Participated · Equity · Nov 2024

Aquaria develops modular atmospheric water generators (AWGs) and a linked "Hydrogrid" that produce clean drinking water from ambient air using patented materials science and heat-exchange technology. Its units are designed to be stacked in parallel, deployed in weeks, and integrated with solar and battery systems for net-zero operation; the company markets the technology as energy-efficient and affordable. Aquaria has built the first homes fully supplied by atmospheric water and is constructing 1,000 homes in Hawaii using its systems. The company plans to expand its footprint into new regions and pursue residential, hospitality, commercial, and mid-scale industrial opportunities such as green hydrogen, mining, and data centers. Aquaria partners with Stanford’s Mark Jacobson on research to integrate atmospheric water capture with microgrids. Financially, Aquaria has secured a $112M investment and a $100M deployment financing commitment to accelerate commercial deployments and project financing models.

Participated · Equity · May 2023

Funderbeam is a Tallinn, Estonia–based platform that provides infrastructure for investor networks, accelerators and venture investors to manage syndicated investments, post-investment flows and cross-border secondary transactions. The company holds investment firm licences in the UK, Estonia (covering the EEA) and Singapore and was designated a Recognised Market Operator by MAS in September 2019, enabling it to offer a fully regulated exchange service worldwide. Led by founder and CEO Kaidi Ruusalepp, Funderbeam’s core product focuses on solving liquidity frictions in angel and venture markets. After the announced transaction with VentureWave, the company will expand to serve institutional clients including VC funds, family offices, brokers and investment banks. The platform combines trading and investment management features to facilitate secondary transactions across borders. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article. Funderbeam operates a secondary marketplace that enables trading of private-company shares to provide liquidity for accelerators, angel investors, and early employees. The platform pairs digital infrastructure with a legal framework and licensing to support global trading. Founded in 2013 by Kaidi Ruusalepp and Urmas Peiker, the company is building out product, compliance, and business departments to scale internationally. At the end of March Funderbeam closed a Tim Draper‑led $4 million financing round to drive platform development. As part of its growth strategy it is bringing institutional partners on board to accelerate deal flow and market reach. A recent partnership with Tallinn‑based B2B accelerator Startup Wise Guys is intended to funnel a large set of early-stage companies onto Funderbeam’s marketplace. Funderbeam operates an information and secondary trading marketplace that provides access and liquidity to growth-stage investments. The platform uses blockchain technology to power its ledger and applies a curated model where founders choose who can invest, supported by due diligence and lead-investor ambassadors. To date it has listed 37 high-growth portfolio companies, onboarded more than 10,000 verified investors across 119 countries, and seen $2.2 million of shares exchange hands on its secondary marketplace. Funderbeam recently launched in Scandinavia and the U.K. and has an office in Singapore as it targets further expansion into Asia and continental Europe. The company says it will use the Series A proceeds to develop a stronger secondary market offering and support growth in key markets starting from Singapore. Co-founder Urmas Peiker will leave to focus on capital markets in developing markets; Kaidi Ruusalepp is identified as the company's founder. Funderbeam is a Tallinn, Estonia–based stock exchange for startups that uses blockchain to tokenize investments. Founded in 2013 by Kaidi Ruusalepp and Urmas Peiker, it lets anyone invest and trade in growth companies worldwide. Each investment is tokenized, with tokens representing an owner’s rights in an investment syndicate, allowing companies to raise rounds privately or publicly while adding only one investor to their cap table. The platform has raised over €5m via its own platform and has secured $7.3M in funding to date from a global network of investors in nearly 100 countries. Notable backers named in reporting include Jaan Tallinn, Tim Draper and Taizo Son. Funderbeam works with early-stage companies worldwide to help them access growth capital and provide immediate liquidity to investors. Funderbeam is building a blockchain-based funding and trading engine aimed at creating a stock-exchange-like market for startups. The platform combines a research tool (launched in 2013) with an investment platform that enables primary funding and nascent secondary trading of private-company stakes. Its trading feature lets shareholders sell stakes either originally funded via the platform or those they have permission to trade, with an emphasis on cross-border liquidity and transparency. Kaidi Ruusalepp, formerly CEO of the Nasdaq Tallinn exchange, leads the company and frames blockchain as a transparency and trust layer for securities trading. To advance the vision, Funderbeam has secured external capital and backing from strategic and notable investors. Financially, the company has just raised $2.6 million in further funding to develop its platform and trading capabilities.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2023

Noon Energy commercializes a carbon-oxygen battery that adapts chemistry used in NASA’s MOXIE instrument to store electricity at grid scale. The system is a reversible solid oxide electrolyzer/fuel cell that cycles CO2, oxygen, CO and solid carbon to charge and discharge. Noon’s design uses fewer critical minerals than comparable lithium-ion systems and stores solid carbon in removable tanks that can be trucked to provide backup power. The company has a working prototype and is targeting large-scale applications to bridge wind and solar intermittency. Noon projects its battery cost could fall to well below $20 per kWh and aims for efficiency comparable to lithium-ion and roughly double hydrogen fuel-cell-based batteries. The company plans to use new funding to expand the team, build demo-scale systems, and deliver its first customer system in about two years. Noon Energy has developed an ultra-low-cost battery that stores energy using only carbon and oxygen, targeting long-duration (100+ hour) stationary storage. Its storage media cost well below $1 per kWh capacity and the company says the chemistry provides roughly double the round-trip energy efficiency of hydrogen. Noon claims its system can deliver about 10x lower storage cost than lithium-ion at long durations and about double the full-system energy density of lithium-ion. The technology is positioned for grid-scale and smaller applications to make intermittent solar and wind dispatchable 24/7 and to increase site and grid resilience. Noon also highlights potential vehicle use cases, including longer-range electric ships and trucks. The team has technical roots at Columbia University and the Technical University of Denmark, and the founder has worked on NASA's MOXIE CO2-to-oxygen electrolysis device.

Participated · Seed · Nov 2022

Founded in 2021, Uluu develops plastic alternatives made by extracting sugars from seaweed, feeding them to PHA-producing microbes, and processing the resulting polyhydroxyalkanoates into pellets using a process the company likens to brewing beer. The startup is commercialising materials for use in cosmetics packaging, fashion accessories and textiles, and has run product collaborations with brands including Good Citizens (seaweed glasses), Quiksilver (wax scraper) and Papinelle (biodegradable buttons for pajamas). Uluu currently produces about 100 kg of material per year and aims to scale to one tonne per year with the new grant and to a 10-tonne-per-year demonstration plant by 2027. Financially, the company recently closed a $16 million Series A and has received grants including $1.5 million from the WA Government and the new $2.1 million from the federal Industry Growth Program. The funding will support regulatory certification, commercial trials, increased production capacity, and team expansion from 25 toward 30–35 staff.

Led · Seed · Jun 2022

BitDegree is a blockchain-powered online education platform that has built the Learnoverse, an education-oriented metaverse. Led by co-founder and CEO Danielius Stasiulis and based in Vilnius, Lithuania, the company reports over 1 million users. With the Learnoverse, BitDegree aims to gamify Web3 learning by providing a virtual world where learners, instructors, and brands can interact and express knowledge and status through NFTs. The platform plans to use a Learn & Earn model to reward learning effort and motivate students to complete courses. Financially, BitDegree raised over $1M in the announced funding round. The investment was made by Mistletoe, a Japanese/Singaporean venture investor founded by Taizo Son that focuses on learning and education and has supported more than 200 startups since 2013.