StrictlyVC Los Angeles brings together venture investors, founders, and tech leaders on June 18 at The Aerospace Corporation Campus for a focused conversation on defense tech, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing. The evening event marks another installment of the StrictlyVC series, TechCrunch's proprietary platform for exploring the shifting landscape of venture capital and emerging technologies.
The timing reflects the current market moment. Defense technology has become a major focus for venture investors, with startups building next-generation weapons systems, autonomous vehicles, and intelligence platforms attracting significant capital. AI continues to dominate funding conversations as both established VCs and new firms compete to back frontier research and commercial applications. Advanced industry, including manufacturing and industrial automation, rounds out the agenda as investors grapple with reshoring trends and supply chain vulnerabilities.
StrictlyVC events function as closed-door forums where limited attendee counts enable substantive debate rather than broad pitching. These gatherings serve as bellwethers for where institutional capital flows and what problems investors believe matter most. The inclusion of defense alongside AI signals a recalibration in venture priorities away from pure consumer and B2B SaaS toward sectors with government backing and national security implications.
The Aerospace Corporation venue carries symbolic weight. As a federally funded research center supporting space and defense missions, it underscores the defense tech focus. The location places conversations at the intersection of traditional aerospace-defense contractors and venture-backed startups disrupting the sector. Companies like Relativity Space, which 3D prints rockets, and Axiom Space, building commercial space stations, exemplify the breed of founders likely represented in the room.
Registration opens now for the June 18 event. The evening positions Los Angeles as a hub for defense-tech innovation, a shift from Silicon Valley's historical consumer-tech dominance. Los Angeles hosts significant aerospace and defense infrastructure alongside emerging venture clusters