AI Great. Aerospace Good. Crypto Bad?
Boost VC has always been at the intersection of exciting technologies. We pride ourselves on supporting the most under-estimated technologies at any given time. Something I try to think about during exciting times (good or bad) is “What would the dumbest investment be right now?”
If you thought “Lighting your money on fire,” you are a smart ass, but I appreciate the humor.
Short of lighting it on fire, what is the commercially, current, worst idea to place your capital?
18 months ago the answer was “cash.” Euphoria and FOMO were hitting so hard that the majority of people believed it was STUPID to hold cash. It’s harder to remember those times now when thinking about the current environment, but it was wild.
Fast forward to today, and we are in a much more capital efficient world. If you still have it, cash is king. So in tight capital positions, the commercially dumbest idea would probably be to put it in capital inefficient assets : Space, Nuclear, Tech Bio - The things that would require high cost to even get to an early product and years of development. Naturally those are the things that Boost VC has an affinity to :)
Another STUPID idea would be to invest heavily in crypto startups right now. FTX just lost Billions of dollars, and usage of Web 3 is down 80-90%. So believing there’s value there, would be just plain silly.
I think one commercially SMART idea is Artificial Intelligence, which we are huge fans of, but the number of “Generative AI” companies blossomed so insanely high that its hard to understand which ones are great, and which ones aren’t going to make it.
For the record, this doesn’t mean we won’t invest in AI, we have and will continue, but our biggest wins comes when the chips are down on some specific industry, and there is a logical “Fear” based reason no investors will invest.
As an early stage investor, this has been the best method for me to understand what the most under-valued current asset is. Sometimes in order to understand where the undervalued startups are, you must ask yourself “Where is the dumbest place I could put my money?” and if you find your answer and find brilliant people working there… invest.