👋 Hello friends,

Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 16 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.

Before we begin: The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves arrives in your inbox every Saturday, a concise and casual digest of current events, optimistic news stories, and other interesting tidbits about venture capital, economics, space, energy, intellectual property, philosophy, and beyond. I write as a curious explorer rather than an expert, and I value your insights and perspectives on each subject.

Time to Read: 5 minutes.

Let’s dive in!

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#1: Loft Orbital

Description: Loft Orbital is a developer of space infrastructure and satellite platforms.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Loft Orbital recently raised $170M in venture capital funding. They have developed a standardized satellite platform that can be used to fly any mission. By removing the non-recurring engineering present in many space missions, the speed-to-orbit of their ventures is much quicker than most of the current solutions on the market.

#2: Harbinger

Description: Harbinger is a company that is developing commercial electric vehicles.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Harbinger recently raised $100M in venture capital funding. Their modular “stripped chassis” is built to support all of the popular medium-duty body types on the market, including commercial walk-in vans, recreational vehicles, box trucks, and more. By having the same base, their technology can easily standardize commercial vehicle electrification and manufacturing.

#3: Stoke Space

Description: Stoke Space is developing the world’s first fully reusable rocket.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Stoke Space recently raised $260M in venture capital funding. Their goal is ambitious: to create a rocket capable of being reused multiple times, without needing additional parts or replacements. They claim this would reduce the cost-to-orbit by 20x what it currently is. They’ve been prototyping and reiterating quickly to reach the market in the coming year or two.

#4: Amogy

Description: Amogy is a developer of ammonia-fueled power generators.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Amogy recently raised $56M in venture capital funding. Four MIT alumni are trying to unlock ammonia’s potential as a clean energy source. Their cracking technology splits ammonia to generate electrical power while releasing no CO2. The focus of their efforts is on the heavy transportation and power generation industries.

Wall Street Journal: 2024 Was The Hottest Year

Based on data from 5 international climate organizations, 2024 was the hottest year on record, surpassing the threshold set by the Paris Agreement (1.5 degrees Celsius). The primary cause was the continued buildup of greenhouse gases.

NPR: Solar Panel Growth

Many residents who are interested in having solar on their homes are rushing to do it as many believe the incoming administration will repeal the 30% federal tax credit. This has led to a rush in people trying to install these panels during the winter months, heightening demand in this off-season.

Department of Energy: Wind Turbine Recycling

A new DOE report found the current infrastructure in the United States is capable of recycling 90% of the waste from decommissioned wind turbines. Achieving a fully sustainable domestic wind energy industry is easily within reach. As this was one of the main downsides associated with wind energy, the narrative is slowly changing as people begin to understand that these turbines are capable of being recycled efficiently.

Energy Digital: Top 10 Solar Advances To Date

Solar technology has expanded tremendously in the types of situations it can be applied to. For instance, engineers at Mercedes Benz have been prototyping solar-infused paint, capable of coating your car (and other objects) and generating electricity—all without having to worry about complex panels. Other advances have included space-based solar, floating solar, in-roof solar, and much more.

New York Times: More Americans, Risking Ruin, Drop Their Home Insurance

“Homeowners in places most exposed to climate disasters are increasingly giving up on paying their insurance premiums.” Home insurance is more expensive and harder to hang on to than ever before. Yet climate disasters continue to threaten people’s most valuable assets. Households are not able to bear the burden alone, so some solution is necessary.

New York Times: Debris Rains From Space After SpaceX’s Starship Is Lost In Flight

The 7th test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket failed as the vehicle’s upper stage experienced a malfunction mid-flight. It rained down debris in the atmosphere (gorgeous videos, would recommend). However, they were able to repeat the feat of catching the booster back at the launchpad with the chopstick method, a small upside.

New York Times: Roar of New Glenn’s Engines Silences Skeptics of Bezos’ Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, has sent its first rocket into orbit. This launch was a major success as these New Glenn rockets could prove a credible competitor to SpaceX, potentially winning contracts from NASA and the DoD.

Pitchbook: Female Founders Took Smallest Share of VC Deals in 5 Years

Since 2020, the share of total venture capital deal value for startups with at least one female founder had been increasing, but that changed in 2024, with a sharp decrease back to normalized ranges. In early-startup financing, there’s a smaller disparity between female and male founding teams. Many hope this is just an anomaly.

Pitchbook: Startups Failing to Go Public

Companies valued at $500M+ are sitting in portfolios more than ever before, with 2024 doubling 2020 numbers. The median time between funding rounds (Seed, Series A-D+) has also increased, showing firms are waiting longer to raise more money. The big 2024 IPOs have performed decently well, so investors are a little unsure why market characteristics are how they are today.

Daily Observer: Why Intellectual Property Protection Is Key To Business Growth

Businesses that value intellectual property protections scale up more easily compared to those that do not. Without IP protection, competitors can easily replicate a business’s key component(s) without fear of repercussion.

Not Boring: Eight Sleep

Humans are becoming more mindful of the power of sleep. As such, many companies have tried to improve and measure the quality of your sleep. Eight Sleep is the leader in this field, once a consumer hardware company (think smart bedding being consumer hardware), and is now transitioning to be more of a predictive health technology company—focused on using the data they’ve captured to radically improve your sleep.

Something is better than nothing.

A quick clarification: this is not always the case—I’ll explain.

Consider you have a New Year’s resolution to work out 7 days a week. Say you struggle to do this the first month and decide to quit over the rest of the year because you can’t do 7 days a week.

My thought: something is better than nothing. 3 days a week, even 1 day every other week, is better than nothing.

Hopefully that makes sense.

This principle should probably only be applied to positive activities (e.g. working out, doing homework, doing service in your community). It doesn’t work for negative activities, where nothing in this case would be better than something.

Moral of the above chaos: when in doubt, even if you can’t accomplish everything you wanted to accomplish, trying to accomplish a part of it (something) is better than just doing nothing.

See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,

Drew Jackson

Twitter: @brainwavesdotme

Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this content are my own and do not represent the views of any of the companies I currently work for or have previously worked for. This content does not contain financial advice - it is for informational and educational purposes only. Investing contains risks and readers should conduct their own due diligence and/or consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Any sponsorship or endorsements are noted and do not affect any editorial content produced.