Newcomer Turns Four

[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Eric Newcomer. And I am Madeline Rynbarger. And this is the Newcomer Podcast.

[00:00:09] Each week, Eric and I discuss the VC deals and the drama that went down. Let's do it. Here we go. Let's dive in.

[00:00:18] You took a long weekend. Was this part of your American concert tour?

[00:00:23] Yes, this is part of the Madeline's American concert tour. I was in Denver to see Charlie XCX and Troy on the sweat tour and then made it to the Sabrina Carpenter Short and Sweet tour this past weekend on the East Coast.

[00:00:36] So, you know, hit every game.

[00:00:39] You were in the Zykes. Which did you prefer?

[00:00:41] Oh, great question. They're very different. I feel like the Charlie show, Charlie and Troye Sivan, easily higher energy.

[00:00:50] It was, you know, just a, it was, they sold out an arena tour. It was huge.

[00:00:55] It's like a party, basically.

[00:00:56] It's a party. And it's all dance music. So you're just, you're up the whole time just dancing.

[00:01:01] And then Sabrina, obviously very dancey as well, pop music. But, you know, you get some slow songs.

[00:01:06] You get some kind of typical, you get the flashlights out. You got to wave, you know, to the ballads.

[00:01:12] But, and she's an incredible vocalist. I was really blown away.

[00:01:16] So, you know.

[00:01:17] We're both like pop, pop girlies, I guess.

[00:01:20] We really are.

[00:01:22] Because I've seen Taylor Swift in Stockholm and Boston.

[00:01:26] So I'm more specifically a Taylor Swift fan.

[00:01:30] Yeah. Eric is our resident Swifty on the pod.

[00:01:33] But how, wait, so you went to the Ares tour twice?

[00:01:36] Yes. Yeah.

[00:01:37] Which date was better?

[00:01:39] Boston was like a nightmare.

[00:01:41] We made a last minute decision to arrive and we hit traffic and it was the stuff of nightmares.

[00:01:48] So Stockholm, we were like, we'd been in Paris for a couple of weeks working abroad.

[00:01:52] And then, yeah, that was great.

[00:01:54] So definitely Stockholm was probably.

[00:01:56] Definitely Stockholm.

[00:01:56] We also like spent all day waiting in line and we're in like the second row, basically.

[00:02:01] Oh, that's amazing.

[00:02:02] Yeah. It was great.

[00:02:02] So cool.

[00:02:03] Yeah.

[00:02:03] So you got to go international for your concert tours.

[00:02:05] Yeah.

[00:02:06] I know.

[00:02:06] Yeah.

[00:02:06] Anyway, this is going to be a fun episode overall because it's a lot of talking about ourselves.

[00:02:11] We get to reflect on newcomers' four-year anniversary.

[00:02:16] It's true.

[00:02:17] This week marks the four-year anniversary of the newsletter.

[00:02:21] Yeah.

[00:02:21] You've been here for one year of it.

[00:02:23] Just about.

[00:02:24] Just shy.

[00:02:25] Yeah.

[00:02:25] I think when I joined, we were around just over $1 million in revenue.

[00:02:31] And now we've more than doubled that.

[00:02:33] Congratulations.

[00:02:34] Yeah.

[00:02:35] Yeah.

[00:02:35] Congrats to all of us.

[00:02:36] Yeah.

[00:02:37] I sort of announced somewhat impulsively on stage at a media conference called the

[00:02:43] AMO Summit that we'd hit.

[00:02:44] We're on track to hit $2 million in revenue this year.

[00:02:48] We're going to cross that between revenue we've already recorded and the committed contracts

[00:02:53] we have for Cerebral Valley.

[00:02:56] So very exciting.

[00:02:57] And we're going to post new job openings.

[00:03:00] Yeah.

[00:03:01] Stay tuned.

[00:03:02] It's crazy.

[00:03:03] I'm always in denial that Newcomer is a company, even though it's like, oh, we have several

[00:03:09] employees this time.

[00:03:10] And if you start counting up all the people who work for us in some capacity, it's getting

[00:03:15] bigger and bigger.

[00:03:17] Certifiably a company.

[00:03:17] I mean, the moment we moved to Slack, you know, that felt like we were a real startup.

[00:03:21] I know.

[00:03:21] A sad day.

[00:03:23] But also exciting day.

[00:03:25] I mean, yeah, I'm curious.

[00:03:26] I mean, I know we've talked about it a bit, but what's the story behind founding Newcomer?

[00:03:32] I mean, when did you make the decision to leave and go independent?

[00:03:37] Yeah.

[00:03:37] So I launched it in October 2020 during the pandemic.

[00:03:43] It covered startups and venture capital.

[00:03:44] And here I see finally a trend that applies to me, right?

[00:03:48] Sub-sex, you know, coming up.

[00:03:50] It's an opportunity to start your own business.

[00:03:53] So that was really exciting to me.

[00:03:55] I think I launched like, I can't, it was right around the New York Times trend story.

[00:03:59] So I was either right before, right on top of, yeah.

[00:04:03] I think you were a little peak.

[00:04:05] I think you were.

[00:04:06] I was ahead.

[00:04:07] You were ahead of the curve.

[00:04:09] Please give yourself some credit.

[00:04:11] And the other piece of it was that, you know, when I left the information, the two places

[00:04:17] I was thinking about going were Gawker and Bloomberg, you know, Valleywag.

[00:04:23] And, you know, I went with Bloomberg and, you know, it was just like a pretty conservative

[00:04:28] direction.

[00:04:28] And I definitely wanted, well, not to be like mean and snarky, like Valleywag.

[00:04:33] I wanted, you know, some of the like voicey sort of first person writing.

[00:04:38] You know, I'd really come up through traditional newspaper internships and wanted some, you

[00:04:43] know, more bloggy, I guess, type experience.

[00:04:48] And I was very jealous of, you know, Ben Smith's column in the New York Times at the time where

[00:04:52] he was really doing great reporting, but writing with his perspective.

[00:04:56] And that's really what I tried to emulate when I started Newcomer.

[00:05:00] How do you feel like the media environment's changed since starting Newcomer?

[00:05:03] I mean, I feel like this sort of voicey perspective is much more popular.

[00:05:08] And you were a trendsetter in this.

[00:05:10] But how has it changed?

[00:05:12] What have you seen?

[00:05:15] Yeah.

[00:05:16] I mean, clearly, you know, well, you know, I'm a big advocate of the collision between the

[00:05:21] influencer and the journalist.

[00:05:23] And journalists are clearly realizing that they have to compete with influencers.

[00:05:28] I think, you know, even at Bloomberg, after I left, Mark Gurman, their Apple reporter has

[00:05:34] been allowed to have a much freer reign to sort of give his own personal opinions about

[00:05:39] devices and everything.

[00:05:41] So even sort of my old employer, I think, has chilled out a little bit.

[00:05:46] It seems like our competition is not as much, you know, other publications themselves as

[00:05:50] it is also, you know, like TikTok and personalities and hosts on these kind of social platforms

[00:05:55] too.

[00:05:55] I mean, tech, Twitter.

[00:05:56] Yeah, exactly.

[00:05:58] It's not clear that if they're not reading, you know, I think a lot of our readers are

[00:06:02] fit us into what, I don't know, reading pirate wires and cobbling together information from

[00:06:09] Andreessen Horowitz podcasts and sort of a mix of alternative media.

[00:06:14] Leaving an established publication, I mean, even, you know, nowadays, but especially four

[00:06:18] years ago was a pretty big risk in the media world.

[00:06:22] I mean, what made you want to take that leap?

[00:06:26] Well, yeah.

[00:06:26] Literally the day I had to tell my editor that I was quitting, I like chickened out on the

[00:06:30] first call.

[00:06:31] My now wife had to be like, do it, you know?

[00:06:33] Well, so I mean, you can always be like, oh, I need a better plan.

[00:06:38] I haven't decided what day I'm going to launch, you know, whatever.

[00:06:42] I mean, my, you know, wife and friends were extremely supportive.

[00:06:46] So I think that helps.

[00:06:49] I mean, I do credit Substack for making it sort of much easier to see a path to doing

[00:06:55] this thing.

[00:06:55] They did not offer me the pro program.

[00:06:58] They offered me like a tiny advance that I thought wasn't worth it.

[00:07:02] Um, so, so yeah, I mean, it was just sort of felt like I wanted to take the leap.

[00:07:10] Um, I do think it helped that it was the pandemic.

[00:07:12] So the cult of the workplace was, you know, much diminished.

[00:07:16] You're not going in to an office.

[00:07:18] And I was really hungry just to write for our audience, you know, and to write directly

[00:07:24] for startups and VCs.

[00:07:26] I mean, I always, I think often about covering, uh, the Zenefit saga where Parker Conrad was

[00:07:32] ousted and just how like, you know, I sort of wanted to write the counter narrative, um,

[00:07:38] to the Zenefit story, but as a reporter for a big outlet, you know, you sort of have to

[00:07:43] write, I don't know, the first order story.

[00:07:46] Um, anyway, I, I, and I had like, you know, I, I wrote, uh, my unauthorized, uh, story,

[00:07:53] uh, you know, the unauthorized history of Andrews and Horowitz or some, I forget what

[00:07:57] that called it.

[00:07:57] Yeah.

[00:07:57] The unauthorized history of Andrews and Horowitz.

[00:08:00] Yeah.

[00:08:00] You know, I, I had these pieces sort of that I was hungry to write that I felt like, you

[00:08:05] know, Bloomberg doesn't love like the sort of media self-absorption, which obviously

[00:08:10] I lean into here.

[00:08:11] And so, yeah, I felt free to do the meta story.

[00:08:15] You know, it was just exciting.

[00:08:16] And I felt like, you know, I'd be able to get another job if it all blew up in flames.

[00:08:22] You know, we talked about, you know, influencer journalism and the rise of this trend.

[00:08:25] Right.

[00:08:26] But it seems like, you know, there's this kind of fascinating thing going on in the media

[00:08:30] environment where the, the very biggest are succeeding like New York times, um, size publications.

[00:08:35] Um, and then the very smallest seem to be succeeding.

[00:08:39] You know, there's, there's us, there's platformer, um, you know, Taylor Lorenz just launched her

[00:08:44] own sub stack user mag.

[00:08:46] Um, but then there's kind of the, the messy middle, right?

[00:08:49] Where that seems to be where the biggest fallout in the media industry has been coming from.

[00:08:53] And I'm curious, just how have you been thinking about that as you know, we plan to grow.

[00:08:59] Making the same mistake many companies have made before.

[00:09:02] I think it's a great question.

[00:09:04] Um, to me, the issue with a lot of, uh, companies is they lose sight of who their customer is.

[00:09:12] Uh, when I launched, you know, one of the refrains I always has, I don't want to explain

[00:09:17] who like Bill Gurley is anymore.

[00:09:19] You know, it just felt like every Bloomberg article, there'd be a sort of a sort of

[00:09:23] parenthetical phrase, you know, early Uber investor or whatever.

[00:09:26] When I was at business insider, it was always like, we had to write out LP parentheses,

[00:09:31] limited partner, which does this, you know?

[00:09:33] Exactly.

[00:09:34] Exactly.

[00:09:35] So I, we want to, we want to write for the insider and I have absolutely no intention

[00:09:40] of moving away from that.

[00:09:42] Really what I'm saying is the customer that I saw when I launched, we still like are under

[00:09:48] penetrated in that market.

[00:09:49] And then there's much more we can do to serve them with events or whatever.

[00:09:53] So it's less like, Oh, now that I have a foothold with one audience, I'm going to go, go, go to a

[00:10:00] broader audience.

[00:10:00] I think that would be a big mistake.

[00:10:01] Like, I think what I want to do is have every VC be obsessed with newcomer and subscribed

[00:10:07] and have, you know, great stories that they care about an event that they can go to.

[00:10:11] And then I don't know, maybe someday data or something else, but I'm extremely focused

[00:10:16] on the same customers.

[00:10:17] I think there's obviously an opportunity to continue monetizing them.

[00:10:22] And I think the mistake would be if I drifted to a broader audience and started chasing clicks

[00:10:28] or something like that, uh, that, that would then end up hurting me with my, my core audience.

[00:10:34] And so I think what a lot of these publications do is they lose sight.

[00:10:38] You know, they just, they get big enough that they're like, Oh, we need to go after more

[00:10:40] people.

[00:10:41] And I, I would not want to get so big that I would ever think, Oh, startup founders and

[00:10:47] venture capitalists aren't enough for us.

[00:10:49] And so I think as long as there's plenty, plenty of money and attention to, to be gobbled

[00:10:54] up in that area, then we can hire more people.

[00:10:58] Knowing your customer, always a good strategy.

[00:11:00] I mean, I know it's the Amazon customer obsession, you know, and I think the thing I've continued

[00:11:05] to learn is like, actually, you know, what good reporters do is they talk to their sources.

[00:11:10] They're in our, you know, our sources are our customers.

[00:11:14] So I'm talking to our customers.

[00:11:16] That means that, you know, I can get them to speak at events or sponsor events and, you

[00:11:21] know, it's relationship building and understanding the world we inhabit.

[00:11:26] And so I think those things are actually much more symbiotic than, you know, I didn't go to

[00:11:31] journalism school.

[00:11:32] I knew I wanted to be a journalist, but then my perception of journalism school would be

[00:11:36] like, ah, separate, you know, the business and the media arm.

[00:11:39] And I think what we've discovered is that as long as you're sort of honest and transparent,

[00:11:46] you know, and thinking about your customer, both in your coverage decisions and how you

[00:11:52] monetize makes, makes a lot of sense.

[00:11:54] And so we're going to continue to lean into that.

[00:11:56] I got into reporting because, you know, I want to learn a lot about the world.

[00:12:00] It's sort of like fast way to sort of insist that people answer your questions.

[00:12:04] I think one thing that sort of surprised me is that building a business is sort of another

[00:12:09] way of learning about how the world works because you're sort of like, oh, why do business,

[00:12:15] especially when you cover business, you're like, oh, why do business people do X, Y, and Z?

[00:12:19] And so, yeah, it's fun.

[00:12:20] It's fun to learn about the world this way too.

[00:12:24] And, you know, I want to keep doing both.

[00:12:26] What do you see for the next year going forward with Newcomer?

[00:12:30] First and foremost, you know, our North Star will always be great writing and reporting

[00:12:35] in the newsletter.

[00:12:36] I do think that is sort of the heart of everything we do.

[00:12:40] And I think part of that is hiring another reporter who can help us get scoops and keep

[00:12:46] things fresh.

[00:12:47] And then, yeah, I think for the business, it's really a matter of, you know, we have two

[00:12:52] great Cerebral Valley events.

[00:12:55] We had a banking summit in March that was good, but not great, I'd say.

[00:12:59] I think good in terms of who we got there, but it didn't have as much of a story for sponsors,

[00:13:05] which is I'm learning to build an events business.

[00:13:07] It's like, oh, sponsors are a big customer.

[00:13:11] And so I think we'll find two more sort of anchor events that really sort of resonate

[00:13:19] in Silicon Valley.

[00:13:20] And I think that will be a big piece of their business.

[00:13:23] And there's lots, you know, I, you know, this AMO media summit.

[00:13:26] Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, do you have any topics that you're thinking about for

[00:13:29] those summits?

[00:13:29] Oh, yeah.

[00:13:29] Well, and I want people to weigh in.

[00:13:31] I mean, we surveyed subscribers.

[00:13:32] I mean, we're thinking fintech is making a comeback.

[00:13:35] And given we did banking, there's definitely a logic there.

[00:13:37] We're considering Frontier to wrap in sort of defense and space and some of those companies.

[00:13:45] I have toyed with a VCLP focused event, but that has a little bit, you know, like I feel

[00:13:53] like a Frontier event or fintech has a similar story for AI, whereas VCLP is sort of a different

[00:14:01] strategy.

[00:14:02] So I'm trying to get my head around whether that makes sense or not.

[00:14:05] So we did our first event, the first Cerebral Valley we planned in six weeks.

[00:14:10] So we're definitely willing to sort of, I don't know, blitz these things once we have

[00:14:15] a great idea, but trying to do a little bit more big company, big company, you know, trying

[00:14:21] to do a little bit more planning.

[00:14:23] But so, yeah, we're thinking about it and would love input from anybody if there are things

[00:14:28] where you think there's a real gap in the market right now.

[00:14:32] You started the newsletter in kind of the beginnings of the boom times of venture capital.

[00:14:37] So how has it changed over the last four years?

[00:14:41] What have you seen?

[00:14:44] Yeah.

[00:14:45] Who knew that the pandemic would turn out to be like this great, the best period for sort

[00:14:51] of investing, lots of manic behavior.

[00:14:53] So that was super enjoyable to cover.

[00:14:57] You know, now we've had a couple of years seemingly of a downturn.

[00:15:01] Of course, that's been covered up by these big AI rounds.

[00:15:05] I'd say, I mean, the boom is fun to write about because there are deals to cover.

[00:15:12] Like if you think about getting scoops, it's like things happening is easier than things

[00:15:16] not happening to cover.

[00:15:18] A scoop a day, you know, every time there's a new deal that closes.

[00:15:22] And, you know, I wrote like a bear case on Rivian and like it's fun.

[00:15:26] You can still be sort of skeptical of things even in the boom times.

[00:15:29] You know, now we have this sort of tale of two worlds or what do we keep calling it?

[00:15:35] It's the best of times in AI and the worst of times everywhere else.

[00:15:38] And so that's that's kind of created this mix, mix storyline of the moment.

[00:15:44] I mean, you just got to, I guess, move away from reflecting on the glory that is newcomer.

[00:15:51] You got some data on the venture market today.

[00:15:56] What yeah, how would you describe where we are today?

[00:15:59] Yeah, I mean, we're really seeing a consolidation around, I would say, the mega funds, you know,

[00:16:05] the light speed A16Z index being able to still raise, even though they're sometimes cutting

[00:16:11] their targets back, but other times meeting them, but raising these multi-billion dollar

[00:16:14] funds.

[00:16:15] And then for everyone else, it's kind of a different world.

[00:16:18] And the same goes in the startup world, right?

[00:16:19] Like you see Anthropic, Ilya's safe superintelligence raise a billion dollar round.

[00:16:25] And then you see startups shutting down or quietly, you know, merging if they can possibly

[00:16:30] find an exit at all.

[00:16:32] So it's really what I think is the most fascinating point that we found in the data last week was

[00:16:38] the number of unique venture investors in U.S.

[00:16:41] Startups has fallen just really dramatically since the boom times.

[00:16:45] Obviously, there were a ton of these tourist investors that came in.

[00:16:48] And people, you know, got excited, thought they could start their own fund, did start their

[00:16:51] fund, but then, you know, have failed to raise a fund too.

[00:16:54] And it's, we've seen this consolidation of funding to really just come from the big firms

[00:17:00] and then kind of everyone else is sort of left out in the lurch.

[00:17:04] Unless you have a super, you know, specific value add or you can really market yourself

[00:17:08] as doing something different.

[00:17:10] But the bar for that is just getting higher and higher.

[00:17:13] Like a lot of these merchant funds are starting.

[00:17:14] Yeah, well, we put the chart in our Friday newsletter.

[00:17:15] We'll probably include it with this podcast post.

[00:17:18] But it is quite dramatic to watch the fall off.

[00:17:22] And a little sad.

[00:17:23] Yeah.

[00:17:24] I mean, it's, I liked all the new managers.

[00:17:29] And like, you know, there's always some of the best funds are early funds of new promising

[00:17:33] VCs, but we've clearly, the downturn has sort of enabled this pivot to, I don't know, venture

[00:17:41] capital becoming a lot more like private equity and big firms ruling the day.

[00:17:46] And so, yeah, it's been good news for Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed and a few others and

[00:17:53] not good for the anonymous manager who isn't going to raise their second or third fund.

[00:17:59] Yeah.

[00:17:59] I mean, obviously we did get to touch on some positives, a couple notable exceptions.

[00:18:04] You know, Accrue Capital announced that they closed $700 million in new funding last week.

[00:18:08] And then also last week, a friend of the pod, Harry Stebbings, closed, you know, his third

[00:18:15] fund at $400 million to invest in early stage startups in, you know, everywhere, but also

[00:18:21] especially in Europe since he's based there.

[00:18:23] Really exciting.

[00:18:24] Got to catch up with him about that.

[00:18:26] And he's, you know, also doing, he's leaning into his podcaster angle and his media company

[00:18:31] as a sell to LPs about access around deals that he has, which is-

[00:18:34] We are not doing that right now.

[00:18:36] We are not doing that.

[00:18:37] I have no judgment anymore.

[00:18:39] I feel like I used to, there was a day where I would have been such a purist, but we are very

[00:18:44] focused on the media business events.

[00:18:47] Yeah.

[00:18:48] I shared on LinkedIn that I'd done like two sort of-

[00:18:52] I've done three investments.

[00:18:54] Substack, which obviously I talked about in the newsletter, was effectively marketing for

[00:18:58] Substack.

[00:18:59] I invested in Volley, who I co-host Cerebral Valley with.

[00:19:03] So they're like a partner.

[00:19:04] Of course.

[00:19:04] You know, and then protege, my friend, Bobby Samuels.

[00:19:08] But it was like, that was just sort of like the friend who, if they ever started a company,

[00:19:12] I wanted to-

[00:19:13] Your friend, your friend that if, you know, whatever you'll do, I'll back you.

[00:19:17] I got you.

[00:19:17] Yeah, exactly.

[00:19:18] You know, I feel like that.

[00:19:19] Anyway, I just want to be transparent, but it's just inevitable.

[00:19:25] I feel like the savvy person, you know, you hear, oh, Harry Steffens is doing this

[00:19:29] big fun.

[00:19:31] But that's not sort of on our minds at the moment.

[00:19:35] Yeah.

[00:19:36] Stay tuned or not for that.

[00:19:39] You're like, Eric swims.

[00:19:41] No.

[00:19:43] We'll see.

[00:19:44] Why do you think he was able to raise now?

[00:19:46] I mean, honestly, it doesn't feel like the, yeah, it doesn't feel like the season, I guess,

[00:19:51] for new funds anyway.

[00:19:52] I mean, this is his third fund going to 400 million.

[00:19:54] But yeah, what was your take on why Harry has sort of succeeded where others have failed?

[00:20:00] Truly, I think, I mean, the biggest thing without a doubt is I'm sure the podcast is

[00:20:05] just an incredible asset for, you know, meeting talent, meeting founders, meeting investors.

[00:20:09] And just, you know, as you meet people, you get clued into the network and you get kind

[00:20:14] of an advantage on what deals you should be tracking if you're, you know, talking to

[00:20:19] these people all the time and building these networks.

[00:20:21] But then he's now at this point raised a third fund.

[00:20:25] The biggest cliff I feel like for emerging managers is going from fund one to fund two.

[00:20:29] So if you can pass that, you're, that's certainly a positive signal.

[00:20:34] And also in his first fund, he's got these incredible deals.

[00:20:37] Then it's just capital forever.

[00:20:37] Then you just get, no, then you're too big to fail and your LPs are like, oh, not this

[00:20:42] fund, you know, it's the classic, like we pulled out and we didn't hit Excel's fund where

[00:20:47] they had Facebook.

[00:20:48] So we can never pull out again.

[00:20:50] And then, and then you become general catalyst and you buy a hospital.

[00:20:53] So that's, that's the journey.

[00:20:56] But he, no, I think he, he really, you know, has some track record.

[00:21:01] He's invested in some, you know, promising companies, including 11X and the AI startup,

[00:21:06] you know, really bullish on having an advantage in the European market.

[00:21:09] Um, and especially at the early stage there, there's a lot of good AI talent coming out of

[00:21:14] there, which he's, you know, clued into.

[00:21:15] So I think that, I think that, you know, focus, um, having a media product as a selling point

[00:21:21] to differentiate yourself is really important.

[00:21:23] And now he's also, you know, starting this scout fund additional, additionally from the

[00:21:28] 400 million main fund where investors are all, you know, VPs or, you know, chief officers

[00:21:35] of some kind in other startups that, you know, can pull their network and they get, um, they

[00:21:41] get to keep all of the carry on their investments.

[00:21:43] He, you know, can just use it as an incredible funnel.

[00:21:46] You know, if the scouts make a deal that you like, you can follow on and invest in bigger

[00:21:50] check, you know?

[00:21:51] So it's, it's pretty savvy, you know, for deal flow to, you know, finding deals.

[00:21:56] He's, he's certainly thinking about venture differently than a lot of people, which is

[00:22:01] appealing.

[00:22:01] All right.

[00:22:02] Well, let's, uh, the, our, the bread and butter, uh, let's wrap up with what, what was

[00:22:08] the most notable recent deal, uh, for you start us off.

[00:22:12] For sure.

[00:22:13] Um, one deal I noticed last week that came to the top of the list was X energy nuclear

[00:22:18] reactor and energy company.

[00:22:20] Um, they raised a $500 million round led by Amazon's climate pledge fund.

[00:22:25] Um, and then Ken Griffin was also on the cap table amongst other strategics.

[00:22:28] Um, you know, people are just looking for energy, energy resources to power our AI moment

[00:22:34] right now.

[00:22:35] Um, the, the AI wave is going to take a lot of power.

[00:22:38] So, uh, seems like people are making the bets on nuclear now.

[00:22:42] Yeah.

[00:22:42] Mine's mine's another one on theme where investors are excited right now.

[00:22:46] We've got path robotics raised a hundred million dollars from matter venture partners and

[00:22:51] drive capital.

[00:22:52] Uh, also, uh, Tiger global, an investor.

[00:22:55] It's interesting to see them back.

[00:22:57] Tiger's back.

[00:22:59] And, and basis set another firm, a new firm that we're tracking.

[00:23:02] So we've got, uh, sort of old and new.

[00:23:05] Um, yeah, but I think, you know, nuclear robotics, two big themes in the world of generative

[00:23:12] AI and will be interesting to see where they go.

[00:23:14] Cool.

[00:23:15] Well, that's this week's episode.

[00:23:17] Thanks for listening to the newcomer podcast.

[00:23:18] See you next week.

[00:23:22] Bye.