16: SPC Post-Training Forum: Mercor CEO, Brendan Foody. South Beach. 3 - 4 pm.

🗓️ September 16: Bay Area Rust - Graphics Meetup. Mission Dolores. 6 - 8:30 pm.

🗓️ September 17: Ground Truth by Sphere ft. a16z /// For Engineers Building AI in Regulated Industries. Dogpatch. 1 - 9 pm.

🗓️ September 17: AI Biotech Block Party: Hosted by Edison Scientific x Multiply Labs. Central Waterfront. 5 - 8:30 pm.

🗓️ September 17: SF Founder Dinner | Tokenize x Rho. Marina District. 6 - 8 pm.

🗓️ September 17: Mixture of Experts. Mission District. 6 - 8 pm.

🗓️ September 17: How to deploy a multi-model architecture. Embarcadero. 6 - 8:30 pm.

🗓️ September 17: The Agent-Native Founders Dinner | Maritime x Rho. Main Post. 6:30 - 8:30 pm.

🗓️ September 18: The New Model Dilemma: Should You Switch? South Beach. 12 - 2 pm.

🗓️ September 19: Dream AI Hackathon 2026. Mid-Market. 9 am - 9 pm.

👀 Events Coming Soon 👀

🗓️ September 21: Claude Coworkshop with Provectus. Embarcadero. 1 - 5:30 pm.

🗓️ September 22: Codex Community Meetup - San Francisco. Union Square. 6 - 8 pm.

🗓️ September 24: GenMedia Conference 2026 Registration. Embarcadero. 9 am - 5 pm.

🗓️ September 24: Designers & Machines September 2026. South Beach. 6:30 - 9:30 pm.

🗓️ September 28: Above the Fog: Founders × Investors Rooftop Mixer. South Beach. 6 - 9 pm.

🗓️ October 6: Women in AI Consumer Tech Showcase (SF Tech Week!). Mid-Market. 4 - 7 pm.

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

The full Ambition Summit schedule is live. September 24th, Santa Monica. 8 sessions: Shivani Siroya (Tala), Dee Murthy (Ghost), Dara Ladjevardian (Delphi), Rick Smith (Crosscut), Mehul Nariyawala (Matic), Jessica Chang (Upwards), Jo Phillips (Payabli), Shamin Walsh (BAM Ventures). Doors open at 9, wraps at 5, closing party after.

150 people, curated, 10 days out. Crazy, I know.

Thanks to our Summit sponsors: DLA Piper, whose Emerging Growth and Venture Capital practice partners with founders and investors from formation through exit, plus Venice Inc., Bailey Glasser, Ardas, Tax Hack, and Agora.

See the full schedule and apply to attend

Top 5 SF Startup Jobs

Senior Full Stack Engineer @ Sphere

Product Engineer @ Lance

Sales Development Representative @ Vooma

Founding Deployment Strategist @ Closure

Software Engineer (Full-Stack) @ Replo

👋 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 4,000+ subscribers of this newsletter.

The Ambition Podcast is a show about the world's most ambitious people from history, and the lessons you can take from their lives and use in your own work and life.

Each episode is deeply researched, built around the definitive biography of one person (or in some cases, two), with dozens of hours spent reading, synthesizing, and pulling out what actually matters.

First episodes of Ambition:

Available now on all podcasting platforms including: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, YouTube and more.

Piston, a provider of a cardless payments platform that connects commercial fleets and gas stations, raised a $15M Series A led by FPV Ventures.

Buildcheck AI, Inc., a provider of an AI-powered construction design review platform, raised a $12M Series A led by Telescope Partners.

Cognition, an artificial intelligence infrastructure and autonomous software engineering startup, raised a +$2B Series E led jointly by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Accel.

Epsilon Health, a provider of an AI-native radiology practice, raised a $27.6M round led by AlleyCorp.

Motive, a provider of an AI platform for physical operations, raised a $1.3B round backed by General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund.

Intermezzo, a global payroll infrastructure company, raised a $10M round backed by Crosslink Capital, UKG Ventures and more.

Kavia AI, a provider of an enterprise software engineering platform for complex codebases, raised an undisclosed amount as Seed round backed by Tata Elxsi.

Lightfield, a provider of an AI-first CRM system of record, raised a $47M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.

System, a provider of a peptide platform connecting patients with clinicians and pharmacy-grade compound treatments, raised a $20M round backed by Patron Fund, Will Ventures.

Eubrics, an enterprise software and agentic sales enablement startup, raised a Pre-seed round and incubation backed by super{set}.

Moneyball.ai, an artificial intelligence fintech and investment banking automation startup, raised a Pre-seed funding and incubation backing from super{set}.

Bulwark Dynamics, a provider of autonomous landing craft, raised a $6.8M Seed round backed by SBI US Gateway Fund LP, Archetype Ventures and more.

Encoded Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing precision genetic medicines for severe neurological disorders, raised a $275M Series F co-led by GV and another healthcare fund.

Euno, a provider of an enterprise AI-native context platform, raised a $23M Series A led by N47.

Lightsage, a provider of an Agent-Led Growth (ALG) platform, raised a $4M round led by Nexus Venture Partners.

Cylake, a provider of a cybersecurity platform for operational sovereignty, raised a $245M round backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Picture Capital, and Redpoint Ventures.

VideoGen, a provider of an AI video creation platform, raised a $3.3M Seed round led by Y Combinator.

Poseidon Aerospace, a provider of unmanned cargo platforms, raised a $11M Seed round led by Tamarack Global.

Moonwalk Biosciences, a provider of adipose-targeted RNA interference (RNAi) medicines for obesity and cardiometabolic diseases, raised a $70M Series B co-led by Alpha Wave and YK Bioventures.

Gimlet Labs, an artificial intelligence infrastructure and distributed software platform provider, raised a $300M Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).