Southern California's
Startup Directory
Series B$84.3MRebuilding healthcare with AI at the core
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.
Series C$80.1MOutpace AI-driven attacks. Unify Digital Risk Protection, Human Risk Management, and Email Security to stop digital threats before they scale, empower your teams to lead your defense, and scale your SOC with agentic AI.
EXPLORE BY CITY
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.
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.
Also known as FuturHealth, this San Diego weight-loss company was co-founded and is led by CEO Luke Mahoney.
Series A$5.0MPreventive health platform for dogs. AI Health Companion, at-home blood draws & 40+ biomarker panel. Vet-built care plans for early disease detection.
Pre-Seed$5.0MAdvanced engineering services and contract R&D for making energy cleaner across all sources and uses.
Series B$5.0MOfficial website of Cochl
Already a publicly traded company on Nasdaq (ticker: GYRE), not a typical early-stage startup; it recently completed an acquisition of Cullgen to create a combined US/China drug-development operation.
Seed$5.0MFounded and led by Christopher Nero, a San Diego-based finance professional with over 35 years of experience who is also an active private investor in the fintech industry.
Series B$5.0MHello Soju is the world’s premier sparkling soju and ultra-premium spirit. Hello Soju is made from rice-based soju and real fruit juice, with no artificial ingredients.
Founded and led by Dr. Sheila Gujrathi, a physician-scientist and serial biotech executive who also founded/chairs Vidya Therapeutics and Lila Biologics and sits on the board of Janux Therapeutics; the company is based in Encinitas, CA.