A short-form recap of SoCal Deep Tech Week 2025 — the numbers, the rooms, the moments that mattered, and the quiet conversations that ended up shaping the 2026 program.
Founders, funders, operators, and program officers across the week.
Flagship summits, forums, founder dinners, and corridor sessions.
Presenting, corporate, capital, and ecosystem partners on the roster.
Share of the 002 cohort returning from the 001 edition.
Sponsorship and partner revenue across Edition 002.
Los Angeles, El Segundo, and Long Beach across the South Bay corridor.
A standing-room-only main stage. The audience question that ran 22 minutes longer than the booked time set the tone for the rest of the Week.
Twenty-two GPs in a single small room with eight founders. Two of the term sheets that came out of it are now portfolio companies.
Three primes opened their floors on the same day for the first time. The cohort that walked it ended up forming the 2026 manufacturing track.
DIU, ONR, AFRL, and DARPA at one table answering questions for two hours. The kind of access most founders don't get in a year.
A private dinner that became the genesis of the 2026 Long Beach concept brief — the room we're now building the next edition around.
Closing reception on the promenade. Open by application, and the unofficial start of the 2026 cohort building list.
The single best room in deep tech this year — closer to a working session than a conference.
I closed two introductions in the first three hours that would have taken me six months to get otherwise.
A look at the 002 cohort and the manufacturing belt SDTW is built around.
Press kit →Coverage of the closed-door program-office roundtable on Thursday morning.
Press kit →A field report from the GP × founder forum and the dinners around it.
Press kit →The full Edition 002 recap memo — partner list, coverage log, post-event survey, and the moments we kept coming back to — is publishing soon. Available to credentialed press, partners, and 2026 applicants on request.