DraperU Ventures

🔉Investment announcement ! 🎉 👉 But first for some context..... I'd still say The Fusion Energy Landscape event at the 2024 SF Deep Tech Week by Hyperstition Incorporated was one of THE best events ever. For an " outsider " who was planning to attend for 30mins & event hop, I ended up staying for 4+ hours (& just like Neo from Matrix, I took the red pill !!!). Everything from Introduction to Deep dives to meeting the exceptional scientists & government + private enablers who are striving everyday to make the myth a reaIity, I attended the day-long discussion about fusion energy, featuring many Fusion Industry Association member companies discussing their pathways and technologies. Thank you Andrew Côté, Andrew Holland & Gigascale Capital. 🙌 That being said, we are excited to share that DraperU Ventures (DUV) has invested in AeroFuse💎 Ryan Weed & Rama Myers are on a mission to unlock the power of fusion to address some of humanity’s greatest challenges. Fusion fuels have 10million times the energy density of fossil fuels, and although only 50+ companies are building fusion systems, no one has figured out a way to efficiently extract the thermal energy. AeroFuse is building the fusion heat exchanger technology that will withstand 100million degree fusion plasmas, and harvest the thermal energy & high energy ions for lightweight fusion propulsion to radically decarbonize aviation, without increasing fuel costs. Whilst fusion devices are yet to reach energy break-even, AeroFuse has developed a multi-phase product roadmap to commercialize existing state of the art fusion technology in the next 5 years, starting with enabling increased medical isotope production. Meeting Rama & Ryan & betting on AeroFuse has been one of the highlights of 2024 🎉 - Welcome to the Draper Ecosystem 🦏 DraperU Ventures Draper Venture Network Draper Associates Asra Nadeem Andy Tang Suffiyan Malik Draper University

My final guest for 2024 is Qasar Younis Qasar is the founder and CEO of Applied Intuition and before this, he was the COO/Partner at YC. He sold his first company to Google and worked there for a bit as a group product manager. At We The Builders, the goal is to have a conversation around: - The most transformational experiences in a founder’s life - people recall really interesting experiences in life when asked that question - How to choose what to work on - How breakthrough innovation happens - Hiring A teams - Mentors that change your life trajectory and how to find them We will start publishing the first season in January 2025. Episodes in season 1 will be featuring Delian (Varda Space, Founders Fund), Matt Angle (Paradromics), Kian Sadeghi (Nucleus Genomics), Brett Adcock (Figure, Archer - from the Archives), David Sacks (AIl-In, Craft)

Dec 17, to end what’s been an incredible year - I’m hosting Qasar Younis He was partner & COO at YC Sold his first startup to Google, joined as group product PM for maps In 2017, he started Applied Intuition that has gone on to raise $600m, valued at over $6B according to its last round Helping 18/20 of the biggest automakers achieve their autonomy goals

I’m recording a conversation with Matt Angle on building Paradromics Inc. this Friday - we have a few open slots , stop by if you’re in the Bay Cohosting with my good friend Andrew Côté and Hyperstition Incorporated

You are in year 2035, what does life look like? Think for a minute. What did it take to colonize earth? What advances will we need to colonize another planet? Enter the time capsule: •We have achieved ASI, what did it take to get there? •What advances did we need in industrial automation and robotics? •How did we power other planets? •How did we terraform other Mars? •How did we figure out transportation in space? •What was the role of humanoids? •How did agriculture work? •What did we about food? You have to stay within the laws of Physics. With that, we request you to imagine a future that helps make life interplanetary and dramatically improves life on earth. I’ll leave you with a favourite quote of mine: The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever. - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

🔊 Congratulations to Marina Simian (DU Summer '23) & DraperU Ventures Portco Oncoliq + their entire team on being recognized as Argentina’s Most Innovative Startup by Visa and LA NACION. 🔥 👉Oncoliq is developing a screening method for early cancer detection using a small blood sample based on liquid biopsy. Their technology is based on detecting microRNAs that are increased in people's blood at the early stages of tumor development. They are developing a detection method based on optical molecular biosensors to identify these biomarkers. This sensing method is scalable, low cost, non-toxic, and will allow the detection of microRNAs in a laboratory with essential equipment. Cant wait to see what's next for them 🙌 Draper University DraperU Ventures Marina Simian Adriana De Siervi Osvaldo Pontiggia Oncoliq #Healthcare #cancerdetection

🦏 How is AI enhancing eCommerce? We are excited to share that DraperU Ventures (DUV) has invested in Swirl® 👉Swirl founder - Kaizad Hansotia (DU EIR '24) is on a mission to bridge the gap between eCommerce and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences, adding a level of human touch to the convenience of online shopping. Today, they have validated their product globally with brands across the US & MENA. You may know some of them - PUMA Group, Vivo, TVS Motor Company, Lals Group, GK Hair and many more. Their partners currently have experienced a 3X increase in online conversions, leading to a 13X increase in ROI through their online shopping funnels. What’s next on their roadmap? They’re looking to enhance their: 🔸Deep AI integration: extracting deeper insights at scale for their partners. 🔸Customer personalization: leveraging LLMs to customize & provide pin-point product recommendations to assist the customer shopping experience for each individual customer - and much more! We are excited to see what’s next for Kaizad Hansotia, Bhejash Joshi, Padam Bhardwaj, Abrar Soudagar ابرار and the rest of the SWIRL team. Welcome to the Draper Ecosystem 🎉 DraperU Ventures Draper Venture Network Swirl®

Recording a conversation with Delian tomorrow. What should I ask him? I resonate strongly with the 30 observations at 30 blog, and the one on talent. Maybe we should just talk about relationships?

🔊3 exclusive events this November in 3 different locations ⤵ Week 1 Draper University Alumni Breakfast with Tim Delhi Week 2 Draper University & Draper Startup House Alumni Dinner with Tim Bangalore Week 3 Draper University & Draper Startup House Alumni Dinner with Tim Hyderabad 👉 If you would like to be a part of the Draper Ecosystem Community, Please reach out to know how you can get involved. Draper University Draper Startup House DraperU Ventures Draper Associates Draper Venture Network Chris Joannou 💎 Vikram Bharati Sarika Batra Karan Bahadur Sweta Tiwari Nivin Joseph

Instead of a hackathon, we are doing an ideation marathon. Pitch us your 30 year vision, reverse engineer it. What does step 1 look like, what’s the business model and how would you demo it? Your team would need engineers/scientists and storytellers. Cohosting with my friend Christina Last - some of our friends building the future will join for talks.