Mark Russell is the founder and CEO of HyperSciences, a Spokane, Washington company turning a piece of aerospace exotica - the ram accelerator - into a tool that drills through rock up to ten times faster than a conventional rig. A former Blue Origin lead engineer on the crew capsule and a self-described third-generation miner, Russell fires projectiles at hypersonic speed every few seconds to crack rock for geothermal energy, mining and tunneling, and to lob payloads toward space through his sister venture Pipeline2Space. He raised roughly $9.6 million from thousands of small investors and won early backing from NASA and Shell.
Jeff Karras is a General Partner at America's Frontier Fund and co-founder of Alter Venture Partners, bringing over 20 years of venture capital experience to the intersection of deep tech, national security, and U.S. strategic competitiveness. With more than 40 investments and 23 exits - including 6 IPOs - he has backed companies spanning semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, synthetic biology, and AI. Before pivoting to frontier tech, he helped build SingTel Innov8's North American and Israeli operations and spent nearly a decade at Levensohn Venture Partners. A licensed pilot based in San Francisco, he is among a small cohort of investors who believe the most important technology companies of the next decade will emerge from the overlap of commercial innovation and government-scale problems.
Wardstone is a Y Combinator F25 defense startup building a global constellation of satellites equipped with space-based interceptors to kinetically destroy hypersonic and ballistic missiles. Founded by brothers Sebastian and Tobias Fischer, the company is pursuing America's Golden Dome initiative - a layered missile defense system that can engage threats in space before they reach US soil. With a $5M seed round and three successful automated intercept demonstrations during YC, Wardstone is positioning itself as a next-generation missile defense contractor targeting a $40B/year market.