Riley Rodgers

@SebastianCaliri Great work @SebastianCaliri!

Everyone knows about serious problems in American healthcare: $1.8T in federal spending, burned-out doctors, endless phone trees, incomprehensible bills. No-one has a viable plan to fix this mess. And rather than helping, our policies have effectively banned AI from medicine. We have made our very best hope for relief illegal. I spent the past few months talking with policy makers in DC, state secretaries of health, and the technology community about this problem. I spoke with doctors about their experiences and ordinary Americans about their challenges with the healthcare system. I also spoke with investors about the barriers to investing in healthcare AI that makes life better for patients and doctors instead of pouring more dollars into up-coding tools. From these conversations I synthesized a set of policy reforms at the federal and state levels that will not only legalize healthcare AI, but also attract resources to the space and get the very best innovators focused on what is an existential problem for the United States.

Today, Valar Atomics became the first startup in history to split the atom. Announcing Project Nova, a series of zero power critical tests on Valar Atomics' Nova Core in collaboration with Los Alamos NCERC and NNSS. Nova went critical for the first time this morning at 11:45am.

Today we're announcing Valar Atomics' $130m Series A, led by Doug Philippone at Snowpoint Ventures and co-lead by Day One and Dream. Also joining Team Valar are Balerion, Contrary, DTX, Alumni, Crosscut, Triplepoint, Palmer Luckey, Shyam Sankar, and more great funds and angels.

@isaiah_p_taylor @DenverRayburn

People who say “we don’t want t-shirt factories in America” are mistaken about the very nature of technology. What they mean is that we don’t want Capex intense, heavily labor dependent, low margin manufacturing. But all of those attributes—capex, labor use, margin—are subject to technology, and therefore innovation. By exporting the industry, you are excluding the possibility of American technologists changing the *way t-shirts are made* in such a way that it is very profitable to do here. These sorts of changes are the inevitable direction of technology. Why would you count our civilization out of that?

The startup fundraising market is clearest I've seen in my 13yrs of tech investing - major funds only interested in 2 things: 1/ AI native co's w/ demonstrable momentum, rounds are big $; and 2/ seeds for outlier teams. That's it. Anything else encounters fundraising fiction.

I just published Unlocking Unicorns: What Stanford Research Reveals About VC Portfolio Strategy medium.com/p/unlocking-un…

@nickwmyers @PhoenixTailings Great work @nickwmy and the full @PhoenixTailings team!

@areksds @mercury @sydecario @ethankeshishian Thanks for hosting @areksds!

The proof is in the pasta. 🍝 Yesterday, we hosted another successful dinner with @Mercury and @sydecario for emerging managers. So many interesting conversations in the room. Our next SF dinner is on May 8 for seed+ founders. Excited for what's to come... 🦄

I'm excited to announce a $19m seed round led by Riot Ventures, Initialized, and AlleyCorp, with participation from amazing new parters such as Steel Atlas, Day One Ventures, Stifel Bank, @naval, @balajis, and Charlie Songhurst. We've also completed two important milestones:

We did it! We tested 300 Bay Area foods for plastic chemicals. We found some interesting surprises. Top 5 findings in our test results: 1. Our tests found plastic chemicals in 86% of all foods, with phthalates in 73% of the tested products and bisphenols in 22%. It's everywhere. 2. We detected phthalates in most baby foods and prenatal vitamins. 3. Hot foods which spend 45 minutes in takeout containers have 34% higher levels of plastic chemicals than the same dishes tested directly from the restaurant. 4. The 1950s Army rations we tested contained surprisingly high levels of plastic chemicals. 5. Almost every single one of the foods we tested are within both US FDA and EU EFSA regulations. Check out our full results below.

@houseofvc @WonderVentures @valentinaaro @TaylorBolhack @bonfire_vc @jimandelman @jenrichardx @Stifel @mexiCALiAL @AWSstartups @jdotwhoa Thanks for hosting, that was a good one!

That buzz in LA? Combinations brought palpable energy as founders & funders MET, finding collaborators, hires, & capital. 💪Cohosts: @WonderVentures @valentinaaro @TaylorBolhack , @bonfire_vc @jimandelman @jenrichardx. 🙏 @Stifel @mexiCALiAL + @AWSstartups @jdotwhoa #latechweek

💡 Excited to feature @Riley_S_Rodgers of @ValiaVentures in our EVCA Leadership Spotlight Series! Riley shares his journey as an early-stage investor, highlighting the importance of mentorship and continuous growth. Full interview 👇 evca.org/blog/leadershi…

Innovators working on urgent problems need funders who understand deep-tech opportunities and take a long-term view. mitsmr.com/483ssaq

Big shoutout to the full team who pulled off the #Reindustrialize conference in Detroit over the past two days. The focus was on convening the brightest and most motivated minds at the intersection of technology and manufacturing - mission accomplished! youtube.com/watch?v=LFBCN4…

@ColinGardiner @TheRideshareGuy @halleka_ @joinEVCA @sydecario Fun one to do for sure, thanks @sydecario for helping to pull this together!

Killer SPV panel today with @TheRideshareGuy @Riley_S_Rodgers @halleka_ hosted by @joinEVCA and @sydecario

Much like the e-commerce space 20 years ago, or the recent crypto boom, artificial intelligence is at the center of a hype cycle in venture capital today. But the truth is, a hype cycle only exists after the winning company in that space has already succeeded. Take @anduriltech — when founded in 2017, defense technology wasn’t a popular industry. But now the company is valued at more than $10 billion, and investors everywhere are trying to replicate that success as defense tech enjoys a hype cycle of its own. Special today for Pirate Wires, Anduril co-founder @traestephens explains how successful VCs invest in companies that are category-creating — not hype-following. Read it today on our site.

Amazing conference hosted by @stripe that also showcased a big list of new product releases. Highlight of the day had to be Patrick Collison and Jensen Huang with a wide ranging conference to wrap up the day. Great work by the team at Stripe putting this together.

We kicked off @SFClimateWeek and celebrated Earth Day with an amazing founder-investor speed networking event. Thanks to investors from @UrbanInnoFund @superorganismvc @ValiaVentures for co-hosting & @CooleyLLP for the beautiful venue.

Congratulations to the full team on shipping, big milestone after five years of work. It's an ambitious vision for a Gen 1 product and this team will keep making it better!

1/3 Announcing this year's EVC List—highlighting a cohort of the top 25 rising stars in venture capital! evclist.com/finalists-year…