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Have you heard of “space factory”?
Despite sounding like the name of a lost Pink Floyd album, Space Factory is exactly what it sounds like – a manufacturing factory in space. Or, to be more precise, low Earth orbit.
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The pharmaceutical industry could use them to produce drugs at more affordable prices in the emerging field of microgravity life sciences, a technology area that has benefited greatly from the race to commercialize private spaceflight.
One such provider is a company called Varda, whose president and co-founder Delian Asparouhov will take the stage at Inman Connect in Las Vegas.
Still, the Founding Fund Partner has largely operated from the ground up, spreading his interests and wisdom to a range of more accessible industries over the years, using venture capital as the proverbial launchpad to impact Areas like cancer patient care, T-shirts, and yes, real estate.
Asparukhov’s influence in the venture capital field is also on track. He was named to the 2024 “Midas Fringe List,” a coveted compendium of up-and-coming venture capitalists, a recognition that will undoubtedly earn him a degree after leaving MIT with a few courses to go. His subsequent notoriety brought a brighter light (he told this salt lake tribune He won’t learn anything new) and at the age of 19 he created Nightingale, a medical services app.
Inman spent 20 minutes chatting with the consummate multitasker, who thinks as fast as he innovates. Asparukhov talked about funding preferences, space factories, Las Vegas and, of course, real estate.
This article has been edited for length and clarity.
Inman: You seem to be involved in a lot of things, so how would you describe what you do in a standard job sense?
Delian Asparukhov: I focus primarily on seed and Series A investments, and a bunch of different areas, but I try to avoid any pure software investments. I’ve made various investments in real estate, from Giraffe360 (a camera for tours and floor plan analysis) to Cover (a more modular, low-cost way to build single-family homes) to Up&Up, which allows renters to Buying equity in the home they rent gives them the benefits of homeownership, while the landlord can find tenants who match their financial incentives.
I was lucky enough to work for my former colleague, Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois, who co-founded Opendoor. I’ve been through this company’s journey from early days to IPO, and I think it’s one of the most interesting real estate technology companies in the last 10 or 15 years.
So yeah, that’s half of my job, I also incubated and built Varda Space Industries, which is into space manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, but that might not be as relevant to your audience.
Inman: Many entrepreneurs want to know how venture capital firms make financing decisions. What are you personally looking for?
At our company, we focus entirely on the founding team. We don’t tend to be top-down or industry-focused, nor do we think like some venture capitalists that we can just ride the wave. We want to focus on world-class, ambitious, capable founders who have very bold visions in large markets, but those visions are not always recognized by the wider community. For example, we were one of the early investors in SpaceX Elon Musk’s own personal capital. In 2008, it was pretty radical for a private company to want to build a rocket, and we were willing to take on a vision that others didn’t believe in.
We also look for companies that are seen as following incumbents. We have had great success when existing technology providers have shown promise but failed to deliver, which is our paper on Giraffe360. Matterport showed what was possible in cameras and hardware that could lead to better consumer experiences and a better understanding of the worlds you buy and build, but we don’t think they delivered on that promise.
We like to challenge the consensus.
Inman: Space is obviously an interest of yours as well; help me understand Space Factory.
We put precursor material into a satellite, and then that satellite goes into a lower Earth orbit, a microgravity environment, and the material processes it runs through produce very different results because they’re in microgravity, very different from what’s going on here on Earth. Big difference. We then deliver these prefabricated materials to your customers.
Our main focus is on pharmaceuticals, where you can fundamentally change the structure of a pharmaceutical, thereby significantly changing its performance characteristics. Merck demonstrated this best in 2019 when they took one of the largest anti-cancer drugs and showed that in the microgravity environment of low-Earth orbit, they were able to create a drug structure that allowed it to be delivered Instead of getting this drug through an IV, patients have to come to the clinic once a week for four to six hours — instead, they can send you home with a syringe and you can [inject] Safe and comfortable in your own home without disrupting your life or work schedule.
It was a significant improvement in the patient experience; it was obviously a huge commercial outcome for Merck, but ultimately they couldn’t commercialize it because the work was performed on the International Space Station and was essentially only suitable for research.
But Varda has now allowed the drug to be commercialized.
Inman: You’re committed to great ideas, how does that relate to the audiences you see in Las Vegas?
Fundamentally, real estate is the largest area of consumer spending, and I still think it’s an area that hasn’t been impacted by technology like other industries. I think it’s a disservice to the American people and consumers.
Over the next decade, I think we’re going to see a lot more impact, not just from software that enables agents to communicate more effectively, but from really fundamental changes in how work is actually done on a day-to-day basis – labor, construction work, experiential consumption or what they have in their homes – will fundamentally change a field that has not changed since the invention of the stick 150 years ago.
There’s been a lot of talk about the use of technology in real estate, but through robotics and automation, these more physical technologies rather than digital technologies will ultimately have a meaningful impact on real estate and we hope to be one of many supporter companies.
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Join us to watch Delian Asparouhov perform live at Inman Connect Las Vegas at Aria Resort and Casino from July 30 to August 1. Reserve your seat now for the top real estate event.
