Varda builds spacecraft that manufacture materials in low Earth orbit and return them to Earth. Its capsules support microgravity pharmaceutical development and materials processing, followed by controlled reentry and post-flight analysis of returned payloads.
Founders Fund
Activity from announced rounds
Founders Fund is a technology venture firm with partners working in engineering-led businesses across energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, transport, biotechnology and defence.
The partnership combines investing with direct company creation. Trae Stephens co-founded Anduril and serves as its executive chairman; Delian Asparouhov co-founded Varda Space Industries; Scott Nolan founded uranium-enrichment company General Matter. These roles put investors inside the work of building industrial and defence businesses.
Nolan’s investing focus includes engineering-driven startups in energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, transportation and biotechnology. Stephens brings experience developing products and expanding government business at Palantir, including in intelligence and defence.
- Rounds participated in
- 4
- Confirmed lead rounds
- 0 All roles disclosed
- New companies
- 3 First participation on record · 1 follow-on
- Funding in participating rounds
- $4.4B 3 disclosed · full round size, not this investor’s share
By stage
By primary sector
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Rounds
4 in this selectionAI infrastructure combining GPU cloud services, managed AI tools, large-scale data centers and modular AI factories for model developers and enterprises.
EnduroSat designs and manufactures modular, software-defined satellites and components, and provides mission services for commercial and institutional operators.
Cognition develops Devin, an autonomous software-engineering system, and the Windsurf AI code editor.