Draper Associates

What people think VCs look like vs what we actually look like...

Our portfolio company, Sati, just launched a partnership with Spark, a Bitcoin L2 company backed by Lightspark (the team powering Bitcoin payments for Coinbase, Nubank, and Bitso). The first product: BitBit, an X bot that lets you tip people in Bitcoin directly in their feed. No wallet needed to receive. No technical friction. The results in 4 weeks: - 15,000 monthly active users - 150,000 transactions - Coverage in Yahoo Finance, TheStreet, Benzinga, and Bitcoin Magazine Over 500 million people use X. Most Bitcoin conversations happen there, but nobody was making it easy to actually use Bitcoin on the platform. Sati changed that. This is the first self-custodial tipping solution available to the public on X. And they’re just getting started.

Nuclear stocks may have had this "mixed" response to the US Army's Janus program launch, but private markets (i.e., LPs/family offices/VCs) have been decidedly positive. It's great news. Now, not only is there *more* dedicated U.S. government funding, but it is earmarked specifically to help commercial nuclear companies build and operate microreactors. This is our answer to rising energy costs, aging energy infrastructure.... When I worked at ABB - almost 20 years ago - we knew that decentralized power generation was the way to go, and nuclear is the perfect option. Specifically the deployment of small, 1MW-size reactors, like those built by Radiant, that can be placed close to where the energy is consumed. This will solve a problem a lot of people don't even know we have, which is that up to 40% of power generated is lost during the transmission and distribution of the energy, and that's in addition to the 30% lost at the generation site itself. We now have the solution to this. Which is why in a decade (or less), we're going to have revolutionzed our power supply through a decentralized network of portable nuclear microreactors. Good background on the program here in CNBC Spencer Littleford Kimball. PS. Confident more to come as well from our portco Oklo Inc ;) Doug Bernauer Draper Associates Tim Draper

The company that's pioneering AI-driven precision medicine for oncology just announced three massive milestones. ImpriMed, Inc. has appointed Valerie Goodwin-Adams as Chief Commercial Officer to spearhead commercial expansion, leveraging her extensive experience in scaling operations at high-growth life science firms. The company just processed its 10,000th live canine cancer cell sample (a milestone that reflects growing demand in veterinary oncology and readiness to commercialize human services and products in 2026.) ImpriMed has also relocated to a new state-of-the-art laboratory and offices in Palo Alto, purpose-built to accelerate sample throughput and advance cutting-edge R&D. With its expanded lab, ImpriMed is preparing for CLIA certification and scaling its CRO services for pharmaceutical partners, including pre-clinical drug candidate screening on patients' live cells, responder patient group profiling, and identification of synergistic drug combinations. They're bringing this technology to human healthcare in 2026. I backed ImpriMed because cancer treatment shouldn't be guesswork. Right now, oncologists prescribe treatments based on population-level data, not individual patient response. ImpriMed changes that. They test drugs on your actual cancer cells and tell you what will work. That's the future of medicine.

Petal Surgical just raised $10 million, and we’re backing a vision that could fundamentally change surgery. Prash Chopra (an engineer who worked at Intuitive Surgical and UCSF) decided to start a company focused on making surgery less invasive after his father died from a surgical complication at 52. Petal is building a company around incision-less surgery using focused sound waves to mechanically destroy targeted tissue. No heat. No cuts. No invasion. It's called histotripsy, a relatively new approach that's attracting massive investor conviction. Surgery companies are driving a med tech investment boom right now, and for good reason. Hospitals are cash-strapped. They need faster, simpler, more cost-effective procedures. Chopra's wants Petal to become "like a Harry Potter wand" for surgery. A universal surgical tool for: → Cancer → Cardiovascular issues like artery blockages → Neurological issues like blood clots → Uterine fibroids The company aims to have procedures done in or near hospital operating rooms, and eventually in ambulatory surgical centers, with the technology sold in a kit. As Chopra puts it: "The moment we breach the skin, we have left our body vulnerable to infection, scar tissue, and pain. We believe in a complete lack of invasion." Proud to be part of this journey alongside exceptional co-investors.

Wow, action packed day! 1. Trump meeting Xi ... Groundhog's Day? 2. CZ pardoned ... long awaited. Politics aside, crypto is becoming more mainstream, and Binance is coming back to the US. 3. USG taking stake in Quantum Stocks ... this is what i called a "gateway drug." First, balance sheet investments in Intel Corporation, Lithium Americas Corp., now quantum stocks. ... next, a dedicated US sovereign wealth fund? Never a dull moment. Xanadu Rigetti Computing Dwave Coinbase Gemini

Thanks to Matt Roush and Mike Brennan at MITechNews.com for having me on the show. We talked about Meet the Drapers, my journey in venture capital, and what's coming next. We covered: → How I got into venture capital (family trade, four generations deep) → Why I believe in backing founders who challenge the establishment → And my prediction for the next big innovation: flying cars. People laugh when I talk about flying cars. Same way they laughed about Bitcoin at $6. Same way they laughed about putting credit cards on Amazon. But here's the thing... when entrepreneurs have the freedom to build crazy things, they do. And those crazy things become normal faster than anyone expects.

Drones are an incredible technology - and are a force multiplier for militaries especially. But as they get more advanced, they also become expensive to deploy (and expensive to lose. Which is what happens when they’re subject to attack, not to mention jamming, spoofing, loss of GPS signal, etc.) As drone expert and founder/CEO Brian S. puts it: We have to stop throwing drones at things and expecting a better result. There must be a better way. Which is what Vermeer built: AI-based visual positioning for drones that doesn’t rely on GPS. Great for defense purposes, yes, but will be invaluable to scaling commercial applications in autonomous vehicles, remote delivery, etc. Brian and his team have a clear mission and proven technology, which is achieving real progress in Ukraine, being actively adopted by major customers like Northrop Grumman, Firestorm, etc. Very proud for us at Draper Associates to be backing them as lead investor in this round. And as always, stellar coverage from Colin Demarest Axios. If you’re not reading Future of Defense, you need to be. His story: https://lnkd.in/gw4vJncM And his newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g-qDRTNB Tim Draper tyrone lee Rockaway Ventures

Investing in quantum computing now is like backing cloud infrastructure in the early 2000s. Unlike the early 2000s, though, there's successful, revenue-generating companies to back at every stage, from early/seed round through to public listings. As for why they're doing so well: quantum computing is simply more efficient, uses less energy use, & is highly successful at the problems it solves. As an example...our portco D-Wave was on Bloomberg News last week, and CEO Alan Baratz shared how their quantum computer was able to compute the properties of materials in minutes. The next fastest supercomputer would have needed nearly a *million* years to match. An astounding proof of quantum technical progress. And there's market for it, too....D-Wave has had more or less 400% year-over-year growth in gross profit in H1 2025 - all in public filings. :) The Draper Associates/Draper funds have been investing in quantum computing since 2012 because we know it's the next layer of compute infrastructure. Great to see it finally accelerate in the public awareness too. Great interview Caroline Hyde Alan Baratz!! https://lnkd.in/gTyzusWr