Jake

Managing Partner at The Uncommon Group. Ex-Goldman Sachs. JD, Harvard Law School.
Northwood Space, Etched, The Boring Company, Zipline, Science Corp.

[Jake @uncommonjake]

Sunlight on demand, anywhere on Earth.

If anyone is going to make it happen, it’s @bennbuilds. A decade ago, I was watching him build fusion reactors in his garage. Today, we’re honored to get to back him and the team at @reflectorbital.

Excited for the world to experience what they’ve been building. Just the beginning!

[Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞 @bennbuilds]

Today, Reflect Orbital is excited to announce $73.5 million in new funding, with returning investors @sequoia, @Lux_Capital, and @starship_vc and welcoming new investors @joshbuckley, @convectivecap, @UncommonGP, and @SalesforceVC.

This brings total capital raised to over $100 million and this is just the beginning. A year ago, we were a tiny team, had just closed our Series A and begun designing our first satellite. We could only dream about a fully-functional satellite built from scratch in our own cleanroom, let alone two of them within a year. We could only imagine what a full-size deployable reflector would really look like. No one had built one like it before. What was in our imagination is now reality.

Our mission sounds straight out of science fiction, but the physics is simple. The engineering had to be invented from scratch, requiring incredible drive, but our team delivered. The business is unlike anything the world has seen, requiring extremely thoughtful guardrails and studies to make life’s most vital resource available at night without damaging the environment. We are tackling this challenge head on, as we aim to address the climate crisis with a reliable source of renewable energy that can meet the world’s needs many times over, and we’re starting by helping rescue teams save lives in critical scenarios.

Thank you to all of our partners and investors, we are deeply excited by this opportunity to bring a new capability to the world.

[Jake @uncommonjake]

And here we go! Coming to a city near you

[Zipline @zipline]

Zipline just raised $1.5 billion in new funding. This money will go towards building a nationwide drone delivery network.

There’s a better, greener future on the horizon and we’re just starting to realize it.

[Jake @uncommonjake]

Could not be more grateful to be an investor in Etched.

I first came across Etched while listening to “The Next 100x,” a 2023 Stanford MLSys lecture by Gavin Uberti. I remember being blown away by Gavin—by the clarity with which he saw where the world was heading, what needed to be built, and how Etched was going to build it.

Before Etched emerged from stealth, we made it our fund’s largest investment to date.

Just one month ago, Etched announced its Series C at a $10.3 billion valuation. Today, it announced another $700m round at a $21b valuation.

But the real news is neither the round nor the new valuation. It is that Etched now officially has its first rack running in Jane Street’s data center, making it the first new chip company since ChatGPT’s release to put a brand-new chip in a customer’s hands.

Inference will become one of the largest markets in the world, and Etched is only just getting started.

As a longtime X user—but a first-time poster—I feel comfortable saying this will age well.

Huge congratulations to Gavin, Robert, Chris, and the entire Etched team. Deeply grateful to be along for the journey.

[Etched @Etched]

We've raised $700M at a $21B valuation from Jane Street, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, A16Z, Peter Thiel, BCV, and Blackstone.

We're also excited to share that we've shipped our first rack to Jane Street.