Aditya Singh

Just finished reading "The Next Giant Leap" by Space Capital - a pioneering VC investing in the emerging Space Economy. The report speaks to how SpaceX’s Starship is more than just the most powerful rocket ever built—it is poised to reshape the global space economy in profound ways. With its immense payload capacity, reusable design, and lower cost per launch, Starship will unlock entirely new industries and transform existing business models. But how should industries and businesses evolve to align with this paradigm shift? 📈 Rethinking Business Strategies & Supply Chains - For businesses, Starship represents an era of mass-production over precision engineering. This means moving away from the focus on mass efficiency toward cost-effective, redundant, and scalable production. - In terms of supply chains, this opens opportunities for new players in manufacturing, materials, and space components. The demand for off-the-shelf parts and non-aerospace suppliers will rise dramatically. 💡 New Use Cases & Opportunities   The opportunities Starship unlocks go beyond launching satellites. - In-space manufacturing of high-value products like pharmaceuticals and advanced materials that cannot be created on Earth. - Mega-constellations of satellites for global broadband, expanding on what Starlink has already begun. - In-orbit assembly and servicing, allowing for larger space structures like telescopes or even habitats to be built in orbit, radically reducing costs. - Lunar infrastructure and resource extraction will become more viable, paving the way for sustainable human presence on the Moon and, eventually, Mars. 📊 What Should Businesses Do Now?   1. Embrace Redundancy & Scale – Instead of focusing on one-off, high-cost solutions, businesses should embrace redundancy and mass production.    2. Simplify Design – With Starship’s payload capacity, there is less pressure to optimize for mass efficiency. Simplified, scalable designs will allow for faster production and iteration cycles, akin to how SpaceX rapidly tests and evolves Starship itself. 3. Develop Strategic Partnerships – Collaborating with forward-thinking space startups, suppliers, and even non-aerospace sectors will be essential to capitalize on the opportunities Starship provides. 🌌 A New Era of Innovation   Starship will democratize access to space, lowering the barriers for businesses to create and scale. The next decade will witness breakthroughs in scientific exploration, energy production, and in-space transportation that we can only begin to imagine today. #SpaceEconomy #Starship #Innovation #SupplyChain #Manufacturing #SpaceTech #Entrepreneurship #FutureOfSpace https://lnkd.in/gNdbwXdq

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Friends, Q2 was a quarter of progress and learning for us at HawkTower, where we invest in early-stage startups applying breakthrough computing technologies to maximize California's natural resource markets. Our focus is on technology-enabled interventions (e.g., AI-enabled geospatial radars for lithium-ion batteries in the waste stream) for critical, market-level imperatives (e.g., disaster prevention) that can drive rapid commercial adoption (e.g., placed on every recycling truck in the world). Our current investment priorities are: - Agricultural productivity and efficiency - Biomanufacturing - Labor and mobility automation - Waste stream optimization and decarbonization - Disaster prevention and management Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to: Milestones and Investments: - In late April, we officially launched our fund, filing with the SEC. Yay. - By June, we completed our first fund close ahead of schedule, with backing from family offices, foundations, high-net-worth individuals, and organizations aligned with California's future. - Our portfolio now includes three early-stage investments (Farm-ng, Agriful Software, and Nexstera Tech). Strategic Partnerships: - We believe that startups operating closer to their customers and resources, especially in agriculture and biomanufacturing, have a strategic advantage. For instance, the Salinas Valley, a major agricultural hub, is less than an hour from Silicon Valley and serves as a center of thought leadership in the convergence of agriculture and AI (from Western Growers, Taylor Farms, and others). - Similarly, the North San Joaquin Valley is emerging as a biotech and agtech innovation hub, and we are proud to support BEAM Circular, a startup hub for the circular bioeconomy. Key Relationships: - Karen Warner, CEO of BEAM Circular, joined HawkTower as a strategic advisor. - Jackie Cruz, Ed. D. Cruz, Hartnell College’s VP of Advancement, advises on Salinas Valley and workforce development. - Ben Palone from Western Growers, with his technical background in agriculture, became a trusted advisor. - Matthew Hoffman from Driscoll's Global R&D team provides insights on global agriculture, product positioning, and investment strategy. - We collaborated with Monterey Bay DART for workforce development and automation in agtech. - Dominic Milano and the Milano Technical Group from Merced collaborated on key initiatives and advised us on investments. - HawkTower is participating in Santa Cruz Works's accelerator cohort as a mentor and advisor. Thank you Doug Erickson. - We published an overview of entrepreneurship across the UC system with input from across the University of California system. Moving into the fall, we remain deeply committed to supporting founders shaping California's future natural resource markets. Stay tuned and be in touch! : ) Db

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📈 Top Public AI Stocks for April 2024 - ClearOne Inc. (CLRO): A company specializing in audio, video, and web conferencing applications. Their AI configuration and control software, Console, is gaining attention. 🎙️💻 - B.O.S. Better Online Solutions (BOSC): Focused on supply chain and inventory solutions, BOSC’s Intelligent Robotics division incorporates AI technology. 🤖📦 - Opera Ltd. (OPRA): Known for designing web browsers, Opera has integrated ChatGPT and free VPN functionality into its browsers. 🌐🔒 Remember to consider your investment strategy based on value, growth, and momentum! 💡📊 #AI #Investing https://lnkd.in/gPWFe4PF

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DePIN & RWAs dominance isn't as far off as most people think. Across every innovative cycle, three fundamental pillars emerge: foundational technology development, proliferation of infrastructure, and a surge in application development. As we venture into the third cycle, DePIN and RWA protocols are poised to become market leaders paralleling the dominance witnessed by infrastructure projects from 2015 to 2024.

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Breaking down our latest newsletter section by section, starting with our expanded focus in Deep Tech: --- We have built expertise in the robotics sector, and will continue to double (and triple) down on investing in this category, but we have been increasingly finding that robotics is naturally steering us into two exploding adjacent areas: Aerospace, and Advanced Manufacturing (which we define as industrials, semiconductors, materials science, and energy production). Stepping back, this expansion makes perfect sense. Robotics is an inherently horizontal platform - meaning it can be applied productively across multiple industries. This quality, paired with the fact that robotics has long shown the highest TRLs of any deep tech technology, makes it a kind of “gateway” to other sectors in the hard sciences. Now with the recent breakthroughs in AI for robotics, growing semiconductor demand, and the resurgence of aerospace and defense tech, we are seeing a dramatic uptake of robotics and relevant technologies in both advanced manufacturing and aerospace. As an added bonus of the expansion, many of the founder (and funder) networks across these landscapes have natural overlaps and linkages. For AlleyCorp Deep Tech this means that we can be extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and engaged across all three sectors right away, and continue to be the best-in-class investing team across these categories.  --- More in our newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ewiTuYq6

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🌟Innovative VC Firm Overcomes Exits Drought with Secondary Sales🌟 ⛵Navigating a challenging landscape where exits are scarce, Santa Barbara Venture Partners (SBVP) has pioneered a novel approach to sustain its growth and attract investors for its second fund: secondary sales. Instead of waiting for traditional exits like IPOs or acquisitions, SBVP opted to sell shares of its portfolio companies, demonstrating its ability to generate returns for investors and stand out in a competitive market. 🎤According to Dan Engel, founder and managing partner of SBVP, these secondary transactions have been a game-changer, sparking investor interest and bolstering the firm's credibility. By leveraging its recent successes, including a lucrative stake in sports-betting company DraftKings Inc.' acquisition of digital lottery app Jackpocket, SBVP seized the opportunity to return profits to its limited partners (LPs) and pave the way for its second fund. 💡Engel highlighted the challenges faced by young VC firms in raising subsequent funds, particularly amid a downturn in exit activity and heightened investor scrutiny. With traditional exit routes becoming increasingly elusive, the pressure is on for firms to demonstrate tangible returns and establish a track record of success. ✨"For us, secondary sales have been a game-changer. They've helped us return profits to our LPs and attract investors for our second fund," said Dan Engel. 💰For SBVP, the decision to pursue secondary sales was driven by the need to provide liquidity to LPs and validate its investment thesis in the eyes of prospective investors. By strategically offloading portions of its holdings in high-performing portfolio companies like Bark Technologies and Rad AI, SBVP not only generated substantial returns but also bolstered investor confidence in its ability to deliver results. ⚠Despite the complexities and potential stigma associated with early share sales, Engel emphasized the importance of prioritizing investor returns and seizing opportunities to unlock value for stakeholders. With a focus on profitability and transparency, SBVP remains committed to its mission of delivering sustainable growth and maximizing returns for its LPs. 🔍 "Returning profits to our investors is our top priority. By strategically selling shares, we're proving our commitment to delivering results and driving value for our stakeholders," added Engel. As SBVP continues to explore secondary transactions and expand its investor base, the firm stands as a testament to innovation and resilience in the face of market challenges. 🚀 ✅ Looking to raise capital for your #fund and increase the international pool of your LP #investors?   🤝 Need warm #LP introductions?   📝 Selling #secondaries to increase liquidity?   🧐 Looking for co-investments?   ▶ G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks: https://lnkd.in/gjC_EuTE #VCInnovation #SecondarySalesSuccess #InvestorReturns #ValueCreation 

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There are two interesting and relatively new/emerging revenue models in hardware space. (1) Software Enabled Hardware Hardware is sold at lower but slowly improving gross margins (eg 20-40%), and software recurring revenues layered on top. Software sells at higher margins, enabling blended margins to appear in 50%+ category. These are applied in situations where hardware is not expected to be replaced or greatly improved upon in deployment for a significant number of years to come. Consider your car, or military equipment, or even infrastructure equipment. As always, there are often multiple business/revenue models utilized by different players in the same industry. (2) Hardware As A Service Hardware and software are bundled and sold with annually recurring revenues. Often multi-year contracts are signed to be able to amortize hardware over time, and enable blended gross margins over the length of the contract to be high (approaching 60-75%). This is more common in situations where vendor takes responsibility to upgrade hardware as needed along the way to provide maximum and highest functionality to the customer. Hardware inventory costs are, over time, passed on to suppliers or third party financing parties in lieu of few gross margin points. Consider robots as a service in factories (ala Formic), or AI-enabled equipment (eg Evolv, Lumafield etc). Hardware innovation will require deeper investigation, experimentation, and understanding of business/revenue models to fit customer needs as well as to maximize value for the innovating company. Strong and experienced management teams work hard to minimize sales friction, inventory costs etc, but also maximize gross margins, customer stickiness, and ability to upsell during the life of a contract.

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ISP Strategic Leadership, Engineering, and Operations As an organization scales, there is often a need to separate strategic technology leadership under the CTO from internal execution under engineering and operations management. This allows the CTO to focus on outward-facing duties while enabling streamlined operational efficiency. However, it's crucial to recognize the differing motivations and needs of these distinct technical roles. On one hand, engineers thrive on tackling interesting, challenging projects that push their abilities and knowledge. They value working alongside capable peers, genuine recognition of technical accomplishments, and contributing to products/services that reach the market. In contrast, operations teams should strive for repeatable processes, continual improvement, and driving efficiency at scale. Their priorities revolve around standardizing workflows, minimizing disruptions, and incrementally optimizing existing systems and procedures to maintain consistent service delivery as the company grows. An effective organizational structure acknowledges this dichotomy, fostering an environment that fuels engineering innovation while providing operations with the stability and process-orientation they require. Striking this balance enables the company to stay agile and innovative through its engineering efforts, while simultaneously scaling operational execution in a reliable and repeatable manner. Competitive compensation remains an important motivator across both domains. By properly aligning structural elements, motivational factors, and leadership priorities, a rapidly growing ISP can position itself to attract and retain top talent across engineering and operations, driving sustainable growth and success in the dynamic technology landscape.

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The August release of the Jamba-1.5 models, scaled versions of the Jamba models from March 2024, went largely unnoticed. But it's important, as it is the first really large non-transformer LLM (spoiler, it's an SSM-Transformer hybrid)! I wrote a post about it: https://lnkd.in/gDjKSY5n Come to my talk about modern non-transformer architectures at DataFest Yerevan 2024 this week: https://lnkd.in/gGPX-u7F. I'll cover many interesting results from the last few years. MLP, CNN, RNN, SSM, Hybrids.

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This is quite a piece on accusations of unethical pay-to-play within the #cyber #VC ecosystem. -Guaranteed first-year sales for portfolio companies -Formal loyalty program for CISOs -Points awarded within the program for CISO commitment level to portfolio companies (meetings, PoCs, product purchases) -Share of GP fees for CISOs in the loyalty program https://lnkd.in/gDta7Gp7

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July 29 2024 – 5 Notable Articles To Read Article: NVIDIA Partner SMC Raising $950M to Tap AI Server Boom Takeaway: SMC - Sustainable Metal Cloud provides data center capacity to clients, offering them access to Nvidia AI chips and advanced cooling technology. Source: Bloomberg Link: https://lnkd.in/dFXr43uT Article: OpenAI Is Launching Search Engine, Taking Direct Aim at Google Takeaway: Developed with input from publishers, SearchGPT will provide real-time summaries of website information. Source: The Wall Street Journal Link: https://lnkd.in/dSDj5fpA Article: Royal Caribbean Group Raises Its Outlook. Cruise Demand Is Strong. Takeaway: “Exceptional demand for our vacation experiences has accelerated our performance by generating significant yield growth over the past several years,” Chief Executive Jason Liberty said in the earnings release. Source: Barron's Link: https://lnkd.in/dpznkWbS Article: Alibaba Group-backed Baichuan raises $691M as China seeks to catch up on generative AI Takeaway: The business is valued at 20B yuan with the funding round included existing backer Alibaba, along with internet giant Tencent and smartphone maker Xiaomi Technology. Source: PitchBook Link: https://lnkd.in/dmWTKFan Article: J.P. Morgan pitches in-house chatbot as AI-based research analyst Takeaway: Approximately 50,000 employees are using a large language model developed by the bank to enhance productivity. Source: Financial Times Link: https://lnkd.in/dx6Z2sU4 #news #ai #research #business

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We just concluded Embiggen X’s strategy for 2025. For almost two years, we’ve experienced conversations and priorities shift for large companies - more focus on innovating the core the business and less on non-core innovation initiatives. We’ve seen large global companies in the west close down their innovation labs, corporate venturing units, and let go of non-core innovation teams — or at the very least, decreased spending in venturing activities. This is also true for large corporates in Southeast Asia. Simultaneously, we’ve been getting into conversations with CEO’s asking more questions on AI & Digital Business Transformation. No, I’m not talking about building apps. We’re getting questions around: - How do we rewire the “guts” of our operations for us to be able to “scale profitably”? - How do we fix our “spaghetti & siloed” operations? - How do we make sure that we don’t just “buy more” off-the-shelf tech platforms that don’t talk to each other and complicating our already inefficient ops? - How do we increase our NPS score by transforming our customer experience? - Can you help us build a holistic digital business transformation strategy and help us execute too? - How and where can we use AI to become grow better? This is why Q4 of last year in the midst of business challenges, we decided to shift focus from Corporate Venture Building and spin off an AI & Digital Business Transformation company, Embiggen X (https://lnkd.in/geVM4BCF), from the Embiggen Group. Within less than a year, we’ve expanded our operations in Southeast Asia to Europe and 2024 as our highest revenue & profit generating year. We’ve served companies from Insurance, Supply Chain, Telco, Conglomerates, Construction, and Consumer Services to date. We help from Strategy to Execution. I’m beyond grateful to the operating team that made this new chapter of our journey possible. Embiggen X Managing Partner & COO, Xavier (X) Marzan; Partner & Head of Europe, Nicolas Souvlakis (calling in from Switzerland); Junior Partner & CAO Bien Herrera; Partner & CTO Robert Newgen; Chief Growth Advisor Gary de Ocampo, GICD; Advisory Board Member and Incoming Board Director Cliff Eala; Head of Artificial Intelligence Miguel Testa (calling in from Canada); as well as more partners, clients, and supporters. Big goals & challenges up ahead. Excited for whats to come. Onwards & upwards. 🚀

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Here's a needed reminder (and warning) from FinTech Futures about how commonplace #deepfake scams are becoming as large language models (#LLMs) and #AI tech improves. AI-generation is becoming sophisticated at replicating human-like speech. Phone scams, fraudulent videos, and other types of scams are going to become more convincing to those who are unprepared. This article also highlights FinVolution, a fintech platform that has a focus on anti-fraud technologies in the Asian region. Right now, algorithm scientists are trying to spot #hoaxes by spotting the nuances and imperfections that come with AI voice cloning technology, basically digital forensics to help customers identify the artificial. I do truly mean it when I stress that AI, like other forms of technology, is ideologically neutral. In the same way that plenty of smart innovators are utilizing AI for good, there are also bad faith actors misusing AI for their own nefarious purposes. So, even though we live in an exciting time for generative AI, lets also remember to practice caution and use our better judgement to protect ourselves from #scams, #misinformation, and #fraud caused by deepfake technology.

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Infrastructure advancements are facilitating a new era of DataOps, enhancing data management and changing how we see / use AI applications. Have a look at our latest thinking on the AI infra layer!

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Sharing a sanitized version of the mu ventures Q2 q'ly LP update. Included musings: 👉 SEOs shrinking impact, and the rise of LLMO (large language model optimization) 👉 examples of the Commerce AI application layer coming to life 👉 a modern fund strategy that accepts companies require less capital, time, and people to trigger the power law 👉 Mu's guide to investing in AI 👉 all 30 companies in the Mu-niverse (and several others we admire) Founders, VCs, LPs - if you like how we think and suspect we can partner, hit us up! https://lnkd.in/dTJ2zjav

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Apple’s Private Cloud Compute and the business of privacy With Private Cloud Compute, Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to safeguard user privacy with AI-related tasks. In doing so, Apple has surely also incurred an extraordinary expense. How can Apple justify the cost of providing PCC if it doesn’t directly monetize its Apple Intelligence features? Either through the improved brand perception captured in a broader privacy narrative or by monetizing PCC with other non-AI use cases. While the narrative explanation is clear, the more interesting theory about Apple’s motivation in building PCC is that it can be expanded to other use cases that can be directly monetized. The first alternative use case that springs to mind is advertising attribution. PCC sounds conceptually similar to a data clean room, albeit far more sophisticated than most implementations, which merely use IP addresses and other identifiers to match publisher-observed ad interactions with advertiser-observed conversions. While the PCC nodes seem hardware-optimized for processing AI-related tasks, other nodes could be built that aren’t.

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I'm always happy and proud to hear our early investors at REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund talk about the work they are doing. Each of them is having real impact in building supply chains for tomorrow. In this podcast Zac talks about the underlying infrastructure for what what I describe as Information and Data Supply Chains. This is worth listening to if you want to get into some of the issues that will determine the future of Physical Supply Chains. #TWSCF #TNYSCM | The past ran on supply chains. The present runs on supply chains. The future will run on supply chains. The world is a supply chain.®

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We are just at the beginning of the AI led digital transformation! Lots more questions than we answers on adoption, evolution in Enterprise AI but that’s exactly what creates white spaces, opportunities for innovation. Let’s play!

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