Finding Urgent Buyers: Collaborating with governments and industries
Ripple Hosts
Brett Bivens
July Fund
Sam Tidswell
ReGen Ventures
TL;DR
Urgent Buyers across critical industries are redefining the way emerging companies and their investors think about scale. These deep-pocketed government and industrial customers, facing existential threats unsolvable by status quo solutions, offer something founders dream of but rarely find: Guaranteed demand at premium prices with a need to deploy now.
History shows that Urgent Buyer moments arrive with stunning speed, transforming strategic paradigms virtually overnight. In this Ripple, we will discuss how companies and financiers can position themselves to benefit from this once-in-a-generation re-writing of the industrial playbook.
Topic overview
Why is the topic relevant?
We have entered the Urgent Buyer era.
In periods of crisis and strategic realignment, when status quo solutions fail and incremental progress is insufficient, Urgent Buyers represent the critical substrate of attractive new market opportunities.
They pay premium prices, accept technical risk, and commit to large-scale deployment of new technologies.
During the Cold War, Urgent Buyer needs catalyzed semiconductor technology development and what became one of the world's most important industries. Today, we are witnessing an Urgent Buyer moment of a similar historic scale.
Decades of underinvestment in critical industrial capacity have led to systemic failures in energy infrastructure, critical mineral supply chains, and defense readiness.
To shore up these cascading vulnerabilities, Western governments and industrial incumbents have mobilized a dramatic fiscal, balance sheet, and policy response.
This desperation forms the foundation upon which the most valuable companies of the next decade will be built.
In this Ripple, we will discuss what the Urgent Buyer era means for company building, capital allocation, procurement, and the interplay between founders, investors, incumbents, and policymakers.
What’s up for discussion?
How can emerging companies identify and access the Urgent Buyers most relevant to them?
From there, how can companies best capitalize on this unique demand to coordinate the complexity around scaling (mostly physical) technology businesses?
How do investment/capital allocation models need to adjust to best meet the Urgent Buyer moment?
What lessons can policymakers draw from historical and more recent (IRA, CHIPs Act) policy measures that emerged in response to perceived existential threats?
In what ways can emerging companies and incumbents partner productively to take advantage of Urgent Buyer opportunities?
Dream outcome
Stronger shared framework/understanding among founders, investors, executives, and policymakers on what it takes to scale companies in the Urgent Buyer era.
Who should attend?
Founders, Capital Allocators, Corporate Executives, Policymakers (in that order to priority)