Jordan Noone - Rockets and Venture Capital!
The Business Brew
I Think the Worst Is Yet to Come
"We need that as a country for us to get through this century. We need that national security investment, and we're not going to get it," he says. "I think there's no reason to think this is the worst of it on come."
Jordan Noone stops by The Business Brew to discuss his experience founding Embedded Ventures and Relativity Space. At the age of just 22 years old Jordan co-founded Relativity Space, which 3D prints rockets! Yes, rockets. See https://www.relativityspace.com/.
Following his time at Relativity Space, Jordan co-founded Embedded Ventures, a venture capital firm. Embedded has an interesting goal of using "clean capital" to enhance the security of the US while generating investor returns. See below for the official bios on both of Jordan's companies.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
ABOUT EMBEDDED VENTURES - See https://www.embedded.ventures/ - Launched in 2020, Embedded Ventures is a next generation venture capital firm investing in dual-use space startups beyond launch. Best described as “the skunkworks of Venture Capital” because of their unique investment approach and backgrounds, Embedded has a first-of-its-kind partnership with the United States Space Force. Co-Founders Jenna Bryant and Jordan Noone both have atypical industry experiences and strong passions for the communities they represent. The firm invests in the pre-seed and seed stage startups focused on space operations, digital engineering, and advanced manufacturing. To date, Embedded Ventures has announced investments in Chromatic 3D Materials, Inversion, KittyCAD, Slingshot Aerospace and Skyryse.
ABOUT JORDAN NOONE Jordan Noone is the Co-Founder, CTO, and General Partner at Embedded Ventures, the skunkworks of deep tech venture capital. Launched with his Co-Founder Jenna Bryant.
Jordan is Relativity’s Co-Founder and founding CTO - as of 2020, Relativity is the world’s second most valuable private space company. As Relativity's CTO, Jordan focused on technical direction and engineering design, including: developing printing technology, launch vehicle design, propulsion design, software development, infrastructure development, and government affairs. Jordan also led many Relativity initiatives including: expansion of Relativity’s Stargate Factory into the rest of aerospace manufacturing, Relativity’s strategy for expanding printing technology off-planet; and the ability of Relativity’s factory flexibly scale to a wide range of rocket sizes.
Jordan has had a lifelong interest in aerospace, including the design and build of spaceflight hardware at the age of 18 while at the University of Southern California, and becoming the first student and youngest individual in the world to get Federal Aviation Administration clearance to fly a rocket to space (150 kilometer altitude) while leading USC’s Rocket Propulsion Lab. In 2015 he started Relativity when 22 years old. He has been chosen for “30 Under 30” by Forbes, Business Insider, and Inc. Magazine.
He received a BS in Aerospace Engineering, and dropped out of a BS in Biophysics, both from University of Southern California. Outside of Relativity, Jordan is active in promoting STEM education worldwide with the US Department of State.
This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.
Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.
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Detailed Show Notes:
Open – Jordan’s background
7:25 – What down rounds do to everyone
9:20 - What it was like to start Relativity at 22 years old
17:00 - How to prove students can launch rockets without killing anyone
24:00 - The benefits of 3D printing for manufacturing
30:30 - How VCs, specifically Mark Cuban, helped Relativity
33:00 - What Embedded Ventures is doing, and why
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