Dinners with Deep Tech VCs

Leo manages Humba Ventures, an early stage fund focused on deep tech companies, and on critical sectors like defense and manufacturing. Humba Ventures writes $500k checks at pre-seed and seed.

An accomplished venture investor, company advisor, and entrepreneur, Chris manages a portfolio of over seventy technology and consumer startups through Lowercase Capital, as well as countless dozens more at his firm Lowercarbon Capital.

Ariana Thacker is the Founding Partner of Conscience VC, an early-stage firm investing in science-led companies empowering humanity.

Gaurab is the co-founder and CEO of Solugen. As a physician-scientist, Gaurab took an oath to first do no harm—and for him, that goes beyond patients or medicine. So in 2016, he started Solugen to decarbonize the chemicals industry, one of the most damaging for people and the Earth. Gaurab believes in using biology in unconventional ways to solve incredibly complex problems and is building a world-class team to join him on the journey.

John Gedmark is CEO & Cofounder of Astranis and an aerospace engineer. Astranis builds and operates small, low-cost telecommunications satellites for high orbits, starting with geostationary orbit (GEO). Astranis is deploying satellites on contract for enterprise and government customers around the world, bringing low-cost broadband internet to remote and underserved areas. The company has raised over $500 million to date with rounds led by Andreessen Horowitz, Venrock, and Blackrock, and has a team of 300 based out of their San Francisco Bay Area headquarters.

Ali Tamaseb is a General Partner at DCVC, Deep-Tech only VC fund with over $3.5 billion invested in founders solving trillion-dollar problems with complex engineering and science. For over 10 years, DCVC has invested in industries such as biotech (Abcellera, Recursion Pharma), defense (Fortem, Primer, Capella Space), robotics (Agility Robotics, Fulfil), agriculture (Pivot, Blue River), space (Rocket Lab, Planet), climate (Twelve, Fervo), energy (Oklo, Zap), as well as many other foundational technologies. The investments Tamaseb has made has generated an enterprise value of over $10 billion and the companies he sits on as a board director employ over 4,000 people.

Bio: Packy writes the Not Boring newsletter and invests at Not Boring Capital, an early stage fund that backs hard startups and helps them tell their stories. Prior to Not Boring, Packy worked at a real estate startup, Breather.

Julian was the VP of Marketing for Webflow ($4B+ valuation). He then ran growth for Heap Analytics ($960M+ valuation), and helped grow Clearbit (now acquired by HubSpot). He later founded Demand Curve (YC 19) to help tens of thousands of startups grow (including Imperfect Foods, Tovala, Outschool and others).

Joe Wilson is the Founder and Managing Partner of Undeterred Capital, an early stage venture firm investing exclusively in deep tech and bioscience companies at the pre-seed and seed stages. Joe has worked as a deep tech operator for over a decade and was previously the co-founder and COO of Multiply Labs, a pharmaceutical robotics company that was spun out of MIT in 2016 and that has raised over $25M to date.

Victor Wang is a Partner at HOF Capital, where he leads the firm’s early-stage investments in AI, next-gen computing, & biotech startups. He is excited about partnering with visionary founders who are building category-defining companies that will accelerate the evolution of human biology, technology, & civilization.

Rayyan is the Co-founder and General Partner of 8090 Industries, a VC firm backed by global energy and industrial titans, focused on breakthrough science, decarbonization and national security. The companies Rayyan has invested in have grown to $8B+ in private market value and employ 5,000+ people across the US -  including groundbreaking companies like EquipmentShare, Astranis, Infinium, Quaise, Regent, Living Carbon and Liberation Labs. Rayyan serves on the Boards of Oklo, Cemvita, Circ, Maple Materials and is a Co-founder of Gold Hydrogen, a producer of abundant clean hydrogen from microbes and old oil wells for less than $1/kg.

Prior to founding 11.2 Capital, Shelley was formerly EVP of Business Development at Ecoplast Technologies, where she oversaw business development & sales efforts in North America. Previously, Shelley was a Principal at DFJ, where she was actively involved in a number of investments including FeedBurner (acquired by Google for $100M), Flurry (acquired by Yahoo for $240M), PPLive (acquired by Suning for $420M), TicketsNow (acquired by Ticketmaster for $265M), Xfire (acquired by Viacom for $102M), YeePay.

Ian is Founder & General Partner at Cantos, a first-check firm dedicated to founders tackling the world's most acute problems with real-world technology––across climate, biology, and aerospace & defense, though it prefers "n of 1" category-creators to founders who fit cleanly into other VCs' buckets.