Welcome to the inaugural Moontower Society Newsletter!

Moontower Society’s mission is to educate students about the world of entrepreneurship and equip them with tools to further their pursuits to build incredible businesses, solve difficult problems, or help make decisions about what to pursue with their time, talent, and treasure. We aim to deliver on this mission by providing students with information and resources that include in person events and media such as this newsletter.

This journey started because we are passionate about the community we have in Austin, TX. We found many students that wanted more ways to connect with, and learn from, the amazing people we have in our orbit. We are proud evangelists of the Texas early-stage ecosystem and want to further the growth of our fantastic community!

We anticipate most of our programming will center around early-stage technology businesses, but our top priority is to find compelling individuals and provide interesting content for students. We aim to serve students of all backgrounds, regardless of program or degree. The entrepreneurial spirit isn’t confined to the halls of a select few buildings on campus, and we won’t be constrained as well.

A heartful thank you is in order to all who have supported us by attending our events or sharing details of what we have going on with their friends. We also wouldn’t be at this point without the support of faculty on campus who help get their word out to their students. Thank you to everyone! We greatly appreciate all of you.

Please continue to share our story with your friends and peers. Student support allows us to recruit compelling people to share their time and wisdom.  

We look forward to all the adventures to come!

We are delighted to host Andy Keil on February 25th. Meet us at Rowling Hall in Room 4.314 starting at 5pm. 

Andy is an Austin-based startup operator and product builder focused on AI-native product development. He’s the co-founder of Dream (Dreambase.ai), building a database-first, plug-and-play analytics layer for Supabase/Postgres aimed at giving teams “day-zero” product insights without a heavy tracking/ETL stack.

Andy has an extensive background in product across a variety of companies. He was Head of Product at QuotaPath and had senior product roles at Digital Pharmacist Inc, DocStation, and Phobio. He was also a Director for TechStars and held product roles at several other startups. 

Across his career, he’s mixed product + growth + community building along with angel investing. Andy is even an early investor in one of our prior speakers, Skylar Talley! 

Please RSVP here for our event with Andy. Food and beverages will be provided for those who attend. Your response helps ensure we have enough food for all who attend. 

What Students Might Learn

We look forward to seeing you there for a great conversation with Andy!

Scott Hickle gave a great talk with students sharing experiences from his career and discussing the journey that led to him building Throne. He brought a live device to show students and discussed in detail the engineering process of going from a beastly hardware MVP to a tangible product that has elegant design and is ready for consumer usage. 

Scott shared great stories about how he approached his education with the idea that he wanted to start his own business someday. His advice on running an efficient fundraise process was gold for anyone who might need to raise venture capital in their professional journey. 

Adding to the fun, Moontower Society member Tony Krueger, who also happens to be Throne’s lawyer, interviewed Scott. Thank you to all who were able to venture out in the cold and showed no fear of the ice. We appreciate your attendance and support!

Follow Scott and Throne to track their journey as they aim to save lives by creating ‘the Whoop for your poop’.

Base Power Gets Big Dollars for Big Ambitions

Base Power announced their $1 billion Series-C in October. Base also announced they’ll be taking over the Austin-Statesman facility temporarily to produce their home battery products while a permanent facility is in the works.

They also put out a killer recruitment ad. We look forward to seeing what they accomplish and are excited they are here in Austin!

Atomic Austin

Aalo Atomics raised a $100M Series-B in August 2025. Aalo is looking to mass manufacture nuclear plants that can power anything from a datacenter to a city. Their mission is to get the cost of electricity down to $0.03/kWh. They plan on going live with their first reactor on the 4th of July 2026.

Last Energy raised $100M in a Series-C for the development of micro nuclear reactors. Last Energy aims to build reactors that produce 20 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 15,000 homes. The Austin ecosystem is….. energized.

Next Generation Communications

CesiumAstro raised $470M in a Series-C with $270M in equity. CesiumAstro produces and sells software-defined phased-array communications components. Cash will fund expanded manufacturing, build out a new 270K square foot HQ, and invest in product development. Hard tech momentum is all over Austin.

We’ve Got Healthcare Activity Too!

Function Health, which offers a regular lab testing service to help people track their health, raised $298M valuing the business at $2.5B. Redpoint Ventures led the round. Function wants to consolidate health data and make it useable for customers by connecting the data to AI. If you like business podcasts and VC jokes, give Logan Bartlett a follow. He’s a Managing Director at Redpoint.

Capital in the Capital

S3 Ventures announced their $250M fund VIII. S3 now has 20 years of investing in startups. Moontower Society member Sarah Morgan is a Vice President at S3 Ventures. Congratulations to the whole team!

SpaceX Merges with xAI - $1 Trillion Private Companies Are a Thing Now

Elon Musk merged two of his companies to create a technology powerhouse valued at $1.25 trillion. SpaceX is the most valuable private company in the world. xAI was valued at $230 billion when it closed a $20 billion fundraise late in 2025.

Clutch VC + Carta Tell the Story of Texas

Clutch VC, where Moontower Society member Rajiv Bala is a General Partner, worked with Carta to launch the inaugural State of Early Stage Texas Startups Report in September. We recommend you sign up for this, and Carta Research generally, if you’re interested in getting information on the trends in venture capital.

A highlight of the report is that Texas passed Massachusetts for the first time for the number of seed deals AND the amount of capital invested in those seed companies. H1 2025 was the first time Texas ranked third nationally in these categories at the same time. Momentum continues to build in the Texas ecosystem!

Contrary Research 2026 Tech Trends Report 

Contrary put out their massive 350+ slide Contrary Research Tech Trends Report. They cover AI, technology’s impact on resources, industrialization, medicine and healthcare, and digital interfaces and experiences. There’s something in here for everyone!

Kyle Harrison, a General Partner at Contrary, is a friend of Moontower. We recommend his substack for those who want to better understand the world of venture capital.

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