StrictlyVC Los Angeles set for June 18 with defense, AI leaders

StrictlyVC is bringing defense capital and AI attention into one room at The Aerospace Corporation Campus in El Segundo, where a limited-capacity gathering on June 18 will put national-security startups and frontier technology at center stage.

The evening runs from 5:00 p.m. to 7:05 p.m. PDT, with networking from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., followed by three live sessions: Ethan Thornton on defense technology from 6:00 p.m. to 6:25 p.m., a discussion on physical AI with Delian Asparouhov and Saif Khawaja from 6:25 p.m. to 6:45 p.m., and Carter Reum from 6:45 p.m. to 7:05 p.m. Attendance is restricted to people 21 and older, and tickets are priced at $180, non-refundable.

The speaker roster shows how sharply venture money is converging around defense tech in Los Angeles. Thornton leads Mach Industries, which raised $300 million in Series C funding at a $1.8 billion valuation on June 1 and is building next-generation platforms around autonomy, manufacturing, and national security. That level of funding places his company among the most closely watched defense startups in the country, and his appearance in El Segundo underscores how quickly military-adjacent technology has moved from niche interest to a major investor priority.

Asparouhov brings another layer to the conversation. He is a partner at Founders Fund and the co-founder and president of Varda Space Industries, which was founded in January 2021 by Will Bruey and Asparouhov. Varda describes its work as building space factories for materials made in microgravity, a reminder that the new industrial stack now spans orbit, manufacturing, and defense. Khawaja, founder and chief executive of Shinkei Systems, adds a robotics angle: his company focuses on seafood processing, and its $22 million Series A in 2025 brought total funding to $30 million.

The programming suggests a wider thesis about where the market is headed. The conversation between Asparouhov and Khawaja is set to explore how advances in AI, robotics, and automation are reshaping the physical world and what it takes to move breakthrough technologies from concept to real-world deployment at scale. That emphasis on physical systems, not just software, is a clear sign that investors are looking for companies that can produce, ship, and operate in the real economy.

Carter Reum’s session closes the formal agenda, while more speakers and conversations are expected to be announced. The series has already drawn prominent names including Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, Katie Haun, and Hans Tung, and the Los Angeles edition extends that pattern into a city where aerospace, defense, and venture capital increasingly overlap.