Participated · Seed · Oct 2025

Pila Energy is developing distributed, plug-in batteries that can be connected throughout a residence or commercial building to create a mesh network for backup power and real-time energy optimization. Each battery integrates with everyday appliances, allowing users to manage energy costs and maintain power during outages through Pila’s grid-aware software platform. The units are currently available for pre-order at $99 and will retail for $1,299, with first shipments expected in late 2025. With its software-hardware combination, the company aims to lower the friction of residential energy storage and enable wider adoption of decentralized power management. Recent seed financing will fund the U.S. product launch, expand manufacturing capacity, and deepen strategic partnerships. Although revenue and user numbers have not yet been disclosed, the $4 million injection positions Pila to move from pre-order to full commercial deployment.

Led · Seed · Apr 2025

Hexium is building a laser-powered process to separate lithium-6 from lithium-7 using an adapted atomic vapor laser isotope separation (AVLIS) technique. The company was founded by Charlie Jerrott and Jacob Peterson after they identified a shortage in fusion fuel supply chains and had been operating in stealth. Hexium’s system uses picometer-precise, relatively low-power lasers to ionize lithium-6 in vapor clouds, draw the ions to charged plates, condense them, and package the isotope for sale. Hexium plans to sell lithium-6 to fusion companies for tritium breeding and reactor shielding, while selling the remaining lithium-7 to conventional nuclear operators as a cooling-water additive. Over the coming year the company will use its seed funding to build and run a pilot plant and, if successful, replicate the design modularly to produce tens to hundreds of kilograms of lithium-6. The team emphasizes small-footprint facilities that can be parallelized to achieve economics at modest scales.

Participated · Seed · Apr 2025

Remedy Scientific is an Oakland, CA–based environmental remediation automation company building a remediation platform that uses algorithmically optimized treatment processes and advanced sensing. The platform is designed to detect and destroy contaminants at their source, with an initial focus on PFAS. The company is pursuing high-priority pilot projects with federal agencies and private partners to address contaminated sites critical to infrastructure, defense, and industrial development. Remedy Scientific is led by CEO and founder Randol Aikin. The company announced an $11M seed funding round to advance its pilots and platform development. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2025

Causal Labs develops physics-informed AI models that simulate atmospheric behavior to deliver faster, more accurate, hyper-local weather forecasts and to support weather-related decision-making and interventions. The company says its models produce actionable forecasts in minutes versus relying on expensive, slow supercomputers. Causal Labs is building toward a general, large-scale physics foundation model that understands cause-and-effect in physical domains and can be applied beyond weather. Targeted future domains include aviation, agriculture, energy, space, climate change, and government. The company plans to use the seed funding to expand its team, further develop its initial model with safety and transparency mechanisms, and run robust pilot programs across critical industries. Causal Labs is headquartered in San Francisco and was founded by Kelsie Zhao and Dar Mehta, who have backgrounds at Cruise, Google Research, Meta, and a YC-backed robotics startup and are Stanford and Waterloo graduates.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2025

Miist makes a vape-like, withdrawal-inhibitor inhaler designed to deliver medication directly to the lungs for rapid absorption. The company’s technology produces particles about 50% smaller than other inhalers, which Miist says deposits medicine deeper in the lungs for faster bloodstream uptake. Miist intentionally spaces a dose over seven puffs to mimic the behavioral ritual of smoking while providing rapid relief. A small Phase I study reported that smokers who used Miist’s inhaler eliminated 92% of their cravings in two minutes, a roughly 10x improvement over the existing standard of care according to the article. The company is preparing a Phase II trial of its smoking-cessation formulation using the active ingredient found in standard nicotine replacement therapy and is testing triptans for migraine treatment in the lab. Miist envisions expanding the platform to deliver other medicines, such as anxiety treatments, and has secured $7 million in seed funding to support development.