BBQ Capital

SpaceX is a private spaceflight company that sends satellites and people to space, including NASA crews to the International Space Station (ISS) Founder Elon Musk is also creating and testing a Starship system for lunar landings and, he hopes, future crewed Mars missions

Regression Games is building the platform and ecosystem to make competitive gaming and esports accessible and enjoyable to all by leveraging artificial intelligence In practice, players write code and AIs that control characters, debug strategies in real-time, compete for prizes in tournaments and top spots on the leaderboards, and collaborate with friends to build the best bots possible

AstroForge takes a fresh look at asteroid mining, using proprietary technology that it claims can enable the mining of platinum-group metals from near Earth asteroids

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Join leading investors funding the next wave of world-changing startups Remove the friction from investing AngelList handles fund admin, custom fund formation, regulatory filings, taxes, and more

Nabis is a licensed cannabis wholesale marketplace that distributes cannabis products to retailers It provides a lightning-fast distribution, sales, marketing, financing, and data analytics services The company's technology coordinates the entire cannabis distribution lifecycle from production to delivery

Brella is a child care center that provides flexible scheduling and quality care The company offers a fully licensed program that features an enrichment-based curriculum, age-appropriate classrooms, and caregiver-child ratios

After graduating from Columbia University with a B S in Computer Science, Raghav joined the Y Combinator 2019 batch with his newly formed company CookDash - a digital storefront for restaurants We had been tracking the New York-based company for months given their initial momentum and our strong appetite for food-related opportunities Upon their arrival to San Francisco for YC, we chatted with Raghav and his co-founder Vamsi at one of our monthly BBQs Shortly after completing YC, Raghav rebranded the company as Forward Kitchens, with the premise of enabling restaurants to seamlessly create multiple digital storefronts, launch food delivery, and ultimately become their off-premise operating system After a few more informal conversations, we fully believed in what the Forward Kitchens team was working towards - a scalable, cost-effective approach to deploy cloud kitchens in operational restaurants and help them drive their revenue It quickly became clear that we were not alone in our beliefs as we ultimately participated in Forward Kitchen's Seed Round alongside SV Angel, Floodgate and Slow ventures Since our initial investment, we're happy to have helped Forward Kitchens secure key early hires, in addition to participating in all of the company's subsequent funding rounds ‍ We had been tracking the company for a few months while they were still based in New York City, before we connected with them live in San Francisco as they were in town to attend YC After a few informal meetings and BBQs, we were completely onboard with what Raghav and his team were building

We met Zach and Brad in early 2019 at one of our BBQs, where we immediately aligned with their energy and appreciated their vision for Coco Shortly thereafter, we were their first fundraising pitch; they were raising funds to build their first robot prototype to be tested on the UCLA campus

Zach and Brad both studied Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at UCLA, where they also co-founded the Connected Autonomous Electric Vehicle consortium While at university, they became deeply immersed in the application of robotics in the outdoor logistics space, with the goal of developing a solution that could deliver immediate value for merchants and their customers We met Zach and Brad in early 2019 at one of our BBQs, where we immediately aligned with their energy and appreciated their vision for Coco Shortly thereafter, we were their first fundraising pitch; they were raising funds to build their first robot prototype to be tested on the UCLA campus for fast deliveries Their enthusiasm, drive, and strong resolve led to BBQ Capital becoming their first check While Coco's robots and business model have shifted since then, their passion to bring automated delivery to the expanding delivery market remains Since our first check, Coco has gone on to raise multiple rounds of capital from Sam Altman, Founders Fund, Pelion Ventures, and Outlander VC We're happy to have followed on through their Series A ‍‍ We met Aaron Vontell in April 2022 through a mutual connection who thought our deep gaming roots would fit well with Aaron's vision for Regression Games It became clear that Aaron was highly capable of executing upon his idea and that BBQ could add meaningful value

Aaron has long had a love for gaming and machine learning, and it was only a matter of time until he combined his two passions in a professional setting He first explored his interest in ML while studying at MIT There, he helped launch MIT Battlecode Competition, where thousands of players write programs to battle other teams He also performed deep AI and ML research at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and at MIT's RLE Quantum Photonics Group ‍Aaron went on to work for Instabase where he was the company's sixth full-time hire he mastered the bast AI and ML practices Aaron went off on his own to pursue an idea that intertwines his affinity for esports and AI This idea has taken shape as Regression Games, a platform and ecosystem that makes AI gaming and esports accessible and fun to everyone We met Aaron in April 2022 through a mutual connection in San Francisco who thought our deep gaming roots would fit well with Aaron's vision for Regression Games After a couple calls, it became clear that Aaron was highly capable of executing upon his idea and that there were areas where BBQ could add meaningful value We wired over capital shortly thereafter and participated in Regression Games' Seed Round led by NEA with investment from a16z and Roosh Ventures - a firm with extensive ML proficiency that we brought in as a co-investor