Varun Gupta
@varunabgupta
Followers
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GP at Caffeinated: @affirm @airtable @antaresnuclear @AvenCard @boomaero @brexhq @federato_ai @onebriefapp @playground_ai @saronic @vardaspace @virtahealth
Coral
Joined September 2020
Excited to see my friend @Vbob202, Dino, Rob, Doug, and the rest of the Saronic team undertake the Herculean effort of modernizing the United States Navy for the 21st century.
And huge congrats to @varunabgupta for sourcing and closing our Series A investment in @Saronic, $25m! Just DAY ONE here @caffeinatedcap 🙌🏻.
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“I love Palantir boys… I just want to go up to them and tell them how attractive they are.” - three girls on the LIRR, uttering words I never expected to hear in my life.
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Four years in, but just day one!
As of today, @varunabgupta has been Caffeinated for four years! And it's only just day one! Awesome human. Onwards and upwards! 🚀.
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We are looking for two full-time investors to join our early-stage team. Submissions due 4/30.
We are hiring two investors to join our early-stage team. Consider joining us. We'd love to hear from you. Onwards we go!.
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Back in the office for the first time since December 6, 2019. Feeling excited.
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Founders should be able to do equity swaps the way athletes do jersey swaps.
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Going to be in Miami all of next week (4/26-5/2) - whom should I meet? @tonsing @marcbhargava @dchhugani @zebulgar.
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Come partner with us! A few reflections on the past 16 months of investing $20M alongside @tonsing*:.
Let's do it again x2! USA & LatAm roles. Come PARTNER with me and invest $20M. Hello Miami 🌴.
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Heartbroken for Israel, and for Jews worldwide. I'm disgusted to see friends of mine post things like "Free Palestine" or "but, both sides" as their sole response to Hamas' indiscriminate terrorism in the last few days.
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I am hosting Dimi Kellari for a fireside chat on “What it takes to build next-generation infrastructure in America” on 2/28 in NYC. If you are building in or thinking about starting up in energy, mobility, waste, or water, this event is for you.
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Top AI investor: "SF is back.".Me: "What are your data points?".TAI: "Dude, don't ask me for evidence when you know it's a vibe.".
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To see the most powerful person in the world have "a moment of lucidity," choose against his own self-interest, and sacrifice himself, is truly humbling.
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“How is giving out money a job?” - McKinsey consultant, to me.
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The team and product the country needs *and* deserves right now. Congratulations, Saronic!.
Big news: We have raised $175M in Series B funding, putting Saronic’s valuation at $1B. Redefining maritime superiority requires the tech of tomorrow, with the resources of today - thanks to our investors, including @a16z, @8VC, @caffeinatedcap, @eladgil & @nightdragon we’re able
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And the man isn't even 30 yet. Cannot wait to see what you do next.
This is not how I expected news to get out, but yes: I am shutting down Countdown. We've delivered strong performance, but I believe the future of this space favors larger firms than mine. I don't know what the future holds for me yet, but I look forward to sharing once ready.
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This h1b debate might be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on X.
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Go find a way to work with Saronic as they rebuild the United States Navy and help our partners and allies navigate the waters of the 21st century.
Go big, go long! Let's go @Saronic 🚀."We're going to rebuild the Navy from the ground up".
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Great time with the team.
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Very big deal + great for America.
The @usairforce has selected Anduril to design, manufacture, and test production-representative Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). In this era of great power competition, there is no time to waste on business as usual. We look forward to delivering CCAs on schedule, within
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ITT: a bunch of old guys (yes, guys) with asymmetric decision-making, hiring, and comp authority blaming young investors for the bubble.
Friend in venture: “I think half of the mania in venture growth is explained by young deal makers who want to just jam shit in the portfolio and make a name for themselves. There’s a nice good business that’s single digit ARR, 3x’ing this year, and ahead of plan. But.
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Go find a way to work with @Jai__Malik!.
Some news: incredibly excited to announce that we’ve raised our second fund of $15M @CountdownVC to continue investing in founders rebuilding the American industrial base at the earliest stages. 🚀🇺🇸.
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Sounds about right.
@thomasschulzz Wtf is caffeinated capital. Sounds like a low time frame gambling fund lmao.
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I've tweeted it before, I'll tweet it again - go work at Settle and with some of my favorite colleagues from Affirm, including @AlekKoenig (CEO) and Shane Moriah (CTO). I hear @rahulkartgupta is pretty solid at engineering, too.
9/ So come join us! We're remote first but have offices in SF, NYC, and Lviv. Job posting here:
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@tonsing is a beast and dragged my ass to the top. Not pictured: @mattvolosin, who also made it.
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Starting today, you can leverage Polywork's metadata to search for Twitter profiles that meet certain criteria (e.g. ("product manager" or "contributed to open source" or "open to angel investing in startups").
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Lfg, congratulations @zebulgar, @WillBruey, and the whole Varda team!.
holy fucking shit we did it. it took 1,128 days but we did it. and we're going to do it again and again. and establish the first industrial celestial empire.
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Ganymede - the largest moon of Jupiter, and now the best way to set up your life sciences or manufacturing shop. Proud to support Nathan, Benson, and the Ganymede team.
We're proud to announce our Series A lead by @caffeinatedcap! Our Lab-as-Code harmonized data platform and lab instrument integration system are transforming biotech, pharma, chemicals, and broader manufacturing. Read more here:
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Just finished reading Fellowship of the Ring, and this line stuck with me:. "The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.".
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Join Saronic, DM me.
Excited to share that Saronic is expanding its headquarters in #Austin, TX to support the rapid development, production, & manufacturing of its growing family of ASVs! We also expect to add 100+ new roles throughout 2024. Learn more:
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What are the enterprise software companies out there that have invested tons of R&D into not just their product, but also into the operations and internal tools by which they conduct data integrations and deploy solutions at scale? And what are some of those investments?.
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Incredible crew.
Proud to be a tiny part of the critically important collaboration between tech and government 🤝. Thank you @jacobhelberg and @zebulgar for organizing yet another successful Hill & Valley forum 🇺🇸
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Amazing event - thanks organizing and having us! Hats off to @jacobhelberg, @CGarrett_15, and @zebulgar for bringing the technology and national security crowds together.
Last night @CGarrett_15 @zebulgar & I hosted a much needed private bipartisan gathering on tech & national security . w @SenatorMenendez, @JohnCornyn, @RepMcCaul, @SenRickScott, @RepJimBanks, @SenBobCasey, @RepGallagher, and @SenatorHagerty . to bridge the Hill / Valley divide
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Hard valuable fun. Hiring for roles across the board!.
Varda has been awarded a $60m Air Force STRATFI contract to advance our nation’s hypersonic capabilities. The Air Force will utilize our re-entry vehicle as a hypersonic test-bed while flying back to Earth after microgravity production
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“It will never cease to amaze me how much things slow down at big companies in December.” - CC founder.
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Founders, employees, alumni of CC portfolio companies… learn more and apply here, DM me for details/questions.
Come partner with us while keeping your day job, build your investment track record, and help your friends succeed faster! More info here:
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Usually I like to write a thread about why we're so excited about an opportunity, but in this case, there’s no way I could articulate it better than Charlie has already, so just read his launch thread.
I've started a company, Astral, to continue building high-performance developer tools for the Python ecosystem. We're going to keep building Ruff, and build more Ruff-like things. We've raised a seed round led by @Accel. I'm extremely excited :).
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Being a scout was the best and most challenging job I've ever had, and I am fortunate to be able to stay at Caffeinated and pay it forward. Over the next two years, Ray and I will take responsibility for your success and ensure it is the most rewarding role you have.
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Related: work with people who want you to do great work. You can tell if they want you to do great work if they know what great work looks like, help you do it, economically incentivize you to do it, and tell you when you're not doing it.
Cogent, comprehensive, and a call to action.
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Write your own personal history, website, and Wikipedia page. What are you proud of? What did you learn from? Whom did you work with? Whom do you think you are?. Check out @PolyworkHQ.
I've made 40+ angel investments over the last two and a half years. Finally put together a page (using a new seed investment @PolyworkHQ!) to share a few of the public ones:. Also cool to be using a professional social network on a domain I control. :).
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Also, shout out to @dinobecirovic, who was the first investor I ever met (back in Feb 2020), and who joined Aven after leaving investing. One of the smartest people I know.
Hello world! We’re excited to share that we've saved $100M in interest for our customers since inception - and have recently raised our Series D round.
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@brunoswerneck @ohadsamet Obvious:.servicing (@PeachFinance).collections (@trueaccord). Less obvious: .capital markets (Finley CMS).returns / refunds (@Returnly, many others).data sharing / furnishing (@bloomcredit, @springlabs). Probably missing other things.
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Robinhood was not the first company to claim to “democratize finance” and then seemingly contradict themselves, nor will they be the last. Democratization and decentralization are processes, not values. Processes may not be able to solve for a lack of values (like transparency).
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🤞🏽.
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I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new email. Happy Friday! (time to watch Obi-Wan Kenobi)
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Let him COOK.
So we (@ImpulseLabs_ ) made the highest performing . stove. - 3x the performance of induction and ~5x gas (equiv. of ~72,000 BTU/h!). - A nontrivial advance in temperature sensing, transforming cooking. - And it ships this year (taking deposits starting . today).
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BREAKING: The Navy released a fact sheet late Tuesday showing that every major shipbuilding program they're working on is delayed by years. YEARS. It's jaw-dropping.
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hard, valuable, and boring.
This might be the least sexy Not Boring essay ever. @ohadsamet & @trueaccord like it that way. Over 8 years, it's quietly built a fintech juggernaut that's helping people get, and stay, out of debt. Now, it's partnering w fintechs to rethink the system.
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I started at Caffeinated in this role in 2020. With immense help from Ray and the Caffeinated ecosystem, I cultivated my network, invested in 25+ startups alongside smart investors, and have begun (I think!) to learn what makes exceptional founders tick.
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Hits different when the Turkish passport control guy pronounces your name like any Indian uncle would on the first try.
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Just super happy for all the folks who made @Affirm their life's work to make consumer credit better, starting with @mlevchin.
@julienchien public s-1 here:
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Not just the modern financial world. The modern defense, therapeutics, semicondictor, operations, and IT worlds are only a few decades old.
401ks were invented 46 years ago. Roth IRAs: 26 yrs ago. Index Funds ~ 50 years ago . Hedge funds ~ 25 years. Unredeemable fiat 53 years. The modern financial world is not ancient and inevitable. It’s actually quite young. Things changed. And they can change again.
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🔥.In founding Neros, we began with immense drone experience (in fact, both of us started building tech by age ten, and originally met as some of the few teens at early drone races.”.
Thrilled to officially announce a $10.9M pre-seed (@cantos) + seed (@sequoia) for @neros_tech! . More about what we’re up to 👇
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LET'S GET IT.
Today, Boom announced the successful flight of XB-1, the world's first independently developed supersonic jet, at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, California. Flown by Chief Test Pilot Bill "Doc" Shoemaker, XB-1's inaugural flight marks a major milestone toward the return
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Seems like an incredible opportunity to learn from the best.
I am seeking an apprentice. Requirements are:. •High IQ, high EQ.•Love for tech and capitalism.•High agency and low ego.•Taste.•Discretion.•A working cringe detector.•Instinct for narrative.•Strong writing ability.•Risk tolerance.•Immaculate vibes.•High-functioning.
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This is a bfd. Congrats on the milestone, @billythalheimer and @regentcraft!.
I’m excited to announce that REGENT has taken flight! 🛫. We combined the benefits from ground effect flight, distributed electric propulsion, and hydrofoiling into a single platform: the seaglider. Which will massively improve convenience & affordability of regional travel. 🧵👇
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This was a surreal moment.
MAGA-tinged? I think the word they’re looking for is BIPARTISAN.
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Best cards business (and beyond) on the planet. Proof that exceptional teams and deep software can drive the cost of capital down dramatically. Congratulations, Sadi and team!.
Hello world! We’re excited to share that we've saved $100M in interest for our customers since inception - and have recently raised our Series D round.
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“Running head-first at a big, hairy, no-good, nasty problem.”
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Young guy on the NYC subway, yelling at nobody in particular at 11pm: "You know the transit system in Japan? It’s 1000x better than this shit.". Old guy next to me, dressed like a pimp, whispers to me: "He's on the shit.".
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solution: get caffienated.
No matter how much I try, can't spell avaliable and seperately right on the first try. anyone else? 🤷♀️.
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Worth checking out.
Our site was overdue for a fresh coat of paint. excited to highlight a broader set of companies and share a bit more on how we work @haystackvc @semil @DivyaDhulipala .
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Is there a Superhuman for texts / iMessage? Looking for a way to filter for messages to which I haven't yet responded. .
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Something about taking a train into Westchester for Thanksgiving and discovering East Coast fall colors for the first time… Happy Thanksgiving! Logging off -.
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“Why are you walking so slow? We’re in New York, you need to walk faster.” - 6’3” nanny to a 2’10” toddler waddling on a sidewalk in Chelsea.
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Herculean effort by @willR_leopold and William Steenbergen to digitize P&C underwriting with modern architecture, enabling underwriters to save time and insurers to leverage first-party and third-party insights for making better decisions.
Federato is proud to announce that it has raised $15M in Series A funding, led by @emergencecap, the investors behind Salesforce, Zoom, Veeva, Box and other SaaS leaders, with participation from @caffeinatedcap and @pearvc. Read the full announcement:
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Thank you @Dimkell and all who attended!.
Next-gen infrastructure chat last nite in NYC. Thanks Dimi. @cavnue is very ambitious! @varunabgupta did an exceptional job hosting.
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Randomly met someone whose grandparents lived in Delhi, just like my grandparents. Turns out… his grandparents lived above my grandparents (based on unit numbers). Unfortunately, we’ll never know if they knew each other, because they have all passed away in the last 3 years.
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The future is Gnome.
We're excited to announce that we're changing our name to Gnome Medicine!.1/2
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So good. Tl;dr: what game are you playing, and do you have enough advantages to win the current game and enough taste to plan for the next one?.
I first read this about ~5 years ago. I come back to it often. He largely describes the evolution in market structure of public equities (passive index inflows, rise of quant / pods), but there are obvious parallels to private tech investing (capital velocity, 'megas and.
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