Arkady Kulik

The Magnificent 7 "invest nearly $400 billion annually into frontier tech (comparable to the GDP of Norway), of which $20–30 billion is in VC rounds (comparable to UK’s total VC investment)." 🤠💰 Good stuff here from Dealroom.co on the tech giants. Their market caps are big, and there's a good chance they'll all just keep getting bigger. That greatly impacts R&D, CVC, M&A, HR, etc. in deeptech globally. https://lnkd.in/ehExX8sa #vc #venturecapital #tech #technology #innovation #deeptech #ai #artificialintelligence #nvidia #facebook #apple #microsoft #tesla #amazon #google #startups #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship #money #business

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āltitude: 𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐞-𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝 We're excited to learn more about remote work from co-founder Matteo Benedetti from our portfolio company Debtist in our SME Tech Leaders webinar "Scaling your Startup Remotely" 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: https://lu.ma/mqgwi5p0 When Marc, Ingo, and I started āltitude last year, we did it remotely from Berlin, London, and Zurich, meeting monthly in person. Our team has since expanded to include Torge, our Chief of Staff, and Fernanda, our visiting analyst, currently based in Luxembourg and Munich. Post-pandemic, we believed against the consensus that building a firm apart was possible—we just had to prove it. Remote work naturally sharpens our focus on priorities, which is crucial for any business but also comes with challenges. Here’s how we’ve approached remote work: 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆: We utilise tools like Notion, Asana, Google Docs, Shared Google Calendars and Folk. We also streamline our financial operations by using our own portfolio company cleverlohn for payroll. 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: We hold daily check-ins—morning for strategic decisions and afternoons for operational priorities. If needed, we schedule dedicated calls for deeper discussions on strategic topics. Regular in-person meetings in different cities keep us connected without the overhead of a permanent office. 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗧𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀, 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁: Remote work demands trust as you cannot see what people are doing, which we build through clearly defined tasks, deadlines and roles. This clarity ensures that everyone is aligned. 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗞𝗣𝗜𝘀: Understanding what outcomes need to be achieved every quarter is key. Especially as we continue fundraising and deploying capital. 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: Our culture is built on radical candor and transparency, ensuring everyone is working towards the same goals. Open discussions and quick feedback loops allow us to address issues openly. This environment encourages accountability and continuous improvement. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: We meticulously discuss and document our processes via Loom recordings, google docs or notion so everyone understands how things are done. Regular iteration on these processes helps us stay disciplined and efficient. This is particularly important in a remote setup where discipline is key to consistency. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴: We anticipate predictable workload:, such as attending events (booking travel/meetings) and LP updates, by planning and working ahead of time. This allows us to be proactive rather than reactive, a necessity in remote work where spontaneous problem-solving isn’t as easy. These strategies have enabled us to build and scale our venture capital firm remotely, proving that it’s possible. #scaleup #venturecapital #remotework

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"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

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Today marks a groundbreaking moment for BLCK VC and our fellow collaborators—Diversity VC, All Raise, 2Gether-International, SomosVC, StartOut, and VetsinTech—as we proudly announce the launch of the Diversity Data Alliance. This important alliance underscores our unwavering commitment to nurturing a venture capital and entrepreneurial ecosystem abundant in equity and inclusiveness. By standardizing and linking our data, we empower ourselves with the essential tools to track deeper trends that have, until now, eluded us to identify and fill funding gaps for historically excluded investors, founders, and operators. We can’t change what we do not measure, and now with the Diversity Data Alliance, we're now equipped to do both. Join us in this mission. Learn more and get involved: https://lnkd.in/eEZKdrac #DiversityDataAlliance #BLCKVC #VentureCapital #MeasureToChange

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A SAFE and convertible note had a baby and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati was the midwife- out popped the D-SAFE! 👶🏽🎉 A new #climatetech funding instrument was announced by Elemental Excelerator last week. One of the company’s main goals is to support smaller, up and coming companies during the awkward “Scale Gap” phase between #VC funding and natural growth. It’s called the #DSAFE (Development Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and it aims to aid the process by giving companies a small amount of cash to overcome initial risks and expenses during the developmental stages of a product launch or company. How does it work? D-SAFE has a redemption clause meaning companies can choose to have their payments offered as a loan or convert to equity at the investor’s discretion. Funders and companies will have clear communication and expectations about where the money is going and how it will be applied to either the company or the projects at hand. Financiers and companies will work together with more #transparency, and that’s a great boon for #startups and VC alike. As of this month, Elemental has already invested using D-SAFE in eight different companies, including Dimensional Energy and Origen — both companies investing in innovative and out-of-the-box solutions to environmental issues! Seems like a win-win on the surface. What do you all think about the D-SAFE? Alfredo Coppola Momoka Ueda Tim Wagner Stephen D. Torres Olya Irzak Natsuho Toyama Noriya Tarutani Shin Ogawa

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An INTJ Fund conversation with Sofie Marien (Co-Founder + CTO of NoMi). NoMi aims to be the Duolingo for self-help. NoMi was in A16Z GAMES SPEEDRUN's recent cohort and backed by Jorge Mazel (previously Chief Product Officer at Duolingo). Sofie is an award-winning mobile developer and marketer with over eleven years experience in games at PlayStation and Hasbro.  She's worked on multiple top-charting games including Horizon Zero Dawn and Monopoly. She's now taking her experience to turn relatable Gen-Z experiences into playable games. I think a lot of people simply need more repetitions in order to learn how to deal with social situations. In the future, I can see people simulating everything from tough conversations to dates in game like experiences. What's a social situation you wished you could have simulated in a game as practice? Want to make friends with people like Sofie? Apply to join the INTJ Fund community - https://lnkd.in/g9tcUZVg #selfhelp #mentalhealth #gaming #INTJFund #INTJ #A16Z #INTJwomen #womeninstem

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That’s a business model to increase the efficiency of any kind of activity powered by Human and AI without any record studios.

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It seems inevitable that as the underlying foundation models become more powerful, the LLM players will seek to justify the enormous investment that has gone into training their models by moving "up the stack", and evolve from an API or chat interface, to async agents. Regardless of whether the foundation model companies end up directly competing with you in your vertical, I believe as a B2B AI startup, you NEED to go through the thought experiment: how do I future proof my company as the underlying models progress? More here: https://lnkd.in/gkdhmVer

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A few thoughts from the Ironbird Studio team on how to do right by founders & downstream capital. This one is in the weeds unless you spend a lot of time thinking about venture studio economics, but critical if you're a founder or investor thinking about partnering with a studio. https://lnkd.in/eaej7XtM

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🚨Boom! 8090 Industries portfolio company Armada led by Dan Wright and Jon Runyan lands another $40M led by Microsoft marking $100M raised to date after announcing its Series A and coming out of stealth in 2023 just 7 months ago and shares new customer partnerships with Haliburton and Skydio. 🌪 “Extreme situations like hurricanes reinforce the need for “edge” computing, the practice of processing data locally rather than sending it back to the cloud. “Lots of oil and gas companies are really very concerned about these types of disasters. You can’t have any latency. You have to be able to respond in real time.” Dan Wright, cofounder and CEO of Armada, While disaster response is the obvious application, Armada’s edge technology also has a big role to play in all sorts of remote environments where uninterrupted data access is critical. Think real-time safety monitoring at high-risk worksites, real-time emissions tracking for oil rigs, and automated operations for mines. In regards to the newly inked partnership with Microsoft: It’s a natural fit, says Pradeep Nair Armada’s founding CTO and a 10-year veteran of Microsoft’s Azure business. “If you look at all of these customers we’re hitting—oil, gas, and mining—these guys are legacy, traditional customers and Microsoft is their biggest vendor,” he says. The partnership with Microsoft “opens up the whole pipeline, without us needing to go through the whole procurement process.” Cc Kerem Ozmen Garuth A. Wes Mendenhall Filip Vurdelja Haluk Sabanci Dincer Grant Brown Ishan Meswani Andrew Irwin Shilpa Patel

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Controversial opinion - but in any case, we have to note "THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION SUPERIORITY", as John Cowan writes. Startup Studios, Venture Studios, Asset Studios, but also VCs that want to stay competitive in the future have to take data-driven decisions, based on actual, life data from what humans do in their projects and startups. AI can help, but in the end it's human decisions (still) that make the difference for success or failure. I have been monitoring Max Pog and his grand research, cited in the article, for a while. He already promotes and lives the principles of collaborative startup ecosystem in his online community. We on the other hand are happy to build a platform that facilitates these interactions and the value creation as an operating system for studios and VCs. https://lnkd.in/eQ2uK2U6

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Just finished reading "The Next Giant Leap" by Space Capital - a pioneering VC investing in the emerging Space Economy. The report speaks to how SpaceX’s Starship is more than just the most powerful rocket ever built—it is poised to reshape the global space economy in profound ways. With its immense payload capacity, reusable design, and lower cost per launch, Starship will unlock entirely new industries and transform existing business models. But how should industries and businesses evolve to align with this paradigm shift? 📈 Rethinking Business Strategies & Supply Chains - For businesses, Starship represents an era of mass-production over precision engineering. This means moving away from the focus on mass efficiency toward cost-effective, redundant, and scalable production. - In terms of supply chains, this opens opportunities for new players in manufacturing, materials, and space components. The demand for off-the-shelf parts and non-aerospace suppliers will rise dramatically. 💡 New Use Cases & Opportunities   The opportunities Starship unlocks go beyond launching satellites. - In-space manufacturing of high-value products like pharmaceuticals and advanced materials that cannot be created on Earth. - Mega-constellations of satellites for global broadband, expanding on what Starlink has already begun. - In-orbit assembly and servicing, allowing for larger space structures like telescopes or even habitats to be built in orbit, radically reducing costs. - Lunar infrastructure and resource extraction will become more viable, paving the way for sustainable human presence on the Moon and, eventually, Mars. 📊 What Should Businesses Do Now?   1. Embrace Redundancy & Scale – Instead of focusing on one-off, high-cost solutions, businesses should embrace redundancy and mass production.    2. Simplify Design – With Starship’s payload capacity, there is less pressure to optimize for mass efficiency. Simplified, scalable designs will allow for faster production and iteration cycles, akin to how SpaceX rapidly tests and evolves Starship itself. 3. Develop Strategic Partnerships – Collaborating with forward-thinking space startups, suppliers, and even non-aerospace sectors will be essential to capitalize on the opportunities Starship provides. 🌌 A New Era of Innovation   Starship will democratize access to space, lowering the barriers for businesses to create and scale. The next decade will witness breakthroughs in scientific exploration, energy production, and in-space transportation that we can only begin to imagine today. #SpaceEconomy #Starship #Innovation #SupplyChain #Manufacturing #SpaceTech #Entrepreneurship #FutureOfSpace https://lnkd.in/gNdbwXdq

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What Dave McClure is building resonates well what we are doing with our Siena Secondary Fund. Although one focuses on fund stakes and the other company positions, the journey is the same - need to educate the market about what is #VC #secondary and how to benefit from it...

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Exciting news! We just sent out the inaugural newsletter for Future Frontier Capital, our pre-seed venture fund backing frontier tech startups. As I hit "send," I realized how launching FFC parallels the path of the founders we support. Starting FFC has required the same passion, perseverance, and self-belief that drive entrepreneurs. Just like a startup, getting a VC fund off the ground demands relentless hustle—building the brand, perfecting the pitch, and networking tirelessly. There are constant challenges that test your resolve and endless hours of unglamorous work behind the scenes. And perhaps most daunting - the self-doubt, wondering if you're crazy for attempting something so bold. Pushing through that negative self-talk requires unshakable faith in your mission. Raising this VC fund reminds me of starting our IP strategy and patent analytics firm two decades ago. It’s a powerful reminder of the perseverance, creativity, and resilience needed to turn an ambitious idea into reality. This experience makes us more empathetic partners, ready to support the founders we back. Our work is just beginning, and this inaugural newsletter underscores our commitment to supporting frontier tech startups every step of the way. #startups #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers #Entrepreneurship #InnovationMindSet

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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

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Special Futurists #TechWeek Power Walk for AI, Web 3, and Space Tech founders, investors, and developers. 🚀 🍦 ​What We Will Do ​Join us for the very first Futurists walk in NYC, an easy-going and excellent icebreaker opportunity during the heart of tech week. We'll spend an hour strolling along the beautiful Highline on the west side, chatting about our AI, Blockchain, and Space Tech projects, exchanging ideas, and hearing about new business ventures, emerging trends and future scenarios. It's a relaxed affair with no stiff or formal meetings. Feel free to join us for conversation, to listen, or simply to enjoy a walk on the Highline and indulge in some ice cream afterward. ​Bonus Exclusive for those who've joined our power walks, we invite you to join our Futurists WhatsApp group and visit our virtual spaceship! Connect with like-minded individuals who share the experience and have something in common. ​*After Walk Due to high interest in our walk, we're heading to a special ice cream event after the walk where you can mingle and socialize. Note: the ice cream location will be revealed only to walk participants. If you can't make it, feel free to send someone in your place! ​Is This for Me? This event is perfect for you if you actively involved in A.I., Web 3 and/or Space tech: ​An investor ​A creator ​An influencer ​A founder ​Running a startup ​Raising money ​Looking for a co-founder ​Interested in sharing ideas ​Seeking brainstorming opportunities ​Networking ​Looking for new or first customers/users ​Pitching your business ​Seeking a chance to clear your head ​Aiming to get in 2,000 steps ​ Also, check out our virtual events on our space ship These events are filling up quickly, and early bird specials are available. Additionally, individuals with 10,000 or more followers or subscribers on social media (business or private) can get free tickets (limited spaces available  https://lnkd.in/emwmKeMY ) ​Follow us on X https://lnkd.in/eAwMiqfa ​Linkedin: https://lnkd.in/euaJebRW ​ Sponsored by Future Center Ventures (www.futurecenter.ventures) ​This event is a part of #TechWeek Andreessen Horowitz - a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem look forward to seeing you tomorrow. 🚀 🍦 https://lu.ma/0e623t5f

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This weeks episode was excellent. NIA. https://lnkd.in/dCXpNZxe

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Check out my recent post on why President Trump is the forcing function for us to solve the “Missing Middle” and catch the industrial Tsunami of onshoring coming to the US!

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