1517 Fund

We back dropouts, renegade students, and deep tech scientists at the earliest stages, before anybody else. Want to chat? Reach out:👇

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

1517 is more than just vibes & techno-retrocool! We back people who want to build the future. We are the first believers & the last doubters.

For startups:

📜 Thesis: Sci-Fi tech (passes the Kubrick test), dropouts & renegade scientists
🌱Stage: Angel/preseed — seed
🌎 Geo focus: NA w/ rare EU + SA investments.
💰 Check-size: $50K - $500K

For builders:

$1k. No strings attached. For makers, students, and/or dropouts. Strongly prefer HW over SW.

Want to build the impossible? We also offer $100K to do R&D for 6 months.

To get in touch, drop us a line, [email protected]

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

@drjoshcsimmons Not, if you're working on something straight out of sci-fi.

What counts as scifi? Glad you asked!

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

@drjoshcsimmons Not, if you're working on something straight out of sci-fi.

What counts as scifi? Glad you asked!

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

Or, apply to 1517.

[Casey Handmer @CJHandmer]

My impression is that our society has no idea how to metabolize curve destroyers, and a lot of them end up either with niche obsessions or extremely grumpy (or both).

A lot of them were streamed into math for essentially salience reasons and the lucky ones became researchers, teachers, or quants.

But now there is another way. You can build the Dyson sphere.

[Amir Mashal @AmirMashal]

Before the seed round, before the launch, and before any of this felt real, there was @1517fund .

When my brother @al_mashal forwarded me 1517 Fund’s tweet about the Flux Capacitor Fellowship, I had no idea what would happen a year and a half later. That fellowship gave me the chance to go after the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about: building the materials that could rewire the world.

@William_Blake, @DStrachman, and @TheHarryGandhi believed before everyone else and enabled me to turn conviction into a company. And when Michael came out to the garage lab, he was one of the first people to see the laser infusion demo in person.

A lot has happened since then, but 1517 was there from the very beginning. I’ll always be grateful for Danielle, Michael, and the entire 1517 team for being there before it was obvious.

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

We're making better copper! And aluminum! And more!

If you want to meaningfully change the world forever, talk to @AmirMashal and sign up to help @arcturustechinc

[Amir Mashal @AmirMashal]

Today, after about a year and a half of heads-down work, I’m excited to announce that Arcturus is emerging from stealth with an $8M seed round led by Initialized Capital with participation from 1517, Toyota Ventures, Wireframe Ventures, and Climate Capital.

This all started with a realization that I couldn’t shake: the world’s asking more and more from metals that were never designed for the systems we’re building today.

EVs, drones, robotics, AI data centers, the grid. The modern world runs on copper and aluminum doing their job quietly in the background. But as power, heat, and performance demands keep rising, those materials are becoming a bottleneck.

At Arcturus, we’re building a new class of conductor materials by infusing carbon nanomaterials into metals. The goal is simple: help wires, motors, and thermal systems move more power, shed more heat, and hold up in harsher conditions, without redesigning everything around them.

Not long ago, this was just an idea in my garage in Los Angeles.

I’m incredibly grateful to our investors, partners, advisors, and early believers who helped us get here: thank you for seeing it before there was much to see. This is just the beginning and I’m so excited for what comes next!

@Initialized @zcperret @brettdg | @1517fund @William_Blake @DStrachman | @Breakthrough @bchevva | @WireframeVC @lbernicker @harsh1 | @Toyota_Ventures @lisabcoca | @climatecap @sunrock | @smathaudhu | @al_mashal @april_brady @SarahRhoades

@arcturustechinc

[Initialized Capital @Initialized]

Amir Mashal started @arcturustechinc to tackle a massive problem: our grid was built for a different century, and nearly 15% of U.S. electricity is lost before we use it.

After building the first prototype in his garage, Amir and the team are developing high-performance conductors designed to run cooler, carry more power, and last longer.

We’re proud to lead Arcturus’ $8 million seed round, with participation from @1517fund, @Toyota_Ventures, @Breakthrough, @WireframeVC, and @ClimateCap.

A massive congratulations to Amir and his team on officially coming out of stealth today!

Read more from @tdechant in @TechCrunch: https://t.co/Y2Gicyh3uW

[Amir Mashal @AmirMashal]

Today, after about a year and a half of heads-down work, I’m excited to announce that Arcturus is emerging from stealth with an $8M seed round led by Initialized Capital with participation from 1517, Toyota Ventures, Wireframe Ventures, and Climate Capital.

This all started with a realization that I couldn’t shake: the world’s asking more and more from metals that were never designed for the systems we’re building today.

EVs, drones, robotics, AI data centers, the grid. The modern world runs on copper and aluminum doing their job quietly in the background. But as power, heat, and performance demands keep rising, those materials are becoming a bottleneck.

At Arcturus, we’re building a new class of conductor materials by infusing carbon nanomaterials into metals. The goal is simple: help wires, motors, and thermal systems move more power, shed more heat, and hold up in harsher conditions, without redesigning everything around them.

Not long ago, this was just an idea in my garage in Los Angeles.

I’m incredibly grateful to our investors, partners, advisors, and early believers who helped us get here: thank you for seeing it before there was much to see. This is just the beginning and I’m so excited for what comes next!

@Initialized @zcperret @brettdg | @1517fund @William_Blake @DStrachman | @Breakthrough @bchevva | @WireframeVC @lbernicker @harsh1 | @Toyota_Ventures @lisabcoca | @climatecap @sunrock | @smathaudhu | @al_mashal @april_brady @SarahRhoades

@arcturustechinc

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

Humanity needs its Weiffenbachs & Guiers, but Weiffenbach & Guier need people who write that first check, instead of fence sitting to be the last.

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

Transit was the humanity's first satellite navigation system. Designed in 1957. Launched in 1959. Completed by 1968.

It was the first satellite constellation; first OTA software update in space (first ever??); first RT global timing service; and the first to do this:

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

65 years ago today, @USNavy's Transit-4A became the first satellite to use nuclear power in orbit.

Its tiny RTG outputted ~3W w/ Pu-238.

Modern RTGs (like @zeno_power's — also supported by the US Navy) can scale their output, to 0.3x to 100x w/ nuclear waste

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

The time from two physicists - Weiffenbach & Guier - making an observation and doing the math (Oct. 1957) to building & deployment was measured in months. Because the US Navy wrote that first check.

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

65 years ago today, @USNavy's Transit-4A became the first satellite to use nuclear power in orbit.

Its tiny RTG outputted ~3W w/ Pu-238.

Modern RTGs (like @zeno_power's — also supported by the US Navy) can scale their output, to 0.3x to 100x w/ nuclear waste

[Alby Churven @albysjourney]

THIS APPLICATION VIDEO GOT A 14 YEAR OLD INTO @ycombinator

It has never been easier to start. Just wow...

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

Random wordmarks from the 19th C. have a surprising level of detail.

This one's from a Philadelphian florist;

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

His parents wrote Satoshi Tajiri off as a delinquent.

He cut classes, nearly dropped out of HS, didn't go to Uni & spent all his time playing and breaking games.

At 18, he stapled together a hand-drawn "magazine" at home called "Game Freak" [1/4]

[Tyler Bernstein @tybernstein]

Humanity is going back to the frontier – but this time to stay.

And the frontier won't be held by a few large platforms, it'll be held by fleets and constellations of systems numbering in the thousands. That requires a category of distributed power at a scale the world has never built. Until now.

My latest on why we're industrializing nuclear battery production at the historic Vallecitos Nuclear Center:

https://t.co/iVjmRRtB9g

[Linda Zhang @lindazhangau]

A gem from our documentary interview with @DStrachman: “Permission is an infinitely scalable resource. If you can’t help a person with money, you can gift them permission” 🪄

During her time on the @thielfellowship’s founding team and currently as co-founder of @1517 fund, she’s met so many people who had everything they needed, but subconsciously were waiting for someone to say “Hey, you can just do the thing. Permission granted!”

Danielle is the fairy god mother of permission granting 🧚‍♀️ And she’d like to pass on the message: if you’re looking from a sign from the universe to do the thing that you’re ready… you are :)

~

Grateful to @codyad_am and @shaurya_sinha7 for your camera/audio magic and @majamediaco @zoop_design @marlouiise @nickktrannn @AmberSahdev for the behind the scenes support as documentary-making goes into full swing🙏

[Michael P Gibson @William_Blake]

Follow Spencer 👇

[zostaff @zostaff]

Steven Balaban, co-founder and CTO of Lambda, one of the largest GPU clouds:

"The naysayers, you're going to throw these GPUs out in 5 years, are completely wrong. They've been wrong the entire time."

His proof is not a forecast. An H100 he bought in 2023 leases for more today than it did when it was new.

Everyone told you the compute crunch was temporary, that prices would collapse, that your bottleneck would melt away on its own.

The man who actually rents out the chips says the opposite. The thing throttling you now is not a phase. It is the price of the era.

[1517 Fund @1517fund]

How to fix a commutator; a visual guide.

From 'A Textbook on the Locomotive and the Air Brake.' 1901.

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

Existential hope is one of my favorite ideas. Mitigating risk is important but if we don't have a vision for something better we will steer into our fear.