Industrial Vanguard Vol. 26

Introduction: Reflections from SF Deep Tech Week

This past week, San Francisco hosted one of the most invigorating gatherings in industrial innovation: Deep Tech Week. Across three major venues—Voyager, Playground Global, and a select AI Infrastructure & Energy showcase—the future of materials, compute, and systems integration took shape.

Voyager: Advanced Materials & Manufacturing

Voyager showcased companies transforming the physical world:

• Earth AI (Roman Teslyuk): Using AI to automate minerals exploration.

• Leeta (Kira Wyckoff): Reinventing HVAC using material science and ML.

• SirenOpt (Jared O'Leary): Fiber-optic sensing for real-time industrial safety.

• Alta (Nathan Ratledge): Energy storage with ultra-low cost and fast response.

• Aluminio (Brian Hardin): Zero-emission aluminum smelting.

• Conifer (Ankit Somani): High-efficiency electric motors for EVs.

• Astro Mechanica (Ian Brooke): Microgravity manufacturing and orbital materials.

• Voyager’s team, led by investor Nare Janvelyan, underscored its thesis of backing foundational companies in decarbonization and the industrial transition.

Playground Global: Compute, Quantum, and Biology

Playground Global explored compute beyond Moore's Law:

• Quantum Pioneers: PsiQuantum's Terry Rudolph and NVision's Sella Brosh explained how quantum sensing and photon-based qubits could transform detection and processing.

• Computational Biology: Atomic AI (Raphael Townshend) and GigaCrop (Chris Eiben) showed the frontiers of generative protein design and bioengineered crops.

• Next-Gen Infrastructure: d-Matrix, Snowcap Compute, and xLight presented advances in photonic and analog compute for AI scalability.

AI Infrastructure & Energy Roundtable

• VC leaders from Qualcomm Ventures, ACME Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Foothill Ventures emphasized the convergence of energy, data infrastructure, and climate tech.

• Demo highlights: Vaquita (AI + energy), Agentuity (agent-based modeling), Tandemn (grid optimization), Cielara (satellite-enabled climate analytics), and Corvic AI (edge AI).

Materials

• LIDROTEC raises $13.5M to improve semiconductor yields. Read more

• Nascent Materials emerges from stealth to enhance LFP batteries. Read more (link placeholder if public)

Energy

• U.S.-made battery with 50% longer life enters production. Read more

• Enter lands €20M to green EU housing. Read more

• Ignis Energy closes $13.6M to expand geothermal exploration. Read more

• Aedifion secures €17M for smart building energy platforms. Read more

Design & Development

• PhysicsX approaches $1B valuation for physics-based AI. Read more

• Snowcap Compute launches with $23M to scale quantum + AI compute. Read more

• Seekr raising $100M at $1.2B valuation. Read more

• Centific lands $60M to scale AI data ops. Read more

• Qunnect secures Cisco backing for quantum networking. Read more

• Uncountable raises $27M for R&D acceleration. Read more

Manufacturing

• Neura Robotics eyes up to €1B to expand cognitive robotics. Read more

• Voliro raises $23M for industrial inspection drones. Read more

• Liberty Phone: A $1,999 U.S.-made smartphone. Read more

• Apptronik spins out Elevate Robotics for industrial robots. Read more

• Tacta Systems raises $75M for manufacturing systems. Read more

Supply Chain & Logistics

• Lucid cuts supply chain complexity to boost resilience. Read more

• Supply Wisdom raises $14M and names Jenna Wells CEO. Read more

• Xona raises $92M for global supply chain tech. Read more

Recycling

• No notable updates this week.

Venture Capital & Private Equity

• Foreign investors hesitate amid "revenge tax" fears. Read more

• A tale of two cities in VC: coastal divergence. Read more

• Oak Investment's windfall from Circle IPO. Read more

• Linkner brothers raise $85M for AI fund. Read more

• Axios breakdown: Dealmaking in 2025. Read more

Markets, Policy & News

• Killer drones and robotaxis are here. Read more

• Retail investors sour on big tech stocks. Read more

• U.S. to target chip plants in China operated by allies. Read more

• Waymo quietly shutters Detroit plant. Read more

• Chinese EVs dominate cost and quality benchmarks. Read more

Closing Note

Thanks for reading Industrial Vanguard. Each week, we track the frontier of materials, energy, compute, manufacturing, and policy to help founders, funders, and builders stay ahead of the curve. If you enjoyed this issue, please forward it to a colleague or friend.