At Service Ventures, we are mission driven investors. We support purpose-driven entrepreneurs operating at the intersection of HARD PROBLEMS, FRONTIER TECHNOLOGIES, INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS, LARGE MARKETS, and EFFICIENT BUSINESS MODELS. We seek ‘disruptive innovation’ - innovation that can shape the future economic behavior of customers, force existing industry structure to evolve and enable large new markets to emerge. An entrepreneur’s mission and motivation to work on an idea is a key element we look for in a potential investment. We believe that motivation of the entrepreneurs is the most important factor in every successful innovation. Entrepreneurs who are driven by the magnitude of positive impact of their idea can have, stand a higher chance of succeeding. For a startup to be an outlier, entrepreneurs need to trust their intuition first, before others can - that they are working on a big and empowering idea.
We selectively partner with such entrepreneurs - those who IDENTIFY IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGES and ENGINEER EPIC SOLUTIONS. We aspire to find such motivated entrepreneurs and partner purpose driven teams that can educate us on their vision, influence our beliefs, and convince us to be a part of their grand journey. From climate solutions to clean energy to sustainable farming to low Earth orbit to artificial intelligence to resilient cyber safe world to modern supply chains to efficient transportation, we are keeping track of consequential startups that have the potential to transform Enterprises, entire Industry, or a Society. Below are a few such players we are utterly excited about that are tackling some of the most pressing problems across various industries. We hope the motivations and ambitions of the founders involved energize various investors across the spectrum in the VC ecosystem to broaden their investment lens and inspire optimism in other founders from various parts to undertake such pressing challenges facing our society and mankind.
1. Applied Intuition
Mission: Provide simulation and software tools for autonomous vehicle development
Technology: Robotics and Intelligent Systems
HQ: Mountain View, California
Founders: Peter Ludwig, Qasar Younis
Applied Intuition provides SW infrastructure to safely develop, test, and deploy autonomous vehicles at scale. The SW makes developing autonomous vehicles for agriculture, trucking, and the automotive industry faster and more efficient. Applied’s suite of products, focused on simulation and analytics, delivers sophisticated infrastructure built for scale. Industry leading companies of all sizes use Applied to comprehensively test and rapidly accelerate their autonomous vehicle development.
2. Mark43
Mission: Build a software-enabled public safety platform to improve police response and incident reporting
Technology: Defense & Gov Tech
HQ: New York, New York
Founders: Scott Crouch, Florian Mayr, Matthew Polega
Mark43 is a public safety software platform allowing agencies to manage, share, collect, and analyze information. It creates the next generation of law enforcement software that allows police to effortlessly collect, manage, analyze, and share information. The startup wants to empower communities and their governments with new technologies that improve the safety and quality of life for all. Its intuitive software delivers cloud-first technology and data-driven insights to public safety. a cloud-based software company that aims to standardize and refine police response and incident reporting. Software features include a computer-aided dispatch program, a records management system designed to make written reports more accurate and compliant, and data analytics tools.
3. ABL Space Systems
Mission: Build rockets to launch small satellites
Technology: Space Tech
HQ: El Segundo, California
Founders: Harry O'Hanley, Dan Piemont
ABL Space Systems was founded by former SpaceX engineering leaders in 2017 to develop low-cost launch vehicles for the small satellite industry. ABL is headquartered in El Segundo, California, where it has 30,000 square feet of facilities for research, development, and production. The system, RS1, stands 88ft. tall and is designed to launch as many as 1,350kgs (2,980lbs) or nearly 1½ tons, of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO). The price of each launch is 12 million USD. The cost puts the RS1 rocket in the middle of the commercial launch market.
4. Vannevar Labs
Mission: Apply AI, machine learning, and natural language processing to critical national security problems
Technology: Gov Tech
HQ: Palo Alto, California
Founders: Brett Granberg, Nini Moorhead
Vannevar Labs is a group of technologists and former defense and intelligence officers building computer vision and natural language processing products for some of the country’s most important national security problems. Vannevar Decrypt, the first product, incorporates natural language processing and computer vision to translate and interpret foreign language text and generate counterterrorism insights. The company believes its military service members and intelligence officers deserve access to the best technology American innovation can offer and is building great products for this mission.
5. Anduril Industries
Mission: Improve defense capabilities with autonomous systems and machine learning
Technology: Defense & Gov Tech
HQ: Orange County, California
Founders: Joseph Chen, Matt Grimm, Palmer Luckey, Brian Schimpf, Trae Stephens
Anduril Industries is a military technology company. It is specialized in developing hardware and software applications to monitor risks and enhance surveillance. The company’s products include Menace, Ghost, Sentry, ALTIUS, Anvil, Dust, WISP and Dive-LD. The company's products enable security awareness, multi-domain launch capability and survey, inspection and Intelligence solutions across land, sea, and air. It also provides Lattice OS, an autonomous sensemaking and command and control platform which detects and tracks any vehicle, drone, and other threat in a defined area. The company serves military, navy, defense, border security and commercial customers.
6. Commonwealth Fusion
Mission: Scale fusion energy
Technology: Energy and Material Science
HQ: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Founders: Martin Greenwald, Bob Mumgaard
CFS was spun out of MIT and is collaborating with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center to leverage decades of research combined with the innovation and speed of the private sector. The business designs and builds fusion machines that deliver limitless and clean fusion energy and integrate proven physics with magnet technology, allowing clients to contribute to the expansion of renewable energy while mitigating the effects of climate change.
7. Epirus
Mission: Develop powerful directed-energy weapons for defense purposes
Technology: Defense & Gov Tech
HQ: Hawthorne, California
Founders: Joe Lonsdale, Bo Marr, Max Mednik, Nathan Mintz, John Tenet, Grant Verstandig
Epirus builds high-power microwave (HPM) weapons that create a “force field” to protect armed forces and civilians against threats. Its best-known technology to date, the Leonidas — named after King Leonidas of Sparta — is a directed energy system that uses HPM energy to disable electronic devices. Earlier this year, Epirus integrated its HPM phased array with the Stryker, the U.S. Army’s most reliable combat vehicle. Leonidas can quickly detect, track, and defeat both individual targets and swarming drones.
8. Aerodome
Mission: Deploy automated, video-equipped drones for faster emergency response
Technology: Drone & AI
Founders: Rahul Sidhu, Kenaniah Cerny
HQ: New York, NY
Using fully automated, fully remote, and fully integrated drone systems, Aerodome provides next-generation air support capabilities for public safety agencies. The company’s automated drone system aims to reach incidents within 3 minutes and can live-stream video to emergency personnel. The drones are equipped with ground-based radar, radio frequency sensors, and remote ID data, giving them improved visibility and agility over traditional helicopter-based air support. After rolling out to police departments this year, the company sees additional applications in wildfire detection and search and rescue missions.
9. Petra
Mission: Develop tunneling robots to bury utilities underground
Industry: Manufacturing & Robotics
HQ: San Francisco, California
Founders: Kim Abrams, Shivani Torres
Petra’s semi-autonomous tunneling robots can bury critical utilities in previously impenetrable terrain. The boring machines are non-contact and can produce micro-tunnels ranging from 20 to 60 inches, cutting costs, and improving the safety of undergrounding. By burying power lines and other utilities, the company aims to guard against weather-related damage and decrease wildfire risk. Petra’s achievement is due to Swifty’s thermal drilling method, which efficiently bores through rock without touching it. The robotic system utilizes machine vision, micro tunneling through difficult materials with the use of thermal drilling, rather than making direct contact with the rock. Conventional micro tunneling machines are purpose-built for a single diameter. However, Swifty is the first robot capable of boring a range of diameters between 20-60 inches, dramatically reducing the cost of tunneling.
10. Redwood Materials
Mission: Recycle batteries to produce materials for new ones, creating a closed-loop battery supply chain
Technology: Clean Tech & Materials
HQ: Carson City, Nevada
Founder: JB Straubel
Redwood Materials creates a circular supply chain to drive down the environmental footprint and cost of lithium-ion batteries and the electric vehicles and sustainable energy storage systems they power. At Redwood Materials, metals recovered from old lithium-ion batteries, such as nickel, cobalt, lithium, and copper, are used to remanufacture anode and cathode components for domestic battery cell manufacturers. By recycling and refining the batteries on site at its Nevada facilities, Redwood condenses what is typically a 50,000-mile supply chain to a single location. The startup has partnered with battery makers, consumer retailers, and car manufacturers; most recently, it reached an agreement to recycle all end-of-life batteries from Volkswagen and Audi electric cars.
11. Shield AI
Mission: Enable military drones and aircraft to operate autonomously
Technology: AI, Drones, Defense & Gov Tech
HQ: San Diego, California
Founders: Andrew Reiter, Brandon Tseng, Ryan Tseng
Shield AI is an artificial intelligence company that aims to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. The startup aims to develop advanced AI and HW capable of powering government aircraft, drones, ships, and submarines. Shield’s “Hivemind” AI pilot can function autonomously — without GPS or communications — to protect service members and civilians. The technology is tested in what Shield refers to as the “defense metaverse,” a combination of synthetic environments, real physics simulations, and human-machine tactics. Hivemind autonomy stack is the first and only autonomous AI Pilot, deployed in combat since 2018. Hivemind enables intelligent teams of aircraft to perform missions ranging from room clearance to penetrating air defense systems, and dogfighting F-16s.
12. KoBold Metals
Mission: Find minerals with artificial intelligence
Technology: Artificial Intelligence, Industrial Technology, Clean Tech
HQ: Berkeley, California
Founders: Josh Goldman, Kurt House, Jeff Jurinak
KoBold Metals is a developer of machine prospector technology that facilitates a search for cobalt ore locations digitally. Traditionally, mining has been largely untouched by software. Mineral exploration is still a predominantly manual process in which geologists use heuristics to identify patterns in maps and subsurface data. Searches are often inefficient and imprecise. Using statistical modeling, data aggregation, computer vision, and machine learning, KoBold is building a digital prospecting tool to unearth new sources of nickel, copper, cobalt, and lithium. It works on battery materials projects across the globe by combining basic ore-deposit science, big data, and scientific computing with patient private capital. The company's SW uses datasets with conventional geochemical, geophysical, and geological data in statistical association models to identify prospects to ensure a cobalt supply for the electric vehicle revolution, enabling mineral exploration companies to find new sources of cobalt through machine learning and data analysis.
13. Last Energy
Mission: Accelerate nuclear power development
Technology: Energy & Clean Tech
HQ: Washington, D.C.
Founder: Bret Kugelmass
Last Energy is creating a new system for the development and delivery of small modular nuclear power plants. Combining proven reactor technology with a first-of-its-kind delivery model and fully modular plant design, Last Energy aims to decarbonize energy production and increase access to clean, affordable power. The company is a commercial developer of micro, modular, nuclear power plants, with a full-service delivery model to design, deliver, and operate nuclear power plants at scale.
14. Relativity Space
Mission: Create 3D printed parts to build rockets faster and more efficiently
Industry: Aviation & Space
HQ: Long Beach, California
Founders: Tim Ellis, Jordan Noone
Relativity Space is an aerospace company that designs, develops, and builds 3D printed rockets. It is building the world’s largest 3D printing factory stocked with the biggest metal 3D printers in existence. The company uses AI, robotics, and 3D printing technology to streamline the rocket-building supply chain, necessitating 100 times fewer parts than traditional manufacturing processes.
15. Saildrone
Mission: Collect ocean data in real time with a fleet of wind- and solar-powered uncrewed surface vehicles
Technology: Drones & Intelligent Systems
HQ: Alameda, California
Founder: Richard Jenkins
Saildrone manufactures and operates a fleet of capable and proven unmanned surface vehicles. It designs and manufactures wind and solar-powered autonomous surface vehicles called Saildrones, which make cost-effective ocean data collection possible at a scale. The wind- and solar-powered vehicles collect real-time, high-resolution ocean data and use proprietary software to translate it into intelligence for climate, mapping, and maritime security. Saildrone’s vehicles have sailed more than 800,000 nautical miles to date. Saildrone builds high-resolution ocean datasets, working with governments and private companies around the globe. The company's vehicles collect data that provide unprecedented intelligence for climate, mapping, and maritime security applications and have sailed over 500,000 nautical miles and spent more than 13,000 days at sea. Saildrone believes that better inputs in planetary models in turn yield better outputs and that the new insights gained in weather forecasting, carbon cycling, global fishing, and climate change will have a tremendous impact on humanity.
16. Varda
Mission: Manufacture materials that are useful on Earth from production facilities in space
Technology: Space Tech
HQ: El Segundo, California
Founders: Delian Asparouhov, Will Bruey
Varda is a space manufacturing startup that focuses on creating products in space for terrestrial applications. It aims to manufacture things in space that benefit from low gravity. The company intends to create an infrastructure that harvests source materials for new products in-space via asteroid mining. Microgravity in space — the condition of weightlessness — presents new opportunities for manufacturing. Varda is pursuing newly scalable methods for producing materials in space, with potential applications in pharmaceuticals, hypersonic testing, and fiber optics.
17. Taranis
Mission: Monitor farm fields with drone imagery and AI to prevent crop yield loss
Technology: Ag Tech
HQ: Westfield, Indiana
Founders: Eli Bukchin, Asaf Horvitz, Ayal Karmi, Ofir Schlam
Taranis is a crop intelligence and precision agriculture technology that provides digital monitoring, reporting, and verification services. It combines high-precision imaging with computer vision and machine learning to alert farmers to crop threats like insects, disease, weeds, and nutrient deficiencies. The company deploys fleets of drones to scout crops and capture leaf-level, high-resolution photos. Then Taranis’s AI platform — trained on a crop dataset containing over 200 million data points — analyzes the images to produce real-time insights for farmers.
18. Incredible Health
Mission: Improve the hiring process for nurses
Technology: Healthcare Tech
HQ: San Francisco, California
Founders: Iman Abuzeid, Rome Portlock
It’s estimated that we’ll face a shortage of more than 1 million nurses by the end of 2023. platform Incredible Health's career marketplace technology helps hospitals hire nurses in permanent roles in 20 days or less. The platform provides a tailored marketplace for hospitals to hire full-time nurses. The company enables automated pre-screening and a structured, optimized interview process: employers apply to nurses, not the other way around. This technology has shortened the time it takes healthcare providers to hire permanent nurses to just two weeks, on average, down from the industry standard of 82 days.
19. Flexport
Mission: Use software and machine learning to modernize freight forwarding
Technology: Logistics and Supply Chain
HQ: San Francisco, California
Founder: Ryan Petersen
Flexport's mission is to fix the user experience in global trade and bring the world free trade through technology. Its product is a full-service global freight forwarder and logistics platform using modern software to fix the user experience in global trade. The platform arranges goods to be transported and tracks the inventory in real-time in orders carried by ocean, air, and road freight, enabling logistics companies to optimize transportation routes and inventory management. It is a licensed customs brokerage and freight forwarder built around a modern web application. Its freight service includes an online dashboard for businesses to easily understand, purchase, manage, and track the services required for global trade. Its team of logistics experts let customers focus on core business by ensuring goods arrive at fulfillment/distribution centers on time and at the lowest cost.
20. Zipline
Mission: Streamline the supply chain for healthcare and retail through the world’s largest drone delivery service
Technology: Aviation and Space Tech
HQ: San Francisco, CA
Founders: Will Hetzler, Keller Rinaudo, Keenan Wyrobek
Zipline designs, manufactures, and operates drones to deliver vital medical products. Zipline’s fixed-wing autonomous drones first launched in 2016 to deliver blood to hospitals across Rwanda; more recently, their fleet distributed over a million Covid-19 vaccines across Ghana. Over the course of the pandemic, the company made new inroads into the U.S., delivering prescriptions and over-the-counter medications in Salt Lake City, Utah, personal protective gear and medical supplies in North Carolina, and health and wellness products from Walmart in Arkansas. Today, the company estimates it makes a new drone delivery somewhere in the world every four minutes.
21. Jetti Resources
Mission: Mine copper more cheaply and efficiently
Technology: Industrial Tech
HQ: Boulder, Colorado
Founders: Michael Outwin, Andrew Perlman
Copper demand is expected to double by 2035, but many existing copper mines are dwindling. It’s estimated that 70% of the world’s remaining copper resources are trapped in low-grade chalcopyrite. Jetti makes it possible to extract copper from low-grade primary sulfides, such as chalcopyrite, the world’s most abundant copper mineral ore. Jetti’s commercially proven and proprietary catalytic technology addresses the key technical problem preventing the recovery of trillions of dollars of trapped resources. It applies catalysts to hundreds of millions of tons of ore, and significantly increases copper yields in a cost-effective and environmentally responsible manner. The mineral will be essential in the transition to a low-carbon world.
22. Lilac Solutions
Mission: Build technologies to accelerate clean lithium production
Technology: Energy & Material Science
HQ: Oakland, California
Founder: David Snydacker
Lilac Solutions develops an ion exchange technology to address the challenges faced by lithium producers. Lilac aims to unlock vast new lithium reserves by extracting them from brine — natural deposits of salt water. The company’s ion exchange technology is faster, more efficient, less costly, and less environmentally damaging than conventional methods. Lilac's technology cuts capital and operating costs, accelerates project startup, boosts lithium recovery, and unlocks new resources. Their process is modular and can be ramped up quickly through pilot and commercial projects.
23. Formic Technologies
Mission: Provide robotic labor on-demand, by subscription
Technology: Robotics and Intelligent Systems
HQ: Chicago, Illinois
Founders: Saman Farid, Misa Ilkhechi
Formic is a robotics company pioneering an easier and more productive way to automate. Formic enables small-to-medium sized manufacturers to grow their business by making it easy to afford, deploy, and scale robotic automation. The company's unique pay-for-productivity model removes the risks, capital expense, and hassle of a traditional equipment purchase, where the onus is on the manufacturer to ensure its success. With Formic, manufacturers don't pay until your system works and they only pay for usage. Formic stands behind every deployment for the life of the system with an Uptime Guarantee and flexible contracts that ensure the success of every project.
24. Skydio
Mission: Build autonomous drones for consumer, enterprise, and government use
Technology: AI, Drones
HQ: Redwood City, California
Founders: Abraham Bachrach, Adam Bry, Matt Donahoe
With Skydio, the founders envisioned an autonomous, camera-equipped drone agile enough to assist in complex environments, including rescue missions and accident scenes, war zones, and infrastructure projects. The startup develops AI-powered drones to deliver power and flying cameras without the complexity. The company's drones use an array of cameras and proprietary computer vision technology to recognize, avoid objects in real-time, and predict into the future to make intelligent decisions, enabling users by flying themselves through the most demanding tasks or keeping them safe from obstacles when they want to take control. The company's debut drone, the R1, could track a target and film them while avoiding obstacles without any human intervention required. Then the company released Skydio 2 in 2019, its second drone, cutting off more than half the price while improving its autonomous tracking and video capabilities. Its flagship product, the X2, is equipped with seven cameras, 100x zoom, night vision, and promises to turn ordinary users into expert pilots thanks to its self-piloting abilities.
25. Seso
Mission: Provide farms with software to recruit, qualify, and train agricultural workers
Technology: Ag Tech
HQ: San Francisco, California
Founders: Michael Guirguis, Jordan Taylor
SESO is a labor marketplace for agriculture that provides a workforce platform focusing on the agricultural industry. The process of legally hiring farm workers has traditionally been mired in paperwork. U.S agricultural loses $15B annually because of a shortage of labor. SESO is addressing this problem by connecting U.S farms with qualified seasonal workers via America’s agricultural guest worker program (H-2A). Service offering includes recruiting, qualifying, and training workers; H-2A visa automation, and workforce management software to help employers stay compliant with complex local and federal laws. It is providing agricultural employers with a better-quality workforce at a lower cost and agricultural workers with meaningful, safe employment opportunities. Seso aims to streamline the H-2A visa application process, which allows migrants to get legally protected work status on farms and make it easier for farmers to find and hire those workers. The company’s services include H-2A visa automation, a database of qualified workers, transportation and consulate management, and digitized documentation for farmers to maintain compliance.
/Service Ventures Team
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