So fun to join @Kieranleehill #20Angel pod for frank chat on angel investing + my new fund @_CommonMagic If there's one thing I've put my 10k hours into, it's answering; "what IS community?" Listen + tell me what you think of my current definition 🔥 open.spotify.com/episode/6kw…

The GPU market right now is pure financial engineering. You can't get them on demand. So you sign a 3-year contract. But to get that contract, you need to put 30% down upfront. Most companies can't do that. So they find someone who can. - that person puts down your 30% - you sign the 3 year contract - your payments cover the entire cost of the GPU plus some - the person who put down your deposit owns the gpu outright So basically they took on zero hardware risk, got paid back entirely through your contract, and even kept the asset at the end. It's not a chip shortage anymore. Everywhere I see it's a capital access problem. If you have the 30% money, you're literally printing it right now. If you don't, you can't even get in the door.

In just 5 days, over 1,000 optimists will gather for Britain's most optimistic gathering in a generation: The Optimistic Picnic. If you haven't already: 1. Sign up: luma.com/pic-nic 2. Invite your friends and family 3. Register to volunteer

back with more confessions 🤫 this week with @sarahdrinkwater prev of Omidyar Network on power and patronage analogue.press/p/confessions…

On the 5th of September, I'm throwing the most optimistic gathering London has ever seen - a giant picnic in Hyde Park for everyone who's tired of being told the future is doomed. There won't be any speeches, or an agenda. Just bring a blanket, some food, and someone who needs cheering up. Brought to you by: @ForestCityUK @lfg_uk @unicorn_mafia @Londonmaxxing @effectiveaccel @_CommonMagic @vcodersglobal @DeepTechLondon @LouisElton96 @sotalikesfuture

my new investment thesis is to fund TRUST. everything is a scam right now and i'm sure the pendulum will swing back hard. What are tools/products/devices that give consumers and businesses a sense of trust?

something beautiful's starting at Stella

We think Europe needs more pro-European, pro-tech, pro-abundance, pro-optimism propaganda. So we made it. Posters, t-shirts, hoodies. Full-on propaganda. We've been handing them out at robotics meetups and clubs all over Europe for weeks, and people love them. Why we are doing this: Europeans know more about the companies in the States than the ones right here at home. We need to change that. Time for propaganda. Every poster features a real European company: 🦾 Allonic is braiding humanoids. A completely new approach to building robotic parts. If it works, a number one company worldwide, right here in Europe. 🚜 Voltrac, the electric autonomous tractor (we made a whole video about them). 🏗️ Automated Architecture (AUAR), doing micro-factories for wooden houses.  🪨 Gondor Industries, a stone mason company using robotics. And many, many more to come. This is the first of many drops. More launching in the next few weeks, including flags, EU posters and more. 👉 Get yours at prototype-shop.com For Europe 🇪🇺🔥 PS: If you're organizing a robotics event or meetup, have a student club or hacker space, comment or message us and we'll send you a swag box.

A UK AI startup has just raised a £2.8m pre-seed to make planning applications faster and more accurate. This is exactly what we need to get Britain BUILDING. The planning process is one of the biggest bottlenecks in getting things built in the UK. The team at Xylo have built agents that are massively reducing the workload of planning agents, enabling their work to get faster and more accurately. It has been working with, and building the technology alongside, Leeds City Council. Today it has announced a £2.8m pre-seed led by CapitalT, with backing from @sarahdrinkwater, SVV, @tinyvc and Endurance Ventures. LETS GO I LOVE to see AI companies build tools that can have huge public benefits and Xylo is one. Congrats @Dermot_Oriordan and Habs Isabelle Kim!

In this episode of Going Solo, @ry_paddy sits down with @sarahdrinkwater, GP at @_CommonMagic; a pre-seed fund launched in 2023 that invests in products with community at their core. Before Common Magic, Sarah built one of Europe's most influential startup communities as head of Google Campus London and had been angel investing for many years. 01:22 - The joy of being a solo GP 03:07 - Organisations as world models 05:46 - The energy required to raise a fund 08:56 - Community as a core thesis 11:22 - "Brand" for solo GPs 14:35 - Getting out of the VC-shaped box 18:15 - Why this, why now? 19:57 - Investing like an angel 24:20 - The hardest problems are social 29:00 - Do one thing really well 35:52 - The valley of death for European VC 39:54 - Outsiders make great first-time GPs 43:00 - The world in 10 years 43:50 - Shoutouts to @MayaBakhai and @FinnMurphy12 46:04 - The joy of many careers

Can robots build new towns — and other blue-sky thinking ft.trib.al/8zOtZkQ

Today is the biggest day for Ellipsus since we launched in 2023!🎉 We began building Ellipsus out of a simple belief: writers deserve a place to create, collaborate, and share their work without handing over their words, their data, or their creative process to bad actors and Big Tech—a promise that matters now, more than ever. 🧵⬇️

Launching @sault_ai today, with a mission to increase the economic capacity of AI agents. Starting with ability to give your agents pocket money! Agents are unbelievably capable now, they can plan, execute, write code, but the moment they hit a paywall everything stops, the automation dies and a human has to step in.

Imho, solo GPs probably won’t need a traditional CoS in the same way going forward, because most ops workflows (scheduling, CRM, admin coordination, etc.) will get heavily streamlined through agents/workflows over the next few years. I think EMs will increasingly need what I’d call “gravity makers.” I don’t even have a precise JD for these ppl yet, but you kinda know them when you meet them. Usually they are: > hungry college kids or young operators actively rejecting the traditional 10-year career path > choosing venture intentionally, not because it’s “cool” > obsessed with curiosity, focus, execution > terminally online and monitoring the market daily > consuming information from X/Substack/@tbpn/@MTSlive + old books/research papers at the same time > hunters, not planters: they roll up sleeves and go online + IRL to find the most interesting founders before everyone else > deeply plugged into emerging communities and niche ecosystems > building media, distribution, automations, workflows from day one even with almost no resources > AI-native and constantly experimenting with tools/workflows > good at turning raw info/data into actual insights > developing taste and chasing authenticity > good writers who can articulate observations that later become contrarian theses > able to jump from “build a Notion LP portal” to “make a G Sheet + Claude fund model” in the same afternoon > low ego, humble, trust the process And with the right GP, these ppl eventually become force multipliers that make 1+1=3 instead of just 1+1=1.5. Because in a world where competition for access among funds is insane, the most important thing from day one is building enough "gravity" that the best founders naturally come to you first. All of this probably sounds blurry and hard to define. But ppl who are deep in the ecosystem probably know exactly the type I’m talking about.