Welcome to the first edition of our quarterly update.
We’re launching this newsletter as a way to keep our community closer to what we’re building, backing, and learning each quarter. Our goal is not to add noise, but to share authentic insights: meaningful company milestones, new investments, and the themes shaping how we think about the future.
Thank you for being part of the Cubit ecosystem. We’re excited to share more about the builders we’re backing and the future they’re working toward.
New Investments
Lux Aeterna is building the world’s first fleet of reusable satellites to transform the future of space operations for defense, intelligence, commercial, and in-space manufacturing customers. Cubit invested in Lux’s seed round, alongside Konvoy, Decisive Point, Wave Function, and others.
Why Cubit invested?
The Problem: Strategic Inefficiency
Legacy satellite operations rely on flying complex infrastructure once before allowing it to burn up or become dangerous debris. This paradigm results in the loss of billions of dollars in sophisticated hardware at the end of every mission, as returning assets from space remains exceptionally rare, expensive, and complex.
The Solution: The Circular Space Economy
Led by former SpaceX Starlink engineering leadership, Lux Aeterna is pioneering the world’s first fully reusable satellite platforms, Delphi and Hyperion. Their "launch, recover, and relaunch" model creates a cost-effective, circular supply chain for orbital operations.
At Cubit, we back scalable innovations that address critical problems. Lux Aeterna’s pragmatic approach to reusability is a vital step toward sustainable orbital operations and enhanced national security.
Coming soon: Next-Gen Energy Infrastructure
Stay tuned for an upcoming investment announcement with a pioneering grid technology company that is solving one of the most persistent bottlenecks in domestic energy distribution.
Follow-On Investments
Kibu: Kibu is accelerating its mission to build the "trust layer" for our digital world, fueled by a recent SAFE that Cubit was proud to join. The company provides a secure identity verification platform that protects organizations from AI impersonation, deepfakes, and credential theft. Their app creates secure connections tied to devices and biometric identities, ensuring users can instantly and confidently verify who is on the other end of any video, audio, or text communication.
Lucid Bots: We were thrilled to continue backing Lucid Bots by co-leading their Series B round with Idea Fund. Lucid Bots develops purpose-built robotic solutions, including the Sherpa cleaning drone and Lavo Bot pressure washer, to help facility managers and contractors complete high-risk maintenance projects more safely, efficiently, and profitably.
Reframe Systems: Building on our previous support, Cubit participated in Reframe’s Series B round to accelerate the future of sustainable housing. Reframe Systems utilizes AI-driven microfactories and advanced robotics to rapidly produce high-quality, net-zero homes. By localizing manufacturing and automating complex structural tasks, Reframe is drastically reducing the cost and time required to deliver affordable, climate-resilient housing.
Sage Geosystems: In late January, Sage closed a $97M Series B round, which Cubit was proud to support. The capital is being used to launch their first commercial next-generation geothermal power generation facility.
Founder Spotlight
Jake Loosararian - Co-Founder and CEO, Gecko Robotics
As an engineering student at Pennsylvania’s Grove City College in 2012, Jake Loosararian visited a local power plant that was suffering from persistent downtime, costing the facility millions of dollars per month.
It was upon that visit that he was told a person had recently fallen and died from elevated heights while trying to find structural defects in a boiler the size of a football field. He knew there had to be a better way.
Geckos to Robots
Jake returned to his dorm room and started building a robot that could climb walls while carrying ultrasonic sensors and cameras. After spending weeks on site adapting the robot in the depths of the dirty boiler, Jake’s prototype climbed and located the recurring issue and prevented future failure.
It was during a trip to Costa Rica shortly after and being in the jungle that he saw geckos climbing the trees around him and decided on a name for this venture.
Founding the company in 2013, Jake was bootstrapping the company for years and sleeping on a friend’s floor to get the product off the ground. He even went down to his last $100.
After connecting with his old college roommate, Troy Demmer, who at the time was in the health sector understanding and using tools to diagnose the human body, the pair joined forces to become Co-founders of Gecko and make it their mission to assess the health of the built world due to the lack of information that existed on it.
Gecko applied and was successful in Y Combinator’s 2016 intake, becoming one of the first robotics companies to be backed by the startup accelerator. The company has since undertaken a number of funding rounds, with its latest Series D round taking place in June 2025, raising $125M and valuing the company at $1.25B.
Gecko now helps to build, operate, and modernize the world’s most critical infrastructure, working with Fortune 100 companies in energy, oil, and gas, and manufacturing sectors around the world, as well as the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy.
Q&A with Jake
What’s one risk that was worth taking?
Saying no to the “obvious” path. Money, Silicon Valley, validation from the top investor, and the illusion of certainty. A billionaire from a top 5 VC fund gave me an offer to move to San Francisco. Troy and I walked away because it would’ve separated us from the exact dirt, danger, and urgency that created Gecko.
We were building technology for the forgotten heroes, and we believed to our core that we had to stay true to the people we were building for.
The risk was choosing a direction that could sink Gecko, but we were driven by the story of the man who died in the boiler in Western PA.
What’s a mistake that you learned from over the past six months?
I let “alignment” become a polite word for delay. When things got complex, I pulled decisions upward, added extra checkpoints, and suddenly the company moved at the speed of my calendar.
The fix was uncomfortable: I had to re-push ownership down, accept some messiness, and measure execution by true execution, not how reasonable the debate sounded.
What’s something that meaningfully improved execution with very little cost?
Focusing on the “why.” Not better decks. Not more dashboards. Not another planning framework.
In a fast-growing company, complexity can creep in quietly. Teams optimize locally. Priorities multiply. Smart people pull in slightly different directions. Clarity collapses that entropy.
When the “why” is obvious, decisions get faster. Tradeoffs get cleaner. You don’t need to escalate every call because people understand the intent behind the work.
And the most powerful part? It costs nothing. No capital expenditure. No headcount. No tooling. Just disciplined repetition of the mission until it becomes instinct.
Finish the sentence: “I didn’t expect ___ to matter this much.”
I didn’t expect proximity to the problem to matter this much.
Watching a gecko climb a shower wall in Costa Rica gave us a name, but standing in a power plant where someone had died gave us a mission, and it still dictates what we build and how fast we’re willing to be wrong in public.
Portfolio Updates
On the heels of closing their Series A round, VATN Systems announced their January acquisition of Crewless Marine, a Rhode Island–based company specializing in advanced underwater acoustic sensing and signal processing. This acquisition adds critical acoustic sensing technology to their fleet, further expanding VATN’s leadership in scalable underwater autonomy.
Primer officially announced its expansion into Texas, with plans to open at least five tuition-free microschools in the San Antonio area starting in August 2026. By leveraging the state’s new Education Freedom Accounts, the company is fulfilling its mission to make high-quality, personalized education accessible to every family at zero out-of-pocket cost.
Kadence has significantly expanded its platform capabilities in early 2026 with the launch of a new AI-driven Visitor Management System and a strategic partnership with spatial data leader Archilogic. These updates integrate real-time human behavior with precise spatial intelligence, allowing enterprises to automate complex office operations and optimize their global real estate footprints through a single, unified "SpaceOps" infrastructure.
In late January, Hadrian officially opened Factory 3 (F3) in Mesa, Arizona. The $200M, 290,000-square-foot facility is a massive AI-powered manufacturing hub designed to produce precision components for the aerospace and defense sectors. Just a few months later, the team opened its Factory of the Future 4 in Cherokee, Alabama, which will mass-produce critical components for Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines. It will help resolve long-standing bottlenecks, create more than 1,000 high-skill jobs in Alabama, and accelerate submarine production at a moment when speed and scale matter. At the same time, Hadrian formalized a historic public-private partnership with the U.S. Navy: $2.4B total, including $1.5B in private capital and $900M in Navy investment.
In early February, Element3 held the official ribbon cutting of their commercial lithium carbonate facility in Midland, Texas. Cubit’s own Philip got to experience the opening firsthand, which included remarks from Governor Greg Abbott, a tour of the plant, and some classic Texas BBQ. The opening was another integral step forward in addressing a critical gap in America's supply chain independence.
Also in February, Firestorm announced a partnership with Orqa to mass-produce the "Firestorm Squall," an NDAA-compliant FPV drone. They also showcased the latest capabilities of their xCell "factory-in-a-box," which allows for 3D-printing and assembling flight-ready drones at the edge in under 24 hours.
After closing its $600M Series C round in early 2025, Saronic’s work has since been characterized by the execution of that capital into physical infrastructure and government production contracts. In December 2025, the U.S. Navy awarded Saronic a $392M contract for its Corsair autonomous surface vessels. Already this year, Saronic was selected to assist in DARPA’s Pulling Guard program and partnered with Path Robotics to integrate "Physical AI" and autonomous welding robots into its shipyards. The first Marauder (Saronic’s 150-foot vessel) is also slated for its initial water launch this year, marking its transition from construction to active testing. To close out the quarter, Saronic also announced its $1.75B close in Series D funding at a $9.25B valuation.
After launching exclusively as an add-on to Amazon Prime Video in late 2025, the Wonder Project’s dedicated streaming subscription secured over 500,000 sign-ups within its first three weeks. Since then, the studio's flagship epic biblical drama, House of David, has captivated over 44 million viewers worldwide to date and its highly anticipated second season is now available to all Amazon Prime subscribers as of March 27, 2026.
In March, Gecko Robotics announced its $71M contract with the U.S. Navy to bolster the U.S. Pacific Fleet's operational readiness. By deploying their industry-leading AI and robotic inspection technology, Gecko will identify critical repairs up to 50x faster than traditional methods, directly supporting the Navy’s ambitious goal of 80% fleet readiness by 2027.
At the end of 2025, Firehawk Aerospace announced its acquisition of a 636-acre rocket system integration facility in Crawford, Mississippi, to support its transition toward full-rate production of its 3D-printed propulsion systems. The ribbon cutting was held in late March and was coupled with an announcement of Firehawk’s new contract with the U.S. Army to assemble and deliver a prototype for a Hydra-70 rocket variant. In early April, the team will also break ground on a new $100M, 340-acre 3D-printed propellant plant in Oklahoma.
Cubit Happenings
In January, Philip and Thomas headed to SF to attend the HumanConnections.AI Salon co-hosted by Noēsis Collaborative, Tom Preston-Werner of Preston-Werner Ventures, and the Harvard Human Flourishing Program. The event brought together a select group of leaders in AI from technology, academia, venture, and civil society to explore a central question: how we might build, fund, and evaluate AI systems that strengthen social relationships and advance human flourishing.
Cubit was thrilled to be a part of Praxis Ventures’ Vision and Strategy Conference in Dallas on March 5. Cubit co-hosted the two-day event, which included group sessions as well as reception and dinner welcoming guests to our hometown of Dallas.
On March 12, Philip hosted nearly 20 founders and investors at La Condesa in Austin for a night of good food and fellowship during the excitement of SXSW. From portfolio companies to new founder friends, the group discussion centered around the doctrine of the Imago Dei - the belief that humans are created in God’s image, granting them inherent dignity and value - and how founders creating solutions echo this throughout society.
In just a few weeks, we will be hosting ~15 members of the venture investing ecosystem at Cook Canyon Ranch in Eastland, Texas, for a few days of fellowship and connection. The goal for the retreat is simply to provide a time and space for friends of Cubit to recharge and strengthen authentic relationships–not to mention, experience the best of Texas with fishing, hiking, skeet shooting, and more.
Where We’re Headed
Catch the Cubit team at Discipulus Ventures’ cohort showcase in April, Praxis Ventures Summit & Showcase in Napa in May, the Faith and Institutional Investing Summit in early June, and Reindustrialize in Detroit in mid-June.
What We’re Learning
Philip is reading Living Life Backwards by David Gibson, which draws wisdom from the book of Ecclesiastes and prompts the question, “What if it is death that teaches us how to truly live?” Gibson proposes that only with a proper perspective on death can we truly find satisfaction in life. He is also reading Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There - a collection of essays on ecology, conservation, and the relationship between humans and nature.
Philip is also digesting the Weekend Reader’s recent Substack on the AI revolution: “Is this something big?” Max Anderson explores the "inflection point" dilemma: how to distinguish between passing hype and a fundamental shift in the world. Anderson argues that truly "big" things aren't just faster or more efficient versions of what came before; they are architectural shifts that change how we spend our time and allocate resources.
Thomas is reading The Word in the Wilderness by Malcolm Guite, The Life of Elizabeth I by Allison Weir, and Midnight Black by Mark Greaney. You’ll never guess which one is his favorite…!
Gui recently read Brent Beshore’s article, “The Question We Forget to Ask,” which captured many of his own thoughts on AI's impact on our lives. Beshore, founder of Permanent Equity, asks the reader to consider, “Who am I becoming?” in light of AI. “The danger of AI is not that it offers us something bad, but instead something good enough to distract us from what is best. We cannot let ourselves be hoodwinked into choosing efficiency over wisdom, productivity over presence, and optimization instead of love… The question is not whether AI is good or bad, but instead how it is forming us. What were we made for, and are our tools helping us become that, or something else?”
Gui is listening to John Mark Comer’s three-part podcast series titled, “Two Halves of Life”–specifically episode two, “Spiritual Cartography.” The series, which is a part of his “Practicing the Way” channel, unpacks the concept of the "first and second halves of life"–a framework for understanding the different stages of spiritual maturity–and explores the unique temptations and invitations of each season.
What We’re Asking
Questions, themes, and problems that the Cubit team is contemplating.
Philip is asking… “What does the rapid innovation in AI mean for our kids who will be the ‘never knew a world without AI’ generation”?
Gui is asking… “Do companies have a responsibility to build human-centric AI tools instead of focusing on maximizing efficiency and profits? Or should users bear the burden when it comes to using platforms wisely and keeping AI from dictating their lives?"
Thomas is considering… “Companies staying private longer has lots of implications in our work. That said, the pattern also creates a potentially more widespread problem. Americans who generate moderate wealth have typically used home ownership and public market investments as their chief wealth creation vehicles. The longer companies stay private, then the fewer people who benefit from their success. So two questions: How significant is this problem? And is there a remedy?”
Job Board
Know anyone who would be a great fit for any of these incredible companies? Check out the below or reach out to us to learn more.
Lux Aeterna is hiring for a Head of Defense and Senior Structures Engineer.
Odyssey is hiring a Senior Product Manager, Growth & Program Operations, based in NYC.
Procure Impact is hiring a Senior/Designer/Design Lead.
Reframe Systems is hiring a Senior/Principal Manufacturing Engineer, Construction Materials Procurement Manager, and more. Take a look at their open roles here.
Lucid Bots is hiring a CFO.
Thanks for following along as we ask big questions and back the courageous founders working to answer them. We’re so grateful for your partnership.
Onward,
The Cubit Capital Team