head barista @rootvc (seed deep-tech/AI/Devtools) hobbies -- ☕️🍕🤖🚜🛠🔪🍸🔥
San Francisco, CA
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We have a new coffee grinder (and $190M fund). I rebuilt the electronics to add grind-by-weight and Wifi/BLE.
The firmware is also running a server to announce our new fund: rootventures.coffee/
☕️🚀🤑
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Amazon dash button lost in my house is being tapped and ordering bulk paper towels. Time to hunt down a wifi signal.
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Excited to announce our third fund at $150M (and an upgrade to root.vc)
But more excited to reflect how much has evolved since Day 1.
I started Root Ventures as a "solo-capitalist", but I knew I could never grow it alone
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My father traveled a lot when I was growing up. When he was home, he was extremely present and available. Work provides for my life, but if I don’t embrace that life, it will pass me by.
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I spoke on a @makerfaire panel about how to get kids excited about being makers and entrepreneurs. Ironically, my 3 year old son was so bored he passed out.
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Ex-Apple engineers figured out why you can't fly with a Galaxy Note 7. Spoiler: It wasn't the battery. instrumental.ai/blog/2016/12…
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Words cannot express how happy I am. We invested when it was literally a prototype in a garage. Hard tech investing requires patience. Buy your burger ticket now! techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/cr…
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The best part of raising our second fund was that it highlighted the successes of the founders we've backed. Humbled that our LPs and entrepreneurs have given us this opportunity to double-down.
Root Ventures, a young SF firm focused on “hard tech,” just closed a much bigger second fund with $76.7 million tcrn.ch/2LUMFFO by @cookie
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My wife got me a yakitori grill for Hanukkah. Charcoal was impossible to source. So I am now one of the largest importers of Japanese Binchotan in the Bay Area 😂
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Build awesome hardware, and it can be a great product. Make it a trojan horse for something larger, build a great business.
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Mike judge should just publish your videos as the next season of Silicon Valley. Sooooo on point
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TL;DR -- My wife and I are matching $10k to two great orgs. @eji_org + @CYWSanFrancisco
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Tonight we sit as individuals, parents, husband and wife as humans,deep in thought about the world in pain around us and all of you
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A year ago, an alt-account called us out. While we didn't respond to the tweet, we took the anonymous feedback seriously. Since then, we've implemented a tighter process. All deals logged via custom slack bots into airtable, with Zapier recipes to notify partners of aging deals.
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I once had an LP tell me “we passed on your early funds because we were worried there weren’t enough top tier firms doing follow-ons into deep tech & AI”. He called me last year to let me know it’s no longer a concern 🤣 Go Quilter!!!
I am thrilled to announce that @quilterai has raised $10M in Series A funding led by @ericvishria at @benchmark to automate circuit board design.
blog.quilter.ai/series-a/
🧵🧵🧵
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It's official. The Ross family is moving to SF! Ending 4+ yrs of commuting form SoCal. Excited to host our SF friends for BBQ's and dinners
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If watching “Blown Away” on Netflix got you interested in Glassblowing, and you live in Silicon Valley, ping me. I’m gonna put together a group of people to take an intro class. Warning: It’s addictive (I started in ‘98)
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I’ve been waiting 5+ years to make this joke: This is the most expensive $6 burger I’ve ever eaten. #proudinvestor
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When @JamieSiminoff first approached me @ring was called DoorBot. I was obsessed over the problems of the first gen product, and obviously missed a 1bn+ opportunity. Couldn't raise my head up to see the potential of the product and the tenacity of the team! Kudos. #antiportfolio
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We back the best hard tech founders in the world. While we don’t have a diversity mandate, we find ourselves continuously backing great technical women. So much so, that every company in our newest fund has a female founder. #InternationalWomansDay
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I've been honing in several of my recipes in quarantine (challah, hummus, pizza, etc). For this one, I collected 7-8 traditional recipes from family, and then researched international versions of similar breads. Behold, chinese inspired Challah medium.com/@root.vc/tang-cha…
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Always a good excuse to bake a round loaf. Happy new years to all my Jewish friends and family. Shana tova!
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Can I get a snapchat filter that puts a collared shirt on me and a conference room background into the video calls I take from my couch?
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Ironically, this is why I left LA. If you love tech, it’s so exciting to be surrounded by the conversations everywhere you go in SF. LA is a great escape for a weekend, but I don’t mind the inundation of tech conversation in the bay. (Still miss LA for other reasons though)
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It’s on this day every year that I’m reminded we closed our first @rootvc fund at $31,415,926.53. Then the SEC saw our form D and told us to round up the pennies.
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Exactly 4 weeks. September 6th the vibe shifted. Return from the playa, europe, etc. Vacation was over and everyone was ready to get back at it. Lack of fire/smoke has also kept the focus.
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For those excited to stay in SF, this is going to have a large impact on rents. Lots of Airbnb units coming up for long term lease on Zillow, etc. Photos are dead giveaway that they used to be Airbnb. cnn.com/2020/05/25/tech/airb…
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My lightning cable died. Had to rebuild the cable on the plane. Definitely got a side eyed look or two.
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Just realized the shadow in my profile pic makes it look like I have an awesome mullet. Edit the photo or grow the mullet?
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When we met @anna_shedletsky and Sam, they had just left Apple and knew they wanted to change manufacturing. No traction, no product, just a dream. We bet on their energy and glowing references. So proud of what they have built! techcrunch.com/2020/07/29/in…
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"Drive" by @DanielPink was on of the most influential books I read as a CTO. Only now am I realizing that it's shaped how we've built Root Ventures. The book contends the 3 traits of motivation are Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Here's how it's driven our approach to startups;
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When we asked the founders to drop out of MIT’s PhD program, they were worried their parents would be disappointed. Instead, they invested! Today, they are not only proud, but have a great venture track record ;)
Exciting news: Shaper has been acquired by TTS Tooltechnic Systems! So excited to join other TTS group companies including @FestoolUSA @SawStop and others in building the best tools in the world. shapertools.com/blog/posts/j…
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saddest thing about losing the 3.5mm jack: all the super cheap sensors for the 3rd world using it for I/O. hope android doesnt follow suit.
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Fun fact; when we first invested in @particle it was called Spark. Glad we changed the name. Welcome to the party @sparkcapital
$20M Series B led by @sparkcapital @qualcommventure! Excited for the next chapter! Check out our article in @forbes bit.ly/2tfGkvm
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Proud to have been the first institutional investor in nTopology, but even more proud of how they are powering the future of advanced manufacturing
How This $140 Million Design Software Startup Uses Math To Help Power The Shift To 3D Printing via @forbes forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/…
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The crew at Susa are some of the best in the seed VC world. Could not be more excited for their ongoing success and opportunity to work together even more.
1/ I couldn't be more excited to announce @SusaVentures Fund III. The customary thing to say is that fundraising isn't a true milestone and that we're going to get back to work. I'm going to momentarity ignore that custom. It's okay to celebrate things :).
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My smoker is powered by a @Raspberry_Pi running Openwrt. The future is tasty and autonomous.
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We aren’t “impact investors”, just automation focused. But when automation saves the planet, we all win. Proud of our portfolio co on this big round of $$$. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
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5 year journey.
Y1 - what's implicit modeling?
Y2 - who pays that much for software?
Y3 - yeah, but those customers are "advanced"
Y4 - ohhh, that's a lot of customers
Y5 - $40M
We were lucky to lead first 3 rounds (PS, S, A)...and woulda led the last two if we had more 💰🤣
nTopology Raises $40 Million In Series C Funding For Its 3D Printing Software Platform via @forbes forbes.com/sites/jimvinoski/…
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The 1st investment my partner @Kane did at Root was @nTopology. He’s the anonymous “friend” in the article. More importantly, he is the CEO’s go-to; weekly strategy calls, spontaneous 10pm calls, couch to crash on. Proud of the co, proud of my partner. 👊 forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/…
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Did a zoom challah baking session with @roybahat today. It held me accountable to document my Thangzhong recipe. Might finally write it down and post it online. At least I documented it via photos!
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Humbled today. We hosted our first founder offsite on our family farm. The excitement was 💯, yet paled in comparison to the monumental day this man had. He works hard to keep our farm operational, my wife worked hard to help him on his path to citizenship, and now 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
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Reaching the end of our first fund, looking back, and realizing that we aren’t a hardware fund.
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4 years ago, Brad showed us how the future of mechanical engineering would be computational vs representative. Implicit modeling is ready for primetime; aerospace and auto are just the beginning! We feel lucky to have led the Seed and A forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/…
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Happy Passover!
Fresh milled hard red wheat from @CentralMilling
Fast baked in under 18 minutes thanks to @OoniHQ
Matzah can taste good!
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It has been a ton of fun co-investing and watching @semil turn into a VC powerhouse. The best part is that he shares the journey with anyone who wants to listen. So listen here, and learn. thetwentyminutevc.com/semils…
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We’ve seen this time and time again. Humanoid robotics is a result of an ego-centric society. Humans are general purpose by design, and purpose-built robotics are just better.
One hallmark of great robotics companies is elegant constraining of the problem. Corollary: the less humanoid your robot the better your solution.
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Just had a family office LP source 2 huge customers for multiple @rootvc portfolio co's. Smart money doesn't sleep. #loveourLPs
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I’ve gotten amazing heartfelt birthday gifts from my family, but the most impactful gift was from scientists worldwide. Today, I am fully vaccinated! 💉
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I've seen awesome hackable badges, but this is the first cellular powered one. Particle + Twilio = Magic nitter.app/jeffiel/status/8656930…
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VC's drinking coffee. Even in pandemic, we get it done. @nabeel @stevejang @hunterwalk @chudson + dan scholnick. Thanks @tradecoffeeco
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Got back into glassblowing today. I forgot how much I missed the meditative dance. Too intense to do anything but focus.
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Overfishing our waters is a crisis in the making...it's why my yom kippur lox (+bagel) are caught sustainably, and we back the team at Wild Type thespoon.tech/wild-type-rais…
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I’m excited for Joe the president, but even more excited for his humanity. I will show this video to my children, so they understand that there are people in government who see it as a SERVICE career. (Limiting replies, b/c this is heartfelt and not intended to start debate)
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Today was our first “remote” @rootvc LP meeting. I am thankful for my sons accurate depiction of a proper zoom rig. External lighting and green screen included.
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When I first started as an angel, I didn’t know any better and asked the founder for 50bps to be an advisor in return for raising a large SPV. I subsequently learned that it’s better ALL AROUND for the SPV manager to take a fee/carry from the LPs rather than the co.
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Fun fact, this podcast has been listened to most by employees of; Apple, Amazon, Google (per LinkedIn). If you don’t think there are a ton engineering leaders excited to move into CEO roles, you’d be mistaken.
Hear @AvidanRoss @rootvc discuss why he believes we will see the engineers replace the MBAs as CEO and the evolution in thinking of engineering schools! Love to hear your thoughts on this @mlevchin @kevinhartz? buff.ly/2uOg0ZA #startup #founder #vc
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I stayed up till midnight to back this awesome campaign (backer #27). Jeri and team are going to change tabletop gaming. I’ve used the prototypes and they are jaw dropping. kickstarter.com/projects/til…
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Today has been an awesome day of celebrating our new fund, but we haven’t lost sight of what’s most important. Lunch with my kids and hamburger robots! @eatatcreator
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For my birthday, my lovely wife got us Bagels from @EssABagelNY and BBQ from @CorkysMemphis. The best!
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I’d be willing to kill the pixels in the center of my monitor to embed a camera dead center. I doubt there is a DIY for this, but I’d be game if there is...
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We’ve done 30 SPVs at Root Ventures. We’ve invested more via SPV than any of our funds. If you are thinking about raising them as part of a fund structure (or as one off deals) DM me, I’m always happy to help
.@avidan Ross of @rootvc gives us a look into his fund structuring strategy and how it gives him flexibility while adding value to his LPs. Insight for VCs into What's Going on in Venture and best practice.
Check out the full conversation here hubs.li/H0Z_QCg0
#assurespv
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Know a VC who led a round, ran into the founder weeks later at a party. "hi, my name is xxxx." -- "I know, you led my series A"
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Artisanal bread can eventually be automated. The hard part of automating it is the need for high hydration levels. This machinery is “non-stick” by keeping hydration levels low, and putting flour on everything. Still cool tho.
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1/5 In private, amongst my friends, everyone knows how I feel about the current situation. But, i am recently realizing that it's important for more voices to be heard in public forums on the recent events.
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Teaching my children about manufacturing QA. I think I might be spending too much time with the folks at @instrumentalinc
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If imitation is the highest form of flattery, the following brands are blushing post CES. @amazonecho @ring @fitbit @DJIGlobal @TeslaMotors
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Ok. Coffee snob gripe. I order a cortado (5oz drink). Fancy hipster barista pours a cappuccino (8oz), I ask if she can fix, she pours 3oz out and hands it back to me.🤨
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Been prepping this marble madness for a week. Super bowl is gonna be tasty! Short rib pastrami FTW.
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We just backed a 50+ founder. He spent his career at amazon and Microsoft. Now that his kids off to college, he’s amped up and ready to go back to 80 hour weeks...and has 30 years of mentees who want to work for him!
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I’m in. @kenjilopezalt is right; You don’t need to support bigotry to eat chicken sandwiches.
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