Tobin Fisher

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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I’m excited to share that I’ve decided to document my journey as I build FinchTech AI into a successful startup. I’ll be sharing what I’ve done so far, my weekly goals, the challenges I face, and the successes I achieve along the way; the good, the bad, and the ugly. So far, I’ve built my initial website from scratch, established the FinchTech AI brand, and begun developing the MVP for my first AI tool, CalculAI. This tool is designed to assist engineers in selecting the best materials and manufacturing processes. It’s already functional, with a conversational interface that can handle basic material selection tasks, though there’s still work to do. What I’ve Accomplished: • Trained and integrated a RandomForestClassifier model for material recommendations. • Built a conversational interface for user interaction. • Improved the AI’s ability to handle different scenarios and make better recommendations. This Week’s Focus: • Enhancing the AI’s decision-making with a decision tree structure. • Improving scenario recognition to make the AI more intuitive. • Implementing a hybrid approach to better guide users through complex decision-making. • Start the build of website 2.0. Long-Term Goals: My vision is to launch CalculAI as a valuable tool for the engineering industry, secure funding to expand my team, and develop additional AI tools to address other engineering challenges. Challenges: With no technical background in software development and experience as a project manager in the engineering industry, I’ve self-taught myself web design and AI development. The journey has been filled with obstacles; many times I’ve wanted to quit, but each day I pushed a little further. Today, I’m proud to say I have a working AI tool, even if it’s just the bare minimum right now (Plan to show a demo later this week) 🚀 . I’m inviting you all to join me on this journey. If you have advice, I’m all ears, and if you have questions, I’m happy to answer. Let’s connect, share insights, and support each other as we navigate the startup world. #AI #Startup #Engineering #MachineLearning #TechInnovation #Entrepreneurship #ProductDevelopment #Resilience #Leadership #Innovation

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Adam Keating discussing how AI is going to change manufacturing and how CoLab Software is helping them make that transition with ReviewAI

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Excited for DCVC portfolio co Alta Resource Technologies to emerge from stealth! The design space of biology is many orders of magnitude larger than inorganic chemistry, and Alta uses it to massively reduce the cost of extracting rare earth metals. https://lnkd.in/g_q5UwRF

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In the earliest stages, startups have to balance two needs: capital to build now, and the focus to create the product that will bring their vision to life. We experienced this journey at Prewitt Ridge, and I had the opportunity to share parts of our story last week at AIAA ASCEND, and I wanted to share some of the highlights here, as well as the video clip captured by my teammate York Zhang! Steve Massey and I incorporated Prewitt Ridge in Dec 2019 and hit the ground running in 2020. Building on our experience as engineers working at SpaceX and Slingshot Aerospace, we set out to take a picks-and-shovels approach to build digital engineering software tooling for engineers like us, who are working at the companies out there using the picks and shovels, here on Earth and soon in space. We quickly found that there were a host of resources available to us. We received initial funding through the SBIR/STTR program, an initiative from the US government to provide early-stage technology funding for small businesses. With two STTR awards and a great university partner at UNM, we began to execute on our product vision. Simultaneously, we received phenomenal support from the Techstars Space Accelerator program. This accelerator helped us focus on the tradeoffs of bootstrapped growth through SBIR/STTR vs traditional fundraising. SBIR/STTR are fantastic sources of capital, providing a partnership that helps small businesses build through non-dilutive funding. But it’s important to remember that these opportunities are focused on specific topics and non-recurring. As a business, it's important to be disciplined on aligning the SBIR/STTR opportunities with your core product features and strategies to ensure they don't impede your teams execution. We made the decision to balance both SBIR/STTR with growth via venture capital. We successfully raised a round of funding, led by Squadra Ventures with participation from Stage Venture Partners, Aurelia Foundry, Wonder Ventures, Haystack, Acequia Capital, Techstars and GC&H We’ve had a wonderful experience working with the VC community, highlighted by the hands-on approach and national security expertise of Squadra Ventures. Going forward, we’ll continue to consider both types of funding. These resources have provided numerous connections to government and industry leaders, and in turn they have helped to focus our tool offering and capabilities. Our journey shows the importance of another balance that startups must strike: reducing risk and optimizing opportunities. Thanks to Techstars, AIAA ASCEND and all of the panelists for a great conversation! If you’re interested in discussing solutions for digital engineering, get in touch! #startups #aerospace #AIAAASCEND

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We’re excited to announce that Pyka has raised $40M in Series B funding to accelerate the commercialization of their autonomous electric aircraft! Led by Obvious Ventures, with support from Piva Capital, Prelude Ventures, Metaplanet, and Y Combinator, this investment will expand Pyka’s impact in sectors like agriculture, cargo transport, and defense logistics. With commercial operations already underway across multiple continents and partners like Dole and Embraer, Pyka is transforming aviation while driving sustainability and decarbonization. ⚡✈️ More here from TechCrunch: https://lnkd.in/gGYfc824

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Announcing: Topology Ventures is Live Help us get the word on X here 👉 https://lnkd.in/e6SJkNwk I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Topology, an early-stage venture firm focused on backing frontier technology. We’ve raised an oversubscribed $75M Fund 1. topology.vc We are backed by the co-founder of OpenAI, managing partner of Bessemer, author of GPT4, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Ethan Kurzweil, Accolade, Cendana, and many other top tier builders, organizations, and endowments. For the past 8 years, I’ve been investing in frontier tech: brain computer interfaces, agents, distributed compute, decentralized protocols, semiconductors, new cities, etc. Topology brings institutional scale to this approach. We back founders who put everything on the line to bend the arc of human progress. We’ve been deploying in stealth over the past 7 months into companies building in AI, decentralized systems, distributed compute, neurotech, and more. Our founders have already received follow-on investment from folks like Founders Fund, a16z, and the founders of OpenAI & Meta AI. Our core thesis: In an era where tech is accelerating at record speed, being deeply technical is crucial for partnering with & enabling the best founders. For those of you that know me, you probably know that I’ve been obsessed with computers since I was a teenager. I thought I’d be a software engineer my whole life because I just loved it. While at Google, I began moonlighting at Bessemer part-time as an EIR, helping on deals from crypto to quantum. I also began investing personally using profits from crypto mining. I realized that investing was a way to build more. At a time when AI couldn’t write code, there was only so much one dev could do and since I couldn’t control the Caseys in the multiverse, investing was my way to scale impact. I eventually left Google to study neuroengineering at Harvard but dropped out to go all in on frontier investing and joined Paradigm where I developed a reputation as an investor who will always roll up their sleeves and burn the midnight oil when founders needed help. The best founders exist outside of society's Overton window. They are maniacally focused, ship at uncanny speeds, and are a magnet for other brilliant executors. They think about their companies to a troubling degree. But since great founders are thinking about their companies, who is left to think about the founder? We are. Ask them. I’ve been mistaken as an employee on portfolio company engineering teams, pulled countless all-nighters to support launches, and hopped on planes to close customers. As someone who has always had more internet friends than 3D ones, DM me if you're building at the frontier and want to talk. I cannot overstate how thankful I am to all my mentors, LPs and founders along the way. A special thank you to Ian Johnson and Jason Schwarz from Google, and Ethan Kurzweil from Bessemer. Meet us at the edge. https://lnkd.in/eP2QWBHw

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The newest issue of The Pragmatic Engineer found a surprise uptick in eng hiring in the typically slow summer season - I'm curious to see how the macro environment impacts this uptick as we head into the fall, but I remain hopeful. I asked Gemini to give me the tldr of the article to share with my team (sorry, Gergely Orosz) and found it missed one of the most interesting pieces of the article. Gemini's highlights - Unexpected surge: Tech recruitment has seen an unusual spike in June and July, contrary to typical trends. Increased demand: Startups, especially AI-focused ones, are driving the hiring uptick. Global phenomenon: This trend isn't just limited to the US; Europe is also experiencing increased recruitment activity. Reasons for hiring: Companies are backfilling positions, investing in growth due to improved financials, and responding to increased VC funding. Challenges remain: While the job market is improving, finding qualified candidates and offering competitive compensation remains difficult for many companies. What I found most interesting - The nature of the backfills: the article finds that a lot of new headcount are actually backfills of folks that were "over-slashed" during rounds of layoffs. Not entirely surprising with the "trim the fat" and "rebuild lean" mentality, but interesting nonetheless. Either way, the uptick is encouraging (and don't always rely on Gemini's tldrs). #hiring #startups #VCbacked #softwareengineering

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I could not be more excited to announce that Matter Venture Partners is joining Path Robotics on their journey by leading their latest round. Robotics is finally having its "mainframes to PC" revolution — AI is dramatically raising the limits of robotics in both capability and generalizability. And Path Robotics is bringing AI robotics to manufacturing in a big way. The core of this revolution is driven by the concept of task parity - a human in any job is doing more than just a single task, and a robot has to be similar. A waiter takes orders, pours drinks, runs credit cards. Welders do much more than just running a welding torch. That’s what made us so excited about Path Robotics - they started with robots that can weld the toughest, least precise jobs - like infrastructure for transportation and datacenter. Now they have robots that don’t just weld but can assemble parts, design fixtures, and solve problems autonomously. This is task parity in action. At Matter, we believe in the power of HardTech to solve real-world problems, and Path Robotics embodies that vision. I’m thrilled to be working with Andrew Lonsberry, Alex Lonsberry, and the entire team as they continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI robotics in manufacturing. #AI #robotics #hardtech #manufacturing 

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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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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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🚨 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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Today I want to put the spotlight on Arelys Sosa, Thomas Tingelöf and Kent Moore who are the amazing founders of DREV.🔦 The problem they are tackling is that battery gigafactories, semi-conductor factories, and battery recycling plants face big challenges collecting hazardous metal micro-particles, slowing production, and they are squandering precious materials, and endangering staff. These are all individually big problems and combined this is huge.☣️ Drev has the solution to all to this with The Vault, an innovative technology powered by patent-pending dry brush technology and a revolutionary canister design, eliminates water and chemicals from the cleaning process, improves safety, and enables the adaptive reuse of valuable materials that would otherwise be thrown away with save manufactures millons. 🧹 The Drev team has the unique domain experience for solving a particular problem that we're always looking for when we are backing founders at the Norrsken Accelerator. Arelys is an industrial engineer who was part of the original team at Panasonic Energy at Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 so she has seen this problem first hand for years. Thomas has a PhD and he has been the CTO of PowerCell and VP at Volvo Cars and has massively scaled technologies before.🤩 The interest from the industry is huge and they are currently running projects with some of the leading battery manufacturers. You can read more and contact them here: https://lnkd.in/d7V-mKrx

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Are you developing a medical device or digital health? Come learn about regulatory and legal impacts and how design for manufacturing is critical to your startup's success.

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Must read if you're building in the defense ecosystem. Vannevar Labs is giving new meaning to understanding customer needs by embedding engineers alongside their users, allowing them to quickly iterate and build product directly with warfighters. Scaling the FDE function has been a key unlock to becoming a multi-product defense company and expanding into new missions and customer groups.

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👀 Looking at our recent investments at Draper Associates, here’s what standout founders nailed, making our decision to invest much easier (and faster): 💥 Visionary Tech with a Bold Vision – These founders are not here for incremental wins; they’re reimagining what’s possible in across tech - biotech, robotics, aerospace, and beyond. Their vision is big and audacious, tackling complex problems that demand breakthrough solutions, others have not been willing to try. 👊 Clear Passion & Purpose – The drive in these founders is undeniable. They’re committed to their mission with a depth of purpose that shapes every choice. One founder, for example, took two years completely off to learn and meet everyone in longevity biotech. This level of grit and dedication is rare but essential for the most impactful founders. 🌟 Assembling All-Star Teams – They bring together top-tier talent from diverse disciplines: experienced business leaders with successful exits or industry experience at top companies, technical co-founders with deep expertise, often PhDs or industry pioneers, and even published authors. It’s a complementary team, unified by a shared vision. They make the: "Why this team?" obvious - at a glance. 💻 Data-Driven to the Core – These founders present data insights that show why their approach is unique, especially against a competitive field of companies. This data is delivered with clarity and they make the complex simple. Many are published in top journals, adding depth and credibility to their approach, and reinforcing that they know their tech inside out. ⚡️ Memorable, Clear Vision – They don’t just pitch; they make the future feel tangible, with a vision that’s both compelling and concise. If I can relay their pitch in under 30 seconds to my team, they’ve killed it. 📣 Transparent & Proactive Communication – The best founders don’t wait for questions. They come prepared, often with a comprehensive FAQ doc, give timely updates to our questions, and are candid about challenges. This level of openness builds trust and strengthens our partnership. 💸 Milestone-Driven Funding Strategy – Each funding stage aligns clearly with already achieved or upcoming achievable milestones. They’ve mapped out a roadmap that minimizes risk at every step, giving us confidence in their journey. 💰 Revenue Milestones Along the Way – Even if it'll take a decade to hit revenue on their big vision, these founders find revenue generation stops along the way to profitability. They share a trajectory that connects early wins to revenue, showing how every step is a building block toward their bigger vision. Overall, the best founders are incredibly thoughtful, prepared, and fantastic verbal / written communicators. #founders #startups #fundraising #VC

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The most impactful technology augments human capability. Take assembly line work as an example: Robots enhance speed and precision but still require human oversight. This dynamic mirrors our evolving relationship with AI, especially within the service-as-software paradigm shift. As Jaya and I wrote in our recent blog post, AI's evolution from a basic tool into an autonomous agent isn't about replacing jobs. It's about reshaping them. This shift is part of a $4.6 trillion opportunity where AI not only boosts efficiency but also creates new roles, blending tech with human insights. AI doesn’t just replace—it reinvents how we work, creating more value than ever.

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The funding landscape for founders has been tough over the past two years—but for female founders, it's been even tougher. At Fierce Foundry, we're stepping up to change that. Like the trailblazing organizations How Women Invest and WE Global Studios, we’re fueling the flywheel of female investment. Our innovative approach isn’t just about making noise—it’s about making measurable impact. Join me at my info session today (and every other week - register via the link below) to learn how you can help drive meaningful change for female founders. Let’s make it happen! 🌟 https://lnkd.in/e9FUg9Uj

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MVP isn't a great target. Coming from the tech-centric, VC funded, startup land in Silicon Valley, I can tell you targeting the Minimum Viable Product "MVP" drives a lot of decision making when introducing a new product to market. It's typically the correct approach in that environment. In home services, an approach like that is more likely to hurt than help. Your service IS the product. If your service is minimally "good enough", your business is going to launch with "good enough" sentiment and reviews - a death sentence in today's competitive environment. Take the time to build the service and underlying support structure correctly from launch, and you'll not only delight your customers, but you'll be well-positioned to capture growth. For me, I hit the "easy button" on that and joined ResiBrands to help me launch and grow Pink's Window Services. It's certainly not the only way, but it was a darn good one!

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