Unpacking Moonshots and Venture Capital with Rahul Rana

​Rahul Rana is a venture builder and investor with specialties in finance and astrophysics. He works for Lux Capital, a $2.5bn deeptech venture capital firm. He is the author of Making Moonshots—a deep dive into the mindsets, philosophies, and strategies conducive to building moonshot companies. "Moonshot company" entails three things: taking an advanced science or deep technology and using it in a radical solution to solve a big problem in the world. 

​He became intrigued by deeptech at an early age when he explored his father’s laboratory at the legendary Bell Labs. Rana has discovered the “ecosystem” of what makes a great moonshot company. He has transferred his fascination with researchers and startups that make giant leaps in scientific and technological progress into a prescription. His call to action for entrepreneurs is to embrace what appears at first glance to be impossible, but is actually quite practical when following the best mindsets and strategies harnessed by those who have come before.  

​In the past, Rahul has worked at SafeStamp—an anti-counterfeiting nanotech startup—and Knowt, an AI-powered app that turns notes into review quizzes, flashcards, and assignments. For both companies, Rahul worked in all things nontechnical (operations, sales, business development, marketing, finance, etc.). He also has worked at the Alchemist Accelerator and at Contrary Capitalin content creation roles. Furthermore, Rahul also interned in the NJ-6 Congressional District Office doing public policy work.