Astor Perkins Opening Keynote Oct 26th 2022

November 1, 2022

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Astor Perkins Opening Keynote Oct 26th 2022

Welcome to Astor Perkins’ All Things Deep Tech & Survival! My name is Scott Amyx, Managing Partner at Astor Perkins.

The late President Ronald Reagan gave a speech on the 40th anniversary of D-Day on the very spot on the northern coast of Normandy where Allied soldiers stormed ashore to liberate Europe from Nazi’s tyranny.

Here’s an excerpt from that speech:

“On that remarkable D-Day, the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim Europe to liberty. For 4 long years, much of Europe had been under the dark shadow of Adolf Hitler. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, and millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue.

On that faithful day, the Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers — the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.

Why did they risk everything? What impelled them to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk their lives? The answer is it was faith and belief; it was loyalty.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right. Faith that they fought for all humanity. Faith that a just God would grant them mercy. It was the deep and profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. They were there to liberate, not to conquer. This is the reason why we won.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is but only the tipping point.

And that war isn’t only in Ukraine, it’s at our front door steps, as state actors choke our global supply chain and oil & gas, stroking inflation and making us feel the economic pain.

State actors are also taking the fight to outer space to extend their conquest to the moon and Mars. As we have seen with the Ukraine war, satellite assets provided critical intelligence.

The war in Ukraine has opened the eyes of leaders in Europe and the U.S. But the fight of today is very different from the wars of the past. Nations with the most advanced AI, robotics, and automation will win the day, not tanks, warplanes or even battleships.

For Europe and the U.S. to remain strong enough to defeat the threat of foreign occupation, nations need to embrace disruptive technologies.

NATO announced that it is creating a $1 billion innovation fund that will invest in early-stage startups and venture capital funds developing “priority” technologies such as AI, big data, and automation.

Former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Hyten said he worries the DoD bureaucracy and congressional overseers are making it difficult for the U.S. Space Force to acquire new technologies at the pace that’s needed to keep up with adversaries.

He said. “I don’t know if anybody’s looked, but the threat is real. It exists today. You’d better be doing a lot faster and you’d better be taking some chances.”

Astor Perkins is uniquely positioned to assist in helping our nation and equipping our NATO allies. Unlike many other VCs investing in NFTs, Web3 and gaming, we are investing in the areas that will matter the most to give our nation and our allies the greatest advantage — from quantum computing, quantum cryptography, AI, robotics, autonomation to space, we’re looking at the hard scientific, technological and engineering solutions that will give us the edge.

It’s easy to be a VC when markets are booming. What sets the marquis VCs apart from the rest is their ability to not only identify which startups will be the long-term winners but to muster up the resolve to invest during uncertain, difficult times.

This downturn is sending many investors running for the hills. But as they leave the market, an enormous opportunity will be presented to those who remain active in the market.

Warren Buffet often says “to buy when there’s blood in the streets and sell when there’s euphoria”

It is a scary time to deploy capital, but that’s exactly when generational opportunities are created.

History often repeats itself, and in previous cycles mirroring today’s reality, enormous returns have been generated in early-stage venture capital by LPs who invested deeply at this stage of the cycle.

Many of the bellwether VCs that have become household names have done so by leaning into the uncertainty that we feel today and buying high-quality, startups at discounted valuations. It presents a once-in-a-lifetime buying opportunity for VCs with the resolve to invest in uncertain times.

Astor Perkins presents a unique opportunity. Come see us at work.