2024 LA Hard Tech 50
Highlighting the leaders shaping LA's hard tech ecosystem
To introduce the 2024 LA Hard Tech 50, we’re happy to report that entrepreneurship in Los Angeles is thriving.
LA-based aerospace, defense, industrial automation, and energy/critical resources companies have attracted substantial capital this year, including Anduril’s notable $1.5B Series F. Over the last year, El Segundo and the builders who wave its flag have attracted talent, founders, and media attention as well.
But #Gundo isn’t just a meme. Founders like Isaiah Taylor from Valar Atomics have uprooted their lives and moved their companies and families here to give themselves the best chances of success. Others like Josh Steinman at Galvanick and Fil Aronshtein at Dirac split their time between HQ and LA to stay close to this market.
As we’ve said before, this isn’t a new trend. LA has been the center of the aviation industry for a hundred years. Glenn Martin, Allan Lockheed, Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart built and flew planes here in the early 20th century. The U-2 Spy Plane, Space Shuttle, and F-35 Lightning II were made here. The first Mars rover, Sojourner, was built in LA and the first laser ever made was made here too.
Today, like back then, the people who were trained in aerospace and defense companies have taken their talents into other critical infrastructure sectors.
Companies like Radiant and Antares usher in a new era of nuclear energy with modular microreactors that could add baseload power across the country and perhaps even on Mars. Hadrian, Senra, and Rangeview pioneer automation and advanced manufacturing that underpins the onshoring of American production. AstroForge seeks to mine platinum group metals on asteroids, Reflect Orbital aims to harness the sun for maximum solar panel utilization and Varda plans to commercialize microgravity manufacturing for pharmaceuticals.
Software companies thrive, too. Zoo introduced a revolutionary text-to-CAD AI model built on a proprietary geometry engine to bring generative AI to hardware design. Sift raised a large Series A to scale its unified observability platform for hardware sensor data. And let’s be real: whether they’re launching deliverable storage units in space like Inversion or deploying FPV drones in Ukraine like Neros, nearly all these companies are software companies, too.
The 2024 LA Hard Tech 50 was more challenging to produce this year because so many companies were worth featuring. When push came to shove, we indexed the list on (1) publicly available information, (2) commercial progress, and (3) feedback from founders and investors. Companies like Divergent, Cover, Vast, AnySignal, and Machina Labs could have easily made the list this year, but they were heads down building. They’ve had productive years, but they were also private years.
We’re also introducing two new sections this year. First, we want to recognize ten operators who we consistently hear about as critical company builders. Operators don’t always get the same attention as company founders. Still, these crucial people wade into uncertainty, make huge sacrifices, and carry physical and emotional burdens to make their companies work. Founders know this. Congratulations to the ten 2024 LA Hard Tech Operators of the Year.
Finally, we want to recognize five ecosystem builders who helped build the LA Hard Tech ecosystem in 2024. Cameron Schiller from Rangeview convinced his friends like Augustus Doricko from Rainmaker to move to El Segundo and build with him here. They rallied a movement and brought national attention to what’s happening in the South Bay. Karan Talati and the First Resonance team hosted the first LA Hard Tech 50 party and have been great partners to the ecosystem. Xander Oltmann from Commodity Capital is a key early collaborator and first check writer to the founders here. Finally, Nathan Mintz from CX2 and Epirus is an OG in Gundo (OG’s leave out “The”) and he has been an invaluable resource to founders and operators for years. We owe a huge thank you to you all.
Now, we present the 2024 LA Hard Tech 50. Congratulations to the 20 new entrants. We’re excited to see what you do in 2025.
LA Hard Tech 50
We created a database of the LA Hard Tech 50 and honorable mentions. You can also find the companies on a map. Think we missed something? Let us know here.
Space
SpaceX
CEO & Key People: Elon Musk, Gwynne Shotwell, Mark Juncosa
Stage: Late growth
Founded: 2002
Hawthorne, CA
Designer and manufacturer of reusable medium-lift and super heavy-lift orbital launch vehicles and LEO satellite communications technology.
SpaceX had an outstanding year. They moved the Starship program forward aggressively with 4 test flights, successfully catching the booster at the launch tower and landing the Starship on water. They expanded Starlink to billions in revenue and started rolling out their direct-to-cell network. They had 124 successful Falcon launches, achieved a record turnaround time between two flights of the same booster of 14 days, and reportedly launched a tender offer at $350B. We can’t wait to see what 2025 holds for SpaceX.
Rocket Lab
CEO & Key People: Peter Beck
Stage: Public
Founded: 2006
Long Beach, CA
Designer and manufacturer of small and medium-lift orbital launch vehicles, satellite buses, and satellite subsystems.
While Rocket Lab may not have had as dramatic of a year as SpaceX, they are the only other new launch company that is regularly sending payload to orbit. Their Electron rocket achieved 13 successful orbital launches and 1 suborbital launch so far this year. They also hit key milestones in the development of their next-generation Neutron rocket, successfully hot-firing its Archimedes engine for the first time.
Apex
CEO & Key People: Ian Cinnamon, Max Benassi
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2022
Playa Vista, CA
Manufacturer of standard and configurable satellite buses with transparent pricing.
In 2024, Apex successfully launched their first Aries spacecraft into orbit on a SpaceX transporter mission, which performed nominally, a mere 18 months after founding the company. On the heels of that launch, they raised a $95M Series B led by XYZ Ventures and CRV. More recently, they announced a partnership for Anduril to procure Apex satellite buses.
Impulse Space
CEO & Key People: Tom Mueller, Eric Romo
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2021
Redondo Beach, CA
Designer and manufacturer of orbital transfer vehicles for maneuvering orbits and last-mile payload delivery.
Impulse announced a number of large and important government contracts this year, including a $34.5M Phase III SBIR contract with Space Systems Command and DIU, an NRO BALISTA contract, and were selected for a NASA rideshare IDIQ of up to $300M. They raised a massive $150M Series B led by Founders Fund, and also announced a partnership with Anduril for highly maneuverable space missions.
Varda Space Industries
CEO & Key People: Will Bruey, Delian Asparouhov
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2020
El Segundo, CA
Developing a space-based platform for manufacturing pharmaceuticals on-orbit and re-entry vehicles to return to Earth.
Varda achieved a critical technical milestone in 2024 - their re-entry capsule successfully re-entered the atmosphere and landed in the Utah desert in February, bringing back the HIV drug ritonavir that they had crystallized in orbit. They also raised a $90M Series B led by Caffeinated Capital, and earned a $48M contract with the Air Force Research Lab to test military payloads on their re-entry capsules
Umbra Space
CEO & Key People: David Langan, Gabe Dominocielo
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2015
Santa Barbara, CA
Designer, manufacturer, and operator of a constellation of earth observation satellites using synthetic aperture radar to deliver high resolution imagery from orbit.
In 2024, Umbra made important strides on the business development front, winning contracts with the Space Development Agency, the NRO for their Commercial Radar Capabilities program, and advanced to Phase II for DARPA’s Distributed Radar Image Formation Technology (DRIFT) program.
Astrolab
CEO & Key People: Jaret Matthews
Stage: Privately funded
Founded: 2019
Hawthorne, CA
Developing modular and autonomous lunar rovers with multi-mission capabilities for exploration, resource utilization, and logistics on the Moon and beyond.
In April 2024, Astrolab became one of three companies to be awarded by NASA to develop a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) to support astronauts during the Artemis program. Astrolab’s contract is worth up to $1.9B over 13 years.
K2 Space
CEO & Key People: Karan Kunjur, Neel Kunjur
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2022
Torrance, CA
Leveraging cheaper and more available heavy-lift launch to manufacture larger and more massive satellite buses.
Building off their seed round of $8.5M led by First Round, K2 raised a massive $50M Series A led by Altimeter Capital announced in February of this year.
AstroForge
CEO & Key People: Matt Gialich, Jose Acain
Stage: Late growth
Founded: 2021
Huntington Beach, CA
Mining near-Earth asteroids to deliver from space to Earth.
AstroForge raised a $40M Series A this summer led by Nova Threshold, and became the first company to ever be awarded a commercial license for deep space communications by the FCC.
Inversion
CEO & Key People: Justin Fiaschetti, Austin Briggs
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2021
Hawthorne, CA
Rapid, responsive delivery of cargo to Earth from orbit using manufactured re-entry vehicles.
Inversion made important strides across the valley of death with a $71M STRATFI contract awarded by AFRL and SpaceWERX to develop their orbital re-entry system. They matched this with a $44M Series A equity financing led by Spark Capital and Adjacent.
Northwood Space
CEO & Key People: Bridgit Mendler, Griffin Cleverly, Shaurya Luthra
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2023
El Segundo, CA
Developer of phased array ground stations to facilitate rapid and efficient satellite data transmission between Earth and space.
Northwood came out of stealth at the beginning of 2024 with $6.3M in seed funding led by Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. Armed with that capital, over the summer, they successfully demonstrated their first phased array ground station by connecting with Planet satellites.
OurSky
CEO & Key People: Dan Roelker, Connor Poole, Alex Hawkinson
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2022
Culver City, CA
Developer of a data infrastructure platform for space applications leveraging real-time observational data and analysis of objects in space.
OurSky announced a $9.5M seed round led by Upfront Ventures and alongside Oceans Ventures, Venrex Investment Management, Marlinspike Partners and Embedded Ventures. With early customer momentum and a wave of announcements expected early next year, the company is poised to have a breakout year.
Reflect Orbital
CEO & Key People: Ben Nowack, Tristan Semmelhack
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2021
Hawthorne, CA
Designer and manufacturer of reflective satellites that beam sunlight to solar farms, extending operational uptime during twilight hours.
In 2024, Reflect Orbital announced a $6.5M seed round led by Sequoia Capital, and moved from Santa Monica to a larger facility in Hawthorne.
Starpath
CEO & Key People: Saurov Shroff, Mihir Gondhalekar
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2022
Hawthorne, CA
Builder of lunar rovers and in-situ resource utilization systems for generating fuel directly on the Moon's surface.
Starpath announced in August that they closed a $12M seed round co-led by 8VC and Fusion Fund, accelerating their plans to mine lunar ice and convert it into rocket propellant.
Defense
Anduril
CEO & Key People: Brian Schimpf, Palmer Luckey, Matt Grimm, Trae Stephens
Stage: Series F
Founded: 2017
Costa Mesa, CA
Building a lattice of interconnected and software-enabled sensors and autonomous systems to deliver new capabilities to the battlefield for the DOD and allies.
Anduril’s momentum is unstoppable - it feels like almost every day a new bombshell product launch or partnership is announced. In just the last week, Anduril announced partnerships with both Palantir and OpenAI to leverage AI for national security, their new Dive-XL unmanned underwater vehicle, and their new Lattice Mesh and Lattice SDK that enables other companies to build interoperable technology on top of Lattice. In September, they announced their new Barracuda cruise missile platform. On the BD side, Anduril won a contract with the DOD’s Chief Digital and AI Office, a contract with DIU Replicator for collaborative autonomy, an IDIQ with the Marine Corps for C-UAS, and were one of two firms selected for the CCA program with the Air Force. Anduril also announced a $1.5B Series F led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital this year.
Shield AI
CEO & Key People: Ryan Tseng, Brandon Tseng
Stage: Series F
Founded: 2015
San Diego, CA
Developer of autonomous AI pilot software for manned and unmanned aerial systems, and manufacturer of UAVs.
Shield is also starting to build some serious momentum. Building off of the Series F they raised in 2023, in 2024 they were selected for a $198M Coast Guard IDIQ for their V-BAT aircraft, won a contract with NAVAIR to integrate their Hivemind AI pilot into a Kratos BQM-177A, and announced a partnership with Palantir.
Epirus
CEO & Key People: Andy Lowery, Mick Jaggers, Dan Kultran
Stage: Series C
Founded: 2018
Torrance, CA
Developing high-power microwave directed energy systems for counter-electronics and counter-UAS.
In December of 2023, Epirus had a leadership shakeup and promoted COO Andy Lowery to CEO. After weathering some layoffs, they seem to have righted the ship, earning a $17M contract with the US Army and a $5.5M contract with the Office of Naval Research for their high power microwave technology.
Chaos Industries
CEO & Key People: John Tenet, Bo Marr, Brett Cummings
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2022
Redondo Beach, CA
Building coherent distributed network technology to improve sensing and effects for defense.
While Chaos still maintains a high degree of secrecy about their products, they announced their coherent distributed network product this year, and raised a $145M Series B led by Accel over the summer.
Mach Industries
CEO & Key People: Ethan Thornton
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2020
Huntington Beach, CA
Creating advanced energetics and propulsion systems for defense and aerospace applications, enabling higher performance and precision in critical missions.
Mach Industries makes the LA Hard Tech 50 list in 2024 for moving their entire company from Austin, TX to Huntington Beach in Orange County, adding to Anduril and turning OC into a bonafide hard tech hub.
Firestorm Labs
CEO & Key People: Dan Magy, Chad McCoy
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2022
San Diego, CA
Developing mission-adaptable aerial vehicles that can be customized and manufactured at the edge.
Firestorm announced a $12.5M financing round led by Lockheed Martin earlier this year to accelerate their plans to make edge-manufacturable UAV systems.
Castelion
CEO & Key People: Bryon Hargis, Sean Pitt, Andrew Kreitz
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2022
El Segundo, CA
Designing and manufacturing hypersonic missiles and subsystems with rapid design iteration.
Earlier this year, Castelion conducted their first prototype missile test on their path to building next-generation hypersonic missiles, and also raised important unannounced financing.
Swarm Aero
CEO & Key People: Danny Goodman, Peter Kalogiannis
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2022
Oxnard, CA
Designer and manufacturer of modular UAVs for collaborative autonomy in communications-denied environments.
Earlier this year, Swarm moved their company from the Bay Area to Oxnard and built a new manufacturing facility. They also won a contract award from the DIU to build autonomous coordination solutions
CX2
CEO & Key People: Nathan Mintz, Porter Smith, Mark Tregarne, Lee Thompson
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2024
El Segundo, CA
Builder of advanced RF platforms designed to enhance situational awareness and communications on the battlefield.
Serial defense-tech entrepreneur came out of stealth with his new RF defense venture CX2, having raised a $15M seed round co-led by 8VC and Andreessen Horowitz
Neros
CEO & Key People: Soren Monroe-Anderson, Olaf Hichwa
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2023
El Segundo, CA
Designing and manufacturing American-made FPV drones to enhance unmanned defense capabilities for the U.S. military and allied forces.
Neros announced the closing of their $10.9M seed round led by Sequoia Capital, and moved to a larger facility in El Segundo.
Picogrid
CEO & Key People: Zane Mountcastle, Martin Slosarik
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2020
El Segundo, CA
Developer of a unified data integration layer that connects sensors, cameras and autonomous systems, backed by a suite of native hardware platforms.
Picogrid announced their first delivery in the Space Force’s Rapid Resilient Command and Control (R2C2) IDIQ, and announced their $12M seed round led by Initialized Capital.
Manufacturing & Industrial Automation
Hadrian
CEO & Key People: Chris Power
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2020
Torrance, CA
Software-defined, automated factory producing high-precision machined parts for aerospace and defense.
Hadrian kicked off 2024 announcing a whopping $117M Series B round with new participation from RTX and support from insiders. Later this year, they made their first major acquisition, acquiring Datum Source, a parts procurement platform. They plan to expand and build their second factory soon.
GrayMatter Robotics
CEO & Key People: Ariyan Kabir
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2020
Gardena, CA
Creating AI-driven robotic systems to assist with repetitive, labor-intensive tasks in high-mix manufacturing, from football helmets to fighter jets, from fire trucks to submarines.
GrayMatter announced a $45M Series B round led by Wellington Management this year, and will use the capital to expand their LA headquarters and accelerate their ability to meet customer demands.
Nominal
CEO & Key People: Cameron McCord, Bryce Strauss, Jason Hoch
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2022
Culver City, CA
Developer of an engineering observability platform to improve testing, reliability, and performance monitoring for hardware systems.
Nominal came out of stealth this year, announcing a $20M Series A led by General Catalyst that happened this year, and a $7.5M seed round led by Lux last year. They also moved the company’s headquarters and largest center of mass from Austin, TX to Culver City, CA.
First Resonance
CEO & Key People: Karan Talati
Stage: Series B
Founded: 2020
Los Angeles, CA
Developer of next-generation manufacturing systems software for rapid, iterative, and AI-augmented hardware manufacturing.
While First Resonance has been out of the public eye this year, CEO Karan Talati has done great ecosystem building work in the hard tech community, and the company has been continuing to make important commercial advancements, serving customers and building connective tissue across the entire industry.
Sift
CEO & Key People: Karthik Gollapudi, Austin Spiegel
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2022
El Segundo, CA
Developer of an observability platform for hardware sensor data, enabling engineers to accelerate development and streamline data reviews.
Sift announced a $17.5M Series A round led by GV earlier this year and has signed customers including Impulse Space, K2 Space, JetZero, Astrolab, and Mach Industries.
Senra Systems
CEO & Key People: Jordan Black, Ben Shanahan
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2023
Redondo Beach, CA
Streamlined manufacturer of wire harnesses, enabling convenient, transparent, and rapid delivery.
Senra Systems has been more quiet this year, but has made important unannounced strides in both customer partnerships and technology development.
Layup Parts
CEO & Key People: Zack Eakin, Elisa Suarez, Hanno Kappen
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2024
Huntington Beach, CA
Producing advanced composite materials and components for aerospace, defense, and high-performance industrial applications using innovative fabrication processes.
Layup was founded in January of this year by a team of ex-Anduril, SpaceX, and Boring Company leaders, and closed a $10M seed round led by Founders Fund.
Galvanick
CEO & Key People: Josh Steinman, Feliks Pleszczynski, Brandon Park
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2021
Culver City, CA
Extended detection and response platform for securing industrial operations from cyberattacks.
We won’t steal their thunder, but Josh Steinman and the Galvanick team have been firing on all cylinders and unlocked some major unannounced commercial partnerships this year.
Rangeview
CEO & Key People: Cameron Schiller, Aeden Gasser-Brennan
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2020
El Segundo, CA
Automated foundry that uses robotics and materials science to improve investment casting of metal parts.
Rangeview fully saturated the capacity of their El Segundo factory this year, and are now scaling into a larger factory. They manufactured parts for dozens of critical DOD programs.
Zoo
CEO & Key People: Jessie Frazelle, Jordan Noone
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2021
Inglewood, CA
Developer of generative CAD software to accelerate design iteration and optimization for complex engineering challenges.
Prior to 2024, Zoo was known as KittyCAD. Early this year, they rebranded the company to Zoo, retaining KittyCAD as the brand name for their CAD studio, and announced their ML API, ML-ephant. They released their text-to-CAD tool to the public with a great reception.
Dirac
CEO & Key People: Fil Aronshtein, Peter Weiss
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2022
El Segundo, CA
Developer of an intuitive work instructions platform for manufacturing and industrial teams to improve process efficiency and reduce errors.
Dirac was founded in New York City, but in 2024, founder Fil Aronshtein knew he needed to be based in “the Gundo” to more actively participate in the movement he had become a key part of. Dirac secured an office in El Segundo, hired half the growing team there, raised additional capital, and announced a partnership with Hadrian.
Shinkei Systems
CEO & Key People: Saif Khawaja
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2022
El Segundo, CA
Developer of robotics-enabled fish processing solutions that improve efficiency, improve quality, and minimize waste.
Shinkei is yet another startup that moved from the East Coast to El Segundo to tap into the exceptional talent pool in the South Bay. After moving to El Segundo, they announced that they closed their $6M seed round led by Cantos with participation from 8VC.
Open X
CEO & Key People: Cody James
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2019
Long Beach, CA
Career-defining technical skills development programs for aerospace, manufacturing, and engineering.
Open X graduated from building software-for-hardware to actual hardware in 2024. Founder Cody James announced their new COLAB product, a containerized CNC and metal fabrication shop that can be deployed to military bases to rapidly produce parts on site and help train army engineers and technicians.
Energy & Critical Resources
Rivian
CEO & Key People: RJ Scaringe
Stage: Public
Founded: 2009
Irvine, CA
Designer and manufacturer of electric consumer vehicles and fleet delivery vehicles.
Rivian made huge announcements on both the commercial and product side this year. Volkswagen announced a partnership and $1B investment into the company, with an additional $4B expected to be funded through 2026. Rivian also announced several new products, including the R2, a midsized SUV, and R3, a midsized crossover, to compete in additional market segments.
Zeitview
CEO & Key People: Dan Burton
Stage: Series E
Founded: 2014
Santa Monica, CA
Advanced inspection software capturing visual data to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and sustainable critical infrastructure.
In July, Zeitview announced their acquisition of Clearsight Assets, which will allow them to augment their drone inspection platform with Clearsight’s utility data analytics and AI models to become a leader in electric grid inspection.
Radiant
CEO & Key People: Doug Bernauer, Bob Urberger
Stage: Series C
Founded: 2019
El Segundo, CA
Designer and manufacturer of 1.2 Megawatt scale nuclear fission modular microreactors for austere environments and off-grid backup use-cases.
Radiant completed the front-end engineering and experiment design (FEEED) phase of their Kaleidos nuclear reactor in collaboration with Idaho National Lab, a critical milestone on the way to completing their first reactor in 2026. Building off of their technical success, Radiant closed a $100M Series C financing round led by DCVC.
Harbinger Motors
CEO & Key People: John Harris, Phillip Weicker, Will Eberts, Ben Dusastre
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2021
Garden Grove, CA
Electrification of commercial and specialty vehicle segments with a vertically integrated electric vehicle platform
Harbinger announced that they received over $400M in customer pre-orders for their commercial and specialty electric vehicle platform. They also secured a major undisclosed financing round.
Antares Industries
CEO & Key People: Jordan Bramble, Julia DeWahl
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2023
Redondo Beach, CA
Designer and manufacturer of kilowatt-scale micro-fission reactors for defense and space applications.
Antares announced their $30M Series A round led by Caffeinated Capital and Altcap this year. Additionally, they announced that they have secured $4.3M of government contracts this year.
Rainmaker
CEO & Key People: Augustus Doricko
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2023
El Segundo, CA
Addressing water scarcity with drone-enabled cloud seeding weather modification technology.
Rainmaker and founder Augustus Doricko have become a lightning rod for the El Segundo tech ecosystem. Rainmaker announced their $6.3M seed round this year, and have made important undisclosed strides with customers, technological development, and fundraising. They recently expanded to an additional office in Oregon to take advantage of weather for more rapid development cycles.
Terraform Industries
CEO & Key People: Casey Handmer
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2021
Burbank, CA
Creating modular synthetic fuel production systems powered by renewable energy to enable scalable carbon capture and utilization.
Terraform demonstrated the first successful synthesis of natural gas earlier this year using their integrated solar power, DAC, electrolysis, and Sabatier reactor.
Hgen
CEO & Key People: Molly Yang, Colin Ho
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2021
Hawthorne, CA
Generating low-cost clean hydrogen to decarbonize heavy industry with alkaline electrolysis technology.
Hgen announced their $5M seed round led by Seven Seven Six earlier this year.
General Galactic
CEO & Key People: Halen Mattison, Luke Neise
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2023
El Segundo, CA
Modular systems for on-site synthetic natural gas generation to support energy independence and industrial applications.
General Galactic announced an $8M seed round co-led by Refactor and Harpoon Ventures earlier this year, and revealed that their pilot system is producing 2,000 liters of methane per day.
Valar Atomics
CEO & Key People: Isaiah Taylor
Stage: Seed
Founded: 2023
El Segundo, CA
Designer and manufacturer of compact nuclear reactors to power synthetic hydrocarbon generation.
Founder Isaiah Taylor has a vision for the future of energy, and went all in, moving his family from Idaho to El Segundo. After raising pre-seed and seed capital, Valar Atomics has expanded to their second facility, and recruited the former President of Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) to become their Chief Nuclear Officer.
Karman Industries
CEO & Key People: David Tearse, Chiranjeev Kalra
Stage: Pre-seed
Founded: 2024
Long Beach, CA
Developing advanced electric heat pumps inspired by rocket turbomachinery to replace traditional industrial boilers, aiming to reduce manufacturing costs and eliminate onsite CO₂ emissions.
Karman Industries came out of stealth in 2024, with Riot Ventures EIR David Tearse announcing their $4M pre-seed round.
Durin
CEO & Key People: Ted Feldmann
Stage: Pre-seed
Founded: 2024
El Segundo, CA
Developing autonomous drilling systems to improve efficiency and productivity in mining operations
2024 Operators of the Year
Andrew Berg, Head of Business Development & Sales, Apex
Ben Dusastre, CFO, Harbinger
Neil Mason, Head of Mechanical Engineering, Antares
Andrew McCalip, Head of R&D, Varda
Connor Poole, CTO, OurSky
Eric Romo, President & COO, Impulse Space
Mark Seidel, CFO, True Anomaly
Victoria Shivanandan, COO, Radiant
Basil Siddiqui, VP of Engineering, Hadrian
Sean Wood, Head of Hardware, Neros
2024 Ecosystem Builders of the Year
Augustus Doricko, CEO, Rainmaker
Nathan Mintz, CEO, CX2
Xander Oltmann, Founder and GP, Commodity Capital
Cameron Schiller, CEO, Rangeview
Karan Talati, CEO, First Resonance
We created a database of the LA Hard Tech 50 and honorable mentions. You can also find the companies on a map. Think we missed something? Want to flag founders, operators, or ecosystem builders for next year? Let us know here.
 | A guest post by
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would love your thoughts on some of my stuff. follow me back, I could DM you?
Awesome list thank you Nick and Jacques. I cofounded fullsend.io, we're a software agency based in Santa Monica with an entire US based team and we would love to work with these companies to push America forward.