Boost VC closes $87M fund — Adam Draper flew a jetpack and is doubling down on deep tech and bio

investing for those that take it seriously. They got multiasset investing, industryleading yields, and they're trusted by millions. Not financial advice. our next guest. Yeah, may maybe you want to go long, maybe you want to go short. 15%. But uh big boost on Etsy products potentially being sold in chat GPT.

Well, we have Adam Draper in the reream waiting room. Let's bring him in. Whoa, there he is. Let's go. Let's go. What's happening, bro? Jordy John, so excited to talk to you. Let's go. We're excited to have you. Uh uh give us give us the news. What's happening? All right.

Uh well, we raised $87 million actually to Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Actually, what actually? Well, it was 87654321. Uh because you know that's how rockets go off. 87654321. There we go. Boost VC. It's a rocket. Yeah. And we get to we get to continue to do what we're doing. Our our investors love our returns.

So, we just get to keep doing what we're doing for the last 13 years, which is backing found great founders on the fringe. Amazing. Uh you were uh early to sci-fi investing or or maybe did it before it was was uh was so on trend.

Uh I was a early investor in uh Coinbase, a company called Virgin Labs that did Snapchat that became Snapchat Spectacles. Uh, I've been investing in what any kid would dream of for the last 15 years. Uh, I just flew a jetpack. No way. No way. Yeah, somebody sent me uh somebody sent me a video earlier.

Uh, maybe it was the same company. Were Were you flying with uh Jackson Moses? Is that Is it Gravity Industries? Is that the company? I was fly. So, okay, this is the coolest thing.

Uh I you know I I read my first Iron Man comic when I was like six and then about a decade ago we invested in uh Iron Man thesis which ended up investing in Gravity. There we go. And I uh got to fly a jetpack two days. So there we go. I I I heard there was some fundraising news. Yeah. Yeah. John's back. Hit that.

Hit that gong. 87 million. There we go. Adam's the most fired up. You're the most fired up guest I think we've ever had. Nobody else is jumping. You're at the standing desk. That's fantastic. Got to tell people. Thank you guys so much for doing this.

You guys are just the greatest cheerleaders and champions of this tech world. Appreciate it. We love Nobody loves techn I would hate if somebody loved technology more than more than us. Maybe you do, but but break down the jetpack. How does this like it's a good example of like a specific portfolio company.

How does this go commercial? I I think that the promise of venture capital, the hope of venture capital is that you get to invest in all the dreams that anyone ever had as a 12-year-old and they end up coming true. And I got to do that with a jetack.

I I like I invested in like exactly what my childhood self would have loved to have invested in. Uh except it was seven years ago and then they made insane progress to the point where not only one person can do it, anyone can do it.

I was I just flew down to I I got to Bakersfield and then I got to fly a jetpack and so I am okay. Okay. I love I love everything about jetpack. How how does uh gravity specifically? How are they looking to commercialize? Uh, you know, what what are what are some of the use cases?

Is it is it going to be the kind of thing that that is more initially, you know, consumer? It's just fun to fly a jetpack. So, people pay to do it. By the way, one of the things I always noticed when you guys are doing your thing is that your cans pile up. So, I wanted to make sure. There we go.

You got up double fisting. So we uh so but first off we invest in all founders who are on the fringe of doing great incredible things. Uh Gravity specifically we saw the I saw a man fly so he flew in my back parking lot back here in San Monteo and when someone flies you got to write him a check.

You write a check right there. And so we wrote a check right there. Seven years later, uh he's built a, you know, multi-million dollar business. And it has two parts to it. There's the defense part and the media part. And also this training school so that people like I could become pilots. Jetack pilots.

And basically, I highly recommend We should go do a We should go. Sounds fantastic. I've always wanted to have a jetpack in the studio in the Ultradome. Yeah. For really big fundraising, right? What's the what's the defense uh what's the defense use case here in your view?

Because I can imagine in in sort of um more controlled environments, this could be a cool way to turn a human into a drone. But at the same time on the battlefield, I don't know with with a lot of drones, I don't know if I'd want to strap myself in and get into get into the air just considering you might be a target.

But how do you view the defense? It turns out boarding boats, it turns out, is one of the best defense capabilities. So, being able to go from one boat to another boat. Uh, you see that with like the Navy Seals show up in the little That was the other demo they did, right? That was gravity. Yeah, that was insane.

So, gravity. Every time I've seen a jetpack basically the last seven years, it was gravity. It's hilarious. And it's really an innovation in vertical takeoff and landing engines.

People didn't believe there was a disbelief that you could build small enough engines that they would be able to lift an individual human off the ground um with enough fuel to live for long enough. And so this has been a huge innovation. Also, paramedic is a big deal.

Like if someone's lost on a mountain, you can just fly up there within a small amount of time and get it. Uh and then the uh Yeah, dude. I mean, I I've it was a lifelong dream to fly. I flew. I'm going to be a I'm a jet pack racer, guys. Jetack racer. I I don't know how to say this. I don't know how to say this.

Just deploy deploy the fund in like the jetack stuff. Yeah, like it could be bio jetack things. It could be jetack things. Just it needs to have jetpacks evidently. Amazing. Last question. What what's the next category that is maybe if if jetpacks were underhyped seven years ago, what what what are you looking at today?

Uh these founders are coming into my office and they're saying I'm going to make you live 50 years longer. I'm going to cure cancer. I'm going to uh just cure all genetic disease. Uh we're going to move from a world of treatment to a world of cures in the healthcare and science world.

So I would say bio is really the thing that I would say. Uh and also one of the things we do as as boost VC is we actually put on a deep tech demo day with the entire deep tech early stage venture community and it's coming up on Wednesday where you can see some of these bio future forward companies.

Actually a bunch of the demo day companies have actually been on uh TVPN. Doug from Radiant. There we go. Incredible people. Gravity. There we go. I expect to see you flying around the floor. Yeah. Of the of the demo. Okay, we'll go down together. We'll do it together. Love it. Yeah, you need a jetpack into the show.

The chat is demanding it. Uh, thank you so much for hopping on the stream. We'll talk. Great having you, Adam. Congrats on the new fun. See you soon. Hey, thank you. We just got to keep backing the founders. Amazing. Incredible. Talk a great rest of your day. Let me tell