Exclusive: Discipulus Ventures closes $30M hard-tech fund

Exclusive: Discipulus Ventures closes $30M hard-tech fund

Discipulus Ventures, an early-stage investment firm led by 22-year-old Jakob Diepenbrock, closed a $30 million fund targeting startups in defense-tech, energy, mining, manufacturing and other critical industries.

Why it matters: The firm's all-American ethos drew Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong and other LPs.

Zoom in: Discipulus closed the fund in March, concluding a roughly three-month raise.

  • LPs include Canterbury Consulting, Slipstream Investors, FirstLook Partners, the Winkelvoss Twins, and Eventbrite founder Kevin Hartz.

    • State of play: The firm expects to make pre-seed and seed investments in about 80 startups, writing first checks of $175,000, and follow-ons of $500,000, Diepenbrock says.

  • It will back companies through its twice-yearly cohort program.

    • The big picture: Discipulus Ventures claims to be the first early-stage fund based in El Segundo, a hard-tech hotbed south of Los Angeles that has counted SpaceX and Radiant among its local startups.

    The intrigue: The firm embraces the themes of "American Dynamism" popularized by venture firms such as a16z and Founders Fund, citing "ideals like religion, patriotism, and family" as core to restoring U.S. innovation.

  • "You look at what Americans said were the most important things to them in the '60s versus what they say today, it was those three things," Diepenbrock tells Axios Pro, citing a 2023 WSJ poll.
  • "Since then those things have flipped. The core theme is that what we treasure as a country results in what we end up building."

    • Flashback: The fund follows Discipulus' debut $10 million vehicle, which backed about 40 companies, including materials developer 1AU Technologies and automated mining startup Durin.

    What's next: Diepenbrock, who plans to soon make his first full-time hire, will focus on laser-based defense tech, chemical manufacturing, and automated manufacturing.

  • "I'm less bullish on broad factory-as-a-service," he says, "It's a pretty big thing to build."