EXCLUSIVE: 8VC leads $16M Lazarus round to build modular supercritical CO₂ turbines for America’s data center buildout. Today, @LazarusEnergy, the Hawthorne-based startup, has secured an oversubscribed $16M seed round led by @8vc, with additional investment from Marlinspike, DST Global, Neuron Power Ventures, and @relentless_inv, as well as follow-up investment from @fiftyyears and @sidedoor_vc. The company is betting that a new turbine architecture can help solve one of the biggest constraints on America’s data center buildout, power. Supercritical carbon dioxide could decide America’s AI sovereignty. CO₂ crosses into the supercritical phase above 31.1°C and 73.8 bar, where liquid and gas collapse into a single fluid with liquid-like density and gas-like flow. It plays a special role in closed-loop Brayton cycle turbines, which could become core to data center power generation. Turbines are becoming increasingly important for data centers as power demand exceeds grid capacity and operators look for reliable on-site power. The traditional turbine market is behind, with wait times exceeding 5 to 7 years and OEMs even turning down new orders because capacity is maxed out. Lazarus is attempting to shift the supply curve. The LA startup was founded by George Kitromelides (CEO) and Luke Malcolm (CTO), both formerly on the propulsion team at Anduril, alongside team members from Siemens Energy, Williams International, and Ursa Major. The startup is developing turbines that enable a forward-deployable power plant fitting inside a shipping container. “Supercritical CO₂ lets you reduce the size of your components significantly,” according to George Kitromelides (CEO), thus enabling the distributed form factor. Traditional turbines are optimized for specific heat sources. Lazarus designed its system to be heat-source agnostic, allowing it to convert heat from nearly any major energy source into electricity. Lazarus has created a natural edge. It can serve today’s data center market with proven inputs like natural gas while remaining positioned for future heat sources like small modular reactors. Deployment is another edge. Traditional turbine players can require months or years of construction to set up on-site, while Lazarus’ platform is fully assembled at its facility and requires zero on-site construction. In areas like nuclear, this can be key. Luke Malcolm (CTO) states, “SMRs are supposed to be compact, modular, deployable power. And when you build your compact reactor and then spend a year building all your steam infrastructure on-site, that kind of defeats the whole purpose.” Lazarus is focused on two end markets, data centers as the beachhead market and small modular nuclear reactors as the secondary market, both with unique business models. In the data center market, “The OEMs are straight up rejecting new orders. They’re turning customers away because they just can’t keep up with demand,” according to George Kitromelides (CEO). Lazarus wants to provide power-as-a-service in the data center market, where it would own and operate the asset instead of the data center operator incurring CapEx. Additionally, the own-and-operate/PPA model allows Lazarus to generate significantly more long-term revenue than a one-time equipment sale. Under a power purchase agreement (PPA), customers pay for the electricity generated by the system over time rather than purchasing the power infrastructure upfront. Lastly, behind-the-meter power is surging as data centers seek dedicated, off-grid generation to avoid grid delays and secure reliable power. Lazarus enables that by delivering compact on-site power systems built for data center demand. On the nuclear side, Lazarus would integrate with SMR companies to supply the power cycle, with nuclear heat going into the Lazarus cycle and electricity coming out. This model would focus on selling units to reactor companies, followed by multi-year maintenance contracts. Lazarus is developing a true picks-and-shovels play for the AI power gold rush. But the broader opportunity extends well beyond data centers. As the forward-deployed stack expands across compute, manufacturing, medical units, and logistics, compact containerized power could become critical infrastructure for Department of War installations, remote mining operations, disaster response, and any site where reliable power needs to move closer to the edge. The team of six full-time engineers is focused on firing a 1-megawatt sub-module of its system by late this year or early next year. The system will be powered by natural gas. Additionally, the startup has secured an MOU with a nuclear customer and has received strong interest from the data center market.

Our vision for @bondappofficial is not to be a social network. Social is just one powerful reason to capture memories. Our vision is to be your memory wallet. Today, I'm excited to showcase our first step in this direction. Introducing Memory Export. Bond is already the best place to capture memories and turn them into powerful recommendations. Now it turns your memories into prompts you use anywhere. See your profile summary, or create a prompt on any topic. Then take it to your favorite app in one tap. No need to keep re-explaining yourself to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini - they'll already know your tastes and preferences. Try it out today!

Discussed the implications of AI over dinner with folks from Notion, Simile, Mirage, Manas AI, Nourish, Siro, and J.P. Morgan. What's clear is that AI is the biggest change agent the world has ever seen - one that will extend lifetimes significantly, reshape how kids are raised, and redefine work altogether. Notes from the discussion: evidencebyrelentless.substac…

public h/t to @damirbecirovic and evidencebyrelentless.substac… for the inspo 🫡

Hooked by the Millennial dads data (spending more time with our kids!), stayed for the investment ideas. The Evidence series by @relentless_inv provides a glimpse into smart dinner conversations from afar. Thanks for inviting us in, @damirbecirovic open.substack.com/pub/eviden…

Excited to announce the launch of @bondappofficial! We're on a mission to capture people's memories and make them useful. Our first product is a social network built on memories and powered by AI. Stop scrolling and start discovering. Available publicly on iOS today: apps.apple.com/app/id6746621…

DiligenceSquared uses AI, voice agents to make M&A research affordable techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/di…

Litigation Startup Advocacy Announces $3.5M Investment, With Backing From Fenwick & West, Relativity Labs law.com/legaltechnews/2026/0…

Founders who can write clearly are rare and worth paying attention to. Dan puts Dario in the same class as Bezos. The only signal that mattered early in Amazon was the '97 shareholder letter.

Humanity is at a turning point. I am launching UMA to build general-purpose mobile and humanoid robots from Europe. Proud to start with people I admired for years, and grateful for all your support! Reach out to us @UMA_Robots ❤️