LA Deep Tech & AI Startups Score Major Funding
LA's tech ecosystem saw a surge in funding for ambitious projects. Science Corporation raised $230M for its brain-computer interface to restore vision, while hardware testing startup Nominal hit a $1B valuation with an $80M round. Smaller AI-focused raises included $5M for DiligenceSquared's due diligence platform and $3M for Vor Systems' renewable energy transaction AI.
Science Corporation was founded by Max Hodak, a co-founder and former president of Neuralink, bringing with him other key talent from his previous company. The recent funding brings Science Corp.'s total capital raised to approximately $490 million since its 2021 inception and pushes its valuation to a reported $1.5 billion. The company’s PRIMA implant is a brain-computer interface designed to restore vision for patients with late-stage macular degeneration by using a retinal implant and specialized glasses. Beyond PRIMA, the company is developing a more advanced "Biohybrid" neural interface that uses living neurons instead of wires to connect to the brain, aiming for a higher bandwidth connection with less damage. Nominal, the hardware testing unicorn, was founded by veterans from the US Navy, Anduril, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir. The company has demonstrated significant traction, reporting a 7x increase in revenue over the last 10 months and securing four of the five largest U.S. defense contractors as clients. Initially focused on the defense sector, Nominal is expanding its software platform—which unifies hardware test data and analysis—to the automotive, robotics, and energy industries. The recent $80M round was a preemptive deal led by Founders Fund, driven by strong endorsements from engineering teams within their portfolio who consider Nominal's platform essential. DiligenceSquared's founding team combines direct industry experience: a former Blackstone principal who bought due diligence reports, a former BCG consultant who sold them, and a former Google AI engineer who built scalable ML systems. The startup's AI agents automate expert interviews and synthesize the findings, reducing the cost of a typical due diligence report from over $500,000 to around $50,000. Vor Systems is tackling a key bottleneck in the $3 trillion annual global energy investment market: the complexity of transaction documents for renewable energy projects. Its AI platform is purpose-built to analyze industry-specific details, from land-use constraints to power grid interconnection queue volatility, helping both buyers and sellers close deals faster. The pre-seed round was backed by Gigascale Capital, a firm led by former Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer.
