• Extellis

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2026

  Extellis designs and plans to operate satellites built to capture high-frequency synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, with the company claiming each satellite can capture thousands of images per day using patented antenna technology developed at Duke University from DARPA-sponsored research. The platform is intended to provide consistent monitoring that works at night and through clouds, smoke and other conditions that limit optical imagery. Extellis targets infrastructure operators and industrial companies—such as pipeline, transportation and energy facility operators—that need frequent, wide-area visibility of distributed assets. The company is preparing a pathfinder mission to test technology and operating capabilities ahead of broader commercial service and is building the infrastructure required to serve industrial customers. Extellis recently expanded its seed financing with investment from Shell Ventures to support the pathfinder mission, team expansion and progress toward commercial operations. The company positions its offering as an alternative to helicopters, ground inspections and optical satellite imagery for more dependable, high-frequency monitoring.

• Diffraqtion

  Participated · Seed · Jan 2026

  Diffraqtion develops quantum-enabled cameras designed to deliver high-resolution imaging for advanced sensing applications across Earth and space intelligence, robotics, defense and autonomous systems. Its technology aims to enable machines to perceive and understand the physical world with greater precision as AI expands into physical environments. The company is accelerating development and deployment of these cameras and has scheduled field testing to begin later this month with assistance from a global network of hardware experts. Financially, Diffraqtion announced an additional pre-seed investment round (investors include SBI US Gateway Fund, Plug and Play Tech Center, Collaborative Fund, Wolf Point Capital, Parallel VC and ADIN) that adds to a $4.2 million pre-seed raise in February. Diffraqtion also holds a $1.5 million Direct-to-Phase II SBIR contract from DARPA to demonstrate its quantum camera technology.

• VQ Biomedical

  Participated · Seed · Apr 2025

  VQ Biomedical is developing an oxygenation catheter that delivers oxygen directly into the bloodstream to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The device is designed as a simpler, bedside alternative to venovenous (VV) ECMO and aims to minimize the risks and costs of traditional therapies by enabling insertion with a single dial for oxygen flow. Early proof-of-concept large-animal studies showed the catheter can provide significant oxygen levels, and the company plans to build a commercial prototype for in vivo safety and efficacy testing to support future IDE submissions. Long-term goals include reducing reliance on mechanical ventilation for ARDS patients, increasing ventilator-free days, and shortening ICU stays. VQ is a Duke University spin-out with intellectual property developed in collaboration between the Duke University School of Medicine and the Pratt School of Engineering. The leadership team includes CEO Galen Robertson and CMO Tobias Straube, with technical leads Stewart Farling and Marc Deshusses. Financially, VQ has combined equity funding, government contracts, and a strategic loan to advance prototype development.

• Alta Resource

  Participated · Grant · Jan 2025

  Alta Resource Technologies has built an engineered‑protein platform that selectively binds and separates critical minerals, including rare earth elements, from low‑grade ores, tailings, waste streams and end‑of‑life products. The company’s approach, developed with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Pennsylvania State University researchers, aims to deliver higher precision and lower environmental impact than conventional separation methods. Alta plans to use new capital to expand its technical team, advance commercial pilots, and extend the platform to additional metal targets and feedstocks. The technology targets domestic supply‑chain resilience for materials used in electronics, clean energy, and defense. Alta has also received grant support from federal partners and the State of Colorado to complement private investment. The company is based in Boulder, Colo. Alta Resource has developed a biology-based process that uses specially designed proteins attached to a resin to selectively capture rare earth elements from solutions derived from electronic waste or virgin ore. The proteins are loaded into columns through which solutions percolate; the proteins bind the metals and the column is later flushed to release them, and Alta says the proteins have proven durable. The company argues biology offers selectivity advantages over traditional multi-step chemical refining, which relies on toxic chemicals. Alta plans to build a pilot-scale plant this year about the size of a shipping container and aims to refine and scale the technology. Management has said it has reasonable conviction the federal government will help fund part of the pilot, and the company highlights a near-term market in meeting U.S. defense single-digit-thousands-of-tons needs. Financially, Alta raised a $5.1M seed round and has secured about $1M in grant funding from DARPA and the state of Colorado.

• EnCharge AI

  Led · Grant · Mar 2024

  EnCharge is a semiconductor startup spun out from Princeton that builds analog memory chips and full‑stack AI accelerators aimed at running existing AI models at the edge (laptops, handsets, wearables). The company says its accelerators use about 20x less energy to run workloads compared with other chips on the market and has developed noise‑resilient analog designs and accompanying software. EnCharge expects to have its first chips on the market later this year and is working closely with TSMC to manufacture those devices. The startup focuses on inference rather than training and continues R&D with algorithms that could expand use cases. EnCharge has received non-dilutive support via grants from DARPA and the Department of Defense and counts strategic backers such as In-Q-Tel among its investors. The company is Santa Clara‑based and emerged from stealth in 2022 after nearly a decade of research at Princeton. EnCharge AI commercializes next-generation in-memory computing chips and full-stack AI accelerators that use switched-capacitor analog techniques to deliver large improvements in compute efficiency and density. The company says its technology targets decentralizing AI inference from data centers to phones, laptops, vehicles, and factories. EnCharge was launched in 2022 and is led by co-founder and CEO Dr. Naveen Verma, with Dr. Kailash Gopalakrishnan as CTO. Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., the company is building on years of Princeton lab work and prior DoD/DARPA-funded research. Financially, EnCharge has raised $45 million to date and recently announced a $22.6 million funding round to develop next-generation full-stack AI compute solutions. It is also participating with Princeton University in a DARPA OPTIMA-supported multi-year project funded by an $18.6 million grant. EnCharge AI builds custom plug-in hardware on a standard PCIe form factor that uses in-memory computing to accelerate AI workloads for servers and network edge machines. The company’s chips are designed around capacitors rather than transistors to improve robustness against voltage and temperature fluctuations. EnCharge is developing accompanying software to enable customers to adapt different neural networks to the custom hardware and to keep the solution scalable. The firm emerged from research and DARPA- and federally funded R&D that Verma led beginning in 2017 and commercializes those test chips and architectures. EnCharge has roughly 25 employees, is based in Santa Clara, and is pre-revenue. Proceeds from the recent raise will be used for hardware and software development and to support new customer engagements.

No current team members are available.