Business
AI startup funding hit a record in L.A. area last quarter. Here's who got the most money
The Bay Area has long held the title for attracting the most venture capital funding in the nation, and that naturally includes the hot market for artificial intelligence startups. After all, San Francisco is home to some of the most prominent AI players, including ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
But the Greater L.A. area is growing its presence in this space. The region broke a record in the third quarter, capturing $1.8 billion in VC investment for AI startups with a total of 31 deals, according to a new report by research firm CB Insights. L.A. ranked as the second-biggest market for AI investments, up from the second quarter, in which it ranked behind Silicon Valley, New York and Boston.
The big bump came mostly from a single deal: a $1.5-billion funding round for Costa Mesa-based defense technology firm Anduril Industries, the report said. The deal, which was announced in August, was led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital. The round valued the seven-year-old business at $14 billion.
Anduril, which manufactures autonomous weapons systems, including submarine drones, has said it would use the additional investment “to increase hiring, enhance processes, upgrade tooling, increase resiliency in its supply chain and expand infrastructure.” The company, co-founded by entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, has signed more than $1 billion in public contracts with the U.S. and allied governments. His company and other tech businesses that serve the defense industry are expected to get a boost from the incoming Trump administration.
For years, L.A. has been working to build itself as a major home for innovative technology, even at one point marketing the region as “Silicon Beach.” Some hope that AI can help boost Southern California as a tech destination, especially with applications in areas such as manufacturing, entertainment and healthcare.
“L.A. is definitely becoming a serious tech hub,” said Ivan Nikkhoo, a managing partner with Navigate Ventures, adding that the area has plenty of schools providing engineering talent and a lot of networking events. “All the elements are there.”
While Los Angeles is the epicenter of entertainment, where AI is expected to have serious ramifications, much of the recent tech investment was focused on other industries, including healthcare.
Startups in the L.A. region that raised significant capital in the quarter included Regard, a business that is offering an AI-powered clinical insights platform for doctors. The firm raised $61 million. Another healthcare-based company, Pearl, which creates artificial intelligence tools to help read dental patient X-rays, raised $58 million — which the company says is the biggest investment ever in dental AI.
Pictor Labs, a West Los Angeles-based startup spun off from the UCLA engineering school, raised $30 million in the third quarter, bringing its total venture capital investment so far to about $49 million. Pictor Labs uses AI to quickly analyze tissue samples digitally. The startup says it could save pathology labs significant time and resources, as well as reduce labs’ footprint in toxic reagents.
“It shows the strong interest and support of our investors for AI-driven solutions, particularly in the healthcare sector,” said Pictor Labs Chief Executive Yair Rivenson. The funding will help grow the company’s 24-member staff and accelerate its product development, Rivenson said.
AI startups globally saw the number of deals increase to 1,245 in the third quarter, up 24% from the previous quarter, indicating investor interest remains strong in the category, according to CB Insights. Overall venture deals declined 10% compared with the previous quarter, the research firm said. In the L.A. area, venture capital investments bucked national trends, rising 38% compared with the second quarter.
The U.S. market captured 68% of the global venture capital funding in AI companies, with Silicon Valley taking up roughly half of that amount.
Hollywood studios are in discussion with companies such as OpenAI to potentially license video footage to train AI models. And last month, L.A. residents got a sneak peek at what that could look like at a generative AI film competition in Culver City.
The so-called Culver Cup competition, which was hosted by Amazon’s AWS Startups and L.A.-based tech firm FBRC.ai, showcased eight films that were created with AI tools. The winning film was a narrative that explored how food helped an elderly woman with dementia remember her life with her late husband. Judges noted that the top films honed in on truly human stories.
AI is particularly controversial in Hollywood, where entertainment industry unions have fought hard for protections against digital automation that could kill jobs.
“People are really fearful about what they don’t know,” said Todd Terrazas, co-founder of FBRC.ai. “Having these types of showcases help show people what is possible today with these tools.”
Terrazas said he has noticed more investments in the area’s AI startups during the last two years. L.A. has an edge over other cities’ AI communities in entertainment, media, aerospace, manufacturing and gaming, he said.
“I think it’s really us leaning into our strengths with the industries that are prominent here in Los Angeles and doubling down on building these new startups,” he said.
There will also be an AI International Film Festival, screening around 20 short films, held at the Los Feliz Theatre next month.
Business
Nike to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Part of Its Turnaround Plan
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
Business
Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
Business
How We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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