Funding the future first, before the world catches up. Early-stage VC firm.

California, USA
Joined October 2015
Draper Associates retweeted
The @USNavy has selected Radiant to deploy our Kaleidos microreactor at Naval Weapons Station Crane, Indiana. With this selection, Radiant is now the only nuclear microreactor company with partnerships across the Army, Navy and Air Force. The Navy has more than 70 years of safe reactor operations. It wrote the playbook on reactor safety. Earning its confidence is powerful independent validation of Kaleidos. This milestone moves us closer to our goal: reliable, resilient nuclear power wherever the mission demands. Through our work with all three branches, we’re building a clear path from military deployment to nuclear energy at scale for government and commercial customers. Read more details here: radiantnuclear.com/news/navy…
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Draper Associates retweeted
Founders... Investors are watching to see what you do right after they write the check. Good founders get straight to work. They've got the rocket fuel, now they're launching. Bad founders come back asking what to do next. If you’re getting a check, it’s because an investor believes that you already know where you’re going. They’re giving you fuel, not GPS directions. Also... too much celebration is a red flag. Pop some champagne, sure or in my case sparking apple juice. But then get back to building.
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Draper Associates retweeted
Austin is now the heart of autonomy. Got Chinese food delivered fully autonomously for the first time via @goautolane. Stays warm. Super reliable. Super fast. No need to tip. And the food was awesome. When will other cities catch up…
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Draper Associates retweeted
Every machine waits for a signal. When it breaks, everything goes blind. We started Offline Protocol by keeping people connected when networks failed. Today, that same technology runs on hundreds of thousands of devices worldwide. Now we're taking it further: resilient coordination for physical systems. Machines, people and AI agents that keep working together over whatever path remains. Where we are today: → 350,000+ devices across 140+ countries → Nearly 20,000 new accounts in August alone → 11,500+ local networks active this month → 60,000+ SDK downloads → 440,000+ location proofs received in the last 30 days → Zero paid acquisition Earlier this year, we closed a new round led by @DraperVC to turn our consumer scale into a rapidly growing enterprise business. Over the past month, we've begun working with partners including a global wind-energy manufacturer, an agricultural IoT provider, a fleet telematics platform, a physical AI operating system, and a data streaming platform, alongside teams in aerospace and satellite systems, embedded silicon and consumer wearables. Our pipeline also spans maritime and industrial monitoring, equipment custody, secure device identity, airline catering and restaurant operations. Wherever machines operate, Offline Protocol coordinates. Learn more at offlineprotocol.com
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Draper Associates retweeted
Bitcoin maximalists will hate this, but leaving Bitcoin untouched is the riskiest thing you can do to it. The instinct to protect the base layer makes sense. But a store of value that does nothing else cedes every other function of the financial system to chains that were only ever experimentation. NFTs, tokens, DeFi, all of it was a testing ground. Ordinals instead of NFTs. Runes and BRC20 instead of ERC20s. The experiments proved the demand. The work now is bringing those functions home to the strongest asset. Bitcoin either becomes a true programmable blockchain capable of replacing the financial system, or it stays a vault while the rest of finance gets rebuilt somewhere less secure.
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Draper Associates retweeted
AI will take everyone’s jobs. ... until they invent new ones. AI alone probably won’t take your job. But someone using AI might. So you should lean in to AI. People react to new technologies in three ways: 1. The Resisters: "AI is ruining everything!" 2. The Ignorers: “I don’t understand AI.” 3. The Adopters: "How can I use this to get better?" It's not AI vs. humans. It's humans with AI vs. humans without AI. We’re not cutting our team because of AI. We’re GROWING it. Our team with AI can accomplish 10x more than our team without it. Businesses without websites died in the 90s. Same thing is happening now. If you're not experimenting with AI in your industry, someone else is. And they're going to serve your customers better. Faster. Cheaper. The buggy whip makers of the 1800s became car mechanics. They pivoted or perished. Which camp are you in?
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Draper Associates retweeted
The USD.infra Vault Is Now Open 🔓 The Internet runs on digital infrastructure. Now with DAWN, that infrastructure is financeable on-chain. Introducing the USD.infra Vault: A new way to finance digital infrastructure powering AI compute and connectivity.
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Draper Associates retweeted
Announcing Poseidon Aerospace's $60M Series A, led by TQ Ventures with participation from JAWS, Hanwha, G Squared, Starship Ventures, Drover Ventures, and others. At @poseidonaero, we are building the future of air logistics with autonomous cargo planes designed and built from the ground up.
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Draper Associates retweeted
Replying to @DraperVC
@DraperVC made @TIME's America's Top Venture Capital Firms 2026 list. Rankings reward what's visible. Capital raised, deals done, marquee portfolio names. The work that matters most happens years earlier, backing founders while they still look unreasonable to everyone else. Good to see that show up on a list. The team and our founders earned this one. time.com/article/2026/08/12/…
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Draper Associates retweeted
Replying to @TIME
@TIME just named @DraperVC one of America's Top Venture Capital Firms of 2026. Proud to be part of a team who has spent over 41 years backing the disruptive founders others thought were crazy at first (everything from initial crypto infra to privatized space travel, artificial wombs, limb regeneration, and autonomous founder agents.... we do not pick easy things lol). Huge credit to our team and the founders we get to work with every day. time.com/article/2026/08/12/…
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Draper Associates retweeted
Replying to @DraperVC
@DraperVC was named to @TIME's America's Top Venture Capital Firms of 2026 list. We run lean and mean, and pound for pound I’d put our work up against any of the big dogs in the space. It’s great to see our work recognized and we’re thankful to all of our Draper founders who make it possible. time.com/article/2026/08/12/…
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Draper Associates retweeted
Proud to see @DraperVC named to @TIME's America's Top Venture Capital Firms of 2026 list. Recognition for firms like this is nice, but I would like to take this moment to recognize our incredible founders. Our firm's job is to find the missionaries early, back them when the idea still sounds crazy, and stay with them when the world catches up. This award goes to the disruptive, unconventional founders who let Draper Associates be part of their story. Also, congratulations to all the VCs who made the list. @BoostVC and about 10 others are Tim Draper acolytes. time.com/article/2026/08/12/…
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Draper Associates retweeted
Draper funded, Longshot founder interview. They will have the fastest, cheapest launch facility for non-human payloads. @LongshotSpace @DraperVC youtube.com/watch?v=knBC4KsA…
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Draper Associates retweeted
2 years ago our company data lived in 8 Excel sheets and multiple inboxes. Today it's in 1 MCP server that we call Draper Brain. It connects 15,000+ contacts, 450+ portfolio companies, 4,900+ co-investors, and 1,900+ meeting notes. My whole investment team uses it and so do I. What’s even more exciting is that our MBA interns built it. In their interviews, every single one of them pitched a tool the way a founder pitches a company. We treat them like founders! We gave them the infrastructure, the resources, the access, and got out of the way. What they shipped was remarkable. We now have Draper Brain that pulls from our internal records plus Harmonic's live data on 35M+ companies and answers any question about any company in seconds. The Draper Deal Engine scores incoming deals across eight dimensions, including founder credibility and contrarian thesis. It’s trained on four decades of my own investment decisions. Harmonic surfaces a couple hundred companies for the Deal Engine, and the model takes the first pass. The first week we ran it live, two startups cleared the bar. Incredible! Bet on junior talent the same way you bet on founders. Thank you to @harmonic_ai for telling the story… link in comments.
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Draper Associates retweeted
THE MAISON IS OPENING. Today, Voyage reveals the Maison for Mind Computing. We are designers, neuroscientists, philosophers, and engineers building neural interfaces for your inner voice, as objects of desire. Backed by Draper Associates and other believers. Apply to be a Member of the Maison. Or join us inside — we’re hiring @maisonvyg --> voyage.inc
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Draper Associates retweeted
The hardest part of early stage investing isn't finding the deal. It's taking a bet on a view when everyone around you disagrees with it. Most of the best investments I've seen look obviously wrong for at least 12 months before they look obviously right.
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Draper Associates retweeted
If hundreds of AI startups are failing.. what’s happening to their VCs? 😬 Learnings from our research in the video + VCs most likely to be affected up on Gutcheck
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Draper Associates retweeted
My take on @SpaceX going public: → $75 billion raised → Largest IPO in history → Stock up 19% on day one. Elon has brought new life to the space and transportation markets. Transportation used to be the big three with very little innovation, and @Tesla opened our minds to what could be. Space used to be only what governments said it could be, and NASA only had the budget to keep itself in business, and SpaceX opened our eyes to extraordinary Star Trekkian possibilities. It got me thinking about what my friend Cree Edwards said about physics. Physics has been stuck in Einsteinian particles for almost a century with no real innovation. Cree Edwards theorized, “I think we are all energy.” So…not e=mc^2, but e=e. There is no such thing as mass. If you look at what an electron microscope shows as an atom, you might come to the same conclusion. More on that in my new book. The biggest returns don't come from the financial models, but rather from the moment a founder forces the world to see something differently. Elon did that with PayPal. He did it with Tesla and he just did it again with SpaceX. I think Elon and all those entrepreneurs who take on the status quo are going to really transform our universes in the next century. msn.com/en-us/money/news/tim…
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Draper Associates retweeted
We are super excited to share with you our initial release of Lucky Engine. We are building a robotics engine from the ground up to be what we wished we could find in a simulator before
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