Mat Vogels (00:00)
Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Pirates Only, where typically we are talking to founders that are building the future. But this time I thought we'd take a little bit of a break. And I invited two of my colleagues from Harpoon Ventures and Black Flag, Mathias and Andrew, to give a little bit of a peek behind the curtain and what it means to invest into these founders that are building the future. We also realized that it's been a few months since April when we launched Black Flag. And since then,
We've had lots of learnings. We've spoken to hundreds of founders. We announced that we just passed over 600 total applications that we've reviewed. We've spoken to many of those founders and we've gotten a lot of feedback. And while we've tried to keep the website and socials and FAQs up to date, we realized that sometimes it comes better from the horse's mouth. So we're dedicating this episode to answering some of these questions. Think of it as kind of a mailbag episode Q and A for.
not only just how to stand out in ⁓ the Black Flag process, but also what it means to stand out in any sort of VC pitch scenario. So we talk about tips and tricks in making your pitch deck that much better, how to stand out in that first pitch meeting, how to reach out to VCs for the first time, we cover it all. So if you're our fundraising, if you're interested in applying to Black Flag, this episode is going to be for you. So without further ado, let's jump right in.
Mat Vogels (01:34)
right, everybody today, this episode is a little bit special. Usually we're obviously talking to founders and jumping into some of the questions and, things that they have going on with them. This is an opportunity, I think, to turn the table a little bit, answer some questions from the VC side of things. And then also
dive into some of the specific questions that we have for Black Flag. Today I have two very special guests, both involved with Black Flag and Harpoon. So maybe we kick off with some introductions. Andrew, how about you lead us off?
Andrew Couillard (02:05)
Sure, thanks for the warm intro Matt. My name is Andrew. So I grew up in Cass Rock, Colorado, but I went to undergrad over at USC as a systems engineer, commissioned directly into the Navy and I've been diffusing bombs for last eight years in the Navy. Went all over Europe, Africa, the Middle East. I did a tour out in San Diego where we deployed to primarily Okinawa and Taiwan. Worked a lot with the undersea drone portfolio and just got frustrated with how behind the military is with a lot of technology. The adage we always use is there's better autonomy and John Deere tractors in a military tactical vehicle and the analogy keeps going on and
So decided to put my name in the hat to go up to Stanford to be at the Mecca of technological innovation. Joined the team at Harpoon before I went up there, decided to stay part-time, and now I'm full-time as the program director over at Black Flag.
Mat Vogels (02:46)
Love it. And we'll certainly dive into more black flag specific stuff and excited to dive into your background a little bit more. But Mathias, give us a little background on you.
Matias Zorrilla (02:55)
For sure. I definitely don't have as cool of a background as Andrew, but a little bit about myself. was born in Lima, Peru. I came to the States when I was very young, two years old, and stayed in California for the majority of my life, but ended up moving out to New York where I went to Cornell University. And so coming out of college, I think I was very focused on staying in kind of the finance realm, the finance world, and was fortunate enough to land a job at Goldman where I was focused primarily
primarily on the debt capital markets, so helping companies think about thinking about how to structure and underwrite their debt for the public markets. It turns out that pegging interest rates to bonds wasn't necessarily the passion of my life, and so I found my way over to Bank of America, where I was fortunate to join a pretty young team at the time called Emerging Growth, and their whole function.
As a bank, think there was a pretty urgent strategic priority to shift away from kind of our legacy model of only serving these large Fortune 500 companies and really thinking about what does it mean to introduce investment banking products to these high-growth pre-IPO companies? And so that's exactly what we set out to do. A lot of what we ended up doing was kind of these high-growth or these late stage
funding rounds for venture backed companies and ultimately helping them transition to the public markets. And so I was pretty excited to work on some cool deals there. I think one of the main ones was probably Soligen's series C where we were the sole book runner on that transaction, helped them get the full 350 million for that round. And ultimately part of that conversation was kind of getting to know a little of Harpoon as a fund who had backed Soligen at a much earlier stage. And so it's kind of a
Andrew Couillard (04:22)
Mm-hmm.
Matias Zorrilla (04:37)
very circular route, but I'm happy to make my way at Harpoon where I sit now as an investor.
Andrew Couillard (04:42)
Yeah,
we're happy you crossed over from the dark side. From debt to equity is way better.
Mat Vogels (04:45)
Yeah.
Matias Zorrilla (04:45)
Hahaha
⁓
Mat Vogels (04:47)
Yes. I think what's, what's so great about this conversation is both of you have unique backgrounds that are both gonna, I think, play into what we're doing both at Harpoon and Black Flag. So these are, these questions are gonna be, are gonna be great. As a, as a quick summary here, we received a bunch of questions from founders. A lot of these were submitted directly to us. Some of them are just common questions that we get on often from some of the interviews that we've done and the founders that we meet during the process. And we felt like this was a good
episode for us to dive into some of those. And a lot of these questions are specific to Black Flag. Some of these questions are specific to fundraising in general. So if you are a fundraising deep tech founder, towards the tail end of this episode, we're going to dive into some specific questions related to just the fundraising process and what that looks like both for Black Flag Harpoon, but industry wide. So I'm happy to dive into those. You gentlemen ready? Ready to dive in?
Andrew Couillard (05:40)
Let's do it, baby.
Matias Zorrilla (05:40)
Ready?
Mat Vogels (05:42)
Okay, I'm gonna go kind of in random-ish order for some of these, but let's take a look here. So the first question, how many submissions has Black Flag had and any notable sectors or industries represented? I'll take this one. We did post earlier today. We have reached, we just passed over 600 total submissions since we launched in April, which is mind blowing to me. It's crazy that we still have so many founders that are submitting. And I mentioned that the inspiring part is just how
broad. So across so many different sectors, it's there's a lot of defense, a lot of AI, but we get a lot of bio critical technologies, minerals, mining, lot of energy. I think that the most exciting part, maybe surprising part for me, I'm curious to hear you guys' thoughts is the variety of sectors. I think at first a lot of folks were looking at Harpoon and Black Flag as being defense focused. We're not necessarily and I think a lot of what we're trying to do is that we're trying to play into the critical technologies.
And that was heard and we've had a lot of companies across different sectors. I'll post in some of the show notes and we'll have a graphic that maybe displays this right here. But do you guys have any opinions on what you've seen from the sectors being represented?
Andrew Couillard (06:50)
Yeah, definitely. think there's been a huge surge, especially in the critical minerals. Like if you look at it, it's the picks and shovels of the modern gold rush. And I think that includes critical minerals, rare earths, energy infrastructure, AI infrastructure. So we're seeing this massive tidal wave of AI, but now we're seeing the companies that are actually going to build the infrastructure needed to complete that tidal wave. And it's been inspiring for me just to see how many defense companies are out there, especially the ones where you have co-founders that have never been in the military, but they still have that passion to serve, you know, in a national security
Matias Zorrilla (06:50)
Yo. ⁓
Andrew Couillard (07:19)
focus in their own way. For me, that's incredibly inspiring.
Matias Zorrilla (07:22)
Yeah, and totally agree with everything Andrew said there. think, you know, of course, there are always going to be kind of the markets that that are in vogue at the moment. And certainly we see that as a reflection, sometimes in applications we see. And so a lot of great, talented founders building in AI and defense. I think the reality is that there's a pretty broad understanding that we need to build across critical technologies. We're falling behind China on almost every front in terms of the quality of research
Mat Vogels (07:22)
I agree.
Matias Zorrilla (07:50)
decided research and even some product development across sectors that expand beyond just AI and defense. And so we've seen kind of a litany of companies in manufacturing and energy and critical minerals. And it's exciting to see kind of a holistic approach to understanding and attacking the issue of how do we as the United States kind of best strategically reposition ourselves for the next hour to come.
Mat Vogels (08:14)
I love that. And maybe even before we go even further, I'm going to give a very high level overview of what each of your roles are in layman terms for, for folks. Matias, you are essentially the front line for when these applications are coming in. So any application that comes through Black Flag, we all look at them, but Matias, you and our colleague Riley are definitely the front lines and going through and giving that deeper look and reaching out to some of the founders and talking about it. So as we go through this, people can take that lens there. Andrew on your side.
you are the program director of Black Flag. A lot of the benefits that come from being accepted into the program, all the work that we're doing in order to help these companies, a lot of that's gonna come from you. So I wanted to put that lens for folks as you're listening to some of these responses. One of the questions that we had in here too that maybe feels like the right time to do is, what does a program director do? So maybe Andrew on your side thinking about what does it mean for you to kind of be the program director of Black Flag and
What is it a high level, what we're trying to do with that program itself.
Andrew Couillard (09:11)
Yeah, definitely. So I spent a lot of time thinking about this and by nature of being a military vet, I try to pull from an analogy from my entire prior time in service. And I look at my role much like what's called a supporting commander. So if you look at military operations in general, there's people on the ground, there's this massive talk, you know, talk, which is a tactical operations center. But the support team commander is the one that's actually supporting the troops in the ground or the supported commanders. For us, those founders are the supported commanders. They're in the trenches. They're doing God's work out there. And it's my job to basically be able to
facilitate them and that's through coordination of resources, aligning them with mentors, getting them exactly the help that they need at the stage that they're at and my job is to serve them in that way. So I look at myself a lot like a supporting commander. What that means functionally is that on a day-to-day basis I'm engaging with the founders figuring out, hey what opportunities and resources do you need? I structure the curriculum for the program itself lining them up with all the different virtual panels, all the one-on-ones and that could be with legal, that could be with compliance experts, that could be with product developers. It really just depends on where the company is.
at their stage.
Mat Vogels (10:12)
I love that. Could you share maybe a little bit how many companies have we have we brought in? Have we started a program yet? That was one of the questions that folks were were interested in.
Andrew Couillard (10:19)
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm excited to show we're kicking off the first cohort next week with cohort 001, our summer bats. that specifically is going to be four companies that we're excited to take through in this inaugural cohort. And we've got this amazing curriculum lined up for these guys. And I'll give you guys a sneak peek. We won't share the entire curriculum because that's our secret sauce here, know, black flag.
And really that first week is raise the flag. And that means getting everybody oriented, unlocking that digital treasure chest, which is an amazing comprehensive repository of all these different documents, templates, things that we've seen be successful both at Harpoon and Black Flag. The second week is about boarding the ship. So how do you sell the government? How do you unlock the pathway from not just CBER, but all the way to program of record? The third week is build the arsenal. So how do we look at product compliance?
ITAR, cage codes, regulatory, ATO things, especially for the cybersecurity, the software side. How do we make sure that as we're building these MVBs and these products, we're doing it in a way that's compliant with government to hopefully reduce lot of those hurdles down the line. The fourth week is all about manning the crew. So now you have your team, your co-founders, your hired, your first key engineers. How do you grow and scale that organization? How do you think about the culture of the organization as you're going through that growth? The fifth week is all about securing the treasure, right? That's why we're here. So how do you fundraise? How do you go
from not just at the Black Flag accelerator level, but then fundraising beyond. And then the sixth is all about sailing beyond the horizon. We're gonna be doing a pirate dinner where we're actually taking over pirate ship. I'm gonna go all out, I'm gonna be in full pirate theme, basically trying to just live my inner pirate. But really the purpose of this is to bring this community together, figure out how that we can not just make this a one time six week curriculum, but something that will last a lifetime as a community.
Matias Zorrilla (11:46)
you
Mat Vogels (11:48)
Ha ha.
I love that. I think I'm so excited for the companies to go through this. think the before and afters in a way are going to be amazing. I'm excited to get the companies through it. The one thing I want to add some clarity on is around that because we've gotten some, a lot of questions and confusion. Rightfully so I think is what is Black Flag? Is it an accelerator? Is there a program? What's with like the monthly countdown and like, how does that work? I think the way that I've kind of answered it is that
Andrew Couillard (12:00)
Yeah.
Mat Vogels (12:20)
At a high level, what we've done is we've created this kind of monthly cadence where we want folks to apply and then we dedicate what you're doing right now, the first week of the month to essentially review all the applications. We try to review them all as they come in and we do a decent job of that. But the reason we have the countdown is that every month we look through all of them. We start making decisions and digging deeper into those companies. So that monthly countdown is for the review process.
We are starting, as Andrew mentioned, over the next couple of weeks and kicking off what we're kind of considering as like our backbone program. Maybe at a high level, we could say it's optional. You don't have to go through it. And then as we have companies that join Black Flag, they can essentially opt into these programs that we'll probably have throughout the year. Is that fair to say, Andrew, or what's kind of the high level you think on cadence for some of these programs as we go? Because we're figuring it out at the same time too.
Andrew Couillard (13:13)
It is, and you know what? To the point you made.
It doesn't have, it's optional. if it doesn't work for the founders, like we just selected a company that is not particularly at the right place and time. They're still with their former employer. They're about to incorporate and start their company. So it's not really the right time for them to join this black flag curriculum. And quite frankly, they won't get a lot out of it. So they decided to defer to the next cohort. Now, if there's founders that just decide, Hey, we don't need a structured curriculum. We're off to the races. We just need a little bit of help with government go to Mark. Again, I'm the supporting commander. You're there. The troops on the ground. They tell me what they need. Absolutely.
to help and support them. So it's optional, we encourage it because I think founders will get the most out of it, but it's by no means necessary for this program.
Mat Vogels (13:51)
let's, let's go into a little bit of the, some of the, selection criteria, because we get a lot of questions around that too. Maybe Matias, could you lead us off a little bit at a high level? Folks ask, you know, how early can we be? Do we need traction? Are we too late? Could you talk a little bit, maybe about what we're looking for, specifically or broadly as it relates to traction or stage or maybe even sector and try to try to tie answer around all those.
Andrew Couillard (13:57)
Yeah.
Matias Zorrilla (14:18)
Yeah, yeah. So maybe taking a step back, you know, in terms of the sectors of what we're looking for, they're largely aligned with what the government has identified as kind of the 14 critical technology areas that will support kind of our nation's best interests going forward. And so it, you know, again, like there might be this conception that that's just defense if it's coming from the Department of Defense, but the reality is that it's not. It spans biotechnology, it spans defense, materials, cybersecurity.
And so anything that applies to that realm I think is relevant from an industry perspective. And I think the stage question is totally fair.
I think that we are more or less agnostic to the stage that the company is in. We'll take anyone that is just starting with an idea, maybe even still at working through the closing stages of their time at a previous employer, all the way up to scaled company. But I think the important thing there is that we're identifying companies who have a real need to put their technology into the hands of government users. I think we always start from that lens and then work backwards. And so from a revenue generation perspective,
from a product development perspective, it really does vary. You could be a founder that has just picked up his idea. You maybe have a white paper on the company, and that's perfect. You might also be a company that has a full prototype or a full pilot scale demo of your system in place, and you're ready to get that thing into commercial use, and particularly want to apply it to some extent to the government end user, and that is perfect as well.
I think the reality is it is a little bit dependent too on kind of the needs of the business. While we're not necessarily closed off to looking at XYZ Company, the
the funding and needs of the business and what Black Flag is meant to provide, it's just a different value proposition. And so if you're a series D battery company, for example, it might not make sense for you to receive $1 million in capital from an accelerator type program. I think that's just the reality of situation.
But that's not all that Black Flag offers. think there's support on the funding side and future fundraising as well and connectivity to other investors and end users, but also that government piece where we're helping you navigate.
how to exactly get your technology into the hands of the DOD and other agencies and departments. And so it's a little bit of a question of what is right for your business at this stage in time? Is this a value proposition that you want from a program? And is that trade off of time and being invested in this program worth it ultimately to you as a founder and as a builder?
Mat Vogels (16:54)
I love that. It's not a one size fits all. We understand that every company is not a one size fits all. And we want to make sure that we can provide and support for each of those different companies too. In that same vein though, could you add a little more detail around the check size piece? So the terms, we get a lot of questions obviously on how big is the check size? Are you trying to get a certain amount of equity? What do the terms look like? What are the requirements like? Could you dive into that a little bit as well?
Matias Zorrilla (17:18)
Yeah, yeah, so in terms of check size, could give a little bit more of a direct answer there. That is 250K to one million that comes from Harpoon as an entity to companies accepted through the program. Now in terms of ownership, I think this is where it's a little bit more flexible and I don't wanna say a catch-all of, know, it kinda depends on the business, but I think the reality is that it depends on the business. You know, if you're a very, very early stage founder and this is your first institutional capital in, I don't know any VC
that wouldn't want to get as much ownership exposure as possible to help shape your future. But say you're in the middle of an existing fundraising round, you want to see Black Flag as a strategic partner that can be additive to that round, and maybe you already have term set.
then of course we'll be understanding of that situation and if we really think that you're a standout company that fits this program, then we're happy to accommodate around the terms and this round size that you're putting together. so again, it is a little bit flexible, but at least on the check size, that's what I can say.
Mat Vogels (18:21)
I love it. And staying with you for one more, Mathias, you mentioned harpoon in there. Another question that we get is what is the difference between harpoon and black flag? Could you add just a little bit more color on what exactly the differences are and the benefits that you get from both?
Matias Zorrilla (18:35)
Yeah, so I think Black Flag, the way I've kind of said it before is Harpoon really was born...
trying to tackle this issue from a traditional venture capital perspective. How do we get into the seed series A type rounds and provide this service of really understanding and navigating the government end user? Now, I think we've learned a ton as a venture capital firm from that process over three funds. And we really wanted to provide a more packaged solution for companies to get this strategic advice, but also to benefit them in other ways that we think
are added to the company building journey. so things like marketing, whether that's kind of website creation, deck formation, deck strategy, publicity, whether that's the government go to market function, whether that's kind of fundraising and one providing our own capital, but also connectivity to other great partners that we know in the deep tech and defense tech ecosystem.
Those are all things that we found pretty imperative. And so we've kind of bundled that as a solution for the companies going through Black Flag. And touching on what Andrew has been so pivotal in rolling out is kind of what are the programmatic elements where we think.
If you are new to entering into this ecosystem of selling your solution to the public sector, what are the things that would be helpful for you to have and the knowledge for you that is maybe tribal from an insider's perspective and is helpful in shaping kind how you think about your future company strategy? And so there's kind of webinars and learning lessons that you can take from some of the more programmatic stuff in Black Flag.
as well as connectivity with mentors that have kind of lived and learned through this process themselves that can also help shape your narrative.
Mat Vogels (20:18)
Yeah.
Andrew Couillard (20:18)
Definitely.
I I really want to pull the thread on that because I think that's what distinguishes both Harpoon and Black Flag from other investors out there from aside from just the capital alone is the fact that we're dealing with the monoscopy. What that means is that there is one customer. It's the worst customer on the planet. They have this labyrinth of bureaucratic hurdles to get you from wherever you are to whatever that contract vehicle is. And the reality is it's not really the best tech that wins. It's those that know how to navigate the system. So we've had half a decade of working with our government go to market strategy. We have
specialists on the team that have done full careers in the military navigating all these different programmatic offices. So it's not just getting you the information that you need, but it's making those introductions to the people that actually have the purchasing power and the authority to build not only a contract vehicle, but the budget behind it to get you the contract you need. And we're not just talking about defense. This isn't just missile systems or the next drone company out there. Critical energy is very much a critical national security threat right now. The reality is we do not
enough energy to keep up with our demands by 2030 and 2035. With a lot of the things we're seeing globally, specifically with a lot of the trade restrictions with critical minerals and rare earths, we fundamentally just do not have the resourcing to support these industries in the United States. So that is very much a national security imperative and there's amazing non-dilutive funding vehicles out there to help companies they're building in that space get access to that so they can build the technology needed for national security.
Mat Vogels (21:42)
I love that. I think the combination of both together is what makes it such a perfect match made in heaven harmony. You get the benefit of both. You get the experience and track record of something like Harpoon, the resources with the focus of some of the early stage support and help that we can deliver on the Black Flag side. Technically speaking, I want to make clear for folks is that they're one and the same. it's Harpoon and Black Flag are the same. It's not two separate entities. You're not like getting
a check from, from black flag. And then how does that relate to harpoon? It's harpoon is black flag and the checks that come from black flag come from harpoon. So you get the benefit of, of both resources there. the last kind of question we on the black flag side here, Andrew was specifically related to some of the values that we can, provide or the benefits that we can provide. Could you maybe highlight and add a little bit more time on what a common use case might look like for a company coming in?
maybe they're dual use, maybe they've already been selling on the commercial side and now they're coming into Black Flag and there's opportunity to sell into government. Could you maybe just give an example of what that process might look like through Black Flag?
Andrew Couillard (22:49)
Definitely. And I'll give you some anecdotal examples and refrain from using too much personal details. We don't really know who we're talking about, but we have a founder that specifically is looking at developing, let's just call it hardware for everybody. Right. And what they're doing is they're building very niche components and parts. have a great B2B or business to business play, but they want to find, hey, do we have any access to Cib or SID or dollars, which is small business, innovative research, or which is essentially non dilutive funding to allow
them to do research and development internally and not sacrifice any of the equity that they raised. So what we've done is we've specifically introduced this founder to a variety of different what they're called technical point of contacts. Those T-POCs can actually serve as the T-POC for a CBER sitter. They can also write letters of endorsements. So by the time you actually apply for that CBER, you're way better positioned and you have a much higher chance of actually getting approved for that contract vehicle. We also have another specific company that we've offered some Black Flag Mentorship
that is looking at how do we plug into the Department of Energy or anybody that's doing anything for critical mineral exploration. So this company has an amazing tool that is using ANML and a specific type of proprietary data to actually be able to better tell where the deposits are. And fundamentally, actually drilling companies make a lot of really expensive mistakes by drilling in the wrong spot, whether they find underground caves or whether they find just road things that they weren't really expecting. So what they're trying to figure out now is, okay,
So
we have this tool and technology that we believe will work. How can we use non-dilutive funding to accelerate our development, to grow our team, to build and scale? And we've specifically worked with them, introducing them to the right people, not only on just the government side, but we've also have a great partnership with Palantir, which I really want to make a plug for real quick. We have amazing inroads with the Palantir startup team so that we're able to give our founders access to their Foundry platform with a lot of free credits so that they can build and scale on the Palantir ecosystem. We also have a similar partner
partnership with Second Front. So anybody that's building in the cybersecurity space, we have a company now that's building the next generation of software-defined radios. They can have a partnership with Second Front to expedite that ATO or authority to operate approval and the CMMC compliance, which always trips up people that are building in the space. So those are a few anecdotal examples of exactly how, but again, it all depends on where the founders are, what stage they're at and what help they need. Matt, you've been instrumental in helping with the branding and marketing. I mean, not only just these amazing graphics you see behind us in the black flag page, but you've
been instrumental in helping founders specifically develop all these amazing marketing and branding materials. Matias, like you've been instrumental in the fundraising side. I know you're working with a Black Flag founder right now on, how can we raise this current round? You're introducing them to investors. You're helping build up that pitch deck. So this is that collective effort and that community effort that Black Flag can provide. And it really just depends on what the founders need.
Mat Vogels (25:13)
you
Love it. I agree. It's a full front. It's a full on blitz of support. Like I said, I'm excited for the companies to go through even for six weeks. And I guess maybe it's also important to mention that similar to the Y Combinators of the world or Techstars, we look at it as a community that'll last a lifetime. So even though you're going into the program or you're accepted, we're building a community that's going to last here. And a lot of the founders, you get accepted, you know, six months from now, a year from now, six years from now.
Andrew Couillard (25:45)
Mm-hmm.
Definitely.
Mat Vogels (25:57)
I think we're hoping to build something big and lasting here with all of this as well.
Andrew Couillard (26:02)
Definitely, and I think our strategic advantage with that is the fact that this is a small team. Similar to my experience in special operations teams, you have these incredibly small, agile, highly talented group of people, and when you do that, you can create this highly curated, highly personalized support program individual to their needs, and I think that's what makes us different from a lot of other accelerator programs out there. It's just our sheer size, so we can offer a lot more support to those founders.
Mat Vogels (26:04)
There's two, yeah, go ahead.
And that's part of the reason we're also not blowing this up to a hundred acceptance rates and we're not trying to do it. We are trying to keep it selective because I think that we want to make sure that we're not spreading our time too thin.
Andrew Couillard (26:29)
Yeah.
Exactly right.
Mat Vogels (26:37)
Let's go into some of the, actually before we go into some of the VC pitching questions, I'm excited about those. we have two here that are kind of specific to black flag. One was when's the next black flag 100 actually know who submitted that one. we're trying to think of a couple different ways. think one will do another black flag 100 same time next year. So like early next year, spring next year, same approach where we, email or we reach out to previous black flag 100 companies, a bunch of founders.
We did have over 500 founders submit this past time. think we'll get hopefully more this next time. The black flag 100 was meant to be a list of companies that you probably hadn't heard of. They were small. They were just getting started. That was the goal of what we were trying to do. We have had a lot of folks that are like, we need a black flag 100 for the later stage companies. And one of the interesting things we're thinking about doing there is maybe reaching out to black flag 100 founders or founders in general and saying, if you weren't building
your company, which company would you be joining right now in order to fulfill your mission or execute your goals, whatever it might be. And I think that's when we would start getting some answers for the the Andros of the world, Astronis of the world, all these companies, Solugen. I think that it'd be interesting to build a list of who are the top companies that founders would go work for if they weren't working on their own companies. That could be an interesting one that we do next. Kind of ties into the last question here. What else is on the horizon with Black Flag?
Andrew Couillard (27:54)
Yeah.
Mat Vogels (28:00)
We want to continue to put together those resources. One that we're working on right now that we're, we're tying the bow on is a, dedicated resource for, for fundraising as it relates to founders that we are sorry, investors that we know and love and work with often. We're trying to build a database, curated with, investors that we find ourselves working with and recommend and try to put as, as much information in there to help founders that either we can invest in, or in that early fundraising process.
give them some resources to hopefully expedite that process there too. But speaking of going in and raising capital, we have a bunch of questions in here as it relates to how to raise capital. A lot of these are from first time fundraising founders, as I like to call it, kind of the three F's there. Let's start with you, Mathias. When you're looking through these applications that are coming through, what is some advice that you could give? What makes a Black Flag application stand out right away as you're going through it?
Matias Zorrilla (28:55)
Yeah, yeah. And the truth is, would love to spend the time to review each application for hours and really get to dive deep on the problem and the person solving the problem.
you know, with kind of the abundance that we had on the application side, it's just tough to do that. And so with the application specifically, you know, having not having that, that ability to kind of speak to you face to face initially, I think it's important to very concisely address some, big higher, higher arching kind of ideas. And for me, the biggest ones are, you know, what, is this a hair on fire problem that needs to be solving? Why is it that nobody,
has been able to kind of unlock that for the industry and why as you as a team, whether it's through your built experience, whether it's some type of inside information, gives you the best position to be able to tackle that problem. And I think every question on the application is very important and it helps to guide our decision making internally. But I think when I'm going through applications, those are the things that if you can address those in a succinct way,
It's a very powerful thing to see how much impact that technology could have and seeing where the reality comes in of is this the right team to do that.
Mat Vogels (30:09)
So you say his team, guess one of those pieces you're looking at as being like critical in that.
Matias Zorrilla (30:13)
Yeah, absolutely. you know, I think having an incredible idea is, is, an awesome thing and certainly something that people should, should consider pursuing. But I think there, there comes a point where, where the knowledge and the experience of the team will ultimately kind of impact execution down the line and know kind of the, the traps in their own industry and how to navigate those traps and really succeed. That's something that, you know, is a little bit.
of a learned experience perhaps, either from kind of prior professional experiences or kind of having lived and seen the issue from the academic side.
Andrew Couillard (30:50)
it's that hair on fire problem, but I really want to drill down on the team aspect as well, because the reality is we're building companies that fundamentally matter from a deep tech national security advantage. And it's really, really hard, especially the hardware companies. So there has to be the right founder market fit. So we really dig into those team, not just the credentials that are on that slide, but the team dynamics as well. How's the co-founder relationship? Because a lot of these companies are going to change. We're seeing this massive transformation with AI technology and now being encapsulated in hardware.
what the company does in five years can be so fundamentally different than their initial pitch deck. So we've really got to invest in that team, especially at the early stages that we're looking at. And I know it's not maybe applicable to deep tech or national security, but Slack started as a video game company. And in fact, their early investors had such strong conviction in the founder himself that when he said, you know what, we built this amazing workplace tool that we're using for our own internal communication. It's this thing called Slack. We actually think there's a lot of potential here and they completely pivoted to Slack and it grew into what it is before it caught bottom.
out
by Microsoft. So we don't necessarily know where these founders are going to end up, but if we have strong conviction in the team, they have a hair on fire problem, maybe that solution is going to change over time. But if we can make that synergy between those two, then that's a really strong conviction that this is a good bet.
I'll add to that too is that it doesn't necessarily mean by founder market fit that you have to have extensive experience in that very narrow sector that you're targeting a problem. If you don't, then have a compelling story for why you got there, right? If we look at a team slide and you see, hey, 19-year-old mechanical engineer that's going into fusion, it's like, okay, there better be a pretty good story here for why this person has now decided to transition into fusion, right?
Mat Vogels (32:25)
Yeah. The thing about team, think a lot of investors would say team as well is that you don't have a lot of anything else to really point to. There's no traction. There's typically no product or at least it's an early phase. So the only grading system you can have is with the founding team. Could you add maybe what are some of the ways that a team could, maybe not like shortcuts, but what are the things that people need to make sure that they call out or make very clear to your point, Mathias, we don't have as much time as we wish we could diving deep into these applications.
Sometimes it's minutes, we wish it could be hours. What are some ways in your opinion, Matias, they could make that team section shine the most if make sure that it stands out, make sure it's front of that list.
Matias Zorrilla (33:06)
Yeah, I think for me, it points to a couple things. I think you obviously want to highlight...
a relevant experience to at least not necessarily say that you spent 20 years in an industry, at least to show that you understand the dynamics within that industry. And so perhaps you had spent a summer internship at kind of a leading firm in X space. And maybe that is a good grounds for us to understand that at least you understand the of the mechanics behind what's happening in the industry. I would say the same goes for the academic front. Maybe you haven't spent your life in a professional setting,
but if you've done research on all these advanced approaches to a solution you're trying to solve, then you're also very well equipped to potentially scale that research into something commercial. I think maybe one of the more intangible things is kind of resilience. And I know it's not a very concrete thing to put to, but I think showing that you have...
had learned experiences where maybe you failed, maybe you've gone back up and now you're trying again, but you're still pushing at 100%. I think that shows us a lot about your character and how you want to carry this company going forward. And so those are probably the things that I'd say like to the extent that they're applicable, like certainly highlight them up in front so that we know like this is somebody that we would love to partner with.
Mat Vogels (34:30)
the thing I always like to tell founders too, I think founders oftentimes are, too humble when they talk about themselves. I think it's a natural way. lot of founders like to be humble and how they do it, but don't be humble when you're talking about yourself and your team. If, you have something impressive to share, if you went to Harvard, if you went to Stanford, if you worked at Andro or SpaceX or Tesla or whatever it might be, like show these things proudly.
Andrew Couillard (34:35)
I
Mat Vogels (34:52)
You served in the military is another great one that we all these things that I think for whatever reason people feel like, well, I don't want to brag about myself. I'm going to hide that a little bit. Sometimes are the check boxes that VCs are looking for. And if you can just make those called out super fast and super, super easy to get a hold of. Yeah. Don't be humble. Be a little braggadocious and get specific.
Andrew Couillard (35:13)
Exactly right. And I think the easy one of the logos, if you have that Palantir logo, that Andrel, and you're building in the defense space and you worked on a special program there, you probably have some unique insight that's worth a call. But the other one too is if you don't have these fancy accolades or you didn't go to this fancy institution, talk about things that you did that are remarkable, right? If you're maybe the youngest person that have ever climbed all seven tallest mountains in seven continents, that's incredible. Like those are the types of founders that have the grit, the ability to chew glass, going and solving hard problems, building meaningful companies that we actually
want to talk to. So it's not just about the fancy accolades or the fancy companies.
Mat Vogels (35:46)
I love that. You mentioned, like visually showing the logos, which kind of goes into another question that somebody asked was what is, what makes a really good pitch deck? What are some high level pitch deck advice? we all, I mean, I see hundreds of pitch decks every single month. Mattias at a high level, what's some, some high level feedback, don't get too specific, but what's maybe a common mistake that you see or something that a founders just did this. It would make a much better pitch deck and easier for you to, dissect.
Matias Zorrilla (36:11)
Yeah, I think
of pitch deck as kind of like that initial gateway for somebody to get familiarized with you as a company. And so it's a little bit of a balancing act between kind of very factual information, a little bit of storytelling and a little bit of kind of design. know, something I was taught in banking was always that, you know, irrespective of the content, the more beautiful you can make a deck look, the client will just perceive it as a more polished product and a better product, candidly. And so, you know,
Mat Vogels (36:41)
Unfortunately,
Matias Zorrilla (36:41)
Yeah,
Mat Vogels (36:41)
it's true. Yeah.
Andrew Couillard (36:42)
So true,
Matias Zorrilla (36:42)
so that's always one that I've kept in the back of my mind and something that people might not like, you you might put together a very simple Google Slides thing, but it does matter kind of as people subconsciously think about a company. But I think the other pitfall that sometimes people make is, you know, I'm also one of those types of people that loves to share as much information as I can because for me,
Andrew Couillard (36:42)
yeah.
Matias Zorrilla (37:06)
I feel like I'm giving the level of context that I need to for somebody to fully kind of grasp what I'm thinking through. But that's a challenge at a pitch deck. Sometimes you don't want to overshare information. Sometimes you really want to hit the hard punchy facts, the one liners of what makes this business great. What is it that is so important about this business to be built? And maybe the discussion for kind of...
the deeper diligence falls at a later stage of the conversation. And so you can always save that for a later point in time, but you really want to just kind of grab the attention of the investor in this case as your kind of number one priority for pitch decks.
Mat Vogels (37:42)
How about you, Andrew? What about you? And you see a lot of pitch decks as well. What are some of the things that you could give for high level feedback?
Andrew Couillard (37:45)
I do and it's-
It's an art and I think what a lot of founders should really keep in mind is that these are pitch decks that are read not spoken and the pitch deck that you do on your intro call can be different than the one that you actually apply with because you got to remember we're looking at so many different applications as Matt mentioned we're over 600 applications at this point so we need to read through get the high level points why is this a heron prior problem why is this an exceptional team that either has good founder market fit or founders that are worth betting on and try to get that message across and one of the old you know analysis I someone told me
Matias Zorrilla (38:10)
you
Andrew Couillard (38:17)
once is that the average recruiter spends six to seven seconds on a resume. So think about that. We put so much time into this dense content that goes on a form, but they just take six to seven seconds to read it. So use that same impression when you're going through these applications. If you were to fire through your 10 slides in just a matter of a minute, what stands out the most? What message do you want to get across in that short amount of time? Now, admittedly, we spend a lot more time than that, but that's the type of detail that you need to get across in those really, really hard, punchy, this is why this matters. This is why
why
this is the best team to solve the problem. This is why we're worth betting on.
Mat Vogels (38:50)
I think that the feedback I like to give is that you got to make it look good because to Matias's point, most pitch decks are not, they do not look good. So by having a pitch deck that does look good, you kind of immediately are this like, interesting. Like my, kind of sit up a little bit straighter when I see one like that. And then the other thing I like to tell founders is to let somebody else that doesn't know your business read through it. The other easy part that founders get in trouble with is they, they get too deep in the weeds and they expect other people to understand their business as well as they do.
And it's so tough. And I'll say this. I don't mean this disrespectfully. VCs aren't always the smartest people in the room. We act like it and pretend that we are. And, the problem is, that we're so spread contextually. But we don't understand some of these really, really high tech technologies. And a lot of what we're investing in now is that. So trying to dumb it down as best you can. And the best way to do that is have somebody else that isn't familiar with your business, uh, read through it. Um, I know we have about 15 more minutes left, I want to get through as many of these.
Andrew Couillard (39:24)
No, we're not. We're definitely not.
Mat Vogels (39:45)
questions as we can tear so a little bit rapid fire in a similar vein. What is a green flag founder trait that excites you the most so as soon as you see this trait you go. I want to at least learn more about this founder, but it also gets you excited to maybe write that check.
Matias Zorrilla (40:02)
Yeah, I know this is again maybe something that's something hard on paper, but
Honestly, seeing the enthusiasm a founder has for the problem that they're looking to solve and just the passion they have for wanting to build a solution at all costs. Like again, it's not something that necessarily you read on a resume, but it makes me energized to then want to learn more about what they're doing. And so that's something that, you
Again, like it's a soft skill, having a great attitude when you meet folks, really showing that this is something that you are kind of devoted to allocating your time to figuring out. And it's really something that you're super passionate about solving. I think those are really good, great green flags when I meet a founder initially.
Mat Vogels (40:47)
High energy equals high conviction. agree. Andrew, how about you? What's a what's a green, green flag that you look for?
Andrew Couillard (40:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think I'll always have a soft spot for the military, coming from the military background myself, but more importantly, anybody that dedicates their life to excellence, and that's different for everybody. That could be in an academic profession, that could be some project that they worked on in a specific company, but some sort of demonstration that the things that they do, they do it to the best of their ability, and they absolutely excel at it, because those are the types of founders that are going to produce those grand slam outcomes that venture capital firms are looking for. So, and the other part too is have a compelling story for your life.
doesn't matter if you've necessarily been the best at this or the best at that, but just some thread that pulls your life together of why this is a compelling story for someone that I would want to follow one day. the framing that I try to use for myself too as I'm reading through these founder profiles, looking at their LinkedIn, maybe even doing network checks, is this a leader that I would want to follow myself? And if the answer is yes, I want to talk to you. Let's get to know each other and let's see if this is a good fit.
Mat Vogels (41:45)
like that and the opposite side of that coin, Matias, what is a red flag that when you see either in a pitch or even just a founder and there is are presenting to you that immediately kind of sends you towards the door.
Matias Zorrilla (41:56)
Yeah, I...
I think the biggest one relates both to kind of applications and pitch decks and also when we first meet founders. But, you know, of course you want to present yourself in the best light possible, but also, you know, there's an extent to which you can, you can exaggerate the reality. so, you know, always be, always be truthful and honest. You know, as VCs, we know other VCs, we speak to other VCs. There's a lot of information publicly that we can do to research, you know, you and the company. And so, you know, don't try.
to exaggerate what the situation is or what your background is, be truthful to it, be honest to it, and speak to that in the highest light that you can.
Mat Vogels (42:35)
Love it. Andrew, same for you. What's a red flag that sends you the other way?
Andrew Couillard (42:35)
Exactly right.
Man, it's hard because Matthias definitely took my others too. The biggest one is if you lie. I think trust is one of those, it's you incrementally gain it in a stair function, but you lose it on a cliff. And if you lose trust in an application because you lied about something or you over embellish to a point that it's extreme, such as I was the director that stood up this very special program and it turns out you were just an associate or just an intern. We're going to find that out. We're going to pick it up pretty quickly. And that's, that's an immediate red flag. I think the alternative too is that when the
There really is no strong alignment with the founder backgrounds for the problem that they're trying to solve and there's no compelling story for why. Like if you've built consumer apps here, you know, for 10 years and you spent a career capturing eyeballs, which is an incredibly profitable industry, but now all of a sudden you want to again do nuclear fusion. I mean, that's kind of a red flag. Like why is there, unless there's something we're missing, there's a PhD you're bringing on board, there's some massive breakthrough that you've had in physics. That for me is also a red flag because maybe this isn't the right type of problem for you to be solving.
And third, I know Matias mentioned it earlier, but the polished look of these decks. Because what that shows us is how much time and attention you put into the application itself. And if it looks like you just whip this thing together in 30 seconds, we're also not going to spend much time on it. Because if you don't put the effort in, we're not going to put the effort in.
Matias Zorrilla (43:54)
real point.
Mat Vogels (43:54)
Yep.
So true. So true. another question that we had here. It's another fun one, Matias. I'm curious. What is something that you wish more founders or maybe what is a question that founders should more often ask VCs during the funding process? I think that we forget sometimes that it's a two way street. VCs are also trying to sell you and give you the information that you need. What's a question that you think founders need to be asking VCs during that fundraising process that either they don't or they do it too late.
Matias Zorrilla (44:23)
Yeah, it's a tough it's a tough thing because sometimes you know processes move so quick and there needs to be a lot of action on both sides of the table I think what I've come to see in kind of VC is
And this is something that I think most founders want to ask or have some some way addressed in meetings, but really ask him what is kind of like the hard evidence that you can point to that shows that, you know, you can really be a strong partner for me in this journey. Like, I think oftentimes, you know, as VCs too, like there is some there is some embellishment that goes on and kind of an over overstatement of, know, what what what the firm can provide in an attempt to kind of get get into a round. But I think
Ultimately, that's destructive both to the VC as well as the founder's ability to really live out their journey and their baby, essentially. And so I think there should be a very clear identification from the venture side of like, look, this is what we've done in the past and this is what we can do for you. And to the extent that we can, we'll try as hard as we can to do that.
Mat Vogels (45:25)
Love it. Andrew, same for you. What's, what's something that you think that founders should ask VCs during that process?
Andrew Couillard (45:31)
during the intro call or just throughout the due diligence process itself.
Mat Vogels (45:34)
Either both, maybe both, any of the process.
Andrew Couillard (45:38)
Yeah, would say honestly, a lot of times I think founders are so focused on getting every single word on their script that they wanted to, when in most times we just want a conversation to get to know you. Is this the right type of founder to chew glass and try to sell to the government to solve some insane energy problem, or is this not? And we're not going to get that from a script. So oftentimes I think it's pausing and understanding how's the reception on the other side of the end. And a good question I think that oftentimes comes up from really exceptional founders is, what questions should I have asked that you wish I asked?
Matias Zorrilla (45:39)
you
Andrew Couillard (46:08)
Or what concerns do you have about this particular industry or this particular solution that we have to this problem? And we'll tell you and we'll be flat out honest and say hey look you're pitching another drone company. We see hundreds of drone companies. How are you differentiated from all the other ones out there? And then a founder could say well I'm glad you asked that because we have this this and this we have IP on this and then we start to think through okay that's that differentiated product. That's something that we should dig into further. So I think oftentimes it's just pausing and knowing when to ask the right questions when reading
Matias Zorrilla (46:22)
Mm.
Andrew Couillard (46:37)
the body language and it's hard. It's a virtual zoom. You're meeting people. It's a bunch of strangers. You're pitching your life, and passion. But sometimes it does require these founders to take a step back and just, okay, wait, how was that received on the other side? Do you have any questions about that? Is there anything that I can clarify? Is there anything you wish I asked?
Mat Vogels (46:54)
Love that. Next question here, Matthias. Let's see. Besides applying to Black Flag, which I would argue is the best way for founders to get involved early, what is a good way for early stage founders to get in touch with early stage investors, like a harpoon or other early stage funds?
Matias Zorrilla (47:09)
Yeah, mean, candidly, this is one of the great challenges of both the investor and the founder is how do you make those initial interroads when you might not have any to begin with? And it's almost a chicken and egg problem where inherently, think VC is a very network oriented business. so, you know, sometimes you kind of need a foot in the door to then get the rest of the door open.
And so to the extent you can, you know, I think a helpful starting point is, is look for opportunities in your local community where they're having events or maybe kind of venture capital firms are hosting certain kinds of, gatherings for you to meet either other investors, other founders, so that you can expand that network a little bit in the same vein, you know, ask your friends that are entrepreneurs. I'm sure, you know, if you spend time in an academic setting, you might know other researchers that went on to start a business. They know.
how to navigate the system a little bit. might know people that could be relevant to your business. So reach out to the contacts that you do have to see where they might provide a little bit of an intro. And then lastly, I think it's probably one of the...
I think it's often overshadowed in venture capital, maybe not looked upon as positively, but I've always been a huge proponent of the cold email and the cold LinkedIn. Like if you don't know somebody, but you're really eager to get to know them, send them a thoughtful note over email over LinkedIn. And, and you know, the reality is like,
they probably will not respond. That is maybe the higher majority than not. But the ones that do, it's a very validating feeling that you put in the work upfront to try to make a connection with somebody and now they're reciprocating back and understanding that you put in your time as well.
Andrew Couillard (48:41)
I think to build on that, always use a warm intro if you have it. First thing you should do if you're trying to get connected with somebody like Matthias, look at his LinkedIn, see what mutual connections you have on LinkedIn and say, my friend Bob knows him. Let me reach out to Bob to see if he'll facilitate a warm intro. I will always take that first introduction, that first phone call if I get a warm intro from somebody in my network that I trust. And the second thing is just Be persistent. Like we're all incredibly busy and we're constantly getting cold inbounds from everybody, but if you're
and you have a unique story and something in your message, we're gonna eventually catch on to that and be like, okay, this is somebody that I think we should actually reach out to. It's not personal if we don't respond to your one cold outbound on LinkedIn. And as best you can, try to give people's phone numbers. LinkedIn messages are just swamped these days, especially with all these people advertising. So text is best, email second, LinkedIn third.
Mat Vogels (49:33)
Love that. And I tech with that point. The one thing that I don't think you should do is don't try to get warm introductions of people that don't know you very well. So don't reach out to somebody that you don't know, because they know somebody that you want to get to know. get hundreds of messages per month from folks that are like, Hey, 10 years ago, you were invested in by this investor. Could you make an intro to me? And it's like, well, that's just, it's just not going to work that way.
Andrew Couillard (49:42)
Yeah.
Mat Vogels (49:58)
They should be meaningful warm intros if you can, but I agree cold is fine. I, I've raised my previous life when I was a startup founder, my both companies raised off of cold emails. And then once you do get one person to say, yes, you just build off that momentum and they'll start making those intros for you as well. So. Definitely don't be afraid to reach out cold. the last question here, Mattias, what is an area sector industry?
that you're most excited about right now, maybe over the next five years or so.
Matias Zorrilla (50:26)
Yeah, I mean, there is a lot of interesting stuff happening on multiple domains. I think one area that's pretty interesting is kind of the space economy. especially as we see kind of launch hit a peak in terms of what we can objectively do on a consistent basis. Now we're starting to see a whole litany of services starting to develop, whether it's manufacturing in space or refueling kind of rendezvous and proximity operations, satellite defense.
There's this whole ecosystem that I do think over the next 10 years is going to blow up, especially as hopefully the Space Force gets more funding. I think one area that has always been close to heart, I've always been relatively passionate about climate technologies. Again, climate technology is a pretty big catch-all, but I think the big emphasis over the last two, three years has been on energy generation. But I think the question then comes...
What are the byproducts? What are the technologies that will benefit from this new wave of energy generation? And so...
I think a huge focus on the tech side has been, for instance, the proliferation of our nuclear fleet. What does that mean in terms of the operation and maintenance of those fleets? How are we going to deal with our nuclear waste problem? Same front goes with data centers and all sorts of new energy generation technologies proliferating. What is a consequence of that? How are we going to get those new generation assets?
to transmit and interconnect with the broader grid. How does the power delivery and the efficiency of that power delivery going to change when you go from these large scale transmission lines down to the chip level on a data center? And so these are all, I think, important questions that I think people continue to push into as kind of we see more of this new wave of kind of energy generating assets come to life.
Mat Vogels (52:09)
Love it, Andrew, how about you?
Andrew Couillard (52:11)
Definitely, and I think you need to skate to where the puck is going, not where the puck is. And we've seen this massive capital inflow to AI in general. If you just look at all the AI investments in Q1 in 2025, it's about 49%. And actually, over half of all investments happen just in the Bay Area alone. Like, that's insane. So a lot of people really tunnel in and focusing on, okay, how can I build the next AI thing? I just went to the recent YC demo day. It was all about AI agents. I think that's where the puck is right now. And I think there's going to be some meaningful things and some really good market segments there.
Matias Zorrilla (52:24)
you
Andrew Couillard (52:41)
Where is it going? How are going to encapsulate AI and do hardware devices? And that could be through humanoids, that could be through manufacturing processes, that could be through different types of breakthroughs and other technology that truly matters. know, and broadly speaking, I think if you zoom out, if you look at late 1800s, we had this massive industrial revolution, right? We mechanized human labor, we found a way to create machines that did a lot of the things that craftsmen did. And we had this massive boom that ended obviously the roaring 20s, unfortunately World War II, which hopefully we can avoid again. But then in the early
Matias Zorrilla (52:51)
you
Andrew Couillard (53:11)
or late 1990s, we had this massive software revolution. had silicone chips, we figured out a way to pass electrons, and then we were able to encode things in zeros and ones to pass information at light speed. That then went into this massive software boom. But where I think we're going is how do you actually have now a wet wear revolution? How do you combine that with the human body? that could be through wearables, that could be through protein sequencing, or some of these other crazy things. But I think as you look 10, 20, 30 years out, there's going to be a massive revolution in the wet wear domain.
is really how do we interact and improve the human being as a whole too.
Mat Vogels (53:43)
I love it. Gentlemen, thank you so much. We should do this again. I think we maybe we do this like every quarter. We'll try to do like another Q &A thing. But thank you so much for for hopping in here. Please, if you're listening to this, you reach out to all of us. I'll make sure all of our links are below. Apply to Black Flag and we'll see you next time.
Matias Zorrilla (54:02)
Thanks so much for listening to us, Matt.
