Maarten

Building the Future of Commodities | From Zero to $4B OI in 30 days

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

Huge congratulations to @Cargill and Thywissen—and thank you for believing in us.

This is just the beginning.

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

AI just brokered a physical commodity trade.

Anyone who knows how OTC markets work will understand how significant this is.

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

Proud to be part of this family!! Congrats on LV9 @peterjhebert @wolfejosh @Lux_Capital! 🔥

[Lux Capital @Lux_Capital]

We started Lux in 2000 with a simple conviction: the biggest opportunities lie at the frontier of science and technology that others find too hard, too early, or too confusing. Twenty-five years later, that conviction hasn't changed. What has changed is that the world has caught on.

Now compute, automation, and biology have matured into scalable engineering disciplines, and what was once fringe "deep tech" has become essential infrastructure. New talent, new tools, and new industrial capacity now exist to turn the most cutting-edge technology across the physical, computational, and life sciences into enduring businesses.

For these businesses and founders to become category-defining winners, they need meaningful capital and conviction. That is why we are especially excited to announce our largest fund to date, Lux Ventures IX, a $1.5B commitment to investing in the people turning sci-fi into sci-fact.

Today entire sectors of aerospace, biotech, defense, industrials, transportation and beyond are being reinvented by a new generation of brilliantly ambitious, often irreverent, scientists and engineers. And while markets have changed and capital reshapes around fewer companies and larger checks, our focus on the craft remains constant.

That focus matters because science doesn’t scale itself. The path from a result in the lab, only known to a few, to something durable the entire world will use requires a different kind of partnership. One that deploys the first $100K and the last $100M, that stays through the full arc of company-building, that mobilizes a powerful network of kinetic like-minded founders, and that treats capital as a tool rather than the product.

Forty-four people at Lux now manage $7B, still operating with the same discipline and purpose we had on day one. We find and fund founders others have overlooked, back conviction over consensus, and build alongside these rebels of science and tech at every stage.

We’re grateful to our valued LPs who've partnered with us through multiple cycles, and to the founders who trust us with their life's work. The mission continues, with even greater intensity and momentum.

https://t.co/D6emTydcYK

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

With robusta on the rise again, let's remember that in the 1980s East Germany built Vietnam's coffee industry for half of their harvests over next 20 years. First beans shipped in 1986, three years later the wall and the deal collapsed

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

How East Germany created the world's 2nd largest coffee production in the remote jungles of SE Asia to keep its citizens happy and caffeinated

[Sal @cmdtySal]

CBOT is fully disconnecting from local cash market in #Ukraine and #Russia!

within last 2 weeks:
🌽CBOT corn- down 65c/bu (-25$/mt)
🌾CBOT wheat- down 70c/bu (-25$/mt)

at the same time period:
🇺🇦🌽Ukraine up 2-3$ ($232 FOB)
🇷🇺🌾Russia down few $ ($249-252 FOB)

#oatt #agtwitter

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

@DVanLangenhove Tell me you take Russian cash without telling me

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

@healy_trader Yes ppl are waking up - also planning for more processing of key metals at home, as arguably an even greater risk for US + EU today

[eu/acc @euacchq]

Good news. We hope it’s well done so it truly makes a European Nasdaq emerge

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

@itsolelehmann @elonmusk @DarioAmodei Also @DarioAmodei in that same interview, "We need AI regulation by the end of this year, or I would be worried."

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

Or @DarioAmodei, CEO of Anthropic/ Claude in conversation with Lex Fridman:
"If you go to Europe and you see something like GDPR, you see some of the other stuff that they’ve done. Some of it’s good, but some of it is really unnecessarily burdensome and I think it’s fair to say really has slowed innovation. And so I understand where people are coming from on priors. But again, I think AI is different. If we go to the very serious risks of autonomy and misuse that I talked about, I think that those are unusual and they warrant an unusually strong response. And so I think it’s very important." https://t.co/G5gDNsnLtZ

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

Unpaid intern @pmarca absolutely nails it in his chat with @p_m_robinson!

As more details on the new admin's plans permeate, it's hard not to feel optimistic about the future of the US and the positive-sum impact on the broader Western world! 🇺🇲 🌍

https://t.co/KTt7FoO35n

[Hoover Institution @HooverInst]

Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) is a prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneur, investor, technologist, and co-founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. In this @UncKnowledge discussion, Andreessen reflects on his journey—from growing up in rural Wisconsin to founding Netscape and developing one of the first commercial internet browsers in his twenties to playing a pivotal role in shaping both Silicon Valley and national politics.

The interview also delves into the technological and political evolution of Silicon Valley and Andreessen’s own shifting political affiliations from left to right, along with his vision for leveraging technology to drive societal progress, the role of innovation in addressing energy challenges, border security, and national defense.

Andreessen also discusses @DOGE, a policy initiative focused on government efficiency (and the strategy DOGE may use to accomplish its goals), his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” and the imperative for revitalizing the US military’s technological capabilities to maintain global competitiveness. Watch the full episode of Uncommon Knowledge with host Peter Robinson (@P_M_Robinson) here:

[Alexander Stahel 🌻 @BurggrabenH]

Remember: supply chain world, not wine & cloth world of David Ricardo….!

America needs careful adjustments as it only produces software engineers and lawyers but cannot produce a screwdriver anymore.

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

Meanwhile, Rotterdam, largest port in Europe, operated by <20 people onsite.

▫️Driverless vehicles between ships and storage areas
▫️Remote-controlled cranes for loading and unloading vessels
▫️Automated logistics systems for moving and stacking containers

Dock of 42km long and moving ~500 million tons of cargo a year.

6min video: https://t.co/pmo02ABG1L

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

@BowTiedMara MRLs, origin- and phyto certificates have been standard practice for decades.. Every destination buyer will ask for these in intl commodity mkts

[Anas Alhajji @anasalhajji]

China started using self-driving (Autonomous) long distance heavy duty coal trains.
It reduced the number of workers and accidents, leading to lower cost of #coal!

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

@elonmusk By increasing tariffs, your friend is doing the exact opposite - China is by far the largest export market for US agri products.

Happy to tell you more about commodity markets @elonmusk, and as a bonus I'll explain how we can transform the metals trade together

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

@arnehalleraker @elonmusk Besides supply-side is out of US and Chinese control (tariffs = arbitrage for traders).. Will be easier to tackle demand, and Trump seems to have the mandate + power to increase policing necessary to clean up your streets!

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

@arnehalleraker @elonmusk I understood - why else announce it now - but this is not how you invite someone to negotiation table. Will just escalate, with Apple, Boeing, McDonalds, Tesla, American farmers and of course consumers paying the price, while Tenderloin and Kensington keeps growing

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

@theoscarhoole @theoscarhoole your take on Singaporean history is somewhat misleading
https://t.co/CG0q5eycOK

[Maarten @MaartenElferink]

This is a misleading take on Singaporean economic history. The island is today one of the world's biggest hubs in the global energy trade. Above all, it was expansion in refinery capacity that has fueled the country's rise from poverty to first-world wealth. 🧵