Performance. Assurance. Speed.
Shield AI CTO Nathan Michael joined John Werner's Imagination in Action at @MIT for a panel on "Autonomy at the Edge: Warfighters, AI, and the Future of Defense" — covering the future of warfare, battlefield iteration, and what it takes to deliver proven autonomy at the speed of relevance.
"We focus on performance, assurance, and speed. That creates an incredible tension. You have to be able to rapidly iterate based on knowledge, information, and data collected in the field, which is highly dynamic. It becomes a question of how do you move very quickly, deliver this exquisite capability, and how do you do that with assurance?"
Full panel in the comments.
Autonomy for the world. The greatest victory requires no war.
Today we’re sharing some big news. @Saronic closed a $1.75B Series D fundraise at a $9.25B valuation, led by @kleinerperkins.
Honestly, it’s a bit surreal to look back at how much has happened in such a short time. We started with a simple belief: the maritime world was being overlooked, and autonomy could change that in a big way. Since then, it’s been a lot of time on the water, building, testing, breaking things, fixing them, and doing it all over again — just trying to move fast and get better every step of the way.
What makes me most proud though isn’t the milestone, it’s the team behind it. Saronic is what it is because of people who genuinely care about what we’re building and who push hard every day to do it right. That’s the part that really matters.
This next chapter is about scaling up — faster builds, bigger footprints, and continuing to invest in American shipbuilding in a real way. We’ve got a lot of work ahead, and that’s the exciting part.
Grateful to everyone who’s been part of this, from our team, to our investors and partners, and to our customers. Let's go!
@atShruti Love that you're sharing what you're experimenting with internally, like the Claude Code swarms and it would be cool to see what you're doing for your OS too. Helpful to know what you're looking for in case I come across anything I can send your way
Proud to share that @creativecocap company, Urban SDK just announced a $65M growth investment from Riverwood Capital. Our GovTech thesis is that local municipalities can leverage AI to make more informed decisions and respond with greater speed and precision. Urban SDK is proof of this, serving 300+ civic leaders across 40 states with their geospatial AI system of action platform.
Congrats to Drew Messer, JD, Justin Dennis, and the entire team, well deserved and we're excited for what's ahead!
Urban SDK Raises $65M Growth Round from Riverwood Capital to Scale AI-Powered System of Action for Local Governments, Transforming Public Safety and Service
Read the full announcement:
https://t.co/NqbJKhjUiy
@FutureJurvetson@MarsEterna@SawyerMerritt It sure was! June 22 2012 was an epic day of presenting the Model S to the world. Very bittersweet that this is end of an era.
We launched CreativeCo Fund I in 2020, and as we tell our founders to keep it scrappy, we have been super scrappy ourselves working out of a small coworking spot here in Charlotte. Since we are growing we needed to upgrade, and there is an immense sense of pride of moving into a new office that is just ours. Truly grateful for all of our founders and LPs and what we are building together.
So here is a small celebration to our new morning views!
Conviction is the real edge in investing.
Not hype. Not consensus. Conviction.
It’s conviction in the founder: their ability to see what others don’t and keep going when others quit.
Conviction in the problem: that it’s painful enough to demand a solution.
Conviction in the solution: that it actually works and can scale.
Conviction in the market: that it’s big enough, and growing fast enough, to matter.
Building conviction takes work. You have to dive deep, ask hard questions, and get close enough to understand the nuances.
The best investors don’t follow the crowd. They do the work until conviction becomes clarity.
The future of SaaS isn’t 1,000 seat sales orgs. It’s 10 person teams with AI doing the work of 100.
Founders who win the next decade won’t outspend. Instead, they’ll out optimize.
AI is flattening org charts, collapsing silos, and rewriting what efficiency looks like.
It’s no longer about headcount, it’s about leverage.
Build smarter systems. Automate the repeatable. Focus humans where it matters most: strategy, storytelling, and customer love.
Efficiency is the new growth.