Defense Tech and ‘Physical AI’ Take Center Stage at StrictlyVC Los Angeles
Table of Contents
The Shift Toward Hard Tech and National Security
For years, the venture capital gold rush in Silicon Valley was defined by the ‘lean startup’—software-as-a-service (SaaS) models that could scale globally with minimal overhead. But a shift is occurring, moving away from pure cloud plays and toward the grit of hardware, autonomy, and national security. This transition will be a focal point on June 18, as StrictlyVC Los Angeles convenes at The Aerospace Corporation Campus in El Segundo.
The choice of venue is deliberate. El Segundo has evolved into a critical hub for the ‘defense tech’ movement, where the traditional bureaucracy of the military-industrial complex is being challenged by a new breed of agile, venture-backed startups. Leading this conversation is Ethan Thornton, founder of Mach Industries. Thornton’s session, “Built for a New Era of Defense Technology,” aims to dissect the mechanics of scaling a hard tech company in an environment where the product isn’t a line of code, but physical machinery designed for national security.
Thornton’s approach reflects a broader trend in the industry: the desire to shorten the procurement cycle for the Department of Defense. By leveraging rapid prototyping and advanced manufacturing, companies like Mach Industries are attempting to bring the speed of the private sector to the rigid requirements of government contracting.
Bridging the Gap Between LLMs and the Physical World
While generative AI has dominated the headlines for the past two years, the industry is now pivoting toward what participants are calling ‘Physical AI.’ The goal is to move beyond chatbots and image generators to systems that can perceive, reason, and interact with the tangible world in real-time.
This specific intersection will be explored by Delian Asparouhov of Founders Fund and Saif Khawaja of Shinkei Systems. Their discussion focuses on the synergy between robotics and AI, examining how the breakthroughs in large language models (LLMs) are providing the ‘brain’ for robotic systems that previously relied on rigid, pre-programmed logic. For investors like those at Founders Fund, the opportunity lies in the scalability of these physical systems—transitioning from niche industrial applications to broader, autonomous infrastructure.
Evaluating Durability Over Hype
The rapid influx of AI capital has created a volatile market, leading to a divide between ‘hype-driven’ valuations and companies with actual structural durability. Carter Reum, co-founder and partner at M13, will address this tension in his session, “Finding the Next Big Thing.”
Reum’s analysis focuses on a critical question facing the current VC landscape: how to identify the survivors of the AI bubble. As the initial shock of AI capability fades, investors are shifting their criteria toward long-term durability—looking for companies that integrate AI into a core business moat rather than those simply acting as a wrapper for OpenAI’s API. This evolution in venture investing suggests a return to fundamentals, where the ability to execute in the physical or industrial realm provides a competitive advantage that software alone cannot replicate.
The event serves as a microcosm of the current tech climate in Southern California, where the convergence of aerospace, defense, and artificial intelligence is creating a new center of gravity for innovation. By bringing together the operators from Mach Industries and the capital from Founders Fund and M13, the event highlights a strategic alignment between the people funding the future and those building the hardware to support it.
