Happy Tuesday Brex Community, | Just got back from San Francisco, had a great few days hanging in SOMA and Dogpatch neighborhood primarily. The main focus of the trip was to meet some candidates IRL as we are continuing to hire at a rapid pace, our offices in SF and NYC are expanding quickly! On that note, I’m looking for to hire in SF, looking for someone who wants to be deeply entrenched with the VC and Founder community, job req here. | Secondly, I did want to check out the YC summer batch, which was 234 startups. I only got to see half of them present but there were some clear trends that I saw in those 115+ pitches. First thing that stood out if the number of defense, space, hardware and robotics startups to were in the batch, they had a large hanger when you got to meet all of them (see below). There were very little consumer, edtech and fintech startups in the batch, perhaps these are the contrarian sectors? Of the limited fintech startups that presented, there was a concentration of insurance companies, which was a surprise. Overall, it was both inspiring to see so much innovative ideas in one room and also brought a lot of optimism during a crazy week full of AI doomerism. | I visit SF every few months and things are clearly getting better in terms on activity, cleanliness and general positive vibez, it’s great to see the momentum and hope it continues. My hotel was near 4th and Market, which is convenient but can also be a bit sketchy sometimes, went for early 6am walk to the Ferry building to catch the sunrise and didn’t run into any odd situations. I’m bullish on SF & looking forward to my next visit. | Have a great week! | Shai Goldman | | | Ethos was one of the more interesting startups that presented at YC demo day. The TLDR is that they are looking to build solar panels on the moon. | Team - Brogan BamBrogan was employee #23 at SpaceX. He built the first Falcon and Dragon. Previously, he founded Hyperloop and Arrivo. Ross Centers is a lunar geologist from the Colorado School of Mines. He previously founded the Planetary Sunshade Institute. | Problem - There is infinite power in space. But rockets can’t carry enough solar panels. Rockets are the constraint. | Solution - Power in space must be made in space. Self replicating power and mass relieves the rocket constraint. The Moon is made of Silicon (and other useful atoms). Silicon makes solar panels (and compute). Solar panels make energy, to refine more silicon and power more compute. | Why now - Capital needs from Earth will diminish as self-replicating power and mass grows on the Moon. Moving up the Kardashev scale will be a matter of wattage and tonnage, not dollars. If you’re not early to self-replication, you’re too late. | | Events you might see us at - subscribe here - all focused on Founders, VCs & Finance leaders: | Sept 18 - SF - Brexfast with Founders and VCs - Apply Here | Sept 25 - NYC - Brex Social Club - for VC backed Founders - Apply Here | Sept 29 - NYC - Vercel, Extend, Baseten, Brex - for technical Founders & devs - Apply Here | Sept 30 - NYC - Brex Supper Club with Concentrate AI - for native AI VC backed Founders who are using LLM gateways - Apply Here | Oct 6 - SF - founder coworking during SF tech week - Apply Here | | Sign up here for Brex and receive $1,250 towards Brex Travel or $750 cash | Brex is the intelligent finance platform built for speed and control. Combining corporate cards, banking, treasury, expense management, bill pay, travel, and accounting, Brex helps companies spend smarter and move faster in 120 countries. By integrating AI across every workflow, Brex enables founders and finance teams to eliminate manual work, do more with less, and accelerate impact. More than 35,000 companies from startups to enterprises run on Brex, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, Granola, ServiceTitan, Robinhood, DoorDash, etc. | | | | | |
|
