Every quarter, Lux Capital, a leading venture capital firm known for investing in hard science and deep tech startups, publishes their investor letter offering a unique opportunity to gain insight into the firm's investment thesis and strategy. The firm has been an early supporter of the space industry with early bets in companies like Relativity Space, Epsilon3, Impulse Space, Astranis, Kymeta, Varda, Planet, and Hadrian.

This week’s Pathfinder features a deep dive on the firm’s latest Q3 letter with General Partner Shahin Farshchi. In addition to Shahin’s own background, the conversation covers:

Lux’s fundraise success having recently closed Lux 8, a $1.15B venture fund
The firm’s investment thesis emphasizing the importance of non-consensus hypotheses
Geopolitical shifts and how they’re impacting long-term investing
The role of media and the importance of informative and nuanced reporting

And much more…

Lux's Q3 Investor Letter: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s5xiwjG9psi6xRQPsAcI-I7-g6k5Pe--/view

This episode is brought to you by SpiderOak, a US-based software company that builds space cybersecurity products and solutions for civilian, military, and commercial space operations. Learn more at https://spideroak.com/

• Chapters •

00:00 - Guest Intro & SpiderOak Ad

01:18 - The Lux 8 fundraise

02:33 - Shahin's background

06:38 - How was Lux started

10:10 - The firm’s structure

11:48 - A&D over the next decade

15:30 - Investment highlights

17:35 - Geopolitical shifts

19:57 - A look at American Dynamism

23:41 - Do you need to be a scientist to be a deep tech investor?

27:03 - A thesis-driven strategy

33:05 - Advice for emerging managers

39:11 - The role of media

42:33 - Starship launch predictions

43:17 - The second most valuable space company

• Show notes •

Lux's website — https://www.luxcapital.com/

Lux's socials — https://twitter.com/Lux_Capital

Shahin's socials — https://twitter.com/Farshchi

Mo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam

Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace

Pathfinder archive — Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@payloadspace Pathfinder archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/episodes

• About us •

Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand built from the ground up for a new age of space exploration and commercialization. We deliver need-to-know news and insights daily to 15,000+ commercial, civil, and military space leaders. Payload is read by decision-makers at every leading new space company, along with c-suite leaders at all of the aerospace & defense primes. We’re also read on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and at space agencies around the world. Payload began as a weekly email sent to a few friends and coworkers.

Today, we’re a team distributed across four time zones and two continents, publishing three media properties across multiple platforms: 1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, sends M-F @ 9am Eastern (https://newsletter.payloadspace.com/) 2) Pathfinder publishes weekly on Tuesday mornings (pod.payloadspace.com) 3) Polaris, our weekly policy publication, hits inboxes Tuesday (https://polaris.payloadspace.com/) 4) Parallax, our weekly space science briefing, hits inboxes Thursday (https://parallax.payloadspace.com/)

Futureforming the World, with Shahin Farshchi (Lux Capital)

Valley of Depth