Friends & Family Capital

Episode 3 of 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 is live. This week’s topic: 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲. As companies grow, decisions get distributed, and control can drift. In this episode, Colin Anderson breaks down governance from first principles: • What board members bring to the table: talent, customers, or capital • How to avoid trading control for convenience • Why concentration risk applies to people, not just customers • How founders should think about control from day one Governance is not something you fix later. It compounds. Just like everything else. Full episode linked in the comments. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to follow along as we break down the real finance questions founders face.

Modern conflicts are decided in the air. Today Swarm Aero announced a $35 Million Series A, bringing total capital raised to $59 Million. Swarm is building large, multimission UAVs and the swarm software to manufacture and deploy them at scale, all American-made. The current model - which pairs as many as four people to operate a single drone - does not scale. Swarm built software that lets one person command dozens, and eventually thousands. Large drones. Mass production. A fundamentally new cost curve for air power. We're proud to have backed this team since the seed and to participate again in this round. Congrats to Danny Goodman and the entire Swarm team. Read more here:  https://lnkd.in/gs6e6KpQ

Episode 2 of 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 is live. Each episode tackles the tactical finance questions that surface again and again in conversations with founders. This week’s topic: 𝗧𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝘀. A few years into their journeys, many companies reach a similar moment. The team has been in the trenches. The company has created value. But for most employees, that value still exists only on paper. So how should founders think about liquidity? In this episode, Colin Anderson shares the first principles behind tender offers — and the tradeoffs founders must navigate between employees, founders, and investors. Full episode linked in the comments. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to join the journey as Colin breaks down the real finance questions founders face each week.

Eridu has raised more than $200 Million to rebuild the network stack for the age of AI.   AI compute moves fast. Networks do not. That gap slows progress across the entire ecosystem.   Eridu takes a clean sheet approach. New architecture to unlock the scale that modern AI demands.   We back founders who challenge limits of what is now possible.    Congratulations to Drew Perkins and the entire Eridu team on this milestone. Excited to be on the journey with you! 

Today we officially launch 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲, a new podcast from Friends & Family Capital. The goal is simple: keep you building. In Episode 1, Colin Anderson, founding partner and former CFO of Palantir Technologies, tackles a question we hear on repeat: 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗜 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗮 𝗖𝗙𝗢? This is usually a signal of a deeper, more important question. The real issue is not title. It is quantitative clarity -- on what happened, what is happening, and what comes next. This episode breaks down the frameworks to help diagnose your finance gap and hire for the right stage of your business. Spoiler: The answer might surprise you. Full episode linked in comments. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to join the journey as Colin shares responses to the real questions he receives each week.

After years in the trenches, we’ll explore the scar tissue, frameworks, and insights that help entrepreneurs turn finance into a force multiplier.    Introducing Friends & Family Capital’s First Principles Finance. The goal of this podcast is simple: keep you building.    Hosted by Colin Anderson — founding partner of Friends & Family Capital and former CFO of Palantir Technologies — the show pulls directly from the conversations Colin has each week with founders at the coal face.   Every episode tackles the critical finance decisions that shape a company’s path: when to bring on a first finance lead, how to keep a cash war chest safe, how to use debt and equity, etc.   The podcast launches soon. Subscribe now (link in comments) and be first in line when every new episode drops. https://lnkd.in/dcbi7uCk

Generational compute infrastructure companies are rare and special. Building one demands deep convictions from founders like Steve Tuck and Bryan Cantrill at Oxide Computer Company. How the world should and will run, how to translate insights into architecture, and the patience to earn trust over decades. Oxide today announced a $200 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐂 to scale its on-premises cloud computing platform. Steve and Bryan are building a generational company in the compute infrastructure category. Oxide designs and manufactures the 𝐎𝐱𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐫 -- an integrated system that combines purpose-built hardware with open-source software to deliver a modern, self-service cloud experience on-premises. Cloud compute delivered in a form factor that customers can own, not rent. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: ● Enterprises want cloud simplicity and power. Oxide delivers with 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐬𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐭𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬 for customers ● Core infrastructure decisions require vendors 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢-𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬. Oxide is built for that journey. It's a life’s work, not a means to an end  ● Customers want a strong core infrastructure partner. This investment round 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐎𝐱𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 to deliver for its growing customers today, and for the multi-decade journey ahead We believe the case for owning your cloud will strengthen as compute becomes strategic infrastructure and sovereignty becomes non-negotiable. Delighted to partner with Steve, Bryan, and the team at Oxide to build the cloud 𝘺𝘰𝘶 own.

Enterprises have long been forced to choose between slow, expensive custom builds or generic SaaS that erased their edge. Northslope Technologies ends that tradeoff. Friends & Family Capital is proud to lead Northslope's Series A. Built by former Palantir Forward Deployed Engineers, Northslope’s applied AI is specifically designed for the Palantir ecosystem. The platform delivers precision software without the drag and cost of legacy development or the limits of one-size-fits-all SaaS. Northslope already delivers real results in healthcare, aerospace, energy and more. This capital lets Northslope scale the model and helps their customers deliver unique outcomes, fast. Congratulations to Bill Ward and the entire Northslope team on this milestone. Excited to be on the journey with you.

Valinor is a defense and government technology company built for the long tail of important yet often overlooked problems. Friends & Family Capital is proud to lead Valinor's Series A on its mission to solve the long tail of unaddressed needs. We are excited to build with Co-founder and CEO Julie Bush and the entire Valinor team. Silicon Valley DefenseTech and GovTech have delivered historic outcomes through moonshot solutions, demonstrated by the success of Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, and Anduril Industries. Despite the major customer outcomes delivered by these modern defense primes, thousands of mission-critical problems remain unaddressed. Enter Valinor to champion these unaddressed needs. It operates as a holding company of product companies. Each product company begins with concrete demand signal from trusted networks, then Valinor delivers a precise product solution. Centralized go-to-market and operations remove friction and create leverage. Decentralized engineering and product teams focus on delivering meaningful outcomes quickly. Read more in Axios, link in comments.

Hg Announces Acquisition of OneStream Software for $6.4 Billion. Public market acquisitions can influence valuation multiples for high-growth technology companies in the private markets. An update on recent acquisitions and multiples for our friends building technology companies can be found below.