US Technology & Venture Capital Research Trip – Client Briefing

Executive Summary

Over a nine-day period our investment team travelled across the US East Coast, visiting New York City, Princeton University, Washington DC and Atlanta.

The objective of the trip was simple: to gain direct exposure and engagement with portfolio companies we have already invested in, alongside a structured programme of meeting new founders operating at the frontier of technology innovation. Besides the founders, we accessed an extensive network to deepen our understanding of the investment ecosystem in the US. In every case we secured one-on-one time with founders themselves – not intermediaries. This gave us unfiltered insight into each business’s thesis, traction and trajectory.

While much can be learned through research and video calls, nothing substitutes for sitting down with founders, engineers and investors in person. The trip provided valuable insight into:

• Emerging technologies being commercialised in the US

• The scale and sophistication of the US venture capital ecosystem

• The depth of technical talent and research institutions

• New investment opportunities aligned with major structural themes

The most striking takeaway was the sheer scale and depth of the US venture ecosystem relative to Australia. The volume of quality opportunities, the calibre of founders and the density of networks we were able to access in nine days represents a level of deal flow that would take years to replicate domestically. We return with a curated set of compelling investment opportunities that we are excited to bring to our clients.

The knowledge and relationships developed during the visit have strengthened our conviction in several existing investments and opened the door to new compelling opportunities that we expect to present to clients in the coming weeks.

Why the US Matters for Venture Capital

The United States remains the global epicentre of innovation and venture capital.

Several structural factors explain this dominance:

1. Scale of capital

• The US VC market deploys over 10–15x the capital of Australia annually.

2. Research ecosystems

• Universities such as Princeton, MIT, Stanford and Georgia Tech are directly linked to startup formation.

3. Talent density

• Engineers, scientists and founders move fluidly between academia, startups and large technology companies.

4. Commercialisation culture

• Early-stage companies focus aggressively on scaling globally from inception.

This creates an environment where high-quality investment opportunities appear in much greater numbers than we typically see in Australia.

Direct Founder Engagement

A core objective of the trip was to spend one-on-one time with founders and technical teams.

These meetings are critical because they allow us to:

• Evaluate the technical credibility of the business

• Assess founder capability and culture

• Understand commercialisation pathways

• Observe product development progress first hand

• Understand where capital is being deployed

• Gain insights into how US Federal funding flows from people that are connected to the highest levels of government

During the trip we met with founders working across several advanced technology sectors.

Key Technology Areas Explored

Advanced Semiconductor Architectures

One area of focus was next-generation chip architectures, particularly designs targeting:

• Artificial intelligence workloads

• High-performance computing

• Data centre acceleration

• Performance at the Edge

• On device compute

These companies are exploring architectures that dramatically improve compute efficiency and power efficiency, an increasingly critical factor as AI workloads grow exponentially.

Overcoming current bottlenecks around energy efficiency, networking and data transfers remains a critical barrier as LLM parameters grow rapidly.

One company in particular appears to have overcome this by using analog technology and building the memory directly into the compute layer.

The conversations reinforced a key theme:

Compute infrastructure will remain one of the most important investment areas of the next decade.

Autonomous Robotics

We also spent time with companies building autonomous robotic systems designed for:

• Full stack automation and swarm technologies for:

o Security capabilities

o Enterprise applications

These technologies are progressing rapidly as advances in:

• machine vision

• AI models

• edge computing

• on-device AI

allow robots to operate autonomously and safely in complex and challenging environments.

National security, labour shortages and productivity pressures are driving strong commercial demand.

Digital Identity & Cybersecurity

Several companies we visited are building platforms in security and digital identity verification, areas experiencing rapid growth due to:

• increasing cyber threats

• financial fraud

• regulatory requirements for identity authentication

• national security concerns and data protection

These platforms combine AI-driven verification, biometrics, and secure digital credentials to create scalable solutions used by enterprises (e.g. financial institutions and healthcare), governments and online platforms.

The aim is to significantly reduce the current friction that consumers experience when dealing with government agencies (e.g. tax office, social security) and companies (e.g. banking and finance) thereby driving significant productivity gains and a better customer experience.

Alternative Technologies for Rare Earth Supply

One particularly interesting area we explored was alternative technologies aimed at improving the supply of rare earth materials.

Rare earths are essential for:

• permanent magnets

• electric motors

• electric vehicles

• renewable energy technologies

Given global supply concentration risks, several startups are developing new extraction techniques, processing methods, and substitute materials that could dramatically reshape supply chains.

This is an example of how electrification, autonomy, geopolitics, energy transition and materials science are converging to create new investment opportunities.

Key Takeaways from the Trip

1. Opportunities Are More Abundant in the US

The most obvious observation was the sheer number of high-quality companies being created.

The US ecosystem benefits from:

• deeper pools of technical talent

• stronger university spin-outs

• larger venture capital funding networks

• significant US government funding

This results in a far greater pipeline of investable opportunities.

2. Founder Quality and Networks are Exceptional

Many founders demonstrated:

• a unique value proposition and pathway to commercialisation with significant TAMs

• a unique connection to government and key decision makers in securing Federal funding

• the pathway to revenues and commercialisation is only 2 to 5 years away

The network effect these companies have is enormous.

We gained valuable insights into Federal funding with bi-partisan support.

3. Deep Technology is Accelerating

A growing number of startups are building deep technology businesses in areas such as:

• semiconductors

• advanced materials

• robotics and automation

• energy technology

These companies are providing unique solutions to real-world problems which will drive significant productivity gains.

4. First-Hand Engagement is Critical

Meeting founders in person provided insights that are difficult to capture through remote interactions.

We were able to observe:

• engineering teams at work

• prototype demonstrations

• product roadmaps

• customer traction

In addition, we got exposure to a network of strategic contacts with high level connections to government providing us valuation insight into funding and grants.

This provides us with a much higher level of investment conviction.

What This Means for Clients

The trip significantly strengthened our pipeline of potential venture investments.

As a result of the meetings and research conducted, we are now:

• conducting deeper due diligence on several opportunities

• evaluating potential participation in future funding rounds

• expanding our network of US venture partners

These opportunities are consistent with our investment philosophy of focusing on “Xtra-Ordinary Opportunities” that sit outside traditional investment markets.

All of the investments we were exposed to overlapped with our secular growth themes.

Looking Ahead

Our US visit reinforced a key conclusion:

Many of the most transformative investment opportunities are emerging from the intersection of technology, energy, and advanced materials.

Maintaining direct relationships with founders and venture ecosystems globally is critical to identifying these opportunities early.

Over the coming months we expect to introduce several new investment opportunities arising from this research trip.

We look forward to sharing further updates as our due diligence progresses.

Disclaimer

The contents of this communication is prepared by Brerona Capital Asset Management Pty Ltd (A.C.N. 627 650 293; AFSL 520526). The information contained in this communication is general in nature and does not take into consideration any investors personal objectives, goals, needs and financial situation. You should not rely on the information contained in this document to make any investment decisions without first consulting an investment professional such as your financial adviser. Any unauthorised use of this document is prohibited. This document (including any attachments) is intended only for the addressee, it may contain information of a privileged and confidential nature. If you are not the addressee of this communication, you must not copy, reproduce, disseminate or use this email and its contents. If this communication has been received in error by you, please inform us immediately and securely delete. Sharing, transmitting, copying, disseminating all or part of the contents of this document may result in a breach of the Federal Privacy Legislation and or copyright and trademark infringement of Brerona Capital Asset Management Pty Ltd and its related entities.