We’re nearing the big candle season, orchestrated by Big Candle (tm) to make us all burn more paraffin while chanting away the darkness. To be replaced by Reflect Orbital maybe, giving Swedes one more hour of sunlight in December is definitely worth the launch costs. No Flygskam if it’s in service of our wellbeing, right?!
🤼 People
Larysa Visengeriyeva, Eveline Beer, Satyam Goel - Co-organizers at European Defense Tech Hub
Larysa, Eveline and Satyam all were in Munich this week to enjoy the Future of Computing conference organized by the Benjamin Wolba, my constant companion, but also to talk European Defense Tech Hub. We hatched a few plans, played some Ukrainian music and realized how soon the Munich Security Conference is! To be continued!
💼 Portfolio jobs board
This weeks selection of opportunities from the portfolio:
🚀 Companies
Outbound Aero - Re-inventing aviation
Status: $1.1M seed
Source: Network
Why it’s cool:
Boeing and Airbus can’t be allowed to monopolize consumer aviation. As we all know, monopolies lead to complacency, which leads to worse customer experiences. Which describes most flights I’ve ever taken. We need people to build these types of companies, the ones challenging monopolies (like perplexity did for search).
[REDACTED] - Distributed compute resource that is all around us
Status: Raising pre-seed
Source: Network
Founders: from the [REDACTED] industry and AI
Why it’s cool:
We have an untapped resource of compute. It’s something most people own, and it’s most likely the most computationally heavy object we’ll ever purchase. We know distributed training and inference works, so why not help lower the cost of our [REDACTED] by selling the compute it carries?
Dronetector - mmWave radar to detect drones
Status: In accelerator
Source: EDTH
Founders: Matthew, Christopher
Why it’s cool:
Detecting drones is kind of hard, fast moving, small objects, close to the ground. Counter-drone is maybe, probably the sooner market to flourish than the drone market, as soon as the threat exists (which it does), then the need to protect against it exists everywhere. Radar could be an idea, it works in all conditions, is precise if done correctly and Dronetector at least can differentiate between a bird and a quad.
💡 Ideas & Science
We need to talk about Salt Typhoon
Apparently major US Telco providers suffered the worst cyberattack ever and “wide swaths of the population’s privacy was compromised”. Why didn’t we hear about it? Some time ago Netzpolitik, Wired and Bayrischer Rundfunk dropped the news that the intersection of personnel who regularly visit not super secret NSA facilities near Wiesbaden, Germany can also be tracked to various brothels and restaurants. Tracked using data purchased on fairly unregulated markets through brokers. Maybe GDPR is good? But the news of Salt Typhoon (sounds like a great indie band) hadn’t reached me before this article in Politico dropped.
This is my personal version of trash TV. I’ve been following the speculations, alleged sightings, cut together TikTok clips of various things in the sky and of shocked reactions and misinterpretations by the public, and loving it. Is it a bunch of UAPs? Is it the Mexican drug cartel’s latest smuggling scheme? Is it a secret CIA program? My personal favorite: it’s a big guerilla marketing scheme by a counter-drone company to show how easy it is to disturb a whole country.
Well written piece by NYT why space nukes are catastrophic. We need to protect against them, so build more arms Lodestar Space please!
I’m about half way into this part biography of Churchill, part tales of London under attack during WWII. For a history ignorant person like myself it gives a great view on Churchills personality (he was very relieved when elected PM since then he would be in control, and convinced he knew better than literally anyone else in the UK how to hold Hitler at bay) but also some insights into the people around him. Well-written and only covering the years of the war, unlike the 8-tome seminal full autobiography of Churchill by his son, Randolph and Martin Gilbert.