Participated · Seed · Aug 2025

Space Kinetic is a space and missile defense company developing a propellant-free electromechanical payload-deployment system. Its core innovation is a patented mechanism that ejects a diverse range of smaller payloads at high velocities from a host satellite without firing a thruster. The company was founded in 2022 by Scott Ziegler and Ryan Sullivan from a garage-built prototype and a springboard from the New Mexico Lab-Embedded Entrepreneur Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory. It is a cleared U.S. national security innovator headquartered in Albuquerque. Space Kinetic raised $12 million in seed funding, which establishes its current financing position. The company targets multi-billion-dollar space superiority and missile defense mission markets amid rising geopolitical tensions.

Led · Seed · Nov 2024

Raven Space Systems has developed a patented Microwave Assisted Deposition (MAD) 3D printing process that cures thermoset composites during printing, enabling the first scalable production of off-the-shelf thermoset composite parts. The cofounders, Blake Herren and Ryan Cowdrey, began the work as graduate students at the University of Oklahoma and the company is based in Kansas City, Missouri. Raven has received about $1M in SBIR grants and, since 2020, roughly $4.5M in non-dilutive contracts and awards from the Air Force, NASA, the National Science Foundation and others. The startup recently closed a $2M pre-seed round to fund its first full-scale manufacturing lines — production-scale 3D printers, mixing systems and machining. Raven plans to move from its 3,000-square-foot facility into a larger, aerospace-certified factory by Q2 next year and to begin manufacturing customer components, starting with smaller parts and scaling up. Initial go-to-market targets are thermal protection components for solid rocket motors and hypersonic vessels, and the company is also engaged with autonomous systems providers, satellite manufacturers and space propulsion firms; it announced a partnership with SpaceWorks to develop 3D-printed reentry vehicle aeroshells.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2024

Firestorm develops xCell, a shipping-container mobile manufacturing platform that uses an industrial-grade HP 3D printer to produce drone bodies and shells and assemble configurable drone systems in under 24 hours. The company sells hardware and secures government contracts across U.S. military branches, and currently has two xCell units deployed domestically (with the Air Force Research Laboratory and Air Force Special Operations Command) and additional operational use in the Indo-Pacific. Firestorm holds a five-year global exclusive with HP for use of its industrial 3D printing technology in mobile units, and noted an Air Force contract with a $100 million ceiling and $27 million obligated to date. The startup’s founders bring defense and additive-manufacturing expertise: CEO Dan Magy is a serial defense tech entrepreneur, Chad McCoy is a career special operations veteran, and CTO Ian Muceus holds multiple 3D-printing patents. Firestorm has stated plans to scale deployment and reach full operational deployment in the Indo-Pacific within roughly two years. The company has raised $153 million to date following the Series B.