Things are only impossible until they're not.
Fifty Years
Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
San Francisco, CA 9,814 followers
We back tech founders solving the world's biggest problems.
About us
Seed fund supporting entrepreneurs solving the world's biggest problems. There’s a sea change coming in business as big as the shift from desktop to the cloud, or from web to mobile. Fifty Years supports the entrepreneurs heralding in the new economic renaissance. Read our view here: http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/02/impact-is-the-new-mobile/
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http://www.fiftyyears.com
External link for Fifty Years
- Industry
- Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
- Company size
- 2-10 employees
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, CA
- Type
- Partnership
Locations
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San Francisco, CA 94114, US
Employees at Fifty Years
Updates
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Fifty Years reposted this
Strength leads to strength. The last month was the best in the history of Fifty Years.
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Fifty Years reposted this
Very excited to announce that Aalo has closed a $27M Series A! We’re honored to be partnering with an incredible group of investors going into this next chapter. The future of nuclear is bright, and Aalo is just getting started. We’re on a mission to make small nuclear reactors in large factories. This will enable predictable low costs and short construction timelines, making clean energy a reality, any place, any time. Here’s what resonated most with our backers: ➡️ Speed: We raised our $6M Seed just about a year ago, and in the past 9 months we've scaled the team to 15 ppl, finished conceptual design of our reactor, signed a Siting MOU with the DOE, and submitted our REP to the NRC with agreement from a first customer. ➡️ Technology: Compelling economics thanks to high fuel energy density, simplified reactor inherent safety, and a focus on factory manufacturability from day 1. There exists an optimal balance between economy of numbers and economy of scale in nuclear, and we intend to find it. ➡️ Team: Highly experienced and credible team. Many worked on MARVEL program, and delivered first DOE authorization for construction of a new reactor since the DOE was formed in 1977. VP of Regulatory Affairs who helped pioneer the modern RIPB licensing framework used by most advanced nuclear companies today. (And more). ➡️ Master Plan: Unique strategy around go-to-market, regulatory approval, and technical de-risking. More to be announced here soon! Interested in joining the team, partnering, or visiting us in Austin or Idaho Falls? Please do reach out! 👋 And once again, thanks to Fifty Years, Valor Equity Partners, Harpoon Ventures, Crosscut Ventures, SNR, Alumni Ventures, Preston-Werner Ventures, Earth Venture Capital, Garage Capital, Wayfinder Ventures, Jeff Dean, Nucleation Capital, AME Cloud Ventures, Tyler Knight, Wheeler Gibson, Matthew Bellamy, Abhay Venkatesh, Guthrie Gintzler, Matt Sweeney, Calvin French-Owen, and some that we can't speak of publicly. Kudos to the whole Aalo Atomics team, cc Yasir Arafat, Amir Afzali, Richard Williams, MSME, MBA, P.E., Jeff Jones, Luke Andrew, Kyle Francis, Gavin Ridley, Asmaa Salem Farag, Kerwin G., Wheeler Gibson, Matt Hansink, and Nick Costelloe Blog post here: https://lnkd.in/gA-ahx7z
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Fifty Years reposted this
Fifty Years founders are on 🔥. In just June/July 👇 1/ Molten Industries's $25m Series A 2/ BillionToOne's $130m Series D 3/ Solugen's $213m DOE loan 4/ Antora Energy's $14.5m ARPA-E award 5/ Waypoint Bio's $12m pre-seed+seed 6/ Astranis Space Technologies' $200m Series D 7/ unspun™'s $32m Series B
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Fifty Years reposted this
Since Fifty Years led the pre-seed round Astranis Space Technologies has: Launched satellites Sold $1B in satellite services Assembled a world class team of 350 Established a massive technical moat Won $16.5m+ in US gov contracts Built a satellite factory in SF Raised $750M Seeing the cofounders John Gedmark and Ryan McLinko go from an idea on a whiteboard to here has been thrilling. Astranis is building something historic. The march continues to connect the ~4B unconnected!
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Fifty Years reposted this
This is why we do it 🥹
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Fifty Years reposted this
5050 gave me the conviction to end my nearly 12-year academic career at MIT and open a new chapter to maximize the impact of my science by building the company I envision with Tay Shin. I have always wanted to create something unique and valuable for people and the world, but the transition from scientist to entrepreneur seemed daunting. 5050 helped me find a community of people who share the same passion and face similar challenges. Through 5050, I see a clearer path to overcome these challenges and develop both the company and myself as a founder. Most importantly, the 5050 team truly, truly cares about founders as people. We’ve learned not only how to focus on our vision and execute tactically day by day with maximum speed but also how to develop and cultivate the traits of great founders. 5050 is the *bestest* founder education I have ever received! Please apply if you are a scientist/engineer who wants to become a great founder.
The world needs 10x more scientist-founders. 5050 helps scientists and engineers become great founders and start indispensable companies. Applications open! Startups are the best way to make a real impact with research, but where do you get started? How do you know if entrepreneurship is for you? Whether you’re validating an idea or ready to build — 5050 is for you. You’ll learn what it takes to become a great founder, how to choose the right problem, technology, and market, and how to build a deep tech startup. “It’s a cheat code for starting a deep tech startup.” – Eric McShane, 5050 alum. • Eric McShane and Evan Gardner spun out of Stanford and co-founded Electroflow Technologies to tackle the lithium shortage. They’ve scaled their tech by 200x in 6 months. • Mark Budde joined 5050 as a postdoc at Caltech. Two years later, Plasmidsaurus enables scientists across all 50 states and most European countries to go much faster. • Niccolo Cymbalist joined as a Tesla engineer. Three months later, he co-founded Clippership and is building autonomous sailboats to decarbonize maritime shipping. • Chi Zhang and Tay Shin joined as postdocs at MIT. Within weeks, they spun out and are now working to enable in vivo cell reprogramming. At Fifty Years, we’ve built deep tech companies ourselves. We’ve backed over 100 deep tech startups from the earliest stages and helped them raise over 4.6 billion dollars. We distilled everything we know about deep tech startups into 5050: a free program to help world-class scientists and engineers start indispensable companies. Phase I: Explore We’ll help you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? Am I ready to be a founder? You’ll learn if entrepreneurship is right for you, identify the idea to build, and pivot quickly if necessary. We’ll guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. At the end of Explore, those ready to build a startup will be invited to the next phase, Build. Phase II: Build You’ll join a cohort of fast-moving founders who will challenge you to ramp up. We’ll coach you to level up into a great founder and guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. Build will help you de-risk your technology, hit key milestones, raise a first round, and reach takeoff speed fast. Helping great scientists and engineers become great entrepreneurs is our jam. Apply / nominate! fiftyyears.com/5050
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Fifty Years reposted this
5050 gave me the confidence to leave MIT with my amazing friend and co-founder, Chi Zhang. The 5050 team truly cares about founders as people! We’ve learned not only how to accelerate our progress but also how to grow and develop the qualities of great founders. I highly recommend applying for this program. Oh, and it's FREE!
The world needs 10x more scientist-founders. 5050 helps scientists and engineers become great founders and start indispensable companies. Applications open! Startups are the best way to make a real impact with research, but where do you get started? How do you know if entrepreneurship is for you? Whether you’re validating an idea or ready to build — 5050 is for you. You’ll learn what it takes to become a great founder, how to choose the right problem, technology, and market, and how to build a deep tech startup. “It’s a cheat code for starting a deep tech startup.” – Eric McShane, 5050 alum. • Eric McShane and Evan Gardner spun out of Stanford and co-founded Electroflow Technologies to tackle the lithium shortage. They’ve scaled their tech by 200x in 6 months. • Mark Budde joined 5050 as a postdoc at Caltech. Two years later, Plasmidsaurus enables scientists across all 50 states and most European countries to go much faster. • Niccolo Cymbalist joined as a Tesla engineer. Three months later, he co-founded Clippership and is building autonomous sailboats to decarbonize maritime shipping. • Chi Zhang and Tay Shin joined as postdocs at MIT. Within weeks, they spun out and are now working to enable in vivo cell reprogramming. At Fifty Years, we’ve built deep tech companies ourselves. We’ve backed over 100 deep tech startups from the earliest stages and helped them raise over 4.6 billion dollars. We distilled everything we know about deep tech startups into 5050: a free program to help world-class scientists and engineers start indispensable companies. Phase I: Explore We’ll help you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? Am I ready to be a founder? You’ll learn if entrepreneurship is right for you, identify the idea to build, and pivot quickly if necessary. We’ll guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. At the end of Explore, those ready to build a startup will be invited to the next phase, Build. Phase II: Build You’ll join a cohort of fast-moving founders who will challenge you to ramp up. We’ll coach you to level up into a great founder and guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. Build will help you de-risk your technology, hit key milestones, raise a first round, and reach takeoff speed fast. Helping great scientists and engineers become great entrepreneurs is our jam. Apply / nominate! fiftyyears.com/5050
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Fifty Years reposted this
5050 is seriously awesome! So many scientists are developing technologies that could change the world once they leave the lab. The 5050 program teaches you how. Apply to 5050 and help us build a better future!!! 🧪🥼⚡️
The world needs 10x more scientist-founders. 5050 helps scientists and engineers become great founders and start indispensable companies. Applications open! Startups are the best way to make a real impact with research, but where do you get started? How do you know if entrepreneurship is for you? Whether you’re validating an idea or ready to build — 5050 is for you. You’ll learn what it takes to become a great founder, how to choose the right problem, technology, and market, and how to build a deep tech startup. “It’s a cheat code for starting a deep tech startup.” – Eric McShane, 5050 alum. • Eric McShane and Evan Gardner spun out of Stanford and co-founded Electroflow Technologies to tackle the lithium shortage. They’ve scaled their tech by 200x in 6 months. • Mark Budde joined 5050 as a postdoc at Caltech. Two years later, Plasmidsaurus enables scientists across all 50 states and most European countries to go much faster. • Niccolo Cymbalist joined as a Tesla engineer. Three months later, he co-founded Clippership and is building autonomous sailboats to decarbonize maritime shipping. • Chi Zhang and Tay Shin joined as postdocs at MIT. Within weeks, they spun out and are now working to enable in vivo cell reprogramming. At Fifty Years, we’ve built deep tech companies ourselves. We’ve backed over 100 deep tech startups from the earliest stages and helped them raise over 4.6 billion dollars. We distilled everything we know about deep tech startups into 5050: a free program to help world-class scientists and engineers start indispensable companies. Phase I: Explore We’ll help you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? Am I ready to be a founder? You’ll learn if entrepreneurship is right for you, identify the idea to build, and pivot quickly if necessary. We’ll guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. At the end of Explore, those ready to build a startup will be invited to the next phase, Build. Phase II: Build You’ll join a cohort of fast-moving founders who will challenge you to ramp up. We’ll coach you to level up into a great founder and guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. Build will help you de-risk your technology, hit key milestones, raise a first round, and reach takeoff speed fast. Helping great scientists and engineers become great entrepreneurs is our jam. Apply / nominate! fiftyyears.com/5050
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Fifty Years reposted this
5050 was fantastic portal into the deep tech start-up world. As a part of it, I learned core skills for company creation, insight distilled from their collective years of experience building and investing in deep tech start-ups. Along the way I got to know (and have a lot of fun) with a group of scientists and engineers developing remarkable new businesses from battery tech to robotics to synthetic biology. Highly recommend to any scientists or engineers serious about building something positive for the world, and looking for guidance along the way.
The world needs 10x more scientist-founders. 5050 helps scientists and engineers become great founders and start indispensable companies. Applications open! Startups are the best way to make a real impact with research, but where do you get started? How do you know if entrepreneurship is for you? Whether you’re validating an idea or ready to build — 5050 is for you. You’ll learn what it takes to become a great founder, how to choose the right problem, technology, and market, and how to build a deep tech startup. “It’s a cheat code for starting a deep tech startup.” – Eric McShane, 5050 alum. • Eric McShane and Evan Gardner spun out of Stanford and co-founded Electroflow Technologies to tackle the lithium shortage. They’ve scaled their tech by 200x in 6 months. • Mark Budde joined 5050 as a postdoc at Caltech. Two years later, Plasmidsaurus enables scientists across all 50 states and most European countries to go much faster. • Niccolo Cymbalist joined as a Tesla engineer. Three months later, he co-founded Clippership and is building autonomous sailboats to decarbonize maritime shipping. • Chi Zhang and Tay Shin joined as postdocs at MIT. Within weeks, they spun out and are now working to enable in vivo cell reprogramming. At Fifty Years, we’ve built deep tech companies ourselves. We’ve backed over 100 deep tech startups from the earliest stages and helped them raise over 4.6 billion dollars. We distilled everything we know about deep tech startups into 5050: a free program to help world-class scientists and engineers start indispensable companies. Phase I: Explore We’ll help you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? Am I ready to be a founder? You’ll learn if entrepreneurship is right for you, identify the idea to build, and pivot quickly if necessary. We’ll guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. At the end of Explore, those ready to build a startup will be invited to the next phase, Build. Phase II: Build You’ll join a cohort of fast-moving founders who will challenge you to ramp up. We’ll coach you to level up into a great founder and guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. Build will help you de-risk your technology, hit key milestones, raise a first round, and reach takeoff speed fast. Helping great scientists and engineers become great entrepreneurs is our jam. Apply / nominate! fiftyyears.com/5050