Will Porteous

I'm pleased to share that Lightrock has continued to support Thomas Doering and Distribusion Technologies in their $80 million Series C funding round. Distribusion is the leading global B2B ground transportation marketplace, addressing inefficiencies in this €700 billion market. The industry’s progress has been hindered by legacy technology, making multi-modal travel planning and booking difficult and time-consuming. This increases costs for consumers and negatively impacts sustainability as travellers opt for private cars and taxis over less polluting transportation options. Using a single API, Distribusion connects transport carriers like National Express LLC, Amtrak, and Deutsche Bahn with retailers such as Expedia Group, Google Maps, and Alipay. This allows consumers to seamlessly compare and purchase tickets on trusted platforms. There's a high likelihood that Distribusion has facilitated your travel without you knowing it. We led the company's Series B in 2022, and since then Distribusion has grown tenfold, creating the largest global B2B network of ground transport operators. This growth, combined with achieving profitability, has encouraged us to reinvest and continue with this company on this exciting journey. We look forward to continuing our work with this team. Learn more about #Distribusion via the link in the comments. #TravelTech #FutureOfTravel

132

5 Comments

Great news at Setter Capital Inc.:) Always ensuring we have the best coverage of the market across our Pre-IPO VC Advisory, LP Advisory and GP led business lines! As the market digitizes, it's important to embody the synergy of human relationships with technology, and not fear replacement of human interactions in business! #settervc #setterstrong #secondarymarket #secondaries #preiposecondaries

9

Gaining insights at the edge and making historically opaque systems transparent is critical to optimizing our infrastructure. Real time insights into our distribution and generation infrastructure will drive the actions needed to ensure we can continue to reliably deliver. https://lnkd.in/edeWbzbh

12

If Starlink enables phone calls without traditional cellular networks, it could redefine the telecommunications industry: Global Connectivity: Starlink’s satellite technology can connect remote and rural areas where traditional networks haven’t reached. No More Towers: Seamless communication without cell towers could challenge the need for telecom companies to maintain costly infrastructure. Competitive Pricing: A unified global network might undercut current pricing models, especially for international calls and data. Market Disruption: Controlling satellites and services, Starlink could dominate the market, forcing telecom providers to rethink their strategies. A New Standard: Satellite-based communication could become the norm, compelling telecom operators to innovate or risk obsolescence. Telecom providers may need to pivot quickly by integrating satellite solutions or adopting competitive innovations to stay relevant in the face of this disruption. ♻️ Subscribe to ‘Siliconnector’ Telegram channel for insights, news and jokes from Silicon Valley and the Tech world: https://t.me/siliconnector

66

43 Comments

Excited to announce our investment in Alta Resource Technologies alongside Leonardo Banchik (Voyager Ventures) with participation from Orion Resource Partners, Overture Ventures, and WovenEarth Ventures. Rare earths are critical in products from magnets to ceramics and it's important for the US to develop its own supply chain. While the US has some of the best rare earth resources, separating them has historically proven expensive and environmentally unfriendly. Alta through it's computationally designed and optimized proteins allows the US to bring back rare earth production with a cleaner, lower capex, and lower opex solution - and that's just the beginning. Congrats to Nathan Ratledge and the entire Alta team. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gbGnAJn3

60

4 Comments

Magnetic’s work was recently covered by Forbes. Thank you for the conversation with the team, David Prosser. We fund vastly ambitious companies addressing our largest challenges. We back theme-setters before the theme is there, with dedication. Occasionally, we help to design and architecture them. Our investment themes will see iconic, technology-driven champions emerge over the coming decades: 🧲 The lack of resilience and technology dependence – an inescapable move towards homegrown champions in critical areas like security, healthcare or energy 🧲 Climate opportunities and the adaptation to a new, hotter reality 🧲 The modernization of our core, backbone industries or services through building radically different businesses, upending traditional markets Reach out to us if we could be a partner on your journey to build the inevitable future: [email protected] Link in comments 👇🏻 David Rosskamp Mario Lebherz Maike Haase Magnetic Capital

214

9 Comments

A great thought piece by Netradyne CTO David Julian discussing some exciting R&D he and his team are doing on grounding large pretrained foundation models in the diverse long tail of real world driving situations across billions of road miles. "....the benefit of pretrained LLMs and LGMs is that they have been fed countless data points about not just road safety but other topics that interplay with road safety, such as DMV manuals, severe weather safety tips and local laws. Their drawback is that they haven’t been fed much driving data from around the world. Fine-tune pretrained LLMs and LGMs with driving data from around the world, and you can get the best of both worlds: a super tool that understands the subtleties of complex driving situations. A solution that combines both approaches would be able to identify, contextualize and, arguably most importantly, anticipate various road hazards more precisely, even picking up on different driving conventions around the world. At my company, we see the value in both of these individual approaches and are excited about the additional value the combined approach can yield..."

20

Space tech-focused investment firm Seraphim Space Space launched its second VC fund, SSV II, to back early-stage startups in the global space tech market. The fund aims to build a portfolio of 30 startups, investing in seed and Series A stages. The latest fund's target size is larger than its predecessor's, which closed at £70M ($90M) in 2017. The fund's investment themes include AI applications for space data, in-orbit computing, space-enabled communications, and microgravity for science. Eutelsat is one of the limited partners that contributed to the latest fund. Seraphim Space aims to stand out with its track record, having returned three times the original investment from its first fund. The first fund's returns were driven by five exits, including Siemens' acquisition of UltraSOC and four IPOs of Arqit, AST SpaceMobile, Nightingale, and Spire Global. The British firm listed its growth fund Seraphim Space Investment Trust (SSIT) on the London Stock Exchange in July 2021, getting about £250M (~$300M) in gross proceeds. The fund's market cap touched an all-time low of £130M ($162M) in July 2023. The market for space tech is expected to grow significantly, with the World Economic Forum and McKinsey estimating it could be worth $1.8R by 2035.

8

1 Comment

One of the golden opportunities of the century Rocket Lab space company. Their competitions with SpaceX in private sector is quite different due to the big gap between them. SpaceX is dominating the heavy load sector with their rocket 🚀 “ Falcon 9 ” Rocket lab is dominating the light load sector with their rocket 🚀 “ Electron “ The interesting thing that Rocket Lab is working on thier new project “ Neutroun “ that will dominate the Medium load, and the first lunch will be in mid 2025⏳,That will reduce the gap between them. I believe that Rocket Lab will be one of the biggest and most important companies for the space industry in the next decade.

2

Congrats to Christopher Robson, Kurtis Broda and Kristen Cote at Wyvern on bringing on fantastic new investors Guy Filippelli, Dan Madden and Isaac Carp, CFA at Squadra Ventures. I'm a broken record at this point, but we're in the early innings of the Earth Observation market, and as we're seeing with Wyvern there is more demand for hyperspectral data than supply. As we will see in the coming years, there will be all kinds of problems that can be addressed by understanding our world beyond what our eyes can see. https://lnkd.in/gEzTjYks

22

1 Comment

September 14 2024 – 5 Notable Articles To Read Article: Verizon’s $9.6B Bid for Frontier Expands Broadband Takeaway: Verizon is set to acquire a fiber competitor in a deal valued at $20B, including debt, to expand its high-speed internet services. Source: Bloomberg Link: https://lnkd.in/dYQ8_SZq Article: Morgan Stanley to debut first Pathway-branded ETFs Takeaway: Morgan Stanley intends to convert two of its flagship equity funds, with a combined $3B in assets, into its first-ever ETFs under the "Morgan Stanley Pathway" brand, according to a regulatory filing. Source: Financial Times Link: https://lnkd.in/dqhrFQyi Article: Romania’s 40% Stock Rally Makes It a Standout of Global Markets Takeaway: The BET index has been one of the world's top performers over the past 12 months, with optimism fueled by the economy and expectations of an upgrade to emerging market status boosting sentiment. Source: Bloomberg News Link: https://lnkd.in/dc6hbr3y Article: South Africa Lures BYD With Critical Minerals, Car Output Skills Takeaway: The trade minister views electric vehicles as key to Africa's industrialization efforts, while China has committed $10B in private sector investments on the continent. Source: Bloomberg Link: https://lnkd.in/dn9xJxj9 Article: European fund classification system expands Takeaway: The latest update introduces several new fund categories in response to recent market developments. The EFC now includes classifications for crypto asset funds, foreign exchange funds, and ultra-short bond funds. At its most detailed level, the system now comprises over 880 fund subcategories, offering classification that meets the evolving needs of the investment community. Source: Funds Europe Link: https://lnkd.in/dXdhrmWZ #news #research #business #investing

6

The Silver Tsunami is upon us, and it's reshaping the mergers and acquisitions landscape like never before. With an estimated $10 trillion in assets set to change hands over the next decade, driven by baby boomers retiring, the opportunity for savvy investors and entrepreneurs is immense. Currently, around 30,000 businesses sell annually, but with more than 8 million baby boomer-owned businesses expected to transition, the volume of transactions could increase tenfold. This is a monumental shift that smart buyers are already preparing for. You don't need to be a Wall Street titan to benefit from this trend; many of these businesses will transition to local entrepreneurs and small business owners. Are you ready to seize a piece of this $10 trillion wealth transfer? Position yourself strategically to take advantage of this unprecedented wave of opportunities. Engage with fellow professionals and explore how you can be part of this transformation. Not sure how? Let's talk about it! #SilverTsunami #MergersAndAcquisitions #BusinessOpportunities

7

At 53 Stations, we’re inspired by the incredible ways AI is driving innovation in healthcare and life sciences—and Labviva is a standout example of that potential. Labviva's procurement platform is transforming life sciences R&D by automating procurement, providing supply chain transparency, and revolutionizing how laboratories manage purchasing, tracking, and inventory replenishment. It's been a pleasure to watch their progress and see how they're accelerating the pace of science. I'm very excited to share that 53 Stations led Labviva's $25M Series B, alongside an exceptional group of existing investors. We're looking forward to partner more closely with Siamak Baharloo, Nicholas Rioux, and the talented Labviva team as they continue to drive meaningful change in the industry. Read more about our investment here: https://lnkd.in/gbVGTSvs cc: Jason Pritzker

68

2 Comments

Your last weekly space news round-up of 2024 🚀 Featuring stories: 💰 ICEYE closed a $65M extension to the existing growth funding round for a total of $158M raised in 2024 - the funding round extension included participation from funds managed by Solidium Oy, BlackRock, Seraphim, Plio Limited, and Christo Georgiev. 🌡️ SatVu, a global leader in climate technology, has secured £20 million in strategic funding, to expand high-resolution thermal imaging. 🛰️ SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink is projected to reach $11.8 billion in revenue next year, driven by strong consumer demand and growing U.S. military contracts. 📈 Space Markets: The Year in Review from Payload 👉 Of the 15 largest space startup funding deals this year, five came from US startups, five were Chinese companies, four were European firms, and one was from an Australian business. 🌌 Commercial space station developer Vast has signed a deal with SpaceX for two private astronaut missions to the International Space Station, pending NASA approval. https://lnkd.in/evUcpr92

13

Cambridge Future Tech builds DeepTech ventures and last week we hit another milestone; we're co-founding our 15th venture 🤘 It's awesome building new ventures from the ground up. It's why we started CFT in the first place. It always feels great to be at the start of the build phase, helping founders articulate a new venture’s tech and potential, building a strong narrative. We’re collaborating closely with founders to transform groundbreaking ideas into companies. 🚀🚀🚀 More to come on this. I'm hyped to share what we're building 🤘 #venturebuilder #deeptech #startups #cambridge

90

4 Comments

"Embracing the Pivot: How Investors Support Startups in Transition" Exploring the crucial role of adaptability in startups As investors, our role extends beyond funding—we must provide strategic guidance during these pivotal moments. Read more about navigating pivots in today's dynamic startup ecosystem: lool ventures Yaniv Golan Maya Azoulay Dina Walker Lena Young Roy Katzenelson Yair Kfir Maria Osipov

18

1 Comment

"According to Pitchbook, while overall venture capital deals have slowed over the past year, the defense tech sector has weathered the storm better than most others. So far in 2024, private investors have bet $9.1 billion on defense tech startups across 228 investments, Pitchbook research shows." -MARK SULLIVAN-Fast Company Patient capital will win this fight, both in a literal military campaign sense and the private capital competition for the best deals. Will this be a four year ramp to a huge exit? Likely no. Could private capital help provide a balance to the current military industrial complex processes/thinking. I am optimistic.

29