StrictlyVC Los Angeles to Convene Defense Tech and AI Leaders on

What happened

StrictlyVC Los Angeles is set for June 18 at The Aerospace Corporation Campus in El Segundo, with organizers positioning the event as a focused conversation about defense tech, venture capital, and the rise of physical AI. Rather than centering on generic consumer AI hype, the lineup points directly at a different part of the market: companies building real-world systems, autonomous technologies, and national-security tools that are attracting serious capital even as broader startup funding remains more selective.

What's new in this update

TechCrunch has confirmed a speaker group that includes Mach Industries founder Ethan Thornton, Founders Fund partner Delian Asparouhov, Shinkei Systems co-founder Saif Khawaja, and M13 partner Carter Reum. The updated agenda suggests the event will dig into how investors and founders are evaluating hard-tech and robotics businesses at a moment when physical AI is becoming one of the most closely watched themes in the market.

That matters because conference agendas often reveal where venture attention is moving before the money shows up fully in public data. When defense systems, autonomy, and manufacturing-adjacent AI dominate a high-signal investor event, it usually reflects more than branding. It reflects a belief that durable returns may come from sectors where technical depth, regulatory complexity, and real-world deployment create stronger barriers to entry than software alone.

Key details

Ethan Thornton is expected to discuss the challenge of building defense-oriented hard-tech companies quickly enough to matter in a rapidly changing national-security environment. Those conversations tend to revolve around manufacturing speed, procurement friction, autonomy, and whether startup culture can adapt to industries that demand both innovation and reliability.

Asparouhov and Khawaja are set to tackle physical AI, a category that broadly refers to artificial intelligence systems embedded in machines, robotics, and real-world operations rather than purely digital interfaces. The appeal of physical AI is straightforward: if models can help automate complex tasks in logistics, industry, defense, or infrastructure, the economic impact may be much larger than tools that only optimize office workflows.

Carter Reum's participation adds the capital-markets view. Investors are increasingly asking which AI startups have real defensibility, especially after a wave of lookalike software products flooded the market. In that environment, funds often look more closely at companies with difficult technical stacks, domain expertise, or ties to industries such as aerospace, industrial automation, and national security.

Background and context

StrictlyVC events are known for smaller, more curated audiences and conversations that are often more candid than what happens on large expo stages. Hosting this event in El Segundo is not incidental. The area has become a growing node for aerospace, defense, and frontier hardware companies, making it a fitting location for a discussion about where advanced AI meets physical infrastructure and military-adjacent applications.

The event also reflects a broader shift inside the venture market. Over the past few years, investor enthusiasm has cycled from SaaS to generative AI software and increasingly toward categories that combine software intelligence with hardware, manufacturing, or security relevance. Defense tech, once treated cautiously by many mainstream investors, now commands greater legitimacy in part because of geopolitical tension and demand for autonomous systems.

Physical AI fits that same story. It promises to move AI from the screen into factories, warehouses, vehicles, and battlefield-adjacent systems. That promise is difficult to execute, but it is exactly why investors keep watching it.

What to watch next

The most useful signal from StrictlyVC Los Angeles may not be any single sound bite. It will be whether the discussion converges on a clear thesis: that the next generation of breakout AI companies will be built around hard-to-replicate capabilities in robotics, defense, and physical deployment. If that view dominates the event, it will reinforce a market narrative that money is rotating toward technically difficult sectors with longer time horizons.

Observers should also watch for what founders say about fundraising conditions. If investors remain willing to back defense tech and physical AI despite tighter markets elsewhere, that would further confirm these categories are becoming strategic priorities rather than temporary themes. In that sense, StrictlyVC Los Angeles is more than a speaker series stop. It is a snapshot of where sophisticated tech capital may be heading next.