Southern California's
Startup Directory
Every VC-backed and bootstrapped startup founded in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire, and Ventura — company profiles, funding rounds, and the investors and accelerators actually writing checks in the region, not a national list with a few SoCal names mixed in.
SeedStaxiom provides diligence-grade accounting for startups — bookkeeping, tax prep, and capital strategy, with an AI-assisted R&D tax credit engine reviewed by EY-trained CPAs. Founded by the team behind Ardius, the R&D tax credit company Gusto acquired in 2021.
Pre-Seed$4.0MSocialCrowd automatically tracks employee progress towards goals, reminds them of the work they have left, and rewards them instantly – so you can save time and stay focused!
Pre-Seed$250KBetter, faster tech vendor research
Series D$833.1MWe provide efficient in-space mobility that moves payloads from low Earth orbit to any destination. Our vehicles deliver rapid, reliable access, reducing costs and timelines to make space operations feasible for commercial, government, and scientific missions.
Los Angeles film/TV development company founded in 2022 by Ina-Alice Kopp and William Andrew Mundell; it is developing Mae Ngai's nonfiction book "The Lucky Ones" for film and TV.
Pre-Seed$315KThermoShade Solutions uses patented shade panels with passive cooling technology to make outdoor spaces feel cooler, addressing extreme heat in various settings like cities, farms, schools, and sports events.
Pre-Seed$250KBetter, faster tech vendor research
Pre-Seed$250KPureSkinBoutique offers innovative skincare solutions, specifically the BYONIK® skincare collection and the SLIMYONIK® Body Duo, to enhance and deliver effective results supporting optimal long-term skin health and wellness.
Pre-Seed$210KAtticus helps clients obtain Commercial Equipment Leasing and Financing and provides objective advice on all aspects of equipment or vehicle leasing.
Pre-Seed$200KFLAGD Golf, Inc. provides products that deliver real-time yardages to every target on a golf range using GPS technology.
Pre-Seed$180KIndustrial CO2 Removal & Critical Metal Recovery: By harnessing Earth
EXPLORE TOP CITIES
WHAT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BUILDS
Artificial Intelligence
The region's largest single cluster by company count — AI and machine learning threaded through nearly every other industry here, from defense to biotech to entertainment.
Aerospace & Defense
Home to SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and a new wave of hypersonics and space-infrastructure startups.
Entertainment & Gaming Tech
Hollywood's production infrastructure, live events, and a growing games and creator-tools scene.
Semiconductor Hardware
Qualcomm and Broadcom anchor a chip-design cluster spanning the region.
Pharmaceutical & Biopharma
Drug developers and biopharma platforms, concentrated in San Diego's Torrey Pines corridor and the LA biotech cluster. Searched as "pharmaceutical companies in San Diego / Orange County" more than any other industry phrase in our Search Console data.
Biotechnology & Life Sciences
The life-science research base behind San Diego's and Los Angeles's biotech reputations: platforms, tools, diagnostics and therapeutics spun out of UCSD, Scripps, Caltech and UCLA.
Software & SaaS
Software companies across the region, from Irvine's enterprise SaaS bench to Santa Monica's consumer apps: the broadest category here after AI, and the one people search for by city.
Medical Technology
A deep biotech research base and a growing bench of medical device and diagnostics startups.
B2B
Business software and services sold to other companies. The largest single category of startup across Southern California, spanning sales tools, vertical operating systems, and everything in between.
Industrials
Manufacturing, hardware, and physical-world operations. Overlaps heavily with the region's decades-old aerospace and defense manufacturing base, now extending into robotics and automated production.
Consumer
Products and apps built directly for individual consumers, drawing on Southern California's media and entertainment base.
Healthcare
Health tech, medical devices, and healthcare services, backed by a decades-old biotech research base and a deep bench of clinical and diagnostics startups.
Fintech
Financial technology: payments, banking, investing, and financial infrastructure.
Education
Education technology and learning platforms built across Southern California.
Real Estate & Construction
Property technology, construction tech, and real estate services.