Builders VC

Builders VC is accelerating innovation across New Mexico. 🚀 The past two months marked meaningful progress in our commitment to supporting founders and strengthening the state’s innovation infrastructure. A few highlights: 🎤 HLTH 2025 We hosted our first Builders VC reception and sponsored six international startups to exhibit, expanding visibility for high-potential technologies and deepening partnerships across the U.S. health innovation landscape. 💡 HealthAI Summit As a key sponsor, we partnered with HealthInno NM to convene more than 200 leaders focused on AI-enabled healthcare. The engagement underscored New Mexico’s growing role in advancing solutions for payers, providers, and patients. 🏢 Builders VC Albuquerque Office Launch We opened our new downtown Albuquerque office, establishing a dedicated hub for founder engagement, community partnerships, and our long-term work in the region. 🌎 Climate Hackathon  In collaboration with NM Tech Talks, we supported multidisciplinary teams tackling climate, sustainability, and resilience challenges through rapid prototyping.   Looking ahead Builders VC remains committed to investing in the people, technologies, and partnerships shaping New Mexico’s next chapter. The momentum is accelerating — and we’re proud to be part of it. www.builders.vc

We’re excited to welcome Andrew Schmitt to the Builders VC team as a Principal Andrew joins us in San Francisco and brings unique investing experience across AI, B2B software, and industrial technology. Before Builders, he was an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners and Smith Point Capital, where he partnered with over a dozen early-stage and growth-stage companies in enterprise and vertical software. Andrew began his career advising founder-led companies through IPOs and strategic financings at J.P. Morgan and and Financial Technology Partners. Andrew works closely with founders on early product, GTM, and hiring decisions, helping set the foundation for breakout companies. We’re thrilled to have him on board and excited for the impact he’ll have as Builders!

🏆 A BIG congratulations from Builders VC portfolio company Foresight Risk & Insurance Services. Foresight has been named AI Innovator of the Year at Insurity's 2025 Excellence in Insurance conference — a recognition reserved for organizations redefining what’s possible in the P&C industry through operational excellence and technical leadership. The award highlights Foresight’s forward-looking approach to applying AI across underwriting and risk management. By pairing intelligent automation with predictive insights, Foresight is improving accuracy, enhancing decision-making, and strengthening partnerships with brokers and policyholders. The result: safer worksites, smarter underwriting, and a modern blueprint for tech-driven insurance. As Insurity noted, Foresight represents the innovative spirit reshaping the P&C landscape — leveraging data and automation to deliver measurable value for customers and the broader industry. We’re proud to support David Fontain and the entire Foresight team as they continue setting the standard for what the future of insurance can look like: safer, smarter, and built on real outcomes. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/etQjtre8 #InsurTech #AI #RiskManagement #P&C #InsuranceInnovation

🚀 2025 AGM Highlight: UbiQD, Inc. – Quantum Dots Making Light Work Smarter In this vignette, Hunter McDaniel, founder of UbiQD, introduces a breakthrough that sounds like science fiction but is already in production: quantum dots — nanomaterials that shift the color of light to make systems more efficient. Whether it’s solar panels that capture more energy or greenhouse films that make crops grow 30% faster, UbiQD is pioneering how light can be tuned to maximize performance. And they’re doing it right here in the U.S. as the country’s only domestic quantum dot manufacturer — with safe, low-cost materials designed to drop into existing supply chains. The tech is tiny, but the implications are massive: anytime light is absorbed, reflected, or converted, UbiQD has a way to make it better. 📺 Watch the full video to learn how UbiQD is taking quantum tech from the lab to the field. #QuantumDots #AgTech #SolarTech #Nanotech #Cleantech #Photonics

🚀 2025 AGM Highlight: Pathos – Using AI to Build the Future of Big Pharma In this vignette, Iker Huerga, CEO of Pathos, shares a bold vision: to build a new kind of pharmaceutical company — one that doesn’t just develop drugs, but prevents them from failing before they ever hit patients. At the heart of Pathos is the world’s largest oncology foundation model, trained to understand why drugs fail and how to select the patients most likely to respond. Their platform starts with real clinical data, validates insights in wet labs, and then runs in-house trials to either bring drugs to market or license them out — flipping the traditional biotech model on its head. For Iker, this mission is personal. As a prostate cancer survivor, he’s not building another biotech looking for a quick exit. He’s building a smarter system — and a better shot — for patients everywhere. 📺 Watch the full video to see how Pathos is using AI to make clinical trials faster, smarter, and more successful. #AIInHealthcare #Oncology #DrugDevelopment #FoundationModels #HealthTech #PrecisionMedicine

🚀 2025 AGM Highlight: Checkerspot – Reengineering the Supply Chain with Precision Fermentation In this vignette, the team at Checkerspot explains how they’re using synthetic biology to design and scale next-gen oils — faster, purer, and closer to home. Their breakthrough process allows them to recreate fats that are difficult or impossible to source from nature using precision fermentation and microalgae. Their lead product, OPO, matches a rare fat found in human breast milk — a critical ingredient for infant nutrition. But what drives the business is Checkerspot’s ability to produce high-value, specialty food oils for partners using existing infrastructure and regional supply chains. By out-licensing innovations rather than building their own factories, Checkerspot brings biomanufacturing to scale with speed and efficiency — transforming how food oils are produced, sourced, and supplied. 📺 Watch the full video to learn how Checkerspot is rewriting the way we grow and deliver performance oils to the world. J. Casey Lippmeier John Krzywicki #SynBio #PrecisionFermentation #FoodTech #SupplyChainInnovation #ClimateTech #NextGenOils

🚀 2025 AGM Highlight: 280 Earth – Turning Waste Heat into Carbon Removal In this vignette, the team at 280 Earth unveils a powerful vision: scaling carbon removal through modular direct air capture (DAC) powered by waste heat — all while producing fresh water as a byproduct. With their first DAC facility now operational in The Dalles, Oregon, 280 Earth is showing what’s possible when climate science meets practical deployment. Backed by breakthrough tech and a team originally spun out of X, The Moonshot Factory, the company is focused on building a global fleet of small, scalable plants designed to permanently remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and help restore the balance at 280ppm. 📺 Watch the full video to see how 280 Earth is making carbon removal real — one modular plant at a time. Greg Bohannon #ClimateTech Anand Saxena #CarbonRemoval #DirectAirCapture #Sustainability #Cleantech #Innovation #google

We are entering a new chapter of growth at UbiQD. Today, we are proud to announce two major milestones that will accelerate our manufacturing scale-up in New Mexico: 🌕 We've closed a $6 million debt financing agreement with Silicon Valley Bank. This capital will fuel facility upgrades and specialized equipment to meet the rising demand for our quantum dot materials in solar and agriculture. 🌕 To help guide this expansion, Tony Beams has joined the team as Chief Financial Officer. Tony brings a powerhouse background in AgTech and commercializing hardware, with leadership roles at AppHarvest, Plenty, and Netflix. "Tony brings a rare combination of financial depth and experience with high-growth agriculture technology businesses," says our CEO, Hunter McDaniel. "His leadership will be instrumental as we deepen our relationship with SVB." Read more about the exciting milestones here: https://bit.ly/3X3c8n0

HLTH USA 2025 — What a Week! 🚀 We brought the energy, the founders brought the innovation, and the conversations brought real momentum for what’s next. Builders VC was proud to sponsor six incredible healthtech startups from our regional pipeline to exhibit in the Digital Health Hub Pavilion — and they showed up in a big way! Our founders made meaningful connections with investors, strategic partners, and peers tackling some of the toughest challenges in healthcare today. We also hosted our first-ever Builders Reception at HLTH — an unforgettable evening that marked the start of what will become an annual tradition. Grateful to everyone who joined us, shared ideas, and cheered on the next generation of innovators. This is what ecosystem-building looks like: collaboration, opportunity, and a whole lot of hustle. Here’s to the momentum we’re carrying forward — from Vegas to Hawaii, New Mexico, and beyond. Vitality Blueprint Lillia IRIS XR - A Computer Vision Company Fidari Vivia Cares, Inc Vitazi.ai, Inc.

🎉 We’re thrilled to welcome the Augment team to the Builders VC family! Congrats to Augment on closing a $12M Series A round — a milestone we are proud to have led alongside Neo, Golden Section, E1 Ventures, Corp Capital, and OPCO Ventures. Here’s why now feels monumental: The private-market secondary world has exploded: in Q2 2025 alone, the US VC direct secondary market reached $61.1 B, up from ~$50 B just two quarters prior. Augment’s growth speaks volumes: their platform now manages over $400 M in AUM, and they’ve hit an eight-figure annual run rate while being profitable year-to-date. The broader landscape is shifting: 1️⃣ Companies are staying private longer; value creation is increasingly pre-IPO. 2️⃣ A new generation of high-growth, capital-efficient companies (think AI, deep tech) are rewriting how business is built—and they demand liquidity earlier and differently. 3️⃣ Regulatory change is on the horizon: new rules are unlocking institutional and individual access to private markets, increasing the size of the opportunity dramatically. In short: Augment is building the rails for what the private-markets ecosystem should have by now—liquidity, access, and transparency. Their platform empowers investors (and employees) in a space that historically had friction, opacity, and high barriers. We’re excited to partner with Noel Moldvai, Adam Crawley, and the full Augment team as they scale. With their founder-led discipline + strong traction + the market momentum behind them, the future looks very bright. Welcome aboard — let’s build something great! 🚀 https://lnkd.in/g_bynpWq Mike Rosengarten Amit Mehta, MD Mark H Goldstein