AlleyCorp Deep Tech | March 2025 Newsletter
Valar Atomics unveils Ward Zero, Aescape and Civ Robotics onstage in NYC, Manifest 2025 highlights, and a few contrarian deep tech takes 🏭 ❤️
2025: [■■■□□□□□□□□□]
I can’t believe we’re only a quarter of the way into the year, given how much is going on.
Jump in below for too many updates followed by spicy takes on deep tech 🏭 ❤️.
As always, thanks for reading!
Valar Atomics: $19M seed, Ward Zero launch
We were excited to announce our investment in Valar Atomic’s $19M seed round. We were even more excited to visit the team in LA for the unveiling event of their Ward Zero thermal prototype. In ten months, the team constructed and pressure tested a 1:1 scale thermal prototype *and* signed an agreement with the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute to develop and deploy the world’s first operational Gen IV micro-reactor. This team moves fast!
Aescape, Renovate, and Viam raise funds
More raises! Aescape announced an $83M round led by Valor Equity Partners; Renovate announced an investment from Beacon; and Viam announced their $30M Series C round via Battery Ventures, Neurone, and USV.
Eyebot, Koop, and Mapless shipping product
Following last summer’s launch, Eyebot keeps expanding, with their Boston University kiosk breaking usage records! This CBS News segment digs in. Meanwhile Koop launched Housekeeper - an AI agent for compliance and insurance - while Mapless AI launched Corktown Carshare with Sway Mobility in Detroit.
Civ Robotics and Aescape on stage
Civ Robotics founder and CEO Tom Yeshurun was onstage at the NYRN Drones & Robotics Summit leading a discussion with the Aescape, Airwayz, Burro, and Reframe founders. All these founders are building and shipping - with Civ and Aescape’s LinkedIn feeds full of happy customer proof points.
Glacier at SXSW, winning awards, shipping robots
Rebecca Hu-Thrams of Glacier was also on stage at SXSW, talking about dirty jobs and a warming planet with our friend and co-investor Jay Kapoor of VSC Ventures. Co-founder Areeb Malik keeps shipping recycling robots, and Rebecca keeps winning awards. Congrats to this awesome team for Just Doing The Thing.
AlleyCorp at Manifest talking robots and logistics
I moderated a panel at Manifest this year on The Future of Supply Chain & Logistics, and the conversation had so many applications to the future of robotics and automation that I had to share with you all.
I don't love Vegas, but I do love talking about robots, automation, deep tech, and how it is imperative that we automate if we are to accelerate human flourishing 🤖 📈
I also did something interesting for this panel - I vibe coded a video → transcript tool (fun!) and then shoved the transcript into GPT for cleanup (impressive!). Tell me what you think of the result! Video & transcript summary are here.
Contrarian deep tech takes
1. Deep Tech doesn’t need much more capital than traditional tech. The average unicorn raises $350M or so on its path to exit, whether software or hardware. Folks avoiding deep tech because it is “capital intensive” are wrong - deep tech only requires ~25% more capital on average. We think the wins are worth it, the numbers agree.
2. Hardware doesn’t need to be low margin! We see many deep tech companies combining software like margins with hardware moats. See this great post from Isaiah Taylor digging into this earlier.
3. Most robots won’t be humanoids. Humanoids are awesome - and I probably should have invested in Figure 😭 - but most future automation will be non-humanoid. We won’t replace cars with humanoid powered palanquins 😂.
4. The world needs more programmers. Vibe coding is awesome and fun but you still need smart humans to make it all work - we might all become “QA for the AI” - but the AI can’t ship without QA and human taste / guidance. Each company may need fewer programmers, but more companies will need programmers. The Law of Infinite Opportunities will deliver.
5. ChatGPT for robots is coming - when? - our friend James Falkoff’s take on “when will we have the ChatGPT of robotics?” is excellent, and with announcements like Jim Fan’s recent GR00T N1 foundation model, maybe the timelines pull in. The debate rages, with Nimble AI’s founder pointing out the that software is holding robotics back. My contrarian take? I’ll believe it when I see it. I find many demos are awesome but further from production reality than I’d like.
Spoilers for next time 😉
In January we promised a landmark year for deep tech. Feeling pretty confident in that prediction 25% of the way through the year! Next time, we’ll be speaking about our first space investment ✨ 🛰️ ✨ alongside deeper thinking on the manufacturing and logistics space, including thoughts on Larry Page spending his retirement years in a factory 🏭 ❤️.
Cheers,