“Fred's first company Shield died when a strategic investor killed a Series B term sheet after three weeks of diligence.”
Source→“We raised a seed round from Andreessen. Their bio fund did our seed round right out of YC... it was like 1.65 million.”
Source→“Marc Andreessen joined the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest given Andreessen Horowitz's major stakes in defense-tech companies like Anduril, Skydio, Shield AI, Saronic, and Flock Safety.”
Source→“The competitive landscape affected includes any company building multi-task diffusion policy systems for manipulation (Covariant, Physical Intelligence, Figure, Apptronik) or autonomous flight (Skydio, Joby, Shield AI).”
Source→“Shield AI turned down its first significant investment because accepting it would have required abandoning its defense focus. That stubbornness paid off. By 2025 it held contracts with Romania, Japan, Greece, Canada and the US Coast Guard.”