Deep Tech Startups Move From Prototypes to Factory-Scale Production at F1 Capital Factory

The event, part of theCUBE + NYSE Wired, featured interviews by theCUBE Research's John Furrier with industry executives. The discussions covered two-phase cooling, mass-manufactured nuclear reactors, solid rocket motors, satellite communications, defense investing and AI agents in lending and insurance, SiliconANGLE reported. Investors and governments are backing builders that vertically integrate, put their own capital at risk and turn one-off projects into repeatable products, according to the report.

Matt Loszak, co-founder and CEO of Aalo Atomics, said deploying nuclear power at gigawatt scale requires turning projects into products. Large nuclear plants take 10 to 20 years to build, which is too slow for the data-center buildout, so Aalo designs around the most powerful reactor that fits on the back of a truck. Its reactors use liquid sodium as coolant and off-the-shelf fuel, and they need no backup power to stay cool during a shutdown, Loszak said. Aalo turned on a full-scale prototype two and a half years after its founding after spending about $100 million. It is now moving into a 1 million-square-foot factory designed to produce 100 reactors a year. Each commercial pod of five reactors and three turbines delivers about 50 megawatts, and the near-term goal is reaching full power for a Crusoe data center.

Accelsius uses two-phase cooling, in which a fluid turns to vapor at the chip, to remove heat that single-phase water systems increasingly cannot handle. John Hewitt, CEO, and Josh Claman, executive chairman and founding CEO, said racks that drew 10 to 30 kilowatts a few years ago now run at 600 kilowatts and are headed to a megawatt. The approach takes water out of the data center and frees power for compute; Claman estimated it is worth about $60 million in added revenue for every 100 megawatts. Sovereign AI systems and inference pods placed in corporate basements also need self-contained, low-maintenance cooling, and Accelsius has built a modular product line for each of those uses, according to the report.

In defense, X-Bow Systems builds the solid rocket motors that power munitions. Jason Hundley, founder and CEO, said conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East showed that Western estimates of the missiles and munitions needed for a war were off by orders of magnitude, pushing the industry from performance at any cost toward affordable mass. Rocket-assisted takeoff motors for Group 3 and Group 4 drones are now its hottest product. X-Bow has more than 500 employees and opened its first factory this year, which Hundley described as the first new technology factory at scale in its industrial base. It is on a path to more than $1 billion in annual revenue within two years, and its next systems will be built autonomy-first, shrinking a seven- or eight-step supply chain to one or two steps.

Marlinspike Partners invests in dual-use defense technology companies that sell to both commercial and government customers. Jude Akpunku, senior associate at Marlinspike, said startups can build prototypes in California, but scaling up requires the land, opportunity and supportive government found in Texas. Portfolio companies address the manufacturing bottleneck directly: Foundry Robotics is designing a factory floor where robots build other robots, and Layup Parts makes composite parts on an automated floor. The firm also backs JetZero, a blended-wing-body aircraft developer with Air Force contracts that expects to cut fuel costs by 50%, according to the report.