On Wednesday, West Coast venture capital fund MetaVC Partners announced its existence. The company, dually based in San Francisco and Seattle, has launched its first fund, targeting early-stage startups that use metamaterials technology (more on that below). Founded by industry veterans Chris Alliegro and Conrad Burke, the fund launches with seed investments from Microsoft Founder Bill Gates and former Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold, two early adherents of the metamaterials investment case.
Metamaterials are synthetically manufactured materials that are engineered to control and manipulate energy by exhibiting properties not found in naturally occurring materials. These materials have been used in high-performance, low-cost technologies in power transmission, imaging, wireless telecommunications, and sensors.
In addition to its seed capital lineage with Microsoft, one of the fund’s founders also comes by way of Redmond, Washington (so to speak). Alliegro, a Yale University PhD physicist, was formerly an executive at Microsoft, but spent eight years as managing director of the Invention Development Fund (IDF) and recently served as Manging Director of the Invention Science Fund.
Burke was founder and CEO of Innovalight, a developer of nanomaterials for renewable energy that was later acquired by DuPont. He also worked as a venture partner at Sevin Rosen Funds.
“Thanks to the backing of Bill and Nathan, the field of metamaterials has morphed from almost pure science to a viable commercial industry over the past 10 years. But we have just scratched the surface,” said Dr. Alliegro. “Over the next 10 years, we will see an explosion of opportunities using metamaterials in computing, renewable energy, communications, medical imaging, and many other areas.”
The company’s portfolio currently holds two companies. The first is Mangata Networks, an Arizona company developing satellite-enabled telecommunication and edge computing products for maritime, aerospace, energy, 5G and IoT applications. Earlier this spring, Mangata announced plans to open an R&D location in Edinburgh, Scotland, with support from Scotland’s national economic development agency, an announcement that is expected to support Scotland’s rapidly emerging space economy. MetaVC is also invested in Neurophos, which develops light-speed processing computing products based on optical neuromorphic technology.
