Brad Husick

Some more insight into what we are building at Aerodome 📈🚀

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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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Who doesn't love chatting about the frontier of Space?! Loved getting this insiders look from Epsilon3 CEO Laura Crabtree (ex-SpaceX, Northrop Grumman) as the industry reshapes into a lightening fast startup ecosystem for us to marvel. Small teams are lowering the cost to access space. Homegrown automation software is dramatically reducing team size -- as Laura puts it: "You won’t see 50 people in a control room for launch…you’ll see 5 controlling 50 different assets and a couple of 100 assets that are mostly operating on their own." Personally i'm keeping a close eye on the new interconnectedness between space and the broader economy will spark a flywheel of innovation. 🎙️ Listen in to our discussion (link in comments) as we release today -- 5YF#16: Space command reimagined, automating mission control, new deep tech hubs, interstellar missions, and the future of space operations w/ Epsilon3 CEO Laura Crabtree To infinity!

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The future of tech is here, and it's wearing glasses 🕶️ Here is an intriguing article about how Snap's CEO, Evan Spiegel, believes his company is leading the charge in AR smart glasses, with Meta and Apple set to follow. As someone who’s been following the AR space closely, I find it exciting to see companies like Snap pushing the boundaries of what smart glasses can do. Spiegel’s vision of using hands and voice to interact with augmented reality is a game-changer. Snap’s Spectacles, now in their 5th generation, are already making waves among developers. The goal is clear: to bring computing back into the real world, away from screens and closer to our daily lives. While Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories and Apple’s Vision Pro are also making significant strides, Snap’s approach to natural interaction and developer-friendly pricing could be the key to mainstream adoption. It’s an exciting time for AR, and I’m eager to see how these innovations shape our future. #AR #SmartGlasses #TechInnovation #FutureOfTech

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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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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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September is a crazy month for #climatetech #FOAK themed events. Some I'd like to shout out from the first half: ✅ A FOAK-themed dinner Tim Franklin-Hensler, Charlie Nelson, Dev Motiram, and I hosted, sponsored by Jordan Kellerman (Peachtree Group) and Robert Sarfatis (Polsinelli) during the inaugural #HoustonClimateWeek ✅ A FOAK panel at the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship's Energy Tech Venture Forum, also during HCW, moderated by Tim Franklin-Hensler with panelists Charlie Nelson, Laureen Meroueh, PhD, Mac Hatch, and Janice Tran. Topics included adapting rapidly to delays in timing, managing cost runovers, balancing the myriad of KPIs for FOAK, learning to be smarter about how to talk to customers, and how market uncertainty can dramatically affect FOAK projects ✅ A 4-hour "pilotathon" hosted by the Energy Tech Nexus, where different startups got to pitch their pilots. SUCH a good idea, Jason Ethier, Nada Ahmed, Juliana Garaizar, and the rest of the ETN team! ✅ A FOAK panel during Decarb Connect's TechInvest that I got to moderate with panelists Claude Vachet, Jeff Johnson, Francis O'Sullivan, and David Yeh. Topics included using corporate and DOE dollars in FOAK deals, encouraging communication between different investor classes, the 10,000 hours of experience needed to be a good developer, educating companies on project development, and the need for everyone across the climate universe to stretch their roles & take a bit more risk ✅ A generally FOAK-themed set of talks at Decarb TechInvest, expertly curated by Alex Cameron and her team, which included (among others): - a fascinating fireside chat with Rob Day and Matt Lucas moderated by Wim Reyntiens that touched on how critical it is to have accurate cost forecasting, how ROFRs can block additional access to capital, evaluating offtake risk beyond just the ideal, the folly of up rounds for the sake of up rounds, and why one shouldn't obsess over scale up factors and number of operating hours - a talk by Chris Creed that outlined the LPO's strategy around FOAK deployment loans - a FOAK success panel moderated by Kerri Fox that included Leah Ellis, Martin Keighley, and Shreya Dave, which talked about using a carbon price to incentivize corporate action, choosing the right cooperative FOAK partner, creating new offtake agreements in markets that haven't had traditional offtake (like cement<>concrete or CDR), and using job growth to incentivize growth vs. decarbonization. AND ⭐TOMORROW⭐ is the second annual Cleantech Day at Denver Startup Week hosted by Colorado Cleantech. I'm moderating a panel on FOAK successes in Colorado with Eric Davis, Johanna O., Carling Spelhaug, and Kimberly Purdy. Shoutout to Ken Carlson, Laura Hickernell, Joseph P., and Jack Fritzinger for their help & hard work. REGISTER BELOW!!

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Can poop save the planet? 🤔 Well, in Silicon Valley, it's not just a punchline—it's a multimillion-dollar climate solution. Big players are teaming up with startup Vaulted Deep, paying $58.3 million, to pump organic waste underground. The deal was brokered by Frontier Climate, a coalition launched in 2022 by Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and McKinsey Sustainability. But why are tech giants getting their hands dirty with sewage and manure? Vaulted Deep's technology, rooted in decades-old methods used for oil and gas fracking cleanup, gives them an edge. But instead of sludge, they're tackling carbon-rich waste, aiming to sequester CO2 underground. They plan to sequester 152,480 tons of carbon dioxide by 2027 as part of the deal (That equates to 36,000 gas cars off the road for a year). Is this greenwashing, or a silver bullet? Critics warn of cost, the need for rigorous carbon accounting, and potential environmental trade-offs - i.e. emission prevention versus carbon removal. #decarbonization

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🚨 Breaking! 8090 Industries portfolio company Exowatt led by industrialist Hannan P. launches P3, fundamentally unleashing a new dawn for the energy industry! ☀️ Catch the story from Michelle Ma at Bloomberg below: https://lnkd.in/gkfHENST ⚡ Setting the stage: The power requirements to scale AI are astronomical. Within a decade AI will require 650TWh of new power generation – more than the electricity demand of South Korea. In the U.S. alone, data centers will require the equivalent amount of electricity to power 40 million households by 2030. Exowatt P3s can generate electricity at scale at just a $0.04 LCOE and with entirely baseload renewable tech. That’s lower than the cost of most fossil fuels and doesn’t account for subsidies. We have already amassed a 1.2 GW backlog, worth $Billions from the mega tech hyperscalers, energy and data center companies. 💡 How does it work? The system works by capturing the sun’s energy in the form of heat, storing it in a heat battery and converting it to electricity via a heat engine even when the sun is no longer out. This changes the economics of solar by solving a problem called the “Duck Curve” where all conventional solar producers are forced to sell their power at the same time while at maximum output, driving the electricity cost sometimes to zero or negative intraday and leaving no supply at night. Data centers need to operate 24/7 and typically have 60% of their OPEX from energy costs, so an inexpensive and ever available alternative is very important to them. Data centers are straining to bring capacity online and without solutions like Exowatt, are being forced to turn to fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. Keep a close eye on this one, we have no doubt Hannan P. Jack Abraham and the Exowatt team will be pushing forward an exciting, abundant and carbon-free powered future!⚡️ cc Kerem Ozmen Wes Mendenhall Filip Vurdelja Haluk Sabanci Dincer Grant Brown Charles Oppenheimer Ishan Meswani Garuth A. Andrew Irwin

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We are excited to announce that Giant Ventures is co-leading Beyond Aero's Series A - on a mission to make aviation electric. When Eloa Guillotin, CEO of Beyond, finished her compelling pitch at Giant House on a cold Tuesday morning, she asked us to look out our window. Somewhat confused, I looked outside only to see Beyond's Hydrogen Electric Aircraft pulling up. There was no answer other than, “Let’s do this!” We are co-leading this round with Bpifrance, France’s Sovereign Fund, with participation from Initialized Capital, Airbnb and Dropbox founders Nathan Blecharczyk Arash Ferdowsi and several high-profile athletes, such as Olympic champion Nikola Karabaticć. Beyond is starting by disrupting business aviation, the most emissions-intensive segment per passenger. With over $44 million in funding and almost $1 billion in Letters of Intent (LOIs) for 108 aircraft and France's first manned, fully hydrogen-electric flight under its belt, Beyond is ready to soar! Read the full article from the Wall Street Journal in the comments. We are excited to work together! Quiet flight, bold vision. #AviationWillBeElectric #PoweringTheFuture

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There is so much that is so damn impressive about Nominal's execution. The team identified a truly needed product in the world. More than that... They serve their customers. Sometimes Nominal is saving days of work for an engineer detangling the performance of new hardware in an autonomous fixed wing drone. Other times, helping implement a transformational change for engineering orgs, delivering iteration speed from simulation to range to unlock an RFP goal and contract win. They are building dual use -- powering the best of commercial and public sector teams. Whether a government contractor delivering on a $12b contract. A scaled public company, integrating AI into your roadmap on to your existing HW platform. A startup which is willing a first product into existence. Nominal is there for all the dual use hardware builders who live real time, live in physical world time. The real world runs real time. The real world runs Nominal and so excited to be on the journey. Also, hiring, https://www.nominal.io/, kind of a lot. If you are awesome, they want to talk to you.

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#ObsessivelyEnthusiasticInvestor #UnreasonablyEnthusiasticInvestor #IrrationallyEnthusiasticInvestor at REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund. We look for the people we believe are doing the best work in Industrial Transformation & Supply Chain Technology; Attempting the impossible. Then we go all-in on them. With obsessive and unreasonable enthusiasm. Join us. #IndustrialTransformation #SupplyChain #Innovation #Technology #Startups #VentureCapital #DemandTheImpossible #UnreasonableEnthusiasm #ObsessiveEnthusiasm #IrrationalEnthusiasm 

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Having a Cars and Capital event tomorrow in Southern California with Oren Klaff. If you want to join message me. https://lnkd.in/gDQ4D39u Oren Klaff Bridger Pennington #InvestorEvent #FamilyOffice #InvestmentOpportunity #CarlsbadEvent #PrivateEquity #WealthManagement #InvestmentConference #CapitalRaising #NetworkingEvent #IndustryLeaders #FinancialGrowth #InvestorsMeetup #WealthBuilding #BusinessGrowth #InvestmentForum

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Good news for #AI #innovation, and especially for developers, builders, and the technology community at large. Thank You Gavin Newsom and the Office of the Governor - California for a measured and thoughtful veto of the #SB1047 amendment. While no one disputes the need for #regulation in #AI, #California in particular has both an #opportunity and #responsibility to assume leadership. A deeper understanding of the technical ways in which AI #data is #retrieved, #processed, and #presented is key to an #informed regulation. Unlike traditional #relational #databases where the data you retrieve is the same as the data you store with #tables and #indexed data lookups, AI and #GenerativeAI is fundamentally different. With #vector #databases and #neuralnetworks, #LLMs can create data on the fly. This calls for qualified input from #academic #research, #developers, and #technology #providers to inform policy on #guardrails and #practical #industry implementations. Join the vetted community at Llama Labs, or follow me for more on this, and AI technology full-stack conversations, deepdives, resources, and events

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On this week's episode of Lobster Talks, we had the privilege of speaking with Daniel Driscoll, former military officer and co-founder of Elodin (YC W24). Elodin is building the "Unreal Engine for aerospace," a flight software development platform that promises to accelerate innovation and make space exploration more accessible. Key takeaways from our conversation with Dan: -From battlefield to launchpad: Dan's unique journey from serving in Iraq to leading a cutting-edge space tech startup. -The "Unreal Engine" analogy: How Elodin is changing the game for aerospace software development. -Disrupting the status quo: Why agile software practices are essential for the future of space. -Advice for founders: Dan's insights on identifying and solving problems in established industries. This episode is a must-listen! Check out the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eHp_WWGc #aerospace #softwaredevelopment #startups #innovation #spaceexploration #podcast #lobstertalks

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Progress Update on CalculAI: Delays, Challenges, and Pushing Forward 🚀 As much as I hoped to release the beta MVP of CalculAI this week, I’ve faced a few more hurdles—unless a miracle happens! Being self-taught and new to startups, I’m learning a lot on the fly. While using Jupyter Notebook and other tools to test and build the core functions went smoothly, building the user interface has thrown up some unexpected challenges. I’ve been dealing with missing code, incorrect page routing, visual issues, and missing functionality—all of which have caused delays. But the good news is: I’m getting closer to release! For those asking, what’s a beta MVP? 💡 The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a product that provides a small but valuable feature set to early users. The beta MVP may offer similar features but will have some rough edges. The dynamic chat function will already bring immense value, but other parts of the tool are still in early stages and will greatly benefit from your feedback. The vision for CalculAI is big—it’s not just about transforming material selection. I want to revolutionise the supply chain and even the design process for engineers. Taking it one day at a time, I know I’ll get ever closer to this goal. If you’re curious and want to learn more, feel free to message me or drop a comment—I’m more than happy to answer your questions. And if you’re interested in getting involved and building something that will one day redefine engineering processes, I’d love to connect! #AI #StartupJourney #MVP #TechDevelopment #Innovation #SupplyChain #MaterialSelection #DesignEngineering #EngineeringTools #CalculAI #Entrepreneurship #MachineLearning #ProductDevelopment #Startup #Investor

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The development of nested microgrids for tribes in Northern California is a powerful step toward resilience and energy sovereignty. By connecting multiple microgrids, communities like the Karuk, Yurok, and Hoopa Valley tribes can better withstand frequent outages and ensure essential services remain operational during emergencies. This project, backed by substantial funding, will integrate over 20 MW of clean energy and provide a model for how microgrids can enhance reliability in remote, underserved regions. How can similar projects be scaled to benefit other vulnerable communities facing grid instability? #MicroGrids #MiniGrids #CleanEnergy #Underserved

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118 VCs (one hundred eighteen!) are gathering in San Diego next week - to meet with 30 SD startups. But it's so MUCH bigger than just those 30 co's. It brings VCs back - when they see quality companies. It helps those who are next-in-line and adjacent. It enables us to send deal flow all year 'round. It attracts talent and other companies. It inspires entrepreneurship. Connect is working for SD. Together, we're building the best damn innovation ecosystem on the planet. Year over year. Five.Ten.Thirty.

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Had a great discussion with Nathan Lands and Matt Wolfe on The Next Wave about where we are today with autonomous agents, and more :) https://lnkd.in/eijGB_P6 Episode 7: Why and how, Yohei Nakajim built a baby AGI. Matt Wolfe (https://x.com/mreflow) and Nathan Lands (https://x.com/NathanLands) sit down with Yohei Nakajima (https://lnkd.in/en_mQf9D), a venture capitalist and serial AI tool builder. In this episode, Yohei dives deep into the transformative potential of AI in automating tedious tasks, revolutionizing venture capital, and redefining job markets. He shares insights on the practical applications of AI for small and medium businesses, discusses the branding of "web three," and explores the development and impact of autonomous agents like his Baby Agi project. Whether you're interested in tech innovation, business adaptability, or AI ethics, this conversation covers it all. — Show Notes: (00:00) VC turned coder using AI for prototyping. (03:38) Community support led to modding and improvements to Baby AGI. (08:16) Learning curve in using autonomous agents. (11:31) AI agents offer guided next step suggestions. (15:04) Developers emphasize handcrafted agents over autonomous agents. (17:10) Balancing niche and broad market expectations in tech. (20:12) Massive models trained on millions of people. (22:52) Childhood fascination leads to pondering internet immortality. (27:24) Venture capital, AI, SaaS, future-proofing investment criteria. (30:03) Interest in lowering company startup costs and VC innovation. (33:34) Try using free version of chats first.

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