Shahin Farshchi

@lux_capital, @zoox, @planet, @relativityspace, @vardaspace, @epsilon3inc, @nervanasys, @mosaicml, @CovariantAI, @goformic, $AEVA, Dad/Bear/Pilot

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

In 2006, I was in my mid-20s, had wound down my company and was doing a postdoctoral scholarship to pay my bills. I had been told that I should raise venture capital for my next startup.

I googled “nanotechnology” and “venture capital,” and the first Google search result was Lux, based in NYC, founded by a couple guys my age, who had funded companies building next-gen lithography, batteries, displays, and longevity.

I was FLOORED. This is at a time when SoLoMo, ad-tech, and “cloud” were all the rage. I didn’t know VCs existed in NYC, or below the age of 40.

I reached out to Pete and Josh offering to help source and diligence asking for nothing but friendship/mentorship in return, as I didn’t even have an idea at the time, and they replied the same day inviting me to spend time with them. No other VC had given such a warm reply to my blind outreach.

Being flat broke, I submitted papers to land speaking slots at conferences in NYC to be able to go out to see them, and the rest is history.

20 years in, I’ve had the fortune of working with talent and being part of the inception and success of amazing companies in fields investors were shunning or simply not paying attention to. I’ve learned so much from working closely with incredible people who have brought different perspectives to the firm.

In 2006, deep tech felt lonely; today the talent is everywhere, but conviction still matters.

It’s a privilege to be part of this next chapter with our fresh $1.5B fund to continue working with founders as they are ideating to pulling together to launching to growing to establishing generational companies accelerating our future with feats of science and engineering.

[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

[Josh Wolfe @wolfejosh]

Excited for Lux family co @westmagco led by brilliant @boxcardavid who is definition of an obsessed super smart sector founder who has likely forgotten more about motors actuators and magnets and robotics than most will ever know!;)

[Suffiyan Malik @suffiyanmalikk]

Dropping next week, special edition of @WeThe_Builders episodes at @RonaldReagan National Economic Forum.

Interviews featuring:

- Brian Hooks, CEO of @StandTogether and President of @ckochfoundation - deploying $1B/year through venture philanthropy to solve critical societal problems

- Dan Wright (@danwrightSF), Cofounder and CEO of @armada_ai - $2B neo-hyperscaler cloud on the edge for AI era

- Ian Cinnamon (@IanCinnamon ), Cofounder and CEO of Apex Space - $1B satellite platform to scale satellite manufacturing across difference use cases, big news dropping

- David Bahnsen (@DavidBahnsen), Founder and CIO of @TheBahnsenGroup - $9.9B AUM wealth management firm

Special thank you to @danrothschild, @ReaganInstitute team and @invariant team for having me and for putting on an incredible event featuring keynotes and talks from titans of industry and government including Jamie Dimon (CEO @jpmorgan), @SecScottBessent, @arjunsethi, @SteveForbesCEO, @BrookeLRollins

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

Space lasers making their way to @NYSE - most bits pushed and consumed by companies listed there will make their way through @ObservableSpace

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

RF spectrum and undersea fiber built the modern Internet.

The AI era will require massive compute across Earth and space, connected not by radio, but by optical links moving data orders of magnitude faster.

Excited to back @ObservableSpace, building the future of space and terrestrial laser comms - h/t @Bloomberg

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

@bznotes @ObservableSpace LOL I was the biggest skeptic. Proof that I will admit to being wrong!!!

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

@Forbes Bravo!!

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

This time it's different:

[Saman Farid @samanfarid]

I thunk the same dynamic will play out in robotics. Model availability will be high and cheap. Value will accrue to those who have distribution and can effectively manage the models.

[RiskReversal Media @RiskReversal]

Dan sits down with Shahin @Farshchi of @Lux_Capital and AI Investor @annbordetsky at the @RBC private tech conference to discuss where the next wave of AI is headed.

https://t.co/RwRIXrslKB

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

Everything that was unsexy and unloved in semis is hot:

Power (Empower -> ADI this morning for $1B+, unimaginable not long ago), litho, deposition/etch, metrology, packaging… no joke!

[delian @zebulgar]

The most read S-1 in the world talks about the upside of in-space manufacturing?

Love that!!

[Naveen Rao @NaveenGRao]

Such a cool blog! This describes the essence of what we’re doing @unconv …using the physical world to do computing. Computing is not an artificial thing; nature has discovered this concept over and over again. We’re building something that can harness nature to compute with the lowest possible energy

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

Every AI app and coding agent needs instant, often lumpy, access to compute

Modal sells both the shovels and the sandbox

Proud to be partnered with @bernhardsson and his team as they build the inference layer the next generation of software will run on:

[Erik Bernhardsson @bernhardsson]

Today we're announcing our Series C funding: $355M at a $4.65B valuation, led by some great investors @generalcatalyst and @Redpoint.

We've had insane growth in the last year, but we're still very early. So proud of the team and what we have built so far!

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

Sovereign AI compute, built in America, deployable anywhere in days not years.

Proud to be partnered with @armada_ai as it announces its factory for token factories:

[Armada @armada_ai]

https://t.co/6x86a35H0M

[Shahin Farshchi @Farshchi]

Excited for @AmcaINC’s next phase of growth: strengthening the industrial backbone with the right mix of tech + execution coupled to the great companies that brought us here today:

[Jai Malik @jaimalik]

I'm excited to announce that @AmcaInc has raised a $300M Series B at a >$1B valuation, led by @CaffeinatedCap with major support from @LightspeedVP, @a16z, @Lux_Capital, and others.

We're on a mission to reconstitute a supply chain that has too often put profit over country.

[Varda Space Industries @VardaSpace]

W-6 is back.

This flight pushed on two fronts: autonomous hypersonic navigation and next-generation thermal protection systems.

High-cadence reentry missions in repeatable conditions.

[Molly O’Shea @MollySOShea]

BREAKING: Armada Raises $230M Series B at $2B Valuation co-led by Overmatch, BlackRock & 8090 Industries

The company’s largest & heavily oversubscribed round to date, bringing total funding to nearly half a billion dollars.

PLUS, Armada announces Galleon Forge One, a new modular data center manufacturing facility

“Johnson Controls is working with Armada to rapidly deliver secure modular data centers at scale,” said Joakim Weidemanis, CEO of Johnson Controls.

"Together, we have already deployed units across the United States and around the world, demonstrating the expertise and global reach required to support mission-critical environments. Johnson Controls' differentiated technology, U.S.-based manufacturing strength and Armada's edge computing expertise will deliver the thermal‑critical environments that perform predictably, deploy quickly, and scale with confidence.”

[Impulse Space @GoToImpulse]

The true space age is within reach... And that’s what we’re here for: to make those possibilities real.” – @lrocket, Founder & CEO

Tom discusses his journey from building amateur rockets, to leading propulsion at SpaceX and founding Impulse Space in a new Q&A with @dfjgrowth.

Read his take on the future of orbital infrastructure, and what it will take to enable the next era of space ops: https://t.co/10DayASQzW