When Jamie Gull graduated from Stanford University in 2007 with a master’s degree in aeronautics, his immediate destination was the Mojave desert. He was drawn to a company called Scaled Composites, which had spent years developing experimental aircraft in that arid landscape. Gull wanted to be a part of it.
He could have pursued a more traditional aerospace job, but he was concerned he would spend years working on a minor component, a common joke about larger, slow-moving companies. At Scaled Composites, however, he knew he would build something quickly and, as a college graduate, would own an actual outcome.
After two years, Gull moved to SpaceX, where he contributed to making the Falcon 9 rocket reusable. This achievement was a major milestone in the company’s history and formed the foundation of its enormously valuable business.
Now, Gull is preparing for a new challenge by launching an early-stage deep tech fund named Wave Function Ventures. He recently closed the fund’s first round at fifteen point one million dollars and is already actively investing.
Gull has made nine investments in startups across various industries, including nuclear energy with Deep Fission, humanoid robotics with Persona AI, and aerospace with Airship Industries. He expects to make about twenty-five seed or pre-seed investments from this fund. Gull declined to name the anchor limited partner and shared that the rest of the fund was filled by high net worth individuals, with support from other funds and large family offices.
The emergence of Wave Function coincides with a rise in deep tech funding, partly driven by increased attention on fields like aerospace and defense. This trend is significant enough that another new fund, Leitmotif, recently launched with three hundred million dollars in capital from the Volkswagen Group to support hardware and manufacturing startups.
This environment is well-suited for someone with Gull’s background, which extends beyond his work as an aerospace engineer. Near the end of his time at SpaceX in 2016, he began angel investing in companies like Boom Supersonic, K2 Space, and Varda. He also co-founded the electric vertical takeoff and landing startup Talyn Air and serves as a venture partner at Y Combinator’s Pioneer Fund, a position he still holds.
Gull intends to leverage all his experience in rapid prototyping, founding a startup, and angel investing to help the founders he backs at Wave Function. He believes he can assist them through the most uncertain early stages and help them build their companies.
He also believes deep tech will be a source of significant returns over the next ten to twenty years. While startups in this space may require more initial capital, he notes they can leverage non-venture funding, such as government contracts, to scale and establish a more solid competitive advantage than software companies.
Achieving those large returns will take time, and Gull is patient. Though he began his career as an eager builder, he understands the value of waiting. Fifteen years ago at Scaled Composites, he worked on Stratolaunch, then the world’s largest aircraft. The project was so complex it remained in development long after he had moved on.
In 2019, while planning to attend a fly-in event at the Mojave airport with his Talyn co-founder, he got a hint he might see the giant airplane fly. A friend told him to arrive at six in the morning, which seemed unusually early. Gull trusted his friend and made the trip.
As they approached the airport, Stratolaunch was parked on the runway, prepared for flight. They landed, and according to Gull, the aircraft took off just fifteen minutes later. He reflected that it was almost exactly ten years after he had worked on the project on a computer screen, calling the experience wild.