An audience seated in a dark room facing a small stage

Edition 002,2025

SoCal Deep Tech Week 2025 in Los Angeles and the South Bay: 3 summits, 46 speakers, and the conversations that shaped the move to Long Beach.

1,329 registrations
414 unique attendees
23 sponsors

Space and sea power. Energy and the nuclear build-out. The factory, rebuilt.

A speaker on stage in front of a screen about autonomous systems — **Sept 16, Global Domain Awareness:** space, sea power and deterrence. Photograph from the 2025 week.

Four panelists on stools in front of a sponsor backdrop — **Sept 17, Nuclear Renaissance:** energy, the grid and the nuclear build-out. Photograph from the 2025 week.

An Ampaire aircraft outside its hangar during a reception — **Sept 18, The Factory Rebuilt:** advanced manufacturing, AI and robotics. Photograph: a hangar reception at Ampaire, 2025.

What came of it: an emerging manager raised a $10M fund off connections made that week, and a founder raised about $3M and won 3 STTRs.

Speakers and participants came from DIU, Lux Capital, NVIDIA, Siemens, True Anomaly, AWS, the US Space Force, Anduril, Saab, Rockwell and more.

What mattered

Opening keynote on the industrial base. A standing-room main stage, where one audience question ran 22 minutes past the booked time and set the tone for the week.

Capital and critical tech. 22 GPs and 8 founders in one small room, under Chatham House Rule. Two of the term sheets that came out of it are now portfolio companies.

The manufacturing corridor tour. 3 primes opened their floors on the same day for the first time. The cohort that walked it became the core of the 2026 manufacturing track.

The program-office roundtable. DIU, ONR, AFRL and DARPA at one table for 2 hours, answering questions from 60 founders.

Ports and Power. A 22-seat partner dinner that became the start of the 2026 Long Beach concept.

The Last Word. The closing reception on the waterfront promenade, open by application, and the unofficial start of the 2026 cohort list.

From the floor

A speaker addressing a seated audience in front of a sponsor backdrop

Two speakers in a fireside conversation on stage

Attendees talking in a hangar at an evening reception

“The single best room in deep tech this year: closer to a working session than a conference.”
General partner, 2025 cohort

“I closed two introductions in the first three hours that would have taken me six months to get otherwise.”
Founder, Series A energy company, 2025 cohort

Edition 001, 2024

Aerospace and Defense Complex, Sept 16. The state of the A&D industrial base.

Applied AI and Robotics, Sept 18. The evolution of applied autonomy.

Build the Future Demo Day, Sept 19. Pitches, judges and deep-tech capital.

On stage. 26 speakers and judges, including AWS, NVIDIA, Lux Capital, MaC Venture Capital, Up Partners, Starburst, the Defense Innovation Unit, True Anomaly, Field AI, Miso Robotics, USC and the US Space Force.

A fireside conversation on stage under the JetZero sign

Then Long Beach

856 people from 642 organizations registered for the 2026 week. The fourth edition is in 2027.

See the 2026 program