Dakin Sloss is an entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He is Founder and General Partner of Prime Movers Lab, the world’s leading partner of breakthrough scientific startups. He has led investments in transformative companies, including E-Space, Gilgamesh, Tarana, Halo, Focused Energy, Paradromics, Quantum Space, and Boom Supersonic.

Prior to founding Prime Movers Lab, Dakin served as founding CEO of Tachyus and OpenGov. He is also a philanthropist through the Satchitananda Foundation dedicated to delivering food, freedom and flourishing to our global human family. Dakin studied Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy at Stanford University. Dakin has been recognized as one of Yahoo Finance’s THE NEXT: 21 people who will have a significant impact on the worlds of finance, business, sports or politics in the year ahead and was featured on CNBC. In 2016, Dakin was recognized as the featured Forbes 30 Under 30 energy entrepreneur. In 2017, he was named as a San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40 honoree.

Zia Huque is a General Partner of Prime Movers Lab where he focuses on growth-stage investing. Zia brings a wealth of experience in later-stage financing, having been in the business of risk investment and risk management across credit, rates, equities, and derivatives asset classes for the vast majority of his career. Zia also brings his operational expertise to Prime Movers Lab, having had vast executive, strategic and operational responsibilities across multiple businesses and regions of a top-five global investment bank managing tens of billions of dollars and thousands of employees. He serves on the boards of Tarana Wireless, Lyten, E-Space, Mycoworks, CarbonCapture, and Paradromics.

Zia served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Bank Securities Inc, the US Broker Dealer of Deutsche Bank, from early 2018 until his departure from Wall Street in 2019. At Deutsche Bank, Zia was also Head of Equities, Fixed Income & Currencies for the Americas from 2016 to 2018 and Global Co-Chief Operating Officer of Corporate Banking and Securities from 2012 until 2016. During Zia’s 30-year finance career on Wall Street, he held multiple executive positions in the United States, Europe and Asia while leading investment banking, sales and trading functions spanning many industries, products, and clients.

Zia received his BA in Economics and in Political Science from Williams College. He resides in Wyoming with his wife and two daughters and is active in the local community.

Tony Robbins is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, philanthropist, and the world’s #1 life and business strategist.

For over 4 decades, more than 50 million people have enjoyed the warmth, humor, and transformational power of his business and personal development events. Mr. Robbins is the chairman of a holding company comprised of 40 privately held businesses with combined sales exceeding $5 billion a year. He has been honored by Accenture as one of the “Top 50 Business Intellectuals in the World”; by Harvard Business Press as one of the “Top 200 Business Gurus”; and by American Express as one of the “Top Six Business Leaders in the World” to coach their entrepreneurial clients. More than 4 million people have attended Tony’s live seminars, and more than 50 million people from 100 countries have experienced the absolute power of his teachings. Tony Robbins’ coaching methods have been proven at the highest levels of success in every game imaginable. Tony works alongside business magnates like Danny Meyer of Shake Shack, Jenny Fleiss of Rent the Runway, Joe Gebbia of Airbnb and Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff, coaching them to continually improve, innovate and grow. His work has touched the lives of top entertainers and athletes – from Aerosmith to Pitbull, from Serena Williams to the Golden State Warriors.

Taylor is the CFO and Partner of Prime Movers Lab. She helps manage the firm’s financial operations across accounting, reporting, and financial planning.

Before joining Prime Movers Lab, Taylor served in controller and accounting roles with P Soros Investments and Long Light Capital, LLC. She oversaw accounting functions for the family offices, while also handling HR functions for family office employees. She began her career as a tax accountant with RSM US where she focused on private equity companies and high net worth individuals. Taylor earned a master’s degree in Corporate Accounting and an undergraduate degree in Accounting with a minor in Judaic studies, both from The University of Miami. She is a licensed CPA in the state of New York and a Level III CFA Candidate.

Gavin is Chief of Staff and Platform Partner at Prime Movers Lab where he leads portfolio support, helping founders with public relations, government relations, and fundraising. He helps founders tell their stories to key audiences, including media, consumers, investors, and policymakers. He also serves on the boards of Twist, Zafrens, Casimir, ProRata.ai, NuCube, Water From Air, Dalan Animal Health, Polpis, and Wacomet, and he is a board observer for Pyka and NobleAI.

Prior to joining Prime Movers Lab, Gavin was a Vice President at Method Communications where he supported the firm’s startup clients on issues related to media relations, public affairs, and crisis communications. Gavin previously worked for Edelman’s Washington, DC technology practice, representing some of the world's largest technology brands, such as Samsung, Adobe, and the Business Software Alliance. He also worked as a lobbyist for companies like eBay, Verisign, and Pitney Bowes. Gavin started his career on Capitol Hill with the Senate Finance Committee’s press office for Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), advising the majority staff on media strategies to pass trade, healthcare, and tax legislation. He graduated with a master’s degree in political management from The George Washington University and earned bachelor’s degrees in communication (journalism) and political science from Washington State University.

Brantley is Operations Manager and supports partners across a wide variety of functions such as operational and administrative processes, HR assistance, and event coordination.

Prior to working with Prime Movers Lab, Brantley worked as Personal and Executive Assistant to professional athlete Travis Rice and was Coordinating Producer for the snowboarding competition Natural Selection Tour. She has over a decade of office management experience in Jackson, Wyoming, the place she called home for 17 years. Brantley currently resides in her hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia near her siblings and parents. Brantley is passionate about working with others and brings her skills of organization, enthusiasm, and problem-solving to every team she is a part of. She is an avid outdoorswoman, animal therapy advocate, bicycle enthusiast, and yoga instructor. Brantley graduated from James Madison University with a B.A. in Sociology.

Kam Ghaffarian is the visionary space and energy entrepreneur behind several companies dedicated to furthering human civilization, including Axiom Space and Quantum Space. Driven by his mission to advance the state of humanity and human knowledge, Kam has created organizations transforming the space and energy sectors. In addition to co-founding Axiom Space and Quantum Space, his other companies include Intuitive Machines, a leader in delivering science technology to NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program; X-energy, which is developing nuclear power solutions for both terrestrial energy and space propulsion use; and IBX, an innovation and investment firm. Kam is also an active philanthropist and founder of a non-profit focused on scientific research and enabling interstellar travel.

Bill Gross is the founder and chairman of Idealab. Bill started Idealab, the longest-running technology incubator, in 1996. At Idealab, he has created more than 175 companies, with more than 50 successful IPOs and acquisitions, and created more than 10,000 jobs. Companies started by Idealab have raised more than $4 billion. Bill is a pioneer in inventing companies to mitigate climate change, starting numerous companies built on innovative breakthroughs, with multiple companies winning the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Award. In addition to founding Energy Vault, CarbonCapture Inc, Heliogen, and other Idealab companies, Bill also is a member of the board of the Art Center College of Design and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Greg Wyler is the founder, CEO, and Chief Architect at E-Space. In this role, Greg has re-imagined low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite system design, manufacturing, economics, and service delivery to overcome the limitations associated with legacy LEO systems. Greg also serves as Chairman of the E-Space Board of Directors. Greg is a recognized technology entrepreneur, engineer, and visionary, with a proven track record of creating and growing innovative space companies. In 2007, he founded O3b Networks, followed by OneWeb in 2012. Both have proven successful, leveraging satellite technology to fuel global connectivity missions. Greg holds more than 35 patents related to the design, implementation, and use of satellite communications technology.

Aaron Mandell is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wacomet. Aaron co-founded and served as a board member and advisor at Quidnet Energy. Previously, he co-founded and served as Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of WaterFX. He co-founded AltaRock. He also served as Chief Technology Officer at Coatue and co-founded Quaise Energy. He also co-founded and served as Managing Partner at GreatPoint Ventures and co-founded GreatPoint Energy. He served as Chief Executive Officer & President at Oasys Water. He has experience in energy and alternative fuels and founded and sits on the Boards of Coskata and Ethos. He serves as a director of Oasys Water.

Blake Scholl is the Chief Executive Officer at Boom Supersonic, which he founded in September 2014, with the goal of making the world more accessible with high-speed travel. Prior to founding Boom, Blake held leadership roles at Amazon and Groupon, and co-founded the mobile technology startup, Kima Labs. He started his career at Amazon.com as a software engineer in 2001, where he later owned a $300M P&L in online marketing. Then, Blake was the first employee and director of product development at mobile startup Pelago. In 2010, he co-founded mobile technology startup Kima Labs, which was acquired by Groupon in 2012.

Amy Kruse is a Venture Partner of Prime Movers Lab. She serves on the boards of our portfolio companies, Paradromics, Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals, Cognixion, Dimension Bio, and Attune Neurosciences.

Amy is formerly the Chief Scientific Officer at Optios, an applied neuroscience company. She built the company’s scientific vision and completed acquisitions that resulted in a robust intellectual property portfolio. Amy also served as the VP and CTO at Cubic Global Defense overseeing innovation and the R&D portfolio across the entire defense enterprise. Early in her career, she served as a government civilian program manager at DARPA where she created and oversaw the Agency’s first performance-oriented neuroscience programs, with a combined budget of over $300M. Amy is a Founding Member of the Loomis Innovation Council and a Guest Lecturer for Singularity University. She earned a BS in Cell and Structural Biology and a PhD in Neuroscience from University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, where she was awarded an NSF Graduate Fellowship.

Justin Briggs is a scientific entrepreneur and investor working at the nexus of biology, chemistry, and engineering. He is a Venture Partner at Prime Movers Lab and supports portfolio company Zafrens full time. He also serves on the boards of Lygenesis, Iridia, and Morphoceuticals.

Over the last 15 years, Justin was an operator at nearly a dozen biotech, nanotech, robotics, and software companies with multiple exits and over $100 million in venture backing. Justin also supported venture creation at startup studios such as Deep Science Ventures and Accele Venture Partners. Justin developed novel therapeutics and regenerative medicines in disease areas including oncology, neurology, autoimmune, cardiometabolic, and infectious diseases across ten countries and four continents.

Prior to joining Prime Movers Lab, Justin developed next-generation biologic medicines, novel pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and other technologies at companies including Antiverse, Tetherex Pharmaceuticals, Accele BioPharma, Otologic Pharmaceutics, Pamlico BioPharma, Synereca, Jortan Pharma, Altheus Therapeutics, Crescendo Biosciences, and Southwest Nanotechnologies. Justin co-founded TomorrowScale Ventures and startups Chorus Labs, SnapLab Technologies, and Patch Botanics. Justin is knowledgeable across many discovery, development, commercialization, and scaling activities relevant to deep tech and life science companies, has a degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Oklahoma, an MBA with high honors from Oklahoma City University, and is a co-inventor on multiple issued patents.

Liza is the research manager for electricity transmission at the Niskanen Center. She is an expert in High Voltage Direct Current, electricity transmission, and technology innovation. Before joining the Niskanen Center, she worked on energy funding at the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western Reserve University, wireless communication technology development at inmobly, and business analysis at Capital One Finance.

She holds a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in Engineering and Public Policy and a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The Ohio State University.

Thought Paper
The Electricity Grid

Mitch is passionate about halting the negative effects of climate change by investigating alternative energy and energy storage technologies within the field of chemical engineering. He earned his PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Rochester and as a member of the Porosoff Lab studying Alternative Catalysts for Energy Applications, he is investigating novel catalyst materials that would facilitate carbon recycling processes as a means of replacing hydrocarbon feedstocks for industrial use. Mitch is greatly motivated by creating alternative energy technologies that could reduce our global dependence on fossil fuels and focused on mineral extraction from water during his fellowship with Prime Movers Lab.

Thought Paper
Critical Minerals for a Clean Energy Transition

Marissa is an interdisciplinary PhD candidate at UC Berkeley working at the intersection of applied mathematics, computer science, and computational physics. She is a graduate student researcher in the Darrell Group at Berkeley AI Research and in the Applied Numerical Methods Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Marissa’s research interests include 3D computer vision and geometry, physics-based simulation, and high-performance computing. She has spent time at Adobe Research and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and her Prime Movers Lab fellowship is focused on robotics.

Thought Paper
Robots and Humans

Ted is pursuing his PhD in Biomedical Informatics at Northwestern University and is interested in the intersection between artificial intelligence and biotechnology. He currently serves as the VP of Venture Capital and Business Development for the Northwestern Biotech Group and has assisted multiple venture capital firms with the evaluation of scientific and clinical data throughout the development stage. He is bilingual in English and Mandarin and also has experience in molecular biology and virology.

Thought Paper
Diagnostics

Nicholas May-Varas is a mechanical engineering graduate student attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is interested in developing efficient and accessible renewable energy technologies. Some of his current responsibilities include conducting research as a graduate research assistant at MIT and collaborating with others as a co-panel director for the 2023 MIT Energy Conference. Some of his previous energy-related experiences include conducting wave energy research as an undergraduate research assistant with the Pacific Marine Energy Center and participating in two energy-related competitions.

Thought Paper
Marine Energy Technologies

Andrew earned PhD student in Bioengineering at Georgia Tech studying synthetic biology, focusing on developing tools to make cells programmable. Andrew has broad interest in deep tech and experience in biotechnology, materials science, and AI. In 2022, he co-founded University Bioconnect, a biotech meetup series aimed at growing the bio-entrepreneurial community in Georgia; Bioconnect invites speakers with success stories in biotech entrepreneurship, investing, and JDEI to share their experiences with the community, and offers a space to make the kinds of connections that foster innovations. Andrew has also worked as Director of Strategy for the Atlanta branch of Nucleate, a student-led, nonprofit biotech accelerator. In his spare time, Andrew loves playing chess and recording music.

Nick is a biologist focusing on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of aging. His goal is to accelerate the development of therapies targeting these mechanisms to prevent diseases like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, stroke, and diabetes. Nick received his PhD from Stanford University where he co-led Tabula Muris Senis, a large-scale effort to comprehensively characterize mouse aging at single-cell resolution throughout the body. Most recently, he co-founded Rejuvenome at the Astera Institute before starting as Chief Scientific Strategist at Emles Advisors.

Erin is passionate about building resilient communities and sustainable technology at the nexus of food, energy, and water. She is an environmental engineering PhD candidate in the Shaffer Lab at the University of Houston where she studies membrane separations for water treatment and renewable energy applications. In addition, as a senior TEX-E fellow, Erin works with a cohort of Texas students in collaboration with MIT and Greentown Labs to build an entrepreneurship ecosystem around sustainable energy innovation. Just prior to pursuing her PhD, she worked in R&D as the chief sustainability officer of a desalination startup company based out of Houston, TX. Erin has spent time as a visiting graduate researcher at Argonne National Lab and at INSA in Lyon, France.

Mike earned his PhD in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, investigating enzymes and pathways to engineer microbes for the production of bio-based fuels and chemicals. He went on to work in various scientific, commercial, and strategic roles at Zymergen, a company leveraging high-throughput microbial engineering platforms to innovate sustainable products for agriculture, advanced materials, healthcare, and other sectors. Mike’s history in the biochemical manufacturing industry has shown him the necessity to apply a deep, pragmatic understanding of scientific principles to evaluate if prospective solutions are truly feasible at a global scale. He is excited to apply this perspective to the question of sustainable aviation fuels.

Dr. John Mern is an expert in artificial intelligence for autonomous systems and human decision support. He is passionate about applying artificial intelligence to meaningful, real world problems, in particular those supporting the transition to a net zero economy. He was previously the senior decision scientist at KoBold Metals, where he implemented AI systems to guide exploration for critical mineral deposits. John received his MS and PhD from Stanford University, where he was a member of the Stanford Intelligent Systems Lab (SISL). In SISL, his research explored reinforcement learning and Monte Carlo planning for large-scale decision problems. He has published research applying these methods to a variety of fields including wind-farm design, critical infrastructure cyber security, aquifer remediation, and critical mineral exploration.