Notes from the Technology Frontier - May 2024
Welcome to Notes from the Technology Frontier!
Future Frontier Capital (FFC) is thrilled to share our latest update.
We've made great progress on our fundraise and are in conversation with several frontier technology startups.
Latest Deal Flow
Creating carbon-neutral materials using AI. European Co-Founders, (repeat founder with an exit and a Cambridge University PhD).
GPU killer! This disruptive startup includes technical founders from renowned US and European Universities replacing electrons with photons for high end computing applications.
Autonomous agricultural bots to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and replace labor-intensive tasks. The founders consist of a consulting industry veteran with a robotics engineer who worked on autonomous vehicles.
Novel medical sealant based on natural materials. The technology was licensed from a renowned university researcher.
Other News
Completed the Coolwater Capital Emerging Manager program. This was an incredible experience for me and Mark. We honed our portfolio construction strategy, developed a comprehensive data room, and pitched hundreds of investors at the Demo Day in early April.
Officially kicked off our fundraising efforts and have been speaking with several interested LP’s. Our goal continues to be to reach our first close in Q2, 2024.
Future Technology Trends - PFAS
PFAS (forever chemicals) were recently designated at hazardous materials by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
We have been tracking one University of Minnesota startup Claros Technologies that is commercializing a UV technology that destroys PFAS (forever chemicals). This tech combines UV light systems with inorganic photocatalysts to break the carbon-fluorine bond in these forever chemicals. The company also has years of experience developing PFAS analytical methods.
Here’s an article providing an overview of the PFAS destruction startup landscape. An important, burgeoning frontier technology area to watch!
Future Technology Trends - DePIN
Back in 2021, mid pandemic I dove deep into the blockchain ecosystems. One of the more interesting projects I found is Akash Network (AKT), a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN).
Akash aims to be the "Airbnb of cloud computing" by offering a decentralized marketplace where anyone can rent out unused computing power as an alternative to traditional cloud services.
The AKT cryptocurrency powers this marketplace, used to pay for computing resources and incentivize participation.
The project has been making great progress over the past 12 months, growing nearly 10X from q12023 to Q12024 and recently eclipsing $50K monthly recurring revenue.
Future Technology Trends - OpenCRISPR
Berkeley, California based Profluent Bio, has trained a large language model (LLM) on a massive amount of biological data.
This AI model can design novel gene editors that don't exist naturally.
One such AI-designed gene editor has successfully edited human DNA.
Profluent is open-sourcing or making this AI-generated gene editor available for free public use.
This demonstrates Profluent's ability to leverage AI and large datasets to engineer brand new gene editing systems through computational design.
By open-sourcing these AI-designed tools, Profluent aims to democratize access to cutting-edge gene editing capabilities for researchers and companies working in fields like therapeutics, agriculture, and more.
This breakthrough exemplifies how AI can computationally create optimized biomolecules not found in nature, accelerating innovation across the life sciences.
Here is access to the preprint and the NY Times article.
FFCs Value Add: How we get Invited to Deals
Next Level Due Diligence
Over the past several months, we have spoken to several GPs from early-stage frontier/deep tech venture capital firms. Most of these GPs expressed an interest for Future Frontier Capital (FFC) to evaluate and ideally participate in their deals.
Early stage deep tech startups have high-levels of technology risk. FFC is optimally positioned to scan the competitive patent and scientific literature landscapes to identify competitive risks or opportunities. Using our software, we quickly identify others working on similar technology, those that are targeting similar commercial markets with different technology, and players that use similar technology to commercialize solutions in alternative markets.
We are energized by the positive feedback from colleagues at other VCs. It reinforces our premise that our unique experience and approach to evaluating technology risk is highly valued and is a critical differentiator that greatly increases our ability to get into competitive deals.
Filling Knowledge Gaps
Recently, a prospective LP asked us to take a look at the competitive landscape related to an early stage biotech deal. The patent landscape analysis revealed several companies developing drugs aimed at similar targets, of which the investor was unaware. Furthermore, after a discussion with the startup’s founder, it became evident that they were unaware of at least one of these competing companies.
On the one hand, we were surprised, startup founders should be aware of all players targeting solutions in their market. On the other hand, there are more than 8000 patents filed worldwide each day. It is unrealistic to assume that early-stage founders would be on top of all of the relevant data related to their technology and market. This is especially true if founders don’t have the proper skills and software to monitor this data and identify all of the competitors working in a technology area.
This example highlights a couple of FFC’s key differentiators: to Identify all the players working in a technology area which enhances our deal sourcing capability and our ability to pick winners. And, adding value to early stage frontier tech founders to help them navigate the challenges associated with building a competitive moat.
Unique Experience
Most frontier and deep tech VCs I’ve met have limited experience leveraging patents and scientific literature data to identify others’ working in an area. For the past 20 years, we have specialized in this area - providing large tech companies, startup founders, and researchers insights into the who, what, when, where, and why of early stage technology development. We oversaw new product development initiatives, analyzed M&A transactions, and generally helped organizations decide how to best enter an emerging market with strong competitive advantages.
We specialize in providing founders with strategic guidance to establish technology and business-based control positions. Whether through leveraging traditional intellectual property rights - patents, trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, or through advising on how to structure licensing agreements to gain access to proprietary data, we provide essential guidance to help startups win in the market.
Our unique experience and background in intellectual property and patent analytics position FFC to directly source unique deals, participate in deals from other VCs, and help startups to establish robust control positions to ultimately win in the market.
Please reach out if you’d like to learn more.
Sincerely,
Matt & Mark
Echoes from the Edge
Jeff Parker - Jrifted
Milt Jackson - People Make the World Go Round