Happy Friday. The last few months have been transformational in terms of tech policy.
First came the infrastructure law, which allocates billions of dollars to strengthen the grid, build out EV chargers, and even create carbon-removal hubs. The CHIPS Act just became law, subsidizing everything from semiconductors to cutting-edge energy research. The Inflation Reduction Act is expected to pass soon and will supercharge the electrification of everything. And in late July, Congress advanced a federal privacy law out of committee for the first time ever.
Is this what living through an inflection point feels like?
In today’s edition:
 Ocean currents could be key to a renewable-energy future
 Jake Paul’s VC fund is backing a startup building attack drones
—Maia Botek, Hayden Field, Dan McCarthy
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Anneliz Lambert / Eyeem/Getty Images
While the ocean is already a destination for offshore wind turbines, engineers and researchers are channeling their inner Little Mermaid and looking into turbines that live under the sea.
The...current...state: The tech, a form of hydrokinetic power, is in its early stages, but experts say it’s worth pursuing at scale because it would be predictable in a way other renewables aren’t.
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Countries from the US to Japan are funding the tech—the latter recently kicked off a project one organization estimates could eventually produce 60% of the country’s current generating capacity.
“I see here that we can be in a similar situation as what we saw about 20 years ago at the end of the ’90s in Europe and then here in the US with wind energy,” said Mario Garcia-Sanz, program director of the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, whose SHARKS project is focused on developing hydrokinetic energy.
- “The systems are expensive, and that was the problem in the ’90s with wind,” he added.
Zoom in: One of the leading companies in the space is Aquantis, which is working to develop a product called the Tidal Power Tug, “a floating machine that’s accessible from the surface,” per the company’s chief commercial officer, Peter Stricker.
Aquantis is the largest recipient of funding from the SHARKS project, which in 2020 dished out a total of $35 million to 11 hydrokinetic projects that will run through 2024.
Keep reading about Aquantis‘s path to commercialization.—MB
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TOGETHER WITH MASTERWORKS
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That’s crucial because even experts are playing financial Whac-A-Mole these days:
How about stocks? “Worst 2 quarters in 50 years.” Real estate, then? “Lowest housing confidence in decades.” Crypto? “How’d that Luna tattoo work out for our friend Mike?” Woof.
Luckily, there’s a $1.7t asset class favored by institutions and the ultra-wealthy that’s appreciated 33.3%—beating stocks, crypto, gold, and real estate—in times of high inflation and sluggish economic growth.
Masterworks isn’t just granting you access to this asset class for the first time in 12 months. They’re delivering results too: With 5 successful exits, their investments have realized a 26.8% average annualized net return.
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Anti Fund
The first time YouTube megastar Jake Paul spoke with serial entrepreneur Geoffrey Woo, he was pitching a social media business idea that Woo ended up passing on.
Seven years later...They’re partners in Anti Fund, the VC firm they announced in March 2021. The rolling fund—run through a quarterly subscription on AngelList—has over $24 million in assets under management, according to Anti Fund, and its limited partners include Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon of a16z.
- Anti Fund’s manifesto underlines its focus on emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, and digital health.
- But in an interview, Paul and Woo said they’re also prioritizing defense technology.
Woo told us Anti Fund just made one of its largest investments to date in Anduril, the controversial defense tech company contracted to build the virtual border wall. Created by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, Anduril's products include attack drones, autonomous surveillance towers, and it has worked on the Pentagon’s Project Maven. In January, Anduril was awarded a nearly $1 billion contract by the DoD’s Special Operations Command.
- Paul and Woo declined to share specifics on their previously unreported Anduril investment. Anduril did not return a request for comment.
Go deeper: We spoke with Woo and Paul about their recent investment in Anduril and their overall strategy for assessing new companies.
Read the interview here.—HF
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Invest in a much-kneeded fix. Monogram is disrupting the fast-growing, $19.6b joint-replacement industry using high-precision, next-gen robotics. Their tech makes these procedures—of which there are 1m+ a year—easier to perform and easier to recover from. Invest in Monogram before they go public.
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Francis Scialabba
Stat: Drones emit 84% fewer greenhouse gases per parcel than diesel trucks, according to a new peer-reviewed study. Now, we just have to figure out how to scale up the delivery networks. Should be easy!
Quote: “Take that, Elon Musk.”—Ford CEO Jim Farley, bragging about the F-150 Lightning beating the Cybertruck to market
Read: The CHIPS Act is a massive climate-tech bill in its own right.
Your road map to rapid growth: Help your teams scale with this complete blueprint of the people, processes, and tech you need to expand your biz. Download The CFO’s Guide to Structuring for Growth from Oracle NetSuite today.*
*This is sponsored advertising content.
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The down rounds cometh, and billions of dollars have vanished with its arrival.
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Samsung held its Unpacked event this week; here’s a recap of its announcements.
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United Airlines doled out $10 million in predelivery payments to flying-car maker Archer Aviation.
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AI is increasingly being used to help create marketing campaigns.
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SpaceX’s application for almost $900 million in federal funding was denied.
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Big announcement: To make sure all of you can attend our first-ever Emerging Tech Brew Summit, we’ve moved it online and made it 100% free. It’s happening Sept. 29, and Mark Cuban is headlining alongside others, like the DOE’s Jigar Shah and futurist Amy Webb. Click here to RSVP.
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Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?
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TikTok-owner ByteDance bought…a bunch of hospitals?
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Samsung unveiled a competitor to Snap’s minidrone camera during its Unpacked event.
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A startup is aiming to create synthetic, lab-grown embryos for organ harvesting.
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Researchers are warming to the idea of a dissolving pacemaker.
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Envato Elements
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Ever had an amazing idea, but it got knocked down because decision-makers didn’t trust the ROI? Forecast, model, and visualize data to get buy-in for your ideas and make data-driven decisions with the Brew’s Business Analytics Accelerator, starting Sept. 6. Don’t miss your chance to run circles around the finance team!
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Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:
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No minidrones on the immediate product horizon for Samsung.
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✢ A Note From Masterworks
*See important Regulation A disclosures.
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Written by
Maia Botek, Hayden Field, and Dan McCarthy
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