American innovation has seen better days, but we believe the U.S. is on the cusp of a new wave of foundational deep-tech innovation and will reassert itself as a global leader. We must, however, create better ways to finance this impactful deep tech innovation and the infrastructure and platforms necessary to commercialize this research.
History has proven that America can innovate and commercialize quickly to solve the world's most challenging problems when the times demands it. Starting with WWII, the U.S. invested heavily in the development of deep tech innovations, many of which the global infrastructure still relies on today. For example, technology created to help us locate German airplanes and guide torpedoes to their targets are the inventions that enable us to shop on our cell phones today.
This commitment to global leadership in deep tech innovation continued during the Cold War. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, however, we have taken our foot off the gas. We have failed to commit the resources necessary to drive deep tech innovation, instead focusing on investing in software companies. As a consequence, the U.S. (the world really) has been coasting on foundational innovations developed during WW2 and the Cold War.
This post-Cold War shift to investment in software companies is understandable. But the software companies of today -- built on the infrastructure and platforms the government built and invested in during the WWII and Cold War periods -- solve our simple problems, not society's biggest problems. The most complex technological challenges of climate change, healthcare, and meaningful human-machine interfaces and applications remain.
These challenges will be addressed by the development of new foundational technologies. But only if we invest in them – and mechanisms and infrastructure to get them to the commercial markets. A new type of investor is needed especially since the government and industry are not approaching investment in deep tech with the necessary urgency. These investments are attractive investments too, delivering ten times the returns of current day software investments.
Recognizing the importance of committing to deep tech innovation is essential to our survival as a nation and a species. And as such, Aventurine's mission is to support deep tech investments with a fund that is designed around the asset. Our focus is on technologies that can be applied across multiple industries to help America address current and future challenges, including robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, life sciences, platforms and systems, and energy. We are doing our part to invest in solutions to the world's most complex problems, but we can't accomplish it alone.
We aim to lead by example and encourage other investors to recognize the importance of deep tech and the commercialization of this critical research.
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