Vin D.

Managing Partner, Materials Ventures | Founder, Materials Launchpad

📍 United States🔄 Updated September 2026💼 13 investments📅 2 years investing🗓 Last invested Jan 2024
VC🌍 United States
13
Total investments
0
Early stage
1
Mid stage
7
Late stage
2y
Years active

Portfolio

12 investments · sorted by recency
All investments
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Mid stage
Late stage
Investor
2024
Tenstorrent is a next-generation computing company that builds computers for AI. Headquartered in the U.S. with offices in Austin, Texas, and Silicon Valley, and global offices in Toronto, Belgrade, Seoul, Tokyo, and Bangalore, Tenstorrent brings together experts in the field of computer architecture, ASIC design, RISC-V technology, advanced systems, and neural network compilers. Tenstorrent is backed by Eclipse Ventures and Real Ventures, Archerman Capital, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and Hyundai Motor Group among others. Join us: www.tenstorrent.com/careers.
Investor
2024
We are building the engine that will power discoveries, drive progress, and redefine what computers—and human beings—are capable of.
Investor
2024
Sakuu® is a leading provider of commercial-scale printing equipment and technologies to the battery industry. Its Kavian® Platform —the worlds first manufacturing platform for dry printing battery electrodes— was named one of Fast Companys World Changing Ideas 2025 and TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024, for enabling rapid manufacturing innovation while reducing waste and avoiding toxins. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, the Sakuu team is transforming manufacturing to power a more sustainable future. As a result, Sakuu was crowned FII8 Innovator 2024 at the Future Investment Initiative Conference in Riyadh.
Investor
2024
The heart of SiFive is RISC-V! SiFive creates the building blocks of RISC-V-based IP that are the inevitable innovative reimagining of every computing platform.
Investor
2024
Quantum computing will be a world-changing technology with the potential to unlock powerful advances in medicine, energy, finance and beyond. At PsiQuantum, we’re focused on building the world’s first useful quantum computer. A useful quantum computer requires at least 1,000,000 qubits and error correction. We believe photonics is the only path to building a useful quantum computer. Our team at PsiQuantum is a mix of quantum physicists, semiconductor, systems, and software engineers, system architects and more. Error correction is at the centre of everything we do; and we focus on solving real-world problems. If you’re interested in joining our team, we are always open to hearing from exceptional people interested in working on one of the defining technologies of our lifetime.
Investor
2024
Redwood Materials is building the U.S. stockpile of critical materials and deploying large-scale energy storage. Founded by JB Straubel, the company produces lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and cathode active material at scale in the U.S., manufactures key components for advanced batteries, and deploys energy storage systems that power data centers and the nation’s grid. Redwood is expanding domestic capacity for next-generation energy storage and strengthening U.S. energy dominance.
Investor
2024
AMP is applying AI-powered sortation at scale to modernize the worlds recycling infrastructure and maximize the value in waste. AMP gives waste and recycling leaders the power to harness AI to reduce labor costs, increase resource recovery, and deliver more reliable operations. With hundreds of deployments across North America, Asia, and Europe, AMP’s technology offers a transformational solution to waste sortation and changes the fundamental economics of recycling.
Investor
2024
PANGAIA is a purpose-driven lifestyle company bringing problem-solving materials science innovations to the world. We are a global collective of one heart and many hands - scientists, technologists, designers – using nature’s intelligence to create apparel from innovative tech and bio-engineered materials powered by nature. Our vision is to inspire and accelerate an earth positive future as we design a business model where our products are better for the planet than if they did not exist. Every product we create is born from science and purpose, each solving an environmental problem of the industry. From the materials we use to the colors we create, we are committed to protecting, preserving and promoting biodiversity on earth, pioneering and using materials that consider the delicate balance between planet, functionality and purpose.
Investor
2024
A rocket company at the core, Relativity Space is on a mission to become the next great commercial launch company. With an ever-growing need for space infrastructure, demand for launch services is continuously outpacing supply. Our reusable rockets can meet this demand, offering customers the right size payload capacity at the right cost. Leveraging advances in additive manufacturing, we are strategically focused on reducing vehicle complexity, cost, and time to market. Our patented technologies enable innovative designs once thought impossible and unlock new value propositions in the booming space economy.
Investor
2024
TAE Technologies (pronounced T-A-E) was founded in 1998 to develop commercial fusion power with the cleanest environmental profile. The company’s pioneering work represents the fastest, most practical, and economically competitive solution to bring abundant clean energy to the grid. With more than 2,300 patents filed globally and approximately 1,400 granted, more than $1.2 billion in private capital raised, five generations of National Laboratory-scale devices built along with two more in development, and an experienced team of over 600 employees, TAE is now on the cusp of delivering this transformational energy source capable of sustaining the planet for thousands of years. The company’s revolutionary technologies have produced a robust portfolio of commercial innovations in large adjacent markets such as power management, energy storage, electric mobility, fast charging, life sciences, and more. TAE is based in California, and maintains international offices in the UK, EU, and Switzerland. Multidisciplinary and mission-driven by nature, TAE is leveraging proprietary science and engineering to create a bright future.
Investor
2024
Cerebras Systems is the worlds fastest AI inference. We are powering the future of generative AI. We’re a team of pioneering computer architects, deep learning researchers, and engineers building a new class of AI supercomputers from the ground up. Our flagship system, Cerebras CS-3, is powered by the Wafer Scale Engine 3—the world’s largest and fastest AI processor. CS-3s are effortlessly clustered to create the largest AI supercomputers on Earth, while abstracting away the complexity of traditional distributed computing. From sub-second inference speeds to breakthrough training performance, Cerebras makes it easier to build and deploy state-of-the-art AI—from proprietary enterprise models to open-source projects downloaded millions of times. Here’s what makes our platform different: 🔦 Sub-second reasoning – Instant intelligence and real-time responsiveness, even at massive scale ⚡ Blazing-fast inference – Up to 100x performance gains over traditional AI infrastructure 🧠 Agentic AI in action – Models that can plan, act, and adapt autonomously 🌍 Scalable infrastructure – Built to move from prototype to global deployment without friction Cerebras solutions are available in the Cerebras Cloud or on-prem, serving leading enterprises, research labs, and government agencies worldwide. 👉 Learn more: www.cerebras.ai Join us: https://cerebras.net/careers/
Investor
2024
Welcome to SambaNova: Revolutionizing AI Capacity At SambaNova, were empowering developers, enterprises, governments, and data centers to unlock their full AI potential. Our full-stack infrastructure, from chips to models, enables lightning-fast performance, low power consumption, and high-efficiency computing. Our Mission To give every developer, enterprise, government and data center absolute sovereignty over their own data, models and AI infrastructure – to future-proof the AI workloads that will power and scale tomorrow. Our Technology We give our customers the optionality to experience SambaNova through the cloud or on-premise. Samba Cloud delivers the fastest inferences on the largest open source models like Llama 4 and DeepSeek. Developers can get started building in minutes with our OpenAI compatible APIs. All customers start on the developer tier and when they need more capacity can scale into our enterprise tier. SambaStack is our on-premise offering which includes the system, the platform, and foundation models. These components combine into a powerful technology stack that delivers unparalleled performance, ease of use, accuracy, data privacy, and the ability to power every use case across the worlds largest organizations. SambaManaged is a modular and ready-to-deploy AI cloud designed to deliver unmatched efficiency for data centers and cloud service providers. This solution allows organizations to quickly deploy advanced AI inference services—without the need for costly infrastructure upgrades or specialized expertise—in as little as 90 days. At the heart of SambaNova innovation is the Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU). Purpose built for AI workloads, the RDU takes advantage of a dataflow architecture and a three-tiered memory design. The three tiers of memory enable the platform to run hundreds of models on a single node and to switch between them in microseconds. In 2023, SambaNova released its 4th generation RDU chip, the SN40L.
Experience · 16 entries
All (16)
Investments (13)
Founder (1)
Board (1)
2024
Investor
2024
Tenstorrent is a next-generation computing company that builds computers for AI. Headquartered in the U.S. with offices in Austin, Texas, and Silicon Valley, and global offices in Toronto, Belgrade, Seoul, Tokyo, and Bangalore, Tenstorrent brings together experts in the field of computer architecture, ASIC design, RISC-V technology, advanced systems, and neural network compilers. Tenstorrent is backed by Eclipse Ventures and Real Ventures, Archerman Capital, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and Hyundai Motor Group among others. Join us: www.tenstorrent.com/careers.
Investor
2024
We are building the engine that will power discoveries, drive progress, and redefine what computers—and human beings—are capable of.
Investor
2024
Sakuu® is a leading provider of commercial-scale printing equipment and technologies to the battery industry. Its Kavian® Platform —the worlds first manufacturing platform for dry printing battery electrodes— was named one of Fast Companys World Changing Ideas 2025 and TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024, for enabling rapid manufacturing innovation while reducing waste and avoiding toxins. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, the Sakuu team is transforming manufacturing to power a more sustainable future. As a result, Sakuu was crowned FII8 Innovator 2024 at the Future Investment Initiative Conference in Riyadh.
Investor
2024
The heart of SiFive is RISC-V! SiFive creates the building blocks of RISC-V-based IP that are the inevitable innovative reimagining of every computing platform.
Board Member
2024
The field of materials science, rooted in the exploration of matters properties and applications, emerged as a distinct discipline in the mid-20th century. The amalgamation of diverse scientific fields, including physics, chemistry, engineering, and metallurgy, paved the way for a comprehensive study of materials and their multifaceted attributes. Materials science gained prominence during World War II as the demand for new materials for defense applications drove advancements in metallurgy, polymers, and ceramics. The 1950s saw the formalization of materials science as universities established dedicated departments, courses, and research initiatives to investigate the structure, behavior, and processing of materials. This marked a turning point, signaling the transition from empirical approaches to a systematic, interdisciplinary approach to understanding and engineering materials. Today, materials science is a vital cornerstone of technological advancement and innovation. An array of universities worldwide offer programs in materials science and engineering, each contributing to the exploration of novel materials and applications. Prominent institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, Oxford University, and Imperial College London boast well-established materials science departments, contributing to groundbreaking research and education in the field. The impact of materials science is felt across various industries, with employers benefiting from the unique skill set possessed by material science graduates. Industries ranging from aerospace, automotive, and electronics to healthcare, energy, and environmental sectors rely on materials science expertise to develop innovative products and solutions. The worlds leading companies harness the talents of material science graduates to engineer high-performance materials, optimize manufacturing processes, and drive sustainable practices.
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