Why Haystack invested in Kubos

Our Investment in Kubos

Initial Encounters and Impression

After investing in Saildrone a year ago, I tweeted something late at night about meeting founders with “oceanic” ambitions.

A friend on Twitter (Jonathan Van) from Texas wrote back, emailed me, and said he’d put a bit of money in this company in Texas that had “oceanic” ambitions, but for space.

“Okay?” I thought to myself. He introduced me to Marshall Culpepper.

Exceptional Background and Dreamer Mentality

Marshall and I met for coffee in Palo Alto. I was blown away by the depth of his background — an early employee and major open source contributor at Appcelerator and Jboss, as well as a stint at Mozilla.

I knew one of his bosses and called him after, and he cited Marshall as one of the strongest technical contributors he’s ever worked with.

Then, Marshall was an early employee at Spire, a VC-backed satellite startup. Aside from his technical acumen, Marshall is also a dreamer about outer space.

So, then he went off to build a new, unique product: Kubos.

There’s no way I can credibly detail how uniquely awesome Kubos is, so please read Marshall’s take on it, in his own words.

Marshall and his team have been incredibly scrappy to date, having only raised a bit of money previously, and working out of Denton, Texas, far away from the west coast. Initially, I also passed on investing.

The Unique Appeal of Kubos

I met Marshall, and I liked him, but I didn’t fully understand the space (no pun intended… sort of), so I went off to investigate it.

I talked to a bunch of friends who were at space-related companies. I tried to see if some of the larger defense companies would use an open sourced platform like Kubos. Everyone was mostly cool to the idea.

Marshall was in Texas. I didn’t “get” the space. Might as well say “no” as politely as I could.

Marshall accepted the “no” like a professional and we continued to email, chat, and became friends. I had a good investor friend visiting the Bay Area, and we were talking about recent deals we’ve done, I remember lamenting to my friend that I am looking for a specific type of person as a founder/entrepreneur, and without realizing it at the time, I cited many of Marshall’s characteristics.

As I eventually told my friend about Kubos, he quipped back, surprised: “Wait — and you didn’t invest?”

Investing in Potential and People

I pinged Marshall and asked if he’d let me revisit.

I did a bit more work and realized there was potential white space both at larger non-space companies (for instance, could Microsoft one day have its own micro-sat constellation? yes) as well as for the newer satellite startups that were popping up around the world. We reconnected and I invested a bit into Kubos.

Marshall and the team have been a breeze to work with.

And recently, Marshall raised a proper seed round led by Tim Draper, who has some experience investing in space, and firms like GGV Capital, Draper Dragon, and Autochrome.

People will often ask me, “What sectors are you interested in?” or “What kind of deals are you looking for?” I struggle with answering those questions directly, because the real answer is slightly different — I am looking for, I am interested in finding people like Marshall, people who have cross-functional depth in their industries, people who aren’t too worried about dilution, who aren’t worried about what other startups are raising or doing, who are noodling on their craft on a lazy Saturday afternoon because they wouldn’t even know what else to do.

That is a decent description of Marshall, so if you know others like him, you know where to send them.

Conclusion

The investment in Kubos exemplifies the importance of recognizing exceptional talent and visionary thinking, even in unfamiliar sectors. Initially passing on the opportunity due to a lack of understanding in the space industry,

the investor’s willingness to reconsider and delve deeper into Marshall Culpepper’s background and Kubos’ potential highlights the value of maintaining open communication with founders.

This case demonstrates that sometimes the most promising investments are found in unexpected places and industries, driven by founders with unique expertise and unwavering passion.

Kubos’ success in securing a seed round from prominent investors validates the initial thesis of backing Marshall’s vision

 

 

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