Stacks, Space, & Scale

📈 Portfolio Pulse

🏦 Erebor: Palmer Luckey's Bank Gets Federal Green Light

Erebor Bank received a national banking charter from the OCC, becoming the first bank chartered during Trump's second term. The Palmer Luckey-backed digital bank raised $635M at a $4B valuation (led by Lux Capital) and targets high-net-worth individuals and startups in AI, crypto, defense, and manufacturing. The Columbus, Ohio-based institution reached charter approval in under eight months. Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Peter Thiel, and LFG are backers. We invested $4M in the fall round and have already seen a 2x markup. STRONG momentum. Reuters

🚀 xAI: Shrinking the Team, Expanding to Space

xAI held a public all-hands meeting revealing plans for space-based data centers, moon-built factories producing AI satellites, and autonomous systems managing everything from Martian colonies to deep-space exploration. The company claims Grok's Imagine tool is generating 50 million videos daily and 6 billion images over the past 30 days. Meanwhile, six of the company's 12 founding team members have now departed, with co-founders Tony Wu and Jimmy Ba announcing exits this week alone. Musk says the company reorganized to improve execution speed, dividing xAI into four teams: Grok chatbot, coding system, Imagine video generator, and the Macrohard project.of SpaceX's planned IPO later this year at a potential $1.5T valuation. TechCrunch / CNBC

🤖 Apptronik: $935M War Chest for Humanoid Scale-Up

Humanoid robotics startup Apptronik raised a $520M Series A extension, bringing total Series A funding to $935M at a $5.5B valuation (3x their initial Series A last year). Google co-led the round with B Capital, joined by Mercedes-Benz, John Deere, AT&T Ventures, and Qatar Investment Authority. The capital will accelerate production of Apollo, their logistics-focused humanoid designed for warehouse operations. Apptronik has partnerships with Google DeepMind, GXO, and Mercedes-Benz to deliver embodied AI at scale. TechCrunch

🧠 Anthropic: $30B Round at $380B Valuation, IPO on Deck

MrBeast's Beast Industries acquired Step, a Gen Z-focused banking app with 7 million users, for undisclosed terms. Step raised over $175M at a $920M valuation in 2021 from Coatue, General Catalyst, and Stripe. MrBeast told fans, "Nobody taught me about investing, building credit, or managing money when I was growing up. That's exactly why we're joining forces with Step." The move follows trademark filings for MrBeast Financial and comes after securing $200M from Bitmine Immersion Technologies in January. Separately, MrBeast's Salesforce Super Bowl ad launched a $1M puzzle hunt that drew 60 million website visits, though no one has solved it yet. Good Morning America / TechCrunch

🌙 SpaceX: Moon First, Mars Later

Elon Musk announced SpaceX is shifting near-term focus from Mars to building a "self-growing city" on the Moon, citing a 10-year timeline versus 20+ years for Mars. The reversal comes just 13 months after Musk called the moon "a distraction." SpaceX estimates the moon offers a more practical testing ground due to proximity to Earth, though Mars colony plans remain on track to begin in 5-7 years. The pivot occurs as China accelerates its own lunar ambitions. Reuters

🏀 Kalshi: Giannis Becomes First NBA Player Shareholder

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo joined prediction market Kalshi as a shareholder, becoming the first NBA player to invest directly in the platform. The partnership includes marketing and live events, though Antetokounmpo is barred from trading NBA-related markets per Kalshi's insider trading rules. The announcement came days after the NBA trade deadline, where over $23M was bet on whether Giannis would be traded. NBA rules allow players to hold up to 1% stakes in sports betting companies if they don't promote league-specific wagers. Yahoo Finance

👀 Watch List

💳 Stripe: $140B and Agent Payment Rails

Stripe is working on a tender offer that would value the company at $140B, up from $107B last year, signaling continued IPO delays. Separately, Stripe launched x402, a payment protocol enabling AI agents to make micropayments using USDC stablecoins on Base (Ethereum L2). Developers can charge agents for data access, processing power, and API calls through Stripe's infrastructure, eliminating manual billing. The move reflects Stripe's bet on the "agent economy" where autonomous software manages its own finances. PYMNTS

🤖 Figure AI: Helix 02 Breaks Through

Figure demonstrated Helix 02 autonomously loading and unloading a dishwasher across a full kitchen in a four-minute, end-to-end task with no resets or human input. The company calls it the most complex autonomous manipulation sequence shown to date and the first long-horizon "pixels-to-whole-body" control on a humanoid. Figure also unveiled Figure 03, their third-generation humanoid, with BotQ's manufacturing line initially producing 12,000 robots annually, scaling to 100,000 over four years. CEO Brett Adcock predicts humanoids will handle unsupervised, multi-day tasks in unfamiliar homes soon. Interesting Engineering

🛰️ Varda Space: W-5 Lands, Space Manufacturing Proven

Varda successfully completed its W-5 hypersonic reentry mission, landing at Koonibba Test Range in South Australia on January 29. The mission carried a U.S. Navy payload and marked the first capsule protected entirely by Varda-made C-PICA (NASA-developed heat shield material) to return from orbit. W-5 spent 9 weeks in orbit after launching in November 2025, demonstrating the Varda-built bus for orbital stability and precision deorbit burns. The mission was funded through the Air Force Research Laboratory's Prometheus program, focusing on hypersonic reentry testing for national security applications. PR Newswire

💬 Prompt

What can I help you with?

I have 30 minutes with [person/company] tomorrow. I want [specific outcome].

Given what you know about them, give me: The 3 questions I should ask, The 1 thing I should absolutely not say, The opening line that gets their attention.

📚 Content

💰 Prediction Markets Beat Vegas 10x on Super Bowl

Prediction markets did $1.33B in Super Bowl volume. Vegas did $130M. Kalshi alone hit $871M. HIGHER.

1️⃣ Elon: Greatest Innovator Race Wasn't Close

Elon topped Forbes' Greatest Innovators list. When you're running SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, Tesla, and Boring Company simultaneously, the competition isn't close.

🥶 Ice Cold Email

If you're not getting responses, you're not being creative enough. This open rate must have been historic.

🧢 Gear

By popular demand, we're doing a limited run of LFG hoodies in CAMO. Same heavyweight, deep-washed hoodie you already know, now with blaze orange embroidery and an all-over camo pattern. Built for people who don't blend in.

Find it in the LFG Shop.

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