💥 Spacebound 🚀
There are investible opportunities in Spacetech for capital allocators with shorter term horizons and lower risk profiles as well as those prepared for multi-year deep tech product development. 🛰🛫🗺
Spacetech commercial market opportunities outsize the traditional government based markets with the added benefit of qualifying for dual use and associated grants and multi-year government contracts. There are software and platform solutions as well as hardtech solutions.
Light Speed Moment: The Future is Us!
Wow! Talk about bringing it in. L'ATTITUDE VENTURES conference in San Diego was an amazing showcase of LatinX talent in business, entertainment, and sports.
Loved hearing the operators, founders, and investors enthusiastically articulate how their journeys have culminated in their visions forward.
“I wake up every day on fire with purpose.”
Guillermo Diaz Jr, Founder and CEO of Conectado Inc and former CIO of Cisco, said that. Who doesn’t want to feel that way?
“We need an ecosystem of people to invest in companies.”
THIS IS COMUNIDAD: LATINX INNOVATORS AND CAPITAL PROVIDERS.
I met with four promising LatinX founders as part of the Latino Business Action Network’s (LBAN) capital provider matching session at Stanford University last month.
LBAN’s mission is to grow the American economy by empowering Latino entrepreneurship across the US. 1,271 talented people have graduated from its selective inaugural accelerator and 17 business scaling programs. LBAN has a strong and growing network of capital providers, corporate partners, educators, and ecosystem builders. I love being a part of this incredible community.
Sisters (and Allies) Connecting with Sisters
The Columbia female founders network is strong, growing, and has terrific allies. I had the pleasure of meeting up with my student founders and mentees for a chill exchange of ideas on getting traction and navigating the entrepreneurial journey in NYC.
Taking Action on Climate, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice.
Founders, funders, corporates, government, and community stakeholders gathered in Long Beach, California to address climate, sustainability, and environmental justice issues and opportunities to solve them.
After an hour of networking, I moderated two panels covering: 1) investment trends, corporate and government customer needs, and funding; and, 2) innovative solutions. It is encouraging that solutions for climate, sustainability, and environmental equity are increasingly linked with more efficient and lower cost operations as well as benefits and cost savings in public health. Clean air, water, and land objectives should not be viewed solely as societal debt and regulatory compliance imperatives but as inclusive business opportunities driving greater economic growth.
Going Green into Space. Why SpinLaunch is Cool.
I asked SpinLaunch CEO Jonathan Yaney what was one of the most fun parts of his job.
“Proving people wrong who said this could not be done.”
Long Beach, California based SpinLaunch is changing the way payloads are sent into space by removing the complexity and reducing the dependence on carbon-based fuel. What is so fascinating about SpinLaunch is that they have created a greener, cheaper, faster way to launch based on technology that is not new but has not previously been applied to launching rockets into space.
Female Founders: We are just getting started.
Columbia female founders and friends gathered as a group by the beach to get to know each other and offer support in their startup journeys.
We thank Sophie Nazerian of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Lisa Smith of Columbia Venture Community (CVC- Project 2.8), and the Long Beach Accelerator (LBA) for co-sponsoring the event in Long Beach, California.
We welcomed a dynamic group of founders including my Columbia Hacking4Humanity student founders, Samantha Arthur and Krystal Eimunjeze, who provided logistical support for the gathering.
3IPK: Blockchain Solutions for Aerospace and Sustainability Tracing
“It all boils down to if you really believe that this is a game changing technology.” Juraj Zamecnik, COO 3IPK
At the end of 2020, the European Space Agency awarded its first blockchain software contract in a competitive bid to a Bratislava, Slovakia based startup named 3IPK. 3IPK is now applying quality control and sustainability tracing of supply chains to a broader range of verticals. Yesterday, 3IPK launched its Gratitude website. Its purpose is to engage and enable customers to be transparent about the social and environmental impact of their supply chains.
This is the inaugural post of my featured founders blog. Let me know what you think!