Don Faul

🥾 #bootstrapping as a mindset should be ephemeral, one that requires a deliberate transition away from as a business enters sustained growth Appointing an established auditor is often regarded as a luxury and not part of bootstrapping Audits discipline a business - to be methodical, thorough and deliberate - traits that acquirers often seek in due diligence After all, "What gets inspected, gets respected," Anon We will share the traits of venture businesses sought and respected by MNC acquirers, join us if your business is out of the #bootstrapping mindset #fulfillingpotential #hepmil #oobmil

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I’m thrilled to share Earthshot Ventures most recent investment, Unlimited Industries! Unlimited is an AI-native construction company that both designs and builds. Its platform can generate and evaluate hundreds of thousands of design configurations in parallel, automatically identifying optimal layouts for cost, safety, and performance before construction begins. Why did we invest? Solving a real need we know well: Over the last decade, we have worked with hundreds of companies that are ready to deploy their technology, but struggle with slow construction timelines and cost overruns. Unlimited makes it feasible for emerging infrastructure companies to bring projects to life reliably and efficiently. Massive market potential: The EPC market is ~$800B. While this entire market is not addressable from day one, early adopters will pave the way for the mass market, enabling massive possible scale over time. Exceptional team: The company is led by Alex Modon, a repeat founder and multidisciplinary engineer. To accelerate the company, Alex teamed up with Tara Viswanathan and Jordan Stern, who previously built and scaled Rupa Health as the founder/CEO and first teammate respectively, from zero to millions in revenue before its successful nine figure acquisition in 2024. Software is eating the world, and AI will eat engineering: Software engineering is increasingly being augmented and automated by AI, aided by large repositories of coding data like Github. Other engineering disciplines will be transformed over time as analogous data sets are compiled and software encodes the operating principles of the real world. Companies that can create proprietary datasets, like Unlimited’s burgeoning catalogue of projects, will gain defensibility through data moats. Lastly, since a good portion of my network here consists of founders who could be customers of Unlimited and their investors, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say - hit me up if you’d like to connect with Unlimited to deliver your next project on time, on budget! Welcome to the Earthshot portfolio, Unlimited!

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Big milestone for Firmable. We’ve raised $14m Series A led by Airtree. Sales has moved through a few big waves: intuition-led, CRM-led, data-led. We’re now entering the next one – intelligence-led sales. The opportunity isn’t just better data. It’s turning that data into clear direction and action, without adding more work for sales teams. That’s what we’re building at Firmable: a foundation of trusted external data, layered with intelligence that helps sellers know who to focus on and when. Led by Airtree, this round supports our expansion across Asia and into the US – and accelerates the build-out of AI agents that take the admin work off sales teams so they can focus on what they do best. Proud of the team, grateful to our customers and investors. We’re just getting started. Read the exclusive in the AFR. https://lnkd.in/gr66uknb Leigh Jasper | Tara Salmon | Karthik Venkatasubramanian| Chester Thompson| Chath Widanapathirana

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most interesting deals right now combine the defensibility of physicality (four walls, vertical integration, holding / moving / selling real things) with the velocity of tech, usually, but not always, ai. while its likely they wont trade at historical pure-play tech rev multiples, they can get to massive scale within tech timelines (<15 years) with minimal equity dilution (debt only past the seed or A)... so the math works out if you get in on the pre-seed. most importantly, they have actual defensibility-- a team of randos in india cannot vibe code physicality. 80% of deals I've done in the last couple years follow this pattern. I anticipate close to 100% in the future will. 

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It was a privilege to sit down with Lindsay Guzowski, the CEO of The Crucible. Her focus on the science of transformative leadership — and how it directly drives business outcomes — is both rigorous and timely. At Veteran Ventures Capital, we invest behind a simple belief: leadership is different than management, and it matters a lot. We’ve seen firsthand that U.S. veterans often bring distinctive strengths into the business arena — early responsibility, real accountability, comfortable while operating in uncertainty, and a deep commitment to the teams they lead. They are trained to make decisions with imperfect information, to take ownership of outcomes, and to put mission and people first. But the broader lesson isn’t about background — it’s about mindset. Transformative leadership is rooted in discipline, resilience, humility, and service. Those qualities can be forged in many environments. We happen to see them frequently in the veteran community, and we’re proud to back leaders who embody them. The world doesn’t need more managers of tasks — it needs leaders who elevate people, build trust, and create momentum where none existed before. Again, very grateful for the conversation and for the opportunity to keep learning alongside leaders who are serious about building enduring impact. #veterans #VVC #leadership #venture #innovation

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Boards are supposed to help founders. Over the past 19 years, I've watched many trap them instead. As companies scale, many boards turn from insight to oversight and stop doing what founders actually need: Help making big, hard decisions. Early boards tend to be small, the board members are close to the business and highly invested in it. They argue from first principles. They help founders think. Later-stage boards often look more impressive on paper - they have more independent directors, committees and process. Somewhere along the way, collective problem solving gets replaced with oversight. The board shifts from helping the CEO make better decisions to monitoring decisions that have already been made. Strategy discussions get safer, real debate gets rarer and meetings become more about risk management than judgment. This usually coincides with the introduction of more professional board members. For better or worse, they often optimize for governance, optics, and liability management. That’s their job. But it’s not always what the company needs in moments of real uncertainty. Then, CEOs stop using them as thought partners. That’s a problem. So what should founders do? A few principles that help: • Keep the board as small as you can for as long as you can • Add directors for new insight they bring, not what boxes they check • Treat board seats like senior hires, not trophies • Design meetings for debate rather than reporting • Be explicit about when you want input vs approval Good boards should improve decision-making. If your board isn’t making you think harder, it’s probably not doing its job.

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Shield Capital fund manager sit down with John Serafini, Founder & CEO of HawkEye 360 to discuss the journey of scaling a defense and space company, from early vision to profitability. They cover what truly matters in defense tech: - trust over hype, - capital discipline, - operating in complex national security environments, - and where real opportunities still exist. Shield Capital invests in the entrepreneurs building technologies in the four critical national security domains of: AI, Autonomy, Cybersecurity, and Space. A must-listen for founders, operators, and investors building at the intersection of commercial innovation and national security. #dual #deftech #spacetech #space #AI #cybersecurity

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