angel investor and startup builder | prev chainvine (backed by slow), setter (backed by sequoia, sold to thumbtack), mckinsey
San Francisco
Joined October 2011
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So excited this round is finally announced, and humbled to be a day-one investor in Foundry Robotics alongside @khoslaventures and @redglassvc.
The team @adarshkulkarni has assembled, and keeps assembling, to rebuild American manufacturing is truly world-class: co-founder Emmanuel, @javiercorrea, @ishabytes, @GummadiMeghna, @akarmakars, and so many more.
I still recall my first call with Adarsh, when the company was just him and his brother assembling equipment, including my former McKinsey boss’s Vention workcells. He’d rented the first office on his own dime, before any investor dollars, “because it just has to happen.”
The weight of the mission is heavy, the lollapalooza of tailwinds are howling, and the scope of ambition is legendary. Big things are happening @FoundryRobotics.
Today, @FoundryRobotics is announcing our $100M Series A, led by @MarlinspikeVC with continued support from @khoslaventures.
Together we’re securing America's ability to defend, compete, and innovate by building critical hardware at home with our new 130,000-square-foot factory in Emeryville, California.
We’re already shipping to paying customers across energy, telecom, autonomous vehicles, and defense. The next era of American manufacturing starts here.
Time to build.
Beautiful timing
nitter.gq/aphysicist/status/2115…
Know anyone working on audio-based diagnositcs? E.g. for auto, manufacturing, or otherwise. Would like to invest in a company doing this.
Exciting release. Great to see @FoundryRobotics highlighted!
Bryan Altman retweeted
The worries about consensus venture bets is overblown.
Physical AI is the most interesting, most non-consensus market I’ve ever seen. 8 Series As last week in hardtech that seem both futuristic and totally non-fundable just a few years ago.
🤖 Ultra ($50M) rents warehouse robots by the month. Its OP1 robots pack, sort and kit orders, and they’ve packed more than 500,000 so far. Framework Ventures. (also, Magid :))
☢️ Atlas Atomics ($400M, reported) is designing heavy-water reactors that run without enriched uranium. General Catalyst.
⚛️ Universal Quantum ($100M+) builds quantum computers from trapped-ion chips linked into larger modules. DCVC, Firgun Ventures.
🛰️ Fortastra ($30M) builds autonomous spacecraft that can maneuver in orbit for security and defense missions. First In.
📡 Kapta Space ($24M) builds space-based radar imaging that steers its beam electronically. Bison Ventures.
🔥 Turn2x ($22.4M) is developing a process to make renewable natural gas. Antwerpen Ventures.
🏗️ Reclinker ($13.2M) makes low-carbon cement by recycling steel and cement waste together. AP Ventures, Clean Growth Fund.
🐝 BloomX ($13M) uses AI-driven robotic pollination to raise crop yields and fruit quality. Elah Fund.
theventurecodex.com/trends/p…
Bryan Altman retweeted
We raised $15M from @BessemerVP to solve integrations for enterprise agents.
The launch film we released yesterday detailed the hairy problem of building integrations with systems of record like CRMs and ERPs.
Today, I'm sharing a video I recorded about how Ampersand solves that problem.
Bryan Altman retweeted
Foundry has acquired @AveaRobotics.
@aryind_ and @vikramvadrevu are deeply technical and customer-obsessed and working together (as an early customer) was easy.
Data collection and inference at scale power our factories and that makes Avea a natural fit.
Welcome aboard!
Bryan Altman retweeted
You can change it
You can influence it
You can build your own thing
Prompt to hardware
blueprint.io
Bryan Altman retweeted
We are now entering into an era where any product can be created exactly to a consumer's preferences & needs.
I vibe-fabricated a dog door with a wifi-controlled lock, perfectly to the specifications & design of my house.
I know nothing about metal fabrication or electrical engineering.
It's now getting manufactured and delivered in 2 weeks -- for almost the same cost if I bought a mass-produced item off-the-shelf.
Fall 2015, I cold-emailed MM to get an unpaid internship prior to starting at McKinsey in the new year. He wasn't terribly impressed with my plans ..
My conversation with Michael Moritz, one of the great venture investors of the last 40 years.
Michael joined Sequoia in 1986 and co-led the firm with Doug Leone (@dougleone) from 1995 to 2012. His investments include Google, Yahoo, PayPal, and Stripe.
His new book, Ausländer, traces his parents' escape from Nazi Germany and helps explain his lifelong interest in what shapes exceptional people.
We discuss:
- The infamous Steve Jobs profile
- Why Don Valentine hired him
- The question he finds most revealing when interviewing people
- Monomania and the cost of greatness
- Why he has never felt good at anything
- Writing, journalism and AI
- What he learned about himself writing Ausländer
I'd recommend watching this one if you can. Michael was incredibly thoughtful and reflective throughout, particularly when talking about his parents, childhood, and the more difficult parts of his personal story.
Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:53 Family History & Identity
7:03 Survival & Outsider Instinct
18:53 Studying Exceptional People
33:50 Self-Doubt & Success
41:17 Steve Jobs & Obsession
52:50 Joining Sequoia
1:03:22 Leadership & Alex Ferguson
1:08:25 Elon Musk & AI
1:17:12 Becoming Who You Are
Had Astra take a crack at estimating returns of the 52 2021-era robotics companies in this doc. TLDR 1.2x MOIC ~6 years later.
By category:
AV simulation: 6x
Industrial software: 3x
AI data: 2x
Amazon/GM/Tesla: 2x
Autonomous delivery: 2x
Non-AV software/vision/components: 1x
Fleet management/teleoperation: 1x
Logistics/cleaning/recycling/ag: 0.7x
Restaurant robotics: 0.7x
Ridesharing: 0.6x
Industrial integration/picking: 0.4x
Consumer robotics: 0.4x
AV vehicles/sensors: 0.1x
Grippers/end effectors: 0.1x
Biggest winners: Applied Intuition 10x, Vention 5x, CompScience 4x (highly speculative), Scale AI 4x.
In 2021 I wrote a 5-page primer on the Robotics market. Fun to reread now. My closing line: 'while robotics investment is accelerating dramatically, the fundraising environment for hardware companies remains hard.'
How times have changed.
altmbr.com/2021-robotics-pri…
In 2021 I wrote a 5-page primer on the Robotics market. Fun to reread now. My closing line: 'while robotics investment is accelerating dramatically, the fundraising environment for hardware companies remains hard.'
How times have changed.
altmbr.com/2021-robotics-pri…
I've spoken to a handful of founders lately whose initial ask is for angels to invest at the pre-seed stage on uncapped SAFEs with MFNs while they're in process for their round. This is a poor fundraising strategy!
- First, I get where it's coming from. YC founders do this while in batch because otherwise YC's SAFE converts. So that makes sense.
- But if you're not in YC and don't have that constraint, you're losing out on a strategic degree of freedom.
- An uncapped SAFE means the angel has little incentive to say 'yes' now. They're better off waiting until there's a lead and a price.
- So you have a cold-start problem where you need some lead to make a big leap of faith; otherwise the raise fails entirely.
So what's a smarter approach to raising?
Take initial funds at increasing prices/caps.
Why?
- It drives urgency for angels to act now. If they wait even a day, the price might go up.
- You get money immediately to make progress, and you get it even if there's ultimately no 'lead'.
- Meanwhile, every angel who commits is a signal to other investors and can offer high-signal intros to their network.
- Also, and maybe counterintuitively, in 99% of cases this momentum-building strategy leads to less dilution overall, despite taking first checks at a lower price.
- And lastly, it just makes sense: the more investors, the more the company is de-risked, and the higher the price should be.
