We have backlog of unicorns valued at $3.9 trillion 'ripe to go public', says Alumni Ventures' Rippy

? (?) 00:00.000

Oh, no, that that's true. So, let's let's let's bring in Laura Rippy of of Alumni Ventures. The number one ranked female early stage investor in the United States. Also, big investor in Grock, GROQ, which just had a non I guess a non-deal deal with Nvidia, but Exactly. And So

? (?) 00:18.920

welcome now you'll be by the way. Yes. Why thank you for being here. I appreciate it. You You got Blue Sky. You've got a number of other companies in your profile. Ragetti Computing, Quantum Computer. Um

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 00:28.000

Aura. Aura

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Ring. Yeah.

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 00:30.040

Yep, for a ring.

? (?) 00:31.080

Thank you. Whole

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 00:32.000

bunch of nuclear companies. I know you like energy.

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I want to get that nuclear yeah because that's that's my jam. Let's talk about it and just there's some of your companies. Congratulations, by the way, on some of these accolades. What are you seeing that others are missing?

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 00:44.480

Yeah. So, we see a lot in the early stage, right? So, about two-thirds of our work is seed in Series A. So, we start early. So, to give you an example, with Blue Sky, we were in starting at the Series A with uh Aura, Series A. Now, it's, you know, multi-billion-dollar company,

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 01:01.960

Impulse Space Series A, that's kind of the next SpaceX. We can talk about IPOs if you want. So, I think for us, we come in early. And we follow our alumni connections when we can, and we bring that to individual accredited investors.

? (?) 01:16.280

That's That's really what makes it different. The the veterans of the companies that you have founded or or worked with or worked out or whatever it might be. Um, the top of the show we had a pretty serious conversation about what would happen if Open AI were to stumble. What

? (?) 01:33.480

would happen to the entire AI data center ecosystem? If huge if Yeah. that were

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 01:40.000

to happen. Yeah, huge if. So, they're not alone, right? I mean, there are a lot of folks who are biting and scratching and crawling their way to compete against Open AI. So, I think if they stumble, there will be AquaHires. There will be other competitors and we've got a few,

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 01:58.160

you know, public companies like Google that is, you know, hungry for that market. So, I I I have I have no fear that there will be a problem. It would be a function of bit of a scrum, fight it all out. But you know, the Grock deal is part of the teas here where Aqua hires are

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 02:17.520

going to be a bigger part, bigger increasing part of what happens in this

? (?) 02:21.080

market, too. Great to have you here. Maiden voyage for you, but you'll be back no doubt. In 26, what are the emerging markets that the market's not paying enough attention to that you are.

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 02:31.040

Yeah, so in venture, we look, you know, head of the curve. We look sort of around the corners. So, defense innovation is enormous. You think of the public market bets on defense other than Palantir, you're really talking about the primes. But all of the innovation that's

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 02:46.880

happening, that is happening in the early stage, and it's accessible for individual credit investors who want to go into venture, but if folks aren't playing there, they won't see the impact of those companies for years. And say a second pocket is in space. So, I mentioned

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 03:01.440

Impulse Space. This is a company that's probably the next SpaceX. It's now only a few billion dollars in valuation, but man, that has grown like a rocket ship on the private side. No pun. Yeah, pun.

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Pun was fully intended. Fully.

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 03:15.120

Man, you guys are Well, let me answer this though.

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Yeah On the defense stuff and again, like you say, it's been really hot. Androll is probably the poster child for that, right? In the private side. In the private side. When you think about the reliance of some of these hardware manufacturers, right? Whether it comes to drones

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on China. Yeah. for the parts, the authentic. All this stuff that goes into them, they're all in China. They make like 85% of them. Does that worry I know you're very early seed Yeah. in the egg So it's so strategic

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 03:41.000

for the US. Do you know China, Ukraine, Russia, all produce 2 million drones a year. Do you know how much we produce? Want to take any

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guesses? Less.

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God, I'm so glad I sit next to I you. do

? (?) 03:54.400

How many? See that's Yes. some mapping right there That's Elliott just want to be around the whole Around the whole anybody getting It's like hundreds of thousands.

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 04:01.280

It's like no. Yeah. 25,000. 25,000. 25,000. 25,000 We said we said 25,000 to Ukraine. Yeah. No. So we are behind the curve. So think about the innovation that's happening. One of our companies is Firestorm. They do basically manufacturing at the edge. So they can make those

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 04:22.600

drones at the edge of the fighting uh conflict. And those are the kinds of things where we bring the brilliance of American innovation and we bring it to bear with back in the defense industry.

? (?) 04:32.080

So, I want to ask you about the evolution of VC investing. It used to be you do I don't know CD round, maybe then try to file, go public. That seems very different now. You have a lot of companies do it like Armis, the life cycle just did an L round that got taken out. There was

? (?) 04:45.520

never a stop on the IPO

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 04:48.120

sort of You're totally right. Yeah. In 2000, it took maybe five to eight years to go public. Now, it takes more on the order of 12 to 14. We have a backlog. There's $3.9 trillion dollars of value you in unicorns right now. 830 unicorns and half of those have been around for 9

Laura Rippy (Managing Partner) 05:05.640

plus years. Those are companies that are ripe to go public. They need