Excited to share that this summer we at @constructcap have now raised over $1 billion in AUM. We closed a new select fund as part of our growing franchise. We started Construct in 2020 after years of investing, operating, and gathering signals that reindustrialization needed to happen—the technical debt of the U.S. economy was simply becoming too great to sit ont he sidelines and not raise a fund around a dedicated strategy. Today, we’re seeing some of the biggest technology companies of our generation emerge by transforming the industries that actually power and build our world: manufacturing, defense, energy, logistics, and critical infrastructure. And we’re just getting started rebuilding a U.S. economy where technology-driven industrialization plays a much greater role. bloomberg.com/news/newslette…

In 2020 we bet Foundational Industries (manufacturing, supply chains, energy, and defense) were undervalued by tech investors. Today: we’ve crossed $1B in AUM—one of ~25 of the roughly 2,000 venture firms launched since 2020 to get there—and have built a portfolio that includes @HadrianInc, @shipveho, @CowboySpaceCorp, @AmcaInc. The thesis is playing out. Thank you to @blsuth at @Bloomberg for her thoughtful writeup on this milestone. bloomberg.com/news/newslette…

Happy Wednesday. On today's show: - @jerallaire (Circle) - @lrocket (Impulse Space) - @ttunguz (Theory Ventures) - @EliWachs (Footprint) - @seanmcccarthy (BackOps) - William Layden (Rune) - Justin Beroz (ReynKo) See you on the stream.

As AI models get better, cheaper and more widely available, we believe one of the biggest moats will be the proprietary data created by actually doing the work. Today, we’re announcing a $42M Series B led by @insightpartners for @backopsai, just six months after our $26M Series A. We’re building the intelligence and resolution layer for companies that make and move physical goods. These companies still rely on people to connect ERPs, WMSs, TMSs, carrier portals, email, spreadsheets, customers and suppliers. BackOps sits across that ecosystem, gathers context, makes decisions, takes action and carries work through to resolution. Since our Series A, one customer alone has processed 500K+ claims through BackOps. As volume grew 150x, automated resolution improved from 87% to 99%. Another took a process that averaged 28 hours and brought it down to 14 minutes. But what we’ve learned over the last six months is that the resolution itself may only be the beginning. Every time BackOps completes work, it creates proprietary data around the context, decisions, actions and outcomes behind it. At scale, that means understanding where processes break, why they break, which actions produce the best outcomes and how those processes should improve. And that gets much more interesting as BackOps expands across an ecosystem. If BackOps operates across a large grocer and the manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and carriers around it, we don’t just understand one company’s workflow. We begin to understand how work moves between them: where problems originate, how they cascade through the network and what actually resolves them. Every additional process makes that intelligence stronger. And every additional company makes the network more valuable. That’s the flywheel we’re building. Our customers shouldn’t just automate more work. They should run on an operational intelligence layer that gets better as they use it and stronger as the network around them grows. And next month, we’re launching something that unlocks a much bigger part of this vision.

Had to see this in person @AFA_Air_Space

With a 72’ wingspan and unrefueled range of over 9000 miles, Gamera is a new category of Group 5 strike and sensing UAS that is mass-producible, significantly lower cost than legacy platforms, and the first UAS specifically designed to employ bomber-class strike munitions. It’s on display this week at @AFA_Air_Space Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Come see the next generation of UAS in person in the Wilson Ballroom at Booth #4100.

Meet Gamera, a new category of Group 5 strike and sensing UAS that we unveiled at @AFA_Air_Space's Air, Space & Cyber Conference today. Mass-producible, significantly lower cost than legacy platforms, and the first UAS specifically designed to employ bomber-class strike munitions such as LRASM/JASSM-ER, Gamera delivers all of the capabilities needed in the next generation of UAS, at 10X lower cost-per-effect than legacy approaches to strike. With over 9,000 nautical miles of unrefueled range, Gamera's unique combination of low cost, large payload, and long range does not exist in any other UAS. Since 2022, Swarm has been designing and building Gamera to provide the low-cost persistent strike and sensing that the @usairforce's Massed Modular Aircraft program is now seeking, making the force more capable, survivable, and effective, and renewing U.S. dominance of the skies. Read our announcement here: globenewswire.com/news-relea…

I recorded really fun special edition More or Less yesterday with @pxd, @wolfejosh, @RachelJHolt, @scottbelsky, @SAStanford -- we talk secrutiziation of compute, duration risk - and all the other spice of the moment -- some choice quotes (coming tomorrow) Josh Wolfe — "None of this goes back to NVIDIA... the guys stuck with the risk — it's like my mother, your parents, it's the pensioners." Peter Deng — "You can't vibe code a home health nurse to show up in your living room to take care of you post-surgery." Peter Deng — "It's actually a feature, not a bug — a feature of having insanely great talent. Sam is N of one at recruiting really ambitious people; in a time when you can build anything, you should expect the turn." Rachel Holt — "This is literally what's going on in the industrial and physical AI world — this data isn't readily accessible. It gives startups a chance to gain distribution before the mega platforms can swallow it up." Rachel Holt — "This isn't a toll road — this isn't something that inherently has value 30 years from now. The fundamental risk is how much money these can spit off versus the duration they're useful for." Scott Belsky — "This concept of websites is going to disappear very quickly. Help me do a bunch of stuff versus just do it — predict I need it, get it done." Scott Belsky — "It's binary — if it has a C2PA credential that says any AI was used, Instagram reports it as made with AI. Consumers are like, what the hell, I only used it for one small edit." Scott Stanford — "The take-or-pay agreements give some security, but the real onus falls on BlackRock, Blackstone, Goldman Asset Management — those are pension funds, assets they're managing for the public." Scott Stanford — "No one's ever securitized compute before. Jensen's a genius — Wall Street didn't go to him, he went to Wall Street." Josh Wolfe — "Every one of us is gonna have many, many bots doing many, many things. Which bots? It comes down to trust — who do you entrust with your data?"

A special edition of More or Less with with a hardcore gang of the best investors & (former) product leaders at the fastest groing companies in the world :) @pxd, @wolfejosh, @RachelJHolt, @scottbelsky, @SAStanford -- the real dice. piped.video/watch?v=XySpdJ6U…

Five+ years ago, investing in a company building factories with automation and AI was literally a dream for the future, so after meeting @2112Power over Zoom during the pandemic, we asked ourselves if we don't get on board here, what are we doing @constructcap ? We got on board. Congrats to Chris and the entire @HadrianInc team who announced its $1.37B Series D today to build the next wave of automated factory production that this country desperately needs. Today, Hadrian is one giant step closer to its mission. It has delivered "the factory as the product"—an automated, physical AI-driven, full actualization of a vision for the next 100 years of industrial progress in the US. It’s a true techno-industrial company, one of the only instantiations of physical AI, and one of the only software automation platforms for manufacturing that actually works. Chris’s big realization back then was not just that the industrial base could not meet the wave of demand brewing on the horizon but also that this demand could not be satisfied simply by reinvigorating, modernizing, or otherwise somehow Improving existing suppliers. The supply side of the equation had already massively contracted and the machine shop owners set to retire over the coming decade could not invest in technology--forget rebuilding those with a physical AI approach. We needed a new way forward. Hadrian is not and never was simply building another manufacturer, a supplier, automation of on onesie-twosie parts, or a project with great payback or unit economics (but they have that too!). That is not how you capture a tsunami of demand, modernize our industrial base and fill a huge gap in industrial capacity. His vision was to rebuild that foundation from the ground up. Just as importantly, they're proving that rebuilding American manufacturing isn't only about new facilities, it's about creating new opportunities for people. By bringing physical AI to the factory floor, Hadrian is enabling productivity to compound and attracting a new wave of the workforce to this sector, putting them to work in a fraction of the time it used to take to train a machinist. It's been an honor to serve on the board and watch this company grow from an ambitious vision into one of the defining companies shaping the future of American manufacturing. I'm excited for what comes next.

Today we're announcing our Series D: $1.37B in new capital at a $7.87B valuation to Reindustrialize America. Thank you to all our investors. WCM Investment Management, @WashingHarbour, Valor Equity Partners, @137ventures, and @BaillieGifford led the round. @jpmorgan Chase's Strategic Investment Group acted as anchor co-lead, investing through the firm's Security and Resiliency Initiative. The round also included major participation by @1789capital, as well as participation from @MorganStanley Wealth Management, @apolloglobal, @TRowePrice, @a16z, @CapitalG, @foundersfund, @lux_capital, @AltimeterCap, @constructcap, and existing investors. This round confirms our belief in a few simple things: America needs to Reindustrialize, Physical AI is real, transforming the world of atoms matters 100x more than the world of bits, and, most importantly, that the New American Workforce is the center of everything we do. Here's what we've built, and what comes next.

Hadrian is announcing our $1.37B Series D - watch below for a comprehensive update on our plans to reinvest billions to meet generational demand for Factories-as-a-service & Opus, our physical AI platform for factory autonomy — as well as full stack munitions production, advanced foundries, international expansion, drone dominance, the Organic Industrial Base, and most importantly, increase Equity stakes for our workforce in LA, Alabama and Arizona. Thank you to our team and investors for enabling us to accelerate our mission to reshore, rescale and upgrade the Defense Industrial Base. The Factory is the Product.

The Air Force is shaping requirements for a new era of uncrewed airpower around flexibility, affordability, and rapidly scaling production. Future conflicts will demand greater mass, faster adaptation, and the ability to absorb operational losses while continuing to generate combat effects. The Air Force is increasingly focused on platforms that are more modular, lower cost, and easier to mass produce, fielded more rapidly and employed with greater operational risk tolerance than traditional aircraft. This is exactly what Swarm is built to deliver. af.mil/News/Article-Display/…

We recently hosted our inaugural Construct Founders Summit at the Officers’ Club in the Presidio, bringing together our portfolio founders building across the most foundational industries of our economy. Foundational Industries are growing at warp speed and we strived to provide practical, no-BS insights that our founders can immediately put to work—from navigating high-stakes deals and selling into government, to building exceptional products and world-class go-to-market teams. Operators who have scaled massive organizations, teams, and outcomes shared their thoughts with us: Jeanne Grosser (@jdewitt29) on GTM systems, Trae Stephens (@traestephens) on scaling in atypical venture markets, Yuhki Yamashita (@yuhkiyam) on world-class products, Ed Batista (@edbatista) on culture-building, Dennis Cinelli (@DennisKCinelli) on high-stakes deals, and Willy Schlacks on the journey to IPO. Our founders span multiple locations throughout the US, with many coming not only from the Bay Area but also from LA, New York, Boston, and Europe. As more late-stage capital flows into Foundational Industries, the need for collaborative sessions for founders building at the early stages is more important than ever; making small decisions at the early stages can drastically affect the direction of a company in later years. This is where we focus, and we loved getting everyone together in one room. We’re honored to be a part of our founders’ journeys as they build the next generation of companies reindustrializing our world. Thank you to all of our sponsors, @WithCoverageInc, @CooleyLLP, Andersen Tax, @Aduro_Advisors, and @PwC, for helping make it all happen.

At @axios live last week, I summed up the thesis that gets us out of bed every day @constructcap: backing entrepreneurs who are building new, generational companies in the most foundational industries of our economy. The industrial sector has not grown in lock step with the rest of the markets over the last 20 years and that is about to change with physical AI, which has lagged digital AI. There has been a 10x growth of later stage capital in the last 4 years and this is important to fulfilling the new tech-first industrial market’s full potential. A new swath of our public markets should exist around companies that drive our most foundational industries, and there will be durable, generational tech-first industrial companies emerging in the next few years in the public markets. Thank you to @Axios for having me on to discuss physical AI and the future of industrial technology. Credit to @axios . Used with permission.

Last week, Construct Capital co-founder Dayna Grayson joined Axios' Colin Campbell to explain why the next wave of AI innovation in Physical AI is different from digital AI and why it’s so important to the growth of the new industrial sector. She reflected on the wave of later stage capital that has come into the space and where the team at Construct is focused. Eventually, she claims, there is a large swath of the public markets that will exist around durable, generational foundational industry companies. Tune in: 0:50 - The opportunity to leapfrog the lack of development in the industrial space of the last 30 years. 1:35 - The history of how and when the operational tech sector and the information technology sector lost lockstep. 3:38 - The last mile of motion that is needed to realize Physical AI’s potential. 5:38 - The manufacturing world is not all the same. 9:40 - Physical AI has been an elusive word but that is about to change. 10:52 - The 10x growth of later stage capital in the last 4 years. 11:18 - The public market opportunity to create a new industrial tech sector that should be a meaningful part of the S&P. piped.video/watch?v=oa4r_XcG… Thank you to @Axios for having @daynagrayson on to discuss physical AI and the future of industrial technology. #artificialintelligence #physicalai #manufacturing #robotics #supplychain #venturecapital #constructcapital #automation #innovation #industrialtech #ai #startup

Well, it took an Australian to fix American manufacturing. This week we sit down with Power, Chris Power - @2112Power - the boss at @HadrianInc. Hadrian has a growing empire of software-infused manufacturing machines building things faster and better across the U.S. In this episode, we get into Chris's journey and the state of American manufacturing and how dire/hopeful things really are. Consider this your first 4th of July weekend feast. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 04:07 From Melbourne to LA 07:37 The Thesis He Chose 10:00 America Gave the Farm Away 14:46 Why We Can't Rebuild Missiles 19:08 Automating a Master Machinist? 24:38 From Parts to Whole Missiles 29:19 The China Problem 33:40 How Far Behind Are We? 41:45 Answering the Critics 45:22 Can Anyone Copy @elonmusk? 53:03 An American Shenzhen?

.@constructcap co-founder @daynagrayson says the challenge with rebuilding domestic manufacturing starts with identifying the most critical parts of supply chains before deciding what to reshore. "Well, where do you start if you want to rebuild it? Where are the most critical pieces, and that differs, you know, based on the customer, that differs based on the company." #AxiosLive

Tune in — @daynagrayson joins this #AxiosLive panel on the future of American manufacturing, supply chains & AI.