For this week’s newsletter, I’m interviewing venture capital investor Sunil Nagaraj. Sunil is the founding partner of Ubiquity Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm he started in 2017. He previously was a Principal at Bessemer Venture Partners where he led early investments in space companies like Rocket Lab and Spire Global, as well as other unicorn companies including Zapier and Auth0. At Ubiquity, Sunil invests in “software beyond the screen” and his space investments include Loft Orbital and Muon Space. He also serves as President of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the oldest astronomy education and outreach organization in the world.
Great interview! In his final answer, Sunil mentions there's a little bit of synergy between advances in the commercial space industry and astronomical research, but they tend to be distinct worlds. Would love to learn more about this theme in future posts, if you're able to explore the overlap / synergies (or lack thereof) between these worlds.
Sorry I'm late to respond here! Would be happy to discuss this further in future posts, but I think the differences/overlaps can be best summed up in that commercial space is very industry driven and engineering centric whereas the world of astronomy tends to be very academic and scientific. Maybe the best overlap is in situations like the Hubble telescope where incredible engineering builds a novel tool that enables the scientific community to make great new discoveries. Although Hubble is not even a perfect analogy because it was developed by NASA, so it was a government space engineering project rather than a commercial one.
Great interview! In his final answer, Sunil mentions there's a little bit of synergy between advances in the commercial space industry and astronomical research, but they tend to be distinct worlds. Would love to learn more about this theme in future posts, if you're able to explore the overlap / synergies (or lack thereof) between these worlds.
Sorry I'm late to respond here! Would be happy to discuss this further in future posts, but I think the differences/overlaps can be best summed up in that commercial space is very industry driven and engineering centric whereas the world of astronomy tends to be very academic and scientific. Maybe the best overlap is in situations like the Hubble telescope where incredible engineering builds a novel tool that enables the scientific community to make great new discoveries. Although Hubble is not even a perfect analogy because it was developed by NASA, so it was a government space engineering project rather than a commercial one.
Best interview yet, great stuff!
Thank you Henry!