Today’s Pathfinder episode features Will Coffield, cofounder and General Partner of Riot Ventures. Riot has a proclivity for investing in early-stage companies with transformative tech ideologies dedicated to revolutionizing traditional industries. Today’s conversation also features the space and space-adjacent companies that Riot has invested in including True Anomaly, Integrate, and Azimuth.

In addition to Riot’s origin story, Mo and Will discuss:

Mapping real customer demand
Liquidity within deep tech
Categorizing space investing
Dual-use technology…is it a cover for defense investing?

And much more…

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 - Intro & SpiderOak Ad

02:31 - Will’s background

13:20 - Riot's investment strategy

17:06 - Seed investments

19:54 - Mapping real customer demand

22:07 - Liquidity in deep tech industries

25:52 - SpiderOak Ad

26:40 - How do you categorizing space investments?

34:21 - Is dual-use technology a cover up for defense investing?

38:09 - Integrate and Azimuth

42:58 - Crowding in the market

47:02 - Starship’s impact on the ecosystem

48:48 - Technologies Riot is excited about

49:54 - Outside of LA, where's the biggest space ecosystem?

• Show notes •

Riot's website — https://www.riot.vc/

Will's socials — https://twitter.com/WillC_5

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/)

Into a Riot, with Will Coffield (Riot Ventures)

Valley of Depth