building and investing in early stage deep tech
Austin, TX
Joined January 2014
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aabid retweeted
the best robot data isn't for sale
robotics is the multiplication of a lot of very small numbers. a robot nails 10,000 picks but will freeze on one shiny box
you can’t buy your way to that box. a broker sells you hours of the easy stuff
thats why the deployment strategy is superior. the market curates the curriculum. and paying customers will push you into exactly the failures that matter
deploy -> catch the failures -> fix -> redeploy.
whoever runs that loop fastest wins!
my unfiltered thoughts on the data industry right now:
there are too many brokers in the data space. in the last 4 months this industry has become the new equivalent to dropshipping.
i have no issue with that. but if your entire moat is spam calling smb owners all day and begging them to license their data for a micro1 referral fee, you are not going to make it, and you are not the next mercor. most of you are not building anything at all.
to everyone reading this, and the hundreds of other posts on your timeline from 18 year old sf kids claiming $200m run rates please ignore them. these are the modern day elizabeth holmes’.
they're taking one day of contracted (not paid) revenue and multiplying it by 365. the worst i've seen is someone who made $100k off a micro1 referral fee in 6 hours and claimed they're at a $73m run rate (12 (daily working hours) / 6 x $100k x 365).
this is literal fraud, especially if you raise money off of this claim. you see this in a lot of yc companies in recent batches.
the only businesses i see surviving this are the giants that already exist (mercor, micro1, surge ai, turing) and the non consensus bets: consumer data collection apps like kled, robotics data collection companies like build ai and meckaai, etc.
tldr: don’t believe everything you read, and just brokering company data is not a venture scale business and should not be claimed as such.
aabid retweeted
Most of America's infrastructure was built in a single generation — and designed to last fifty years. That was seventy years ago.
There has never been more to build and rebuild, and fewer surveyors every year to map what's already there.
Today we’re announcing our $34M Series A to bring civil engineering into the AI era, co-led by @firstround and @BessemerVP, with participation from @Prudence_VC and @QuietCapital.
Our AI CAD software turns 3D scans of roads, utilities and construction sites into draft drawings for surveyors and engineers at centimeter accuracy. Expanding the world’s capacity to build and maintain the infrastructure people depend on.
aabid retweeted
I fixed this graph by A16Z.
One Trillion spent on AI Capex in 2026, the story isn't in chips alone.
For every $100 flowing into the supply chain
- $2.5 to castings
- $1 to forgings
- $3.6 to sheet metal parts
- $2 to Plastic
- $2.4 to CNC machining
without these manufacturing technologies, the rest isn't even possible.
Where does money invested into the AI buildout actually go?
For every $100 flowing into the supply chain:
- $50 to chips
- $20 to power
- $15 to networking
- $15 to cooling, buildings, and land
More charts in State of Markets II: a16z.news/p/state-of-markets…
Today, we are excited to announce the first annual Austin Deep Tech 50.
Austin has become the hub for some of America's best deep tech founders, so we brought together 8 VC firms with a local presence — @overmatchvc, @valor, @8vc, Banner VC, @BCapitalGroup, @TheAmbitionCap, @ensemblevc, and Trust Ventures — to vote on the 50 startups making the biggest impact.
Together they've raised $10B+ in the last 12 months.
Full write-up: overmatch.substack.com/p/202…
The full list 🧵👇
49. Phantom Neuro (@phantom_neuro) - Minimally invasive neural interfaces for prosthetic limb control
Key People: @Connor_G_Glass
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2020
Phantom Neuro develops Phantom X, a minimally invasive implant that reads muscle signals to give amputees intuitive control of prosthetic limbs and exoskeletons. In April 2026 it received approval to begin a first-in-human study in Melbourne.
50. Bedrock Energy - Deep-drilled geothermal heating and cooling for buildings
Key People: @joselyn_lai, Silviu Livescu
Stage: Series A
Founded: 2022
Bedrock Energy builds geothermal heating and cooling systems for commercial buildings and communities, using deeper boreholes to shrink the land a system needs. It completed a retrofit at an Austin office building and is building district systems in Colorado and Utah.
