Discipulus Ventures

Cultivating a visionary vanguard of founders solving America's hardest problems in El Segundo.

Apply to our Cohort in bio!

[Discipulus Ventures @DiscipulusVent]

SPRING COHORT APPS LIVE NOW! Apply in bio 🇺🇸

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

America is the greatest country in the world.

But we need more founders working on real problems.

If you are in the early stages of building something that matters, you have to be in El Segundo.🇺🇸

Apply to the Spring Cohort in bio. 

Deadline February 20th.

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

Join us in the Gundo 🇺🇸

Founding investor applications open now. Apply below.

[Discipulus Ventures @DiscipulusVent]

Join us!

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

🇺🇸 We're hiring our first full-time team member in the Gundo at @DiscipulusVent

Founding Investor: work directly with me on sourcing, picking companies, running Cohorts, and pitching LPs.

Front row seat to building the best hardtech program in the world.

If you care about American reindustrialization, apply today (link + JD in thread).

El Segundo, CA. In person.

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

NanduX is building the next generation of sensing technology to unlock South American mining (where the majority of the world's copper and lithium is)

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

Fuels, chemicals, and plastics are a $6T market that powers EVERY car, plane, factory, and product in modern reality.

Today, they come from oil refineries, or from corn ethanol plants that burn through HALF of America's corn supply.

@DiscipulusVent founder @jared_western & the Western Chemicals team are building biochemical refineries that turn wastewater into the world's cheapest fuels to REINDUSTRIALIZE America🇺🇸

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

🇺🇸 EXCLUSIVE: @PalmerLuckey x @DiscipulusVent Spring Demo Day Fireside Chat.

We cover Why El Segundo, Founding Anduril, Defense Tech Incentives, State of Hardtech VC, SVB Collapse, Erebor, Founder Advice, & more.

Highlights:

(00:00) Palmer Luckey
(00:20) Why Anduril chose El Segundo over the Bay Area
(01:20) The Facebook acquisition & Bay Area mercenary problem
(02:43) Building across veterans, Democrats, Republicans & libertarians
(03:33) How the four Anduril founders' roles have evolved
(04:21) "Want to work on tech? Don't start a company"
(06:02) What Palmer learned from Oculus about delegation
(06:44) How not to become Lockheed or Raytheon
(07:33) Why the government rewards being slow & expensive
(09:25) Anduril's real failure mode: becoming Google, not Lockheed
(10:21) The state of hardtech venture capital
(10:55) Why ZIRP killed serious investing
(12:31) The vibe shift toward energy, defense & agriculture
(13:01) Erebor & the SVB collapse that almost killed Anduril
(13:32) Why no American bank is actually aligned with America
(15:18) How Biden accidentally saved Anduril
(17:10) Palmer's one piece of advice for founders
(17:38) Bonus: the One Piece anime fan edit

[Brandon Schram @SchramIAm]

.@640oxford presents:

PRE/INDUSTRIALIZE

The pre-party to @reindsummit. Detroit. June 15th.

Industrial bonfires, demos, installations, and whatever other crazy shit you can think of alongside those building the future of America.

Hosted with @DiscipulusVent, @cantos, Riot Ventures, @CrucibleCap, @AcequiaCapital, @grid_cap, @trucksvc, @dugsong, & more.

Located in a former wartime production stamping facility, and the home to @noxmetals & @beaconmfg.

Powered by: @VulcanForms

Link below:

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

The @DiscipulusVent Spring Cohort just wrapped up in the 'Gundo. 🇺🇸

Joined by @PalmerLuckey, @isaiah_p_taylor, @ADoricko & more throughout the week.

10 hardtech founders building for the American Interest. Companies below 🧵👇

[Palmer Luckey @PalmerLuckey]

@joel_chakra @jakobdiepen @ADoricko @DiscipulusVent @texheavy @fedpoasts Legit the best pitch day I have ever been to. Incredible companies pitched incredibly well.

[Charlotte W. Nazarian @CWNazarian]

if your demo day after-party doesn’t have hardware, you’re ngmi

[Patty Wexler @patriciawexler]

Great @DiscipulusVent demo day @jakobdiepen

(remain miffed that South Florida hasn’t built our own Gundo but great presenters and attendance)

[Aidan Gold @MrGoldBro]

The @DiscipulusVent Demo Day was the closest I've felt to Florence during the Renaissance.

A place for smart people to gather and talk about important technology.

Lots of optimism and big ideas. Grassroots movement for America.

Awesome to see everyone come together.

[Jenny Kaehms @jennykaehms]

@DiscipulusVent is standing room only.

Excited to see demos.

@akalmans

[Michael P Gibson @William_Blake]

Annual 1517 pilgrimage to the Gundo for @DiscipulusVent

[Joel Chakra ✝️🇺🇸🚀 @joel_chakra]

Legend in the house at @DiscipulusVent demo day!

@PalmerLuckey

[Augustus Doricko @ADoricko]

El Segundo was always inevitable

@PalmerLuckey @DiscipulusVent

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

🇺🇸 @JoshuaSteinman is building cybersecurity for critical infrastructure at @Galvanick. Ex-Navy. Ex-senior staffer at the @WhiteHouse.

He has three simple sentences for early stage founders pitching complex ideas.
"You have to keep it simple. You have to keep it simple. You have to keep it simple."

VCs listen to hundreds of pitches per day. Make yours the one they can remember without checking their notes.

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

🇺🇸 @Gundo_OG is a serial defense tech founder. He co-founded @epirus (a defense unicorn) and is now building next-gen electronic warfare at @CX2_Industries

His advice for founders building in hard tech: endure.

"Prepare to get punched in the face. Prepare to get punched a lot of times. Be tenacious. Have grit."

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

🇺🇸 @ScottNolan is building America’s nuclear fuel supply @GeneralMatter. Ex-SpaceX engineer, @foundersfund partner. He couldn’t find an American uranium enrichment company to invest in, so he built one. $900M DOE contract.

His advice for hard tech founders in the @DiscipulusVent Cohort:

“Don’t start a company if it’s not your life’s mission.”

That ethos runs through the core of what’s being built in El Segundo. Missionaries, not mercenaries.

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

.@isaiah_p_taylor is building planetary scale nuclear reactors at @ValarAtomics. He dropped out of high school at 16, founded Valar at 24, raised $450M, and is building America's first nuclear gigasite. 🇺🇸

His advice for @DiscipulusVent hard tech founders:

"Get to the hardware problems as soon as you can. You should be experiencing more hardware problems at a greater and greater pace over time."

[Jakob Diepenbrock @jakobdiepen]

.@JoshuaSteinman shared esoteric hard tech fundraising knowledge with the @DiscipulusVent Cohort (apply to the next one to figure out what is under the blurred text).

"VCs want 3 sentences of renegade and 50 pages of Normie." — Be interesting enough to get attention, conventional enough to get funded.