Lars Rasmussen

Google Maps & Panathēnea Co-Founder / Angel Investor / Kite Surfing Coffee Enthusiast / Proud Husband & Dad

[Niko Bonatsos @bonatsos]

Thrilled to be part of @PanatheneaFest this coming week in my hometown in Greece! Thank you to @LKatsiadakis , @larsras, @elomidavisviki and their team for producing this very special event!

[John Gedmark @Gedmark]

Astranis today builds more commercial GEO satellites than the rest of the industry combined.

But we're not stopping there. We believe it’s critical that we bring back manufacturing to America and rebuild our industrial base. Especially in aerospace and defense.

That’s why we are scaling up production, tripling our output from 8 to 24 satellites per year. We have no choice— our commercial and defense customers demand it. They want as many satellites as we can build.

Here’s how:

‣ We’re making huge investments in our in-house machining capabilities. That includes our massive new Makino Mag3.EX. It’s a beast of a horizontal endmill, weighing in at 100,000 pounds. it can remove a ridiculous 75 pounds of metal per minute. We’re using it to bring structural panel builds in house. Previously, those panels were quoted with over a 1-year lead time, but we’ll machine our own panels in a single day.

‣ We’ve added other CNC machines in total now also, basically bringing them in as fast as we can buy them, from manufacturers like Haas, Matsuura, and DMG Mori. And we are running lights-out on many of these machines today, building everything from brackets to boxes to other structural elements, in house, from raw aluminum and titanium stock.

‣ We’re upgrading our in-house testing and qualification. We added a new crown jewel recently, a massive 15-foot-diameter vacuum chamber with pumps capable of maintaining a hard vacuum even as we fire xenon thrusters inside it. We’ve done some outrageously cool testing in this chamber, bringing in house yet another costly and time-consuming test.

‣ We upgraded our electronics labs, outfitting them with state of the art equipment for board bringup and testing. Power supplies, signal generators, spectrum analyzers, and more. We now have two large labs— one for our digital payloads, and one for the satellite bus including power, avionics, and guidance-navigation-control (GNC) systems.

‣ And, of course, we’re hiring. We now have an incredible team of 500 working out of our San Francisco office daily, and we’re hiring even more now to reach scale. We may be the largest company in SF with a 5-days-per-week in person office culture. Because there’s no other way to build real hardware.

This is the kind of investment in our capabilities it takes to bring real manufacturing back to America— a lot of hardware, a lot of people, and a lot of iterative improvement along the way. But we know we can do it, and we know we must do it. For our customers and for our country.

[Dimitrios Kourtesis @dimkourtesis]

Next meetup for Thessaloniki's startup community is scheduled for Fri 19/12.

Open Coffee Thessaloniki #89 + Christmas Party @ WALK

Talks:
✨ @larsras / @Panathēnea
✨ Korina Chatzigeorgiou / AgriNow
✨ Alexandros Petkos / Spatial AI

https://t.co/WkByDNWY1S

[Jenny Shao @iamjennyshao]

Say hello to Robyn -- the first emotionally intelligent AI designed to be deeply human.

1000 free messages for accounts created in the next 24 hours. Download and comment below for access. 🧵

👉 Get Robyn: https://t.co/ZaMA1SqAgq
https://t.co/iPMN5hZxbn | available on iOS

[etn. @etnshow]

BREAKING: We'll be live streaming at Panathēnea.

Pack your bags folks, we're heading to Athens.

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

Super excited to join @thechrisdorffer on this journey!

[Bloomberg @business]

A new venture capital company backed by former Silicon Valley executives is seeking to raise as much as $58.7 million to invest in European AI startups https://t.co/5TpaBjR2sb

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

#NewProfilePic

[Florian Juengermann @florian_jue]

Very soon, all we will do as humans is to tell the AI what to build. Even though I love coding, I'm excited for the future where we can put the customer first.

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

@itsalfredw @sequoia @ListenLabs @Microsoft @canva Listen

[Alfred Wahlforss @itsalfredw]

AI writes your code. Now it talks to your users.

We raised $27M from @Sequoia to build @ListenLabs.

Listen runs thousands of interviews to uncover what users want, why they churn, and what makes them convert.

See how @Microsoft and @canva use it:

[John Gedmark @Gedmark]

Astranis is building a new satellite for Taiwan. 🇹🇼

With our customer, Chunghwa Telecom, we will bring Taiwan its first-ever dedicated communications satellite. Chunghwa Telecom is the largest telco in Taiwan, with a market cap of more than $30 billion USD.

Independent, secure internet infrastructure has never been more geopolitically important — and because it’s impossible to replicate with LEO constellations or even terrestrial links, it merits some spelling out.

Astranis was founded on the belief that access to secure, reliable communications infrastructure is foundational to peace, prosperity, and self-determination.

The satellite we’re bringing to Taiwan represents resilience. It will serve as a critical backbone for cellular connectivity, maritime communications, and essential government services across Taiwan. And it will ensure that Chunghwa Telecom’s network remains operational in times of crisis, whether in the face of natural disasters or other disruptions to terrestrial infrastructure.

Importantly, Astranis provides more than just a satellite — we give our customers a standalone, dedicated network. A network that can be rapidly deployed and fully spans their geography of choice. With enterprise-grade security, customizability, and deep insights into the configuration and operation of the network.

And as an independent piece of infrastructure, it safeguards against geopolitical risks, and is beyond the reach of hostile neighbors.

Those are the benefits of having your own, dedicated satellite and network. And that’s why so many customers are choosing Astranis.

We at Astranis are honored to be part of this moment, and to have a product that has proven so uniquely needed in today’s world.

We look forward to continuing to support Taiwan and its people for many years to come.

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

Beyond proud to be an early backer is @Astranis!

[John Gedmark @Gedmark]

Astranis has won a DoD contract to design next-gen Resilient GPS satellites.

R-GPS is a new $1.9 billion program to:
▸ build 24+ small satellites
▸ boost GPS resilience
▸ deter GPS attacks by America's adversaries

Here’s why it matters, and why we’re honored to play a part:

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

@vladciurca @paulg @qasar @paulg @techsylvania is the best conf in SEE and then come visit Athens afterwards already!

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

@Gedmark @Astranis Amazing congratulations team @Astranis!

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

Congratulations team @Astranis !

[John Gedmark @Gedmark]

Today @Astranis is introducing a revolutionary new satellite for high orbits.

We call it Omega.

It is pound-for-pound higher performance than any satellite on orbit today. First flight unit will be completed next year, with launches starting in 2026.

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

Great work by Defiance Capital. Our Unicorn Founder DNA report covers the backgrounds of over 2k unicorn founders in the past decade! Download the full report at https://t.co/2asGqJMFXf

[Defiance Capital @TheDefianceCap]

What were the most typical backgrounds of new unicorn founders in the US and UK between 2013 and 2023? Over 2,000 unicorn founders reviewed!

https://t.co/K3xCfgkQcj

Go to https://t.co/fKqPzERPEX for the full report.

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Watch Starship’s second integrated flight test https://t.co/cahoRQ72lm

[Outliers Fund @OutliersFund]

@OutliersFund is proud to be part of @ACTAIglobal community with @binance @AyalaCorp_1834 @YieldGuild @Citibank @googlemaps @SanghaCapital @emfarsis @Chemonics @BreederDAO @OneOfNFT @atlasartists @AtlasDigitalar @PolymathNetwork @_echo3D_ @S28capital @emoote_

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

Congratulations!

[Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss @ericw]

Today I'm thrilled to announce an additional €12 million in funding for Dance! Thank you to all our investors for supporting us on our journey to create more liveable cities for everyone. 🚴🏻‍♀️🕺🏻💃🏼🔥👏🏻 #liveablecities #2023

[Lars Rasmussen @larsras]

Programmable spreadsheets with AI magickery. Proud to be a backer — do go request access already!

[Douwe Osinga @dosinga]

I'm very excited to show you some of the new AI features in @NeptyneHQ. Autofill fills in data and formulas. The Code Assist writes data analysis code for you. It will even find data in the sheet and graph it.

Two minute version is embedded. Full version: https://t.co/qN2ONN8n8v