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issue #7

Hello World!

My turn again to say hello to you all! It’s Zoe here - straight from my WFH "oasis" where anyone who has encountered me on Zoom recently will have enjoyed one of my two dogs behaving outrageously and the snacks on my kitchen counter depleting at an aggressive rate...

Like many other investors, we've been taking stock of our portfolio. For our early-stage deep tech investments, we have been (ironically) grateful that their plans didn't rely on much revenue in any event.

Nonetheless, in thinking about their future financing requirements, I've been taking a closer look at who actually invests in deep tech startups in the UK and I thought I'd share my findings with you all here (in both excel and glorious infographic form of course). To those reading who we haven't co-invested with us yet, let’s get chatting. You can reach out to me at zoe@octopusventures.com and we can have a Zoom, hopefully dog-free.

Since our last issue, we've been:

  • Going deep into how SARS-Cov-2 works with these fascinating lectures from MedCram, including diving into an interesting hypothesis from a Russian Professor on why it affects some much worse than others. Despite it being the only topic on the news everywhere, we can't avoid going down various rabbit holes on the topic!
  • Reading about a team at the University of New South Wales who have built some relatively stable ‘hot’ qubits - although we’re pretty sure they will still be better colder :)
  • Enjoying this practical analysis of Nintendo 64's architecture.
  • Impressed by researchers at UCLA, VA Tech, and the Air Force Research Lab who devised a new 3D printing approach to produce electronic devices made of different materials in one shot (most 3D printing approaches developed so far are effective for producing non-functional materials).
  • Excited by this new ‘self-healing’ material developed at Carnegie Mellon University. Here’s a trippy demo of the tech in action.
  • Slightly baffled by Intel's acquisition of Moovit – let us know if it made sense to you, both price and motivating factors.
  • Reading Index’s overview and excitement on Covariant (I remember watching Pieter Abbeel talking about this startup at UC Berkeley 2 years ago!)
  • Seeing even more startups investigating the brain.
  • Following the University of Bristol’s latest step forward in their quantum work.
  • Investing in Quantum Motion - see our blogs here.
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Please don't forget we love hearing from you on anything included here - or on anything else deep tech related! And do of course share the newsletter if you know others we should be connecting with. If you're just visiting, then you can sign up to receive our next issue here. 

Stay sane and healthy!

Speak soon,

Zoe 
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