Matt Rappaport

Big News for European Deep Tech Innovation! Mundi Ventures just closed €750M for Kembara Growth Fund dedicated to European deep tech solutions. This is a game-changer for European growth stage startups driving innovation in AI, robotics, clean energy, and sustainability. Europe is a hotbed for cutting-edge technology and climate action. Funds like Kembara are crucial for scaling these innovations and positioning Europe as a global leader in deep tech. #DeepTech #ClimateTech #EuropeanInnovation #VentureCapital #Growth #Sustainability Javier Santiso Yann de Vries

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🇺🇸 The U.S. is the WORLD’S LARGEST consumer of stable isotopes, yet has minimal domestic production capacity — constraining nuclear, pharmaceutical, defense, and other CRITICAL industries. Actinide raised millions out of the last Discipulus Ventures Cohort to build a scalable American isotope platform and ignite the next ATOMIC AGE in America👇 Who Actinide was founded by Eric Olszewski and Robert Mendelsohn Eric is a repeat founder and early Ethereum developer who personally funded $1M+ into Actinide. Robert has spent nearly a decade building isotope separation machines and has prototyped nearly every separator described in the literature. Problem Isotopes unlock advanced materials by changing how substances behave, improving heat transfer, mechanical response, and transport properties through controlled atomic-scale interactions. Yet supply is highly concentrated: Russia dominates many high-value isotopes, while U.S. production capacity remains extremely limited. Solution Actinide rebuilt Manhattan Project–era calutron technology from first principles. Using modern physics simulation, advanced magnetic assemblies, semiconductor-grade components, and in-house manufacturing, Actinide produces isotopes faster and at far lower cost than legacy systems. Vision and Progress Actinide’s first full-scale machine has successfully produced material verified by an independent third-party lab. The company has signed supply agreements across nuclear and pharmaceutical markets, including isotopes priced near $36,000 per gram. Early demand already exceeds current throughput. Hiring Actinide is scaling American manufacturing at the atomic level. They are hiring machinists, metallurgists, control systems engineers, and operators to help build the domestic supply chain for the most valuable materials. Contact: eric@actinideinc.com Discipulus Ventures backs founders tackling America’s hardest problems. If you’re building something ambitious like Actinide, apply to our Cohort: 👉 https://cometogundo.com

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A single policy decision is redirecting billions into clean energy. The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act isn’t just boosting EVs and energy storage — it’s reshaping global capital flows, manufacturing strategies, and supply chains. Battery plants are scaling faster. Energy storage projects are accelerating. And countries across the world are rethinking how they compete — or collaborate — in the clean energy race. This moment will define who leads the next decade of energy transition and who follows. The real question is: How should emerging energy markets respond to this shift? #EnergyStorage #BatteryManufacturing #CleanEnergy #EnergyTransition #EVInfrastructure #GlobalEnergy #Sustainability #PolicyImpact #RenewableEnergy #LithiumIon

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The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has launched a wearable biosensor development program aimed at revolutionizing real-time health monitoring. This new initiative seeks to fund the development of next-generation biosensors capable of detecting a wide range of biomarkers, including those for chronic conditions and infectious diseases. By harnessing cutting-edge sensor technology, ARPA-H’s program aims to improve early detection, preventive care, and personalized medicine, helping clinicians identify health issues before they become critical. The goal is to create wearables that can monitor biological signals 24/7, providing a wealth of data to support better treatment decisions and faster responses to patient needs. This could be a game-changer for healthcare, particularly in areas like remote patient monitoring, disease prevention, and real-time diagnostics. The future of healthcare delivery is evolving rapidly with wearables, and ARPA-H’s program sets the stage for broader, more accessible health technologies. #MedTech #WearableTech #Biosensors #HealthcareInnovation https://lnkd.in/gWyg8i89

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My partner, Lisa Morales-Hellebo, will be flying the flag for REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund in London at the end of the month. OUR INVESTMENT THESIS: REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund invests in early stage startups refashioning legacy industries through Data & AI, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing, & Next Generation Supply Chains; Defensible through economic moats. Join us. #IndustrialTransformation #SupplyChain #Innovation #Technology #Startups #VentureCapital

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👍 Positive VCM News from the past week: 1️⃣ Symbiosis Coalition selects Mombak’s Amazon reforestation project 2️⃣ NetZero inaugurates fourth biochar factory 3️⃣ Avnos, Inc. secures $17M to build flagship HDAC facility 4️⃣ Bain & Company & REI join Symbiosis Coalition 5️⃣ Australia’s new CDR roadmap to 330M tonnes CO₂ removal by 2050 👉 Sources in the comments #CarbonMarket #VCM #CDR

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Thrilled to be backing this exceptional team at Radify Metals as they take on one of the most overlooked and critical challenges in rebuilding U.S. industrial strength. Their feature in TechCrunch highlights something that deserves far more attention: metalmaking as the bottleneck. While demand for critical metals is accelerating and supply chains remain fragile, the infrastructure to actually produce these materials hasn’t kept pace. Radify is building a fundamentally better approach that is faster, more cost-efficient, and cleaner, with the goal of restoring scalable metal production here in the U.S. Huge congratulations to the team, and appreciation to Tim De Chant for telling the story so thoughtfully.

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💥 Excited to finally unveil another BOOOM💥-Portfolio Company out of stealth with Ankar AI 📈 Innovation doesn’t wait — but the patenting process still does. In 2023, over 3.5M patent applications were filed globally, and the number keeps rising. Yet, the process of securing IP remains painfully slow, expensive, and inaccessible to most teams building frontier tech. ⚡ That’s where Ankar comes in Founded by Palantir Technologies and Helsing alumni Tamar and Wiem, Ankar is reinventing how intellectual property is protected — using AI to compress the months-long patenting process into days. 🛠️ Their platform covers the full patent lifecycle: from technical memo generation and novelty checks against global patent data, to application drafting and infringement detection — already in use by Fortune500 giants and R&D teams in Europe, the US, and China. 💥 It's been one of those rare investor-founder calls in early 2024: falling in love with Tamar, Wiem and how they operate within the first 5 minutes: lightning fast, product-obsessed, with a deep understanding of real customer pain. What they’ve built in under 12 months is mind-blowing — a full-stack AI engine already loved by top-tier innovators in automotive, chemicals, pharma, cosmetics and beyond. Excited to work on this amazing project with a group of good friends such as Bastian & Hannah at Index Ventures, Gloria at Puzzle Ventures, Nicolas at Motier Ventures and daphni among others to help make patents fast, accessible, and scalable — for inventors everywhere. 💥 See press coverage in the comments 💥 #BOOOM Julius Koehler Nicolaus Schefenacker David Nothacker Dr. Christian Gahr

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Deep tech isn't just about having the best technology. It's about having the clearest route from lab to market. The right people, expertise, and timing can be the difference between a research paper and a category-defining company.

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America didn’t invent the tech company. Germany did. In the 1870s, Siemens, BASF, and AEG built the first Industrial Research Labs - structured science teams working on applied problems at scale. Not lone inventors in sheds. Organised commercial R&D with budgets, timelines, and market objectives. The model every technology company on earth now runs on. After WWI, American firms studied the German model and rebuilt it - but in a unified market of 300 million customers, one language, one legal system. Then the US government did something Europe never did. It systematically engineered a risk tolerance from the top down. Three levers. Carefully sequenced. They changed everything. The SBIC Act (1958). Private banks were too conservative to fund startups. So the government became a limited partner. For every $1 a private investor put into an early VC firm, the government lent $2 to $3 at low interest rates - tripling firepower and removing the downside. The legendary Draper, Gaither & Anderson - the first true West Coast VC - was born in this era. The ERISA Pivot (1979). Until that year, US pension funds were legally prohibited from investing in VC under the Prudent Man Rule. One clarification - reframing fiduciary duty from individual asset risk to portfolio risk - opened the floodgates. VC fundraising doubled within two years. The Capital Gains Tax Cut (1978). The top rate was slashed from 49.5% to 28% overnight. The incentive to back a startup rather than a bond immediately doubled. None of this was accidental. It was a deliberate policy architecture - a regulatory bypass that let capital flow into frontier science without allocators getting fired for being reckless. Europe had the science. America engineered the permission to fund it. Now look at where Europe stands today. After ten years, the Capital Markets Union was quietly rebranded the Savings and Investment Union in 2025 - an admission that the original hadn’t delivered. EU IPO volumes fell 23% last year while the US grew 20%. European pension funds manage €3 trillion in assets. Just 0.12% of it reaches venture and growth capital. European venture and growth outperformed the US side over the last 10 years and crushed the MSCI Europe. It’s a performance problem. EU-INC - a single incorporation framework across all 27 member states - was announced this week. It is promising, but voluntary only. It is also a 2027 story at the earliest. Europe is still waiting for its 1979 moment. Europe knows what they are - innovators at heart. The question is whether it has the political will to pull them - fast enough to matter.

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The Resurgence of Nuclear Startups: Potential vs. Challenges Small modular reactor (SMR) startups are gaining traction, promising to revolutionize energy production through mass manufacturing and cost reduction. However, the journey ahead is fraught with regulatory, technological, and market challenges that these innovators must navigate effectively. At ElevenX Capital, we recognize that while the potential is significant, a comprehensive strategy addressing these complexities is essential for success. Are investors ready to support this evolving frontier? #investing #innovation #venturecapital #entrepreneurship

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Great to see Graphitic Energy featured in this insightful Utility Dive article by Melanie Davidson on rethinking California's hydrogen strategy. #greenmolecules

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It’s an incredible time for deep-tech innovation. Across multiple domains, the pace of innovation has accelerated 22% YOY. The number of patent filings has reached record levels and AI has shrunk the “idea-to-action” timeframe by 30%. This is combined with record levels of capital ready to be deployed. But despite all of this, many deep-tech founders are experiencing a funding wall between seed and series B. This isn’t due to a gap in their technology, it’s due to a gap in the understanding they’re able to communicate to strategic partners and investors. Many deep-tech innovations are so complex and transformative, that they’re very difficult to understand. The more transformative a technology is, the wider that gap becomes. The answer isn’t better explanation, founders also need to inspire stakeholders with a tangible and powerful vision for the future and engage them intellectually and emotionally so that they’re inspired and convicted to partner. So that’s why I’m very excited to share a brand new service from Demos; The Demos Studio Brand Accelerator. It’s a program that was developed at the request of founders to help them close that meaning gap and clear the funding wall. It takes 20 years of experience from working with and on the best brands in the world and puts it in the hands of founders for only $25K in cash plus $50K in equity. We’ve already been working with several founders in this way and I’m really happy to be able to share it more broadly. If you’re a deep-tech founder with a transformative innovation that should be getting more attention, or an investor whose deep-tech portco has untapped potential, I’d love to hear from you. 

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Small Modular Reactors Are Heating Up The recent traction shown by Radiant, highlighted by its successful Series B financing and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) invitation to test their #Kaleidos reactor as early as 2026 is remarkable. IPO CLUB is tracking Radiant and other leading #startup in the #SMR space for our flagship America2030 fund, including X-energy and TerraPower. Congratulations to Doug Bernauer and the entire Radiant team. Note: While “heating up” may sound catchy, it's worth reflecting on its implications. For a deeper understanding of the risks and history of nuclear energy, I highly recommend “Chernobyl” by Harvard University professor Serhii Plokhii.

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Homerun licenses Long Duration Energy Storage Tech from the US Dept of Energy / NREL. A less than competitve LDES is currently valued at US$500 million...

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A new AI model called MatterGen is revolutionizing materials science by creating tailored materials for future technologies. This breakthrough could accelerate the development of new materials for various applications, including batteries, fuel cells, and more. Here's what you need to know: ~ AI-Driven Material Discovery: MatterGen uses a diffusion model trained on a vast database of materials to generate new materials based on specific requirements and desired properties. ~ Efficiency and Accuracy: This approach is more efficient than traditional material search methods and has already led to the creation of a new material, TaCr2O6, with high compressive strength. ~ Open Source Innovation: MatterGen is available to everyone under an MIT license, fostering collaboration and accelerating the development of new materials for various applications. ReX Capital LLC is excited about the potential of AI to drive innovation in materials science. We believe that advancements like MatterGen can unlock the development of new materials that will enable the next generation of technologies and contribute to a more sustainable and prosperous future. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gFAS2e7Y

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In hard-tech, the biggest moat isn’t a patent—it’s people! At Conduit, we quietly built one of the world’s most unique communities: a global network of over 200 engineers, operators, designers, supply chain veterans, and contract manufacturers—the Conduit Fellows. These are the men and women who have built, shipped, scaled the hardware and physical tech the world runs on. They’re the invisible force behind the devices in your hands, the sensors in your cars, and the machines on factory floors from Ohio to Shenzhen. They bring: 🛠 Decades of deep execution experience across product and manufacturing. 🌏 Access to global supply chains—from Tier 1 fabs in Taiwan to family-run suppliers in rural Europe. 🤝 Relationships forged in the real world, not just on pitch decks. This is Conduit’s edge (and our long term commitment). We don’t just aim to invest in physical technology. We build it. We de-risk it. We scale it. And we do it alongside the Fellows—those who’ve learned from the scars of failed pilots, lived through the pain of missed yield targets, and know what it takes to go from prototype to P&L. The future of physical AI, robotics, sensory systems, climate, and health-tech isn’t built in isolation. It’s built in community. That’s why we believe human capital is the most important infrastructure in hard-tech. If you’re building and investing the next generation of physical technology and want to be surrounded and supported by the best network in the world for execution—let’s talk. #HardTech #VentureCapital #ConduitVentureLabs #Hardware #Founders #EngineeringExcellence #ConduitFellows #SupplyChain #PhysicalAI #AIForTheRealWorld #PhysicalIntelligence #hardware (Meet some of our community > https://lnkd.in/ge6FK_cx)

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Episode 13 of the Easy VC Brief focused on one topic of deep tech - bio manufacturing. Talking about Mothership Materials and their work on sustainable feedstocks.🌿 It’s a bit shorter today but more focused. In a world conflicted and the 24 hour news cycle locked on the Iran War, I try to keep my mind focused on entrepreneurs who are trying to make the world better and there continues to be a big opportunity in bio manufacturing. #keepbuilding

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This week in #AmTech: Radiant raised over $300 million in new funding from Draper Associates, Boost VC, Founders Fund, ARK Investment Management LLC, Chevron Technology Ventures, DCVC, and others. Radiant develops portable, mass-produced nuclear microreactors that fit in shipping containers and can be deployed anywhere to provide reliable, zero-emissions baseload power for up to five years without refueling. By offering a transportable alternative to diesel generators, Radiant's reactors address America's need for energy resilience in disaster recovery and in remote locations where power infrastructure is unreliable. Founders: Doug Bernauer, Bob Urberger. EraDrive raised $5.3 million in seed funding from Haystack, Point Nine, Harpoon, Brave Capital, 2100 Ventures, and Entropy Industrial Capital. EraDrive builds self-driving modules that allow satellites to see and move independently without constant ground control. As orbital traffic becomes increasingly crowded and contested, EraDrive's technology is essential for protecting America's satellite infrastructure (which underpins GPS, communications, and national security systems). Founders: Sumant Sharma, Justin Kruger, Simone D'Amico. Axion raised $37 million in Series B funding from Salesforce Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Schneider Electric Ventures. Axion builds an AI-powered intelligence platform that helps manufacturers detect product quality problems before they become expensive recalls or widespread failures. By catching issues weeks or months earlier than traditional methods, Axion could give American manufacturers an edge as they compete against global rivals. Founder: Daniel First. #VC #VentureCapital #Startups #Investing #DeepTech #Energy #Satellites #Aerospace #Manufacturing

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