Los Angeles Founder Communities (2026): 12 Groups Compared

Los Angeles is the hardest big city in America to find other founders in, and it is not because they are missing. They are in Santa Monica and Silver Lake and El Segundo and Pasadena, forty minutes apart on a good day, and the communities that serve them are just as spread out. The right one for you is usually the one on your side of town that you will keep showing up to.

This is a directory of twelve Los Angeles founder communities that founders we know actually use in 2026, ordered roughly from earliest stage to latest, with who each is for and how you get in. Where a community charges, we say so; where a price is only shown at application, we do not guess it.

1. Grid110

Grid110 is the downtown nonprofit that runs free, no-equity programs for early founders, with a deliberate focus on founders who do not already have a network in tech. Cohorts are small and the alumni community is the lasting part.

Best for: First-time founders, especially those outside the usual tech circles, who want structure without giving up equity. How to get in: Apply for a cohort on their site.

2. Amplify

Amplify is a Venice pre-seed accelerator and fund that has backed LA companies for over a decade. The community is the portfolio: founders who came through the program keep showing up for each other, and the office is a fixture of the west side.

Best for: Pre-seed founders on the west side who want capital and a cohort together. How to get in: Apply. Amplify invests, so this is a pitch, not a fee.

3. MuckerLab

MuckerLab is Mucker Capital's accelerator in Santa Monica, known for being hands-on and for backing companies outside the Bay Area consensus. The program is long, the partners are involved, and the alumni network is tight.

Best for: Seed-stage founders who want operators in the room every week. How to get in: Apply. Like Amplify, it invests rather than charges.

4. Expert DOJO

Expert DOJO runs an accelerator out of Santa Monica with an international intake, and invests in the companies it takes on. It is less selective on pedigree than the two above and more global in who turns up.

Best for: International founders landing in LA who want a cohort from day one. How to get in: Apply; terms are shown at application.

5. Y Combinator's Los Angeles alumni

YC has funded enough LA companies that the alumni network here runs its own gravity: founder dinners, office hours when partners visit, and a group chat that surfaces hires and customers. There is no LA batch and no side door; the batch is the way in.

Best for: Founders with a company and a plan for the next three months. How to get in: Apply for a batch. The orbit of alumni-hosted events is open to people who know someone, which in LA takes about a month.

6. LA Tech Week

LA Tech Week, backed by a16z, is a decentralised week of events across the city each October, most of them free and hosted by startups, funds and communities. It is the one week a year the whole city is in the same rooms, and the best week to arrive if you are new.

Best for: Anyone new to LA, and anyone raising in the autumn. How to get in: Register on the site, pick a side of town per day, and skip the parties you cannot reach in traffic.

7. Upfront Summit

Upfront Summit is Upfront Ventures' annual invite-only gathering of founders, investors and LPs, and the closest thing LA has to a room where the whole ecosystem sits down at once. You do not join it; you get invited, usually because someone in the portfolio put your name forward.

Best for: Founders raising a priced round in the coming year. How to get in: Get to know someone at Upfront or in its portfolio. The conversations start months before the summit.

8. Los Angeles Venture Association

LAVA is one of the oldest founder-and-investor associations in the city, a nonprofit that runs panels, pitch events and mixers year-round. It skews established: later-stage founders, angels and service providers rather than first-timers.

Best for: Founders past the first round who want steady exposure to LA's investor bench. How to get in: Buy a ticket to an event; membership is optional.

9. Startup Grind Los Angeles

Startup Grind's LA chapter runs fireside chats and mixers with local founders and investors. Worth it when the guest is someone you would pay to hear; skippable when the topic is generic.

Best for: Early founders who want a low-commitment on-ramp. How to get in: Buy a ticket to any event.

10. Hampton

Hampton runs paid peer groups for founders past a revenue or funding threshold, checked at application, with active groups in Los Angeles. The format is a small confidential group that meets monthly with a facilitator, the model EO pioneered, with a younger and more online membership.

Best for: Founders with real revenue who want a standing group of peers at the same scale. How to get in: Apply. The threshold and the fee are stated in the application.

11. Entrepreneurs' Organization Los Angeles

EO is the global peer-group organisation for founders past the $1M revenue mark, with a Los Angeles chapter. Membership means a confidential Forum of eight to ten peers that meets monthly, an initiation fee and annual dues.

Best for: Post-revenue founders who want a Forum that will outlast their current company. How to get in: Sponsorship by an existing member, then vetting.

12. Founder Feast

Founder Feast is an invite-only founder dinner club. Every Thursday evening a small table of vetted founders and investors meets at a restaurant we picked in Silver Lake, Santa Monica, West Hollywood or Downtown, matched by stage, industry and what each person is working on this year. You see the restaurant and who is coming 48 hours before, nobody pitches, and you pay the restaurant for your own meal. Membership is $49 a month and covers every weekly dinner you book, in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver alike. Between Thursdays, members meet for coffees, runs and hikes and can reach every other member in the app.

Best for: Founders who are done with driving to mixers and want a standing table on their side of town. How to get in: Apply here. A person reads every application, and how it works covers the rest.

The rooms that are not groups

Some of the best founder connection in LA happens in rooms nobody calls a community. The hard-tech scene in El Segundo, the run clubs on the Strand, the Arts District coffee lines on a weekday morning. We covered those in Los Angeles tech networking events and in how to meet founders in Los Angeles. If you are weighing the city against the Bay, San Francisco vs Los Angeles for founders is the honest version.

How to pick

A rough decision tree:

• First company, no network: Grid110.
• Pre-seed, west side: Amplify, MuckerLab, Expert DOJO.
• Idea to first customers: YC if you get in, Startup Grind for a low-commitment start, Founder Feast for a weekly table.
• Past $1M in revenue: Hampton or EO, plus whichever weekly room you already have.
• Raising a priced round: LAVA events now, Upfront Summit when you can get the invite.
• New to the city: LA Tech Week in October, then one recurring room on your side of town for a quarter.

One warning that holds in every city, and doubly here: joining three communities at once is worse than picking one and showing up for a year. In Los Angeles the drive is the filter. Choose the room you will still drive to in March.

Come to a dinner

If you want the standing table without the clubhouse dues, we seat one every Thursday. Read the Los Angeles page for the neighbourhoods we book in, what a founder dinner club is for how we compare with the rest of this list, or apply for a seat and pick your first Thursday in the app.