Infinite Adventures
In the last quarter, OSV made two major investments in technologies we believe will transform the way we move and create. Those investments were in Atomos Space and Wand.App
The investment in Atomos Space was driven by our belief in the burgeoning space economy, which is not only already here but also progressively reshaping our world for the better. We seized the opportunity to partner with the Atomos team, supporting their visionary endeavor to enhance mobility in space. Simultaneously, our investment in Wand resonated profoundly with OSV’s core values, as the company empowers creators to realize their full potential by harnessing the power of AI. Both investments underscore our commitment to backing innovative teams and technologies that align with our forward-thinking ethos.
Atomos Space
Atomos aims to enable more commercial companies to operate in space dynamically and sustainably. Whether placing new satellites in their operating orbit or moving old satellites to new missions, Atomos is committed to making space more mobile.
A key aspect of Atomos’ space-resident OTVs is their ability to rendezvous with and dock to client satellites in orbit. Atomos will demonstrate this critical capability in the first mission, which launches in January 2024.
Atomos will launch its first demonstration mission on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 as the company looks to gain an early foothold in the emerging market for orbital transfer services.
The five-year-old company will send up two spacecraft, an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) called Quark and a target vehicle, Gluon. After separating from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Quark will attempt to autonomously rendezvous and dock with Gluon, and then refuel from the target vehicle. During the mission, the two spacecraft will attempt to demonstrate additional maneuvers, including release, re-docking and orbital transfer.
These maneuvers are extremely technically challenging but could be a game-changer for the economics of operating spacecraft on-orbit, Atomos co-founder and CEO Vanessa Clark said in a recent interview.
“Being able to rendezvous with spacecraft in this manner is like our SpaceX-landing-the-Falcon-9-first-stage moment,” she said. “It changes the equation in terms of cost for in-space transportation and mobility, and the services that we can provide.”
Atomos, which has raised over $26 million since its founding, is taking a slightly different approach to in-space transportation than some of its competitors, Clark said. As opposed to launching expendable OTVs as kick stages, Atomos’ approach is to use “space resident” OTVs that are already in orbit, ready to move satellites around. Designing a reusable spacecraft that rendezvous with payload on orbit also drives the cost down for both Atomos and their customers, Clark said: The customer can maximize launch costs by putting more mass in the rocket payload fairing.
Wand.App
Wand is a collaborative, AI-powered creative tool that gives artists the hands-on control and personalization they need to bring their ideas to life. Unlike most AI tools, which emphasize text prompting, Wand emphasizes visual illustration to guide models like Stable Diffusion.
The other key ingredient in Wand’s UX is personalization: artists can upload a handful of images from their portfolio to create a custom, fine-tuned AI that understands their style, and add it to their growing private collection.
As for the new funding, Wand plans to use it to build out collaborative team features, along with new creative tooling that will extend to desktop. Wand is also doing research on improving foundation model architectures and fine-tuning techniques.
Pushing Boundaries - From Artificial Intelligence To Supercharge Creators, To Transporting Satellites Into Orbit
The funding round included participation from Betaworks, Charge Ventures, Long Journey, Notation Capital, Twelve Below and BDMI. Angel investors include Amy Wu, Eden Chen, Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci.
In terms of the future, Wand is interested in exploring methods for artists to share or sell models they’ve fine-tuned on their work. Given the controversy around large foundation models being trained by scraping the web and including the work of artists who did not consent to their work being used, Wand believes that a feature like this would be a starting point for artists to be recognized and compensated for their work.
However, Wand is not rushing into building such a feature just yet, because it wants to ensure that the marketplace is able to prevent malicious actors who would either try to steal the work of others or share harmful content.
Wand is also interested in exploring applications to 3D modeling, as the company believes that there will come a point in which one can design something in 2D and have an AI automatically turn it into a 3D model. Wand is confident it will become the perfect medium for this because its existing toolset could naturally extend to 3D.
Infinite Adventures
In the last quarter, OSV made two major investments in technologies we believe will transform the way we move and create. Those investments were in Atomos Space and Wand.App
The investment in Atomos Space was driven by our belief in the burgeoning space economy, which is not only already here but also progressively reshaping our world for the better. We seized the opportunity to partner with the Atomos team, supporting their visionary endeavor to enhance mobility in space. Simultaneously, our investment in Wand resonated profoundly with OSV’s core values, as the company empowers creators to realize their full potential by harnessing the power of AI. Both investments underscore our commitment to backing innovative teams and technologies that align with our forward-thinking ethos.
Atomos Space
Atomos aims to enable more commercial companies to operate in space dynamically and sustainably. Whether placing new satellites in their operating orbit or moving old satellites to new missions, Atomos is committed to making space more mobile.
A key aspect of Atomos’ space-resident OTVs is their ability to rendezvous with and dock to client satellites in orbit. Atomos will demonstrate this critical capability in the first mission, which launches in January 2024.
Atomos will launch its first demonstration mission on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 as the company looks to gain an early foothold in the emerging market for orbital transfer services.
The five-year-old company will send up two spacecraft, an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) called Quark and a target vehicle, Gluon. After separating from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Quark will attempt to autonomously rendezvous and dock with Gluon, and then refuel from the target vehicle. During the mission, the two spacecraft will attempt to demonstrate additional maneuvers, including release, re-docking and orbital transfer.
These maneuvers are extremely technically challenging but could be a game-changer for the economics of operating spacecraft on-orbit, Atomos co-founder and CEO Vanessa Clark said in a recent interview.
“Being able to rendezvous with spacecraft in this manner is like our SpaceX-landing-the-Falcon-9-first-stage moment,” she said. “It changes the equation in terms of cost for in-space transportation and mobility, and the services that we can provide.”
Atomos, which has raised over $26 million since its founding, is taking a slightly different approach to in-space transportation than some of its competitors, Clark said. As opposed to launching expendable OTVs as kick stages, Atomos’ approach is to use “space resident” OTVs that are already in orbit, ready to move satellites around. Designing a reusable spacecraft that rendezvous with payload on orbit also drives the cost down for both Atomos and their customers, Clark said: The customer can maximize launch costs by putting more mass in the rocket payload fairing.
Wand.App
Wand is a collaborative, AI-powered creative tool that gives artists the hands-on control and personalization they need to bring their ideas to life. Unlike most AI tools, which emphasize text prompting, Wand emphasizes visual illustration to guide models like Stable Diffusion.
The other key ingredient in Wand’s UX is personalization: artists can upload a handful of images from their portfolio to create a custom, fine-tuned AI that understands their style, and add it to their growing private collection.
As for the new funding, Wand plans to use it to build out collaborative team features, along with new creative tooling that will extend to desktop. Wand is also doing research on improving foundation model architectures and fine-tuning techniques.
Pushing Boundaries - From Artificial Intelligence To Supercharge Creators, To Transporting Satellites Into Orbit
The funding round included participation from Betaworks, Charge Ventures, Long Journey, Notation Capital, Twelve Below and BDMI. Angel investors include Amy Wu, Eden Chen, Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci.
In terms of the future, Wand is interested in exploring methods for artists to share or sell models they’ve fine-tuned on their work. Given the controversy around large foundation models being trained by scraping the web and including the work of artists who did not consent to their work being used, Wand believes that a feature like this would be a starting point for artists to be recognized and compensated for their work.
However, Wand is not rushing into building such a feature just yet, because it wants to ensure that the marketplace is able to prevent malicious actors who would either try to steal the work of others or share harmful content.
Wand is also interested in exploring applications to 3D modeling, as the company believes that there will come a point in which one can design something in 2D and have an AI automatically turn it into a 3D model. Wand is confident it will become the perfect medium for this because its existing toolset could naturally extend to 3D.
Max Reisner is a hardware engineer with a focus on electromechanical systems and a passion for the environment. He will use his grant to continue developing adaptable battery systems to simplify the process of incorporating renewable energy storage into products for small teams.
Justh is a singer-songwriter creating original Hindi songs with poetic lyricism as their backbone. He will use his grant to write new music and complete production work on his existing songs.
Akhil Tolani’s work focuses on building products that use experimental technologies like artificial intelligence for the mainstream audience. He will use his grant to continue working on CassetteAI, which fuses generative AI with music to democratize music creation, allowing everyone to create and listen to music they love based on their preferences.
Jack Oswald is a rocket propulsion engineer and entrepreneur dedicated to a human future in space. His startup aims to develop powerful electric propulsion on-orbit to make reusable spacecraft and enable Moon and Mars missions that aren’t feasible today. Oswald will contribute his grant to the proof-of-concept test of this technology.
Ben Reinhardt is the founder of Speculative Technologies, a new kind of research organization working to unlock materials and manufacturing technologies. Reinhardt will use his grant to continue building Speculative Technologies.
Infinite Adventures
In the last quarter, OSV made two major investments in technologies we believe will transform the way we move and create. Those investments were in Atomos Space and Wand.App
The investment in Atomos Space was driven by our belief in the burgeoning space economy, which is not only already here but also progressively reshaping our world for the better. We seized the opportunity to partner with the Atomos team, supporting their visionary endeavor to enhance mobility in space. Simultaneously, our investment in Wand resonated profoundly with OSV’s core values, as the company empowers creators to realize their full potential by harnessing the power of AI. Both investments underscore our commitment to backing innovative teams and technologies that align with our forward-thinking ethos.
Atomos Space
Atomos aims to enable more commercial companies to operate in space dynamically and sustainably. Whether placing new satellites in their operating orbit or moving old satellites to new missions, Atomos is committed to making space more mobile.
A key aspect of Atomos’ space-resident OTVs is their ability to rendezvous with and dock to client satellites in orbit. Atomos will demonstrate this critical capability in the first mission, which launches in January 2024.
Atomos will launch its first demonstration mission on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 as the company looks to gain an early foothold in the emerging market for orbital transfer services.
The five-year-old company will send up two spacecraft, an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) called Quark and a target vehicle, Gluon. After separating from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Quark will attempt to autonomously rendezvous and dock with Gluon, and then refuel from the target vehicle. During the mission, the two spacecraft will attempt to demonstrate additional maneuvers, including release, re-docking and orbital transfer.
These maneuvers are extremely technically challenging but could be a game-changer for the economics of operating spacecraft on-orbit, Atomos co-founder and CEO Vanessa Clark said in a recent interview.
“Being able to rendezvous with spacecraft in this manner is like our SpaceX-landing-the-Falcon-9-first-stage moment,” she said. “It changes the equation in terms of cost for in-space transportation and mobility, and the services that we can provide.”
Atomos, which has raised over $26 million since its founding, is taking a slightly different approach to in-space transportation than some of its competitors, Clark said. As opposed to launching expendable OTVs as kick stages, Atomos’ approach is to use “space resident” OTVs that are already in orbit, ready to move satellites around. Designing a reusable spacecraft that rendezvous with payload on orbit also drives the cost down for both Atomos and their customers, Clark said: The customer can maximize launch costs by putting more mass in the rocket payload fairing.
Wand.App
Wand is a collaborative, AI-powered creative tool that gives artists the hands-on control and personalization they need to bring their ideas to life. Unlike most AI tools, which emphasize text prompting, Wand emphasizes visual illustration to guide models like Stable Diffusion.
The other key ingredient in Wand’s UX is personalization: artists can upload a handful of images from their portfolio to create a custom, fine-tuned AI that understands their style, and add it to their growing private collection.
As for the new funding, Wand plans to use it to build out collaborative team features, along with new creative tooling that will extend to desktop. Wand is also doing research on improving foundation model architectures and fine-tuning techniques.
Pushing Boundaries - From Artificial Intelligence To Supercharge Creators, To Transporting Satellites Into Orbit
The funding round included participation from Betaworks, Charge Ventures, Long Journey, Notation Capital, Twelve Below and BDMI. Angel investors include Amy Wu, Eden Chen, Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci.
In terms of the future, Wand is interested in exploring methods for artists to share or sell models they’ve fine-tuned on their work. Given the controversy around large foundation models being trained by scraping the web and including the work of artists who did not consent to their work being used, Wand believes that a feature like this would be a starting point for artists to be recognized and compensated for their work.
However, Wand is not rushing into building such a feature just yet, because it wants to ensure that the marketplace is able to prevent malicious actors who would either try to steal the work of others or share harmful content.
Wand is also interested in exploring applications to 3D modeling, as the company believes that there will come a point in which one can design something in 2D and have an AI automatically turn it into a 3D model. Wand is confident it will become the perfect medium for this because its existing toolset could naturally extend to 3D.
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