disinfozone/The_Info_Web
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

vault backup: 2026-10-15 11:55:05

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
disinfo.zone 2026-10-15 11:55:05 -04:00
parent de84622565
commit 70fb85249f
No known key found for this signature in database
55 changed files with 2213 additions and 364 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

140
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/1517 Fund.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,140 @@
---
aliases:
- 1517
- 1517 Fund I, L.P.
- 1517 Fund II, L.P.
- 1517 Fund IV, L.P.
- 1517fund.com
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- VentureCapital
- ThielFellowship
- ThielNetwork
- PeterThiel
- DanielleStrachman
- MichaelGibson
- Dropouts
- UAP
summary: "Oakland venture fund founded in 2015 by Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, cofounders of the Thiel Fellowship, that backs dropouts and deep tech scientists and is named as an angel backer of ELDAEON."
location: "Oakland, California; Telluride, Colorado"
created: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Danielle Strachman]]"
reverse: true
role: "cofounder and general partner; signed the Form D notice for Fund I, L.P."
start: 2015
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Michael Gibson]]"
reverse: true
role: "cofounder and general partner; executive officer on the Form D notices for Fund I, L.P. and Fund II, L.P."
start: 2015
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Peter Thiel]]"
reverse: true
role: "named as an investor in the fund in a December 2016 Bloomberg Businessweek profile"
fn: 16
- type: funded
with: "[[Xona Space Systems]]"
start: 2022-08
role: "existing investor in the $25 million round led by First Spark Ventures"
fn: 18
- type: funded
with: "[[Luminar Technologies]]"
role: "described on the fund's blog in August 2020 as one of its companies, announced as going public"
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Upkeep]]"
role: "angel check, per the fund's August 2021 blog post on the company"
fn: 19
- type: funded
with: "[[ELDAEON]]"
start: 2026-10
role: "named as angel backer in the company's X profile (October 2026)"
fn: 21
---
1517 Fund is a venture capital firm whose [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] filings give addresses in [[Oakland, California]] (2015 to 2020) and [[Telluride, Colorado]] (2022 onward). Its site calls the fund "an anti-establishment educational institution" and its footer describes it as "a venture capital firm backing dropouts, renegade students, and deep tech scientists."[^1] The fund was started in 2015 by [[Danielle Strachman]] and [[Michael Gibson]], who state that they cofounded the [[Thiel Fellowship]] with [[Peter Thiel]] in 2010.[^1]
### Founding and the Thiel Fellowship
The home page says Strachman joined "during the founding of the Thiel Fellowship" to lead its design and operations, and that she and Gibson were both on the founding team.[^1] A post on the fund's blog, written in 2020, says Strachman "quickly brought structure" to the program after she joined.[^2]
The fund's post of April 18, 2019 states that the fellowship was conceived 24 hours before an interview with [[Sarah Lacy]] held on Gibson's first day of work.[^3] In a 2022 interview, Gibson dated his first day of work to September 27, 2010, and said that Thiel came up with the idea of the fellowship on a flight from New York the night before, planned to announce it the next day at TechCrunch Disrupt, and had hired Gibson as a research analyst at his hedge fund.[^4] The fund's post of August 24, 2020 on the [[Luminar Technologies]] listing gives a further account: Thiel and [[Jim O'Neill]] brought Gibson into a meeting on his first day and told him they were starting an "anti-Rhodes scholarship" that paid people to drop out of college to work on science and technology.[^2]
Gibson wrote an essay for the fund's blog, dated July 22, 2018, about his own career. In it he describes interviewing with the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] in the fall of 2006 after applying for a political analyst role, and says that he had dropped out of the [[University of Oxford]], where he was working toward a doctorate in philosophy, and that MIT's Technology Review had hired him as a writer.[^5] A 2023 review of his book by [[Astral Codex Ten]] places the CIA application in 2007, after he left Oxford, and reports that the agency rejected him after an IQ test, a personality test, a statement of values and a set of essay questions.[^6]
### Thiel Foundation payments to Strachman
The [[Thiel Foundation]]'s Forms 990-PF list Danielle Lynn Strachman as a paid contractor for "20under20 program management." The return for 2012 lists 275,163 dollars, the return for 2013 lists 250,845 dollars and the return for 2014 lists 174,363 dollars.[^7][^8][^9] The fund's account of its founding says that in 2015 Strachman and Gibson "took our own leap to create a venture fund" to scale work they had done at the foundation.[^10]
### Medici Project grants
The fund's grant program is called the [[1517 Medici Project]]. Its page says that "When Michael and I were at the Thiel Foundation, we put $100K grants behind young people like [[Vitalik Buterin]], [[Dylan Field]], [[Laura Deming]], [[Austin Russell]], and [[Ritesh Agarwal]]," and that in the last year there the team piloted "smaller $1K grants to young people."[^10] The page describes the first grant as a $1,000 check given to a teen in a [[Boston]] cafe in the first weeks of the fund, and says the grants are paid by [[Venmo]], carry no equity or intellectual property terms and are not issued to teams outside North America because of international rules.[^10]
### Funds and Form D filings
The Securities and Exchange Commission Form D notices filed under the name "1517 Fund" begin in August 2015. Fund I, L.P. filed on August 31, 2015, with a first sale on August 14, 2015, a [[Delaware]] limited partnership and an offering amount stated as indefinite. It reports 6,400,000 dollars sold to twelve investors, and lists Strachman, Gibson and a general partner entity, 1517 Fund I GP, LLC, as executive officers.[^11] 1517 Fund I Sidecar LP, filed on December 1, 2015 with a first sale on November 30, 2015, reports 290,000 dollars sold to six investors. Its executive officers include [[Tec-Rx Ventures]] LLC and one individual.[^12]
Fund II, L.P. filed on April 8, 2019 with a first sale on March 25, 2019 and a stated offering of 40,000,000 dollars, with 14,170,000 dollars sold. An amendment of June 16, 2020 reports 18,950,000 dollars sold to 49 investors. Gibson signed the amendment.[^13]
The fund also filed Form D notices for single-company vehicles. SPV A, SPV B, SPV C, SPV D and SPV E were filed between November 23 and December 4, 2020, with first sales dated from December 2016 to September 2019, reporting 3,050,000, 3,012,500, 3,406,000, 3,647,500 and 997,500 dollars sold. SPV F, filed August 16, 2021, reports 6,100,000 dollars sold to 26 investors. SPV I, filed February 11, 2022, reports 3,100,002 dollars sold to 21 investors. SPV S (March 31, 2026) and SPV U (July 9, 2026) report no sales.[^14]
Fund IV, L.P. reports a first sale on May 12, 2025 and a Form D filed on May 22, 2025 with 25,490,500 dollars sold. Two amendments followed, the first on May 22, 2026 reporting 41,790,500 dollars sold to 43 investors and the second on September 3, 2026 reporting 43,128,900 dollars sold to 85 investors. Fund IV-A, L.P. filed on March 25 and May 22, 2026 and reports no sales.[^15]
In a July 2022 interview, Gibson said: "Our first fund was $20m. Our second about $25m. Our third fund is $80m."[^4] The December 2016 Bloomberg Businessweek profile reported that about 30 investors had put 20 million dollars into the fund, that the founders had given young technologists "about $5.5 million," and that the firm had made about 30 investments of up to 250,000 dollars each plus 60 or so gifts of as little as 1,000 dollars.[^16] The home page lists "$175mm+" in capital committed and "15+ SPVs for Outstanding Investments."[^1]
### Investors and Thiel
A December 1, 2016 [[Bloomberg Businessweek]] profile by [[Lizette Chapman]], headlined "Thiel-Backed 1517 Fund Is Stalking the Next Zuckerberg," calls Strachman and Gibson co-heads of the Thiel Fellowship. It reports that "over breakfast" in the spring of 2016 they pitched Peter Thiel on a venture firm that would give gifts, loans and access to a network of fellowship alumni. The article states: "Thiel bit, as did about 30 other investors, including EBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, the Coors family, Texas' Hunt family, and Nicolas Berggruen." It adds that the firm "quietly opened" in April, that about 60 percent of the early fundees were Thiel fellows or alumni, and that the founders named the firm for the year [[Martin Luther]] is said to have nailed the 95 Theses to a church door.[^16] The Form D for Fund I, L.P. gives August 14, 2015 as the date of first sale.[^11]
The investors named in the article are [[Pierre Omidyar]], [[Jaan Tallinn]], [[Nicolas Berggruen]] and, without individual members, the Coors and Hunt families.[^16] [[Raging Capital Ventures]] introduced its July 2022 interview with Gibson by stating that it was "an investor in 1517."[^4]
The Astral Codex Ten review of Gibson's book states that Thiel "invested $4 million" and describes the parting with Thiel as seemingly amicable.[^6]
### Portfolio
The home page's grid of select portfolio companies includes [[Atom Computing]] (neutral atom quantum computing), [[Xona Space Systems]] (next generation GPS infrastructure), [[MakeRain]] (cloud seeding by drone), [[Lambda]] (deep learning cloud and hardware), [[Loom]] (asynchronous video software), [[Fountain]] (high-volume hiring software), [[FOSSA]] (open-source dependency protection) and [[nTopology]] (engineering design software).[^1] A comparable-transactions table in the fairness-opinion section of the September 2026 prospectus of [[Calisa Acquisition Corp]] and Goodvision AI Inc. lists a Lambda financing dated February 19, 2025 with 1517 Fund and Acronym Venture Capital as its investors.[^17]
[[Via Satellite]] describes Xona's Pulsar as a low Earth orbit satellite navigation system. The company's 25 million dollar round of August 2022 was led by [[First Spark Ventures]], with [[Lockheed Martin Ventures]] among the new investors and 1517 Fund listed among the existing investors.[^18]
The fund's post of August 24, 2020 announcing the Luminar listing calls Luminar "one of our companies," says it was going public at a 3.4 billion dollar valuation through a SPAC merger, and describes it as the first company to go public for the fund and the first Thiel Fellow to do so.[^2] The post also reports that [[Larry Summers]] called the fellowship "the single most misdirected bit of philanthropy this decade," and that the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] banned the fund from recruiting on its campus.[^2]
The fund's post of August 9, 2021 on [[Upkeep]], a software platform for medical spas, says the fund originally supported its founder with one of its smaller angel checks.[^19]
The home page lists Ethereum, Figma, [[Longevity Fund]], OYO Rooms and Luminar among companies started by Thiel Fellows.[^1]
### Paper Belt on Fire
The home page describes the "paper belt" as "the paper-based industries from Washington DC to Boston" and says that "Michael is dedicated to lighting the paper belt on fire."[^1] Gibson's book, [[Paper Belt on Fire]], is listed under his name by [[Open Library]] with a first publication year of 2022.[^20] The review by Astral Codex Ten describes the book as a memoir that begins with the CIA interview and runs through the Thiel Fellowship to the founding of the fund.[^6]
### UAP and ELDAEON
The UAP sensor company [[ELDAEON]], filed in California in June 2025, names 1517 Fund as its "angel" backer in the company's X profile, with [[Boost VC]] named as "pre-seed" backer.[^21]
### Footnotes
[^1]: 1517 Fund, home page, including the "Founding Team," "Select Portfolio Companies" and FAQ sections, viewed October 14, 2026. https://www.1517fund.com/
[^2]: 1517 Fund, "Zero to $3.4 Billion: Luminar Goes Public," blog post, August 24, 2020. https://www.1517fund.com/post/luminar-goes-public
[^3]: 1517 Fund, "How to Apply to the Thiel Fellowship," blog post, April 18, 2019. https://www.1517fund.com/post/thiel-fellowship
[^4]: "An Entrepreneur's Perspective: Interview with Michael Gibson," Raging Capital Ventures, July 8, 2022. https://ragingcapitalventures.com/an-entrepreneurs-perspective-interview-with-michael-gibson/
[^5]: Michael Gibson, "Human Intelligence," 1517 Fund blog, July 22, 2018. https://www.1517fund.com/post/human-intelligence
[^6]: Astral Codex Ten, "Book Review: Paper Belt On Fire," Scott Alexander, March 23, 2023. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-paper-belt-on-fire
[^7]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2012, Part VIII, contractors statement (Danielle Lynn Strachman, "Consulting - 20under20 program management," 275,163 dollars). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_201212_990PF.pdf
[^8]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2013, ProPublica object ID 201443169349101309, Part VIII (Danielle Lynn Strachman, 250,845 dollars). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201443169349101309/IRS990PF
[^9]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2014, ProPublica object ID 201543099349100429, Part VIII (Danielle Lynn Strachman, 174,363 dollars). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201543099349100429/IRS990PF
[^10]: 1517 Fund, "1517 Medici Project," undated page. https://www.1517fund.com/medici
[^11]: Form D, 1517 Fund I, L.P., CIK 0001651759, accession 0001651759-15-000001, filed August 31, 2015. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1651759/000165175915000001/primary_doc.xml
[^12]: Form D, 1517 Fund I Sidecar LP, CIK 0001658654, accession 0001658654-15-000001, filed December 1, 2015. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1658654/000165865415000001/primary_doc.xml
[^13]: Form D, 1517 Fund II, L.P., CIK 0001772980, accession 0001772980-19-000001 (filed April 8, 2019), and Form D/A, accession 0001772980-20-000001 (filed June 16, 2020). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1772980/000177298019000001/primary_doc.xml and https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1772980/000177298020000001/primary_doc.xml
[^14]: Form D notices, single-company vehicles, SEC EDGAR: 1517 Fund I - SPV A, L.P. (CIK 0001692127, 0001692127-20-000001); SPV B (CIK 0001833319, 0001833319-20-000001); SPV C (CIK 0001833336, 0001833336-20-000001); SPV D (CIK 0001833463, 0001833463-20-000001); SPV E (CIK 0001833581, 0001833581-20-000001); 1517 Fund - SPV F, L.P. (CIK 0001873265, 0001873265-21-000001); 1517 Fund - SPV I, L.P. (CIK 0001908226, 0001567619-22-003271); SPV S (CIK 0002098715, 0002098715-26-000001); SPV U (CIK 0002138316, 0002138316-26-000001). Filing dates: SPV A December 3, 2020; SPV B and SPV C November 23, 2020; SPV D and SPV E December 4, 2020; SPV F August 16, 2021; SPV I February 11, 2022; SPV S March 31, 2026; SPV U July 9, 2026. Each at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/<CIK>/<accession without dashes>/primary_doc.xml
[^15]: Form D and Form D/A, 1517 Fund IV, L.P., CIK 0002068201, accessions 0002068201-25-000001 (May 22, 2025), 0002068201-26-000001 (May 22, 2026) and 0002068201-26-000002 (September 3, 2026); Form D, 1517 Fund IV-A, L.P., CIK 0002068202, accessions 0002068202-26-000001 and 0002068202-26-000002. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2068201/000206820125000001/primary_doc.xml and https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2068202/000206820226000001/primary_doc.xml
[^16]: Lizette Chapman, "Thiel-Backed 1517 Fund Is Stalking the Next Zuckerberg," Bloomberg Businessweek, December 1, 2016. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-01/thiel-s-1517-fund-is-stalking-the-next-zuckerberg (archived copy of December 5, 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20161205183717/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-01/thiel-s-1517-fund-is-stalking-the-next-zuckerberg)
[^17]: Calisa Acquisition Corp and Goodvision AI Inc., Rule 424(b)(3) prospectus, SEC accession 0001493152-26-042390, filed September 11, 2026, fairness-opinion comparable transactions table. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2026767/000149315226042390/form424b3.htm
[^18]: Mark Holmes, "Lockheed Martin Invests in Xona Space Systems $25M Funding Round," Via Satellite, August 8, 2022. https://www.satellitetoday.com/finance/2022/08/08/lockheed-martin-invests-in-xona-space-systems-25m-funding-round/
[^19]: 1517 Fund, "Announcing 1517 Fund Investment: Upkeep," blog post, August 9, 2021. https://www.1517fund.com/post/upkeep
[^20]: Open Library, "Paper Belt on Fire," work OL25550015W, author Gibson, Michael, first publication year 2022. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL25550015W
[^21]: ELDAEON INC. (@eldaeonuap), X profile, viewed October 14, 2026, as cited on the ELDAEON page. https://x.com/eldaeonuap

155
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Boost VC.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,155 @@
---
aliases:
- Boost VC
- Boost Venture Capital
- boost.vc
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- BoostVC
- AdamDraper
- BraytonWilliams
- DraperFamily
- VentureCapital
- DeepTech
- PreSeed
- Bitcoin
- ELDAEON
summary: "San Mateo venture firm founded in 2012 by Adam Draper and Brayton Williams, the fourth Draper generation in venture capital, that backs pre-seed deep-tech startups and is named as a pre-seed backer of ELDAEON."
location: "San Mateo, California"
created: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Adam Draper]]"
reverse: true
role: "co-founder with Brayton Williams, per the firm's founder post of August 27, 2026"
start: 2012
fn: 2
- type: founded
with: "[[Brayton Williams]]"
reverse: true
role: "co-founder with Adam Draper"
start: 2012
fn: 2
- type: head_of
with: "[[Adam Draper]]"
reverse: true
role: "managing director"
fn: 4
- type: funded
with: "[[Tim Draper]]"
reverse: true
role: "one of the family-office and individual backers of Boost VC Fund 4 (Fortune, September 29, 2025)"
start: 2025-09
fn: 3
- type: funded
with: "[[Radiant Nuclear]]"
role: "co-led with Draper Associates the company's 300 million dollar round reported December 17, 2025, having invested since its pre-seed round"
start: 2025-12
fn: 11
- type: funded
with: "[[Coinbase]]"
role: "Boost VC Fund 3, L.P. listed as a holder of preferred stock on Schedule A of Coinbase's Amended and Restated Investors' Rights Agreement of March 15, 2021"
fn: 17
- type: funded
with: "[[Skybound Holdings LLC]]"
role: "239 Series B preferred interests through Boost VC Fund 4, LP in Mr. Mango LLC, later Skybound Holdings LLC (Regulation A filing, October 2022)"
fn: 18
- type: funded
with: "[[ELDAEON]]"
reverse: true
role: "named as pre-seed backer in the company's X profile (October 2026)"
fn: 20
---
Boost VC is a venture capital firm in [[San Mateo, California]] that leads pre-seed rounds in deep-tech startups and describes its aim as making "sci-fi a reality."[^1] The firm was started in 2012 by [[Adam Draper]] and [[Brayton Williams]],[^2] and Adam Draper is the son of [[Tim Draper]] and the great-grandson of [[William H. Draper Jr.]][^3]
### Founders and team
The firm's founder post of August 27, 2026 says that "In 2012, Brayton Williams and I started Boost VC," and that the firm's aim was to "Help Founders."[^2] The site lists Adam Draper as "Managing Director" and "Founder of Boost VC, 4th Generation VC," and says he was an angel investor in [[Coinbase]], [[Amplitude]] and [[PlanGrid]].[^4] Fortune reports that he dropped out of [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]] to found a secondary marketplace called [[Xpert Financial]], and that a crowdfunding platform he built "pivoted into his own venture firm, Boost VC."[^3]
The site lists Brayton Williams as "Co-Founder & Partner," with earlier posts at [[Morgan Stanley]] and Xpert Financial, and says he was a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.[^4] The other people on the site's team page are [[Maddie Callander]] (partner), [[Gus Domel]] (partner), [[Danielle Sosnick]] (portfolio support), [[Derek Brown]] (head of finance) and [[Troy Kanji]] (analyst).[^4] The FAQ says portfolio founders visiting from out of town receive free housing at [[Draper University]], "located across the street from our office."[^1]
### Funds on file with the SEC
Boost VC's vehicles file notices of private offerings on Form D with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]]. [[Boost VC Fund 3, L.P.]], a Delaware limited partnership with an office at 55 East Third Avenue, San Mateo, reports a first sale dated March 25, 2016, a $55,000,000 offering and $29,028,000 sold to 38 investors. Adam Draper signed the February 2017 filing for its general partner, [[Boost VC Fund 3 Partners LLC]].[^5]
[[Boost VC Fund 4, L.P.]] reports a first sale on November 2, 2018 and a $40,418,750 offering, all of it sold, to 33 investors, in a filing dated September 2020.[^6] [[Boost VC Accelerator 3, L.P.]] reports a first sale on August 5, 2021 under an indefinite offering, with $48,555,001 sold to 50 investors. Adam Draper is listed as an executive officer.[^7] [[Boost VC Crypto 1, L.P.]] reports a first sale on February 20, 2022 and $14,495,000 sold to 27 investors, and Adam Draper signed the filing.[^8]
[[Boost VC Deep Tech Fund 4, L.P.]] filed in July 2024 for a $75,000,000 offering with nothing sold. A September 5, 2025 amendment signed by Brayton Williams as president of the general partner reports $84,447,500 sold to 100 investors, with Adam Draper and Brayton Williams listed as directors.[^9] Fortune reported the same month that Boost VC "raised over $87 million for its fourth fund," a vehicle backed mostly by family offices and high-net-worth individuals, including Adam Draper's father, grandfather and cousin.[^3]
The filer that appears under CIK 2096029 first registered as RA-1022 Fund III, a series of [[Boost VC SPV, LP]], on December 17, 2025, and was then amended as Boost VC Nuclear, a series of [[Boost VC Lead, LP]]. Both report a first sale on December 15, 2025 and $56,223,435 sold to 63 investors. Brayton Williams signed the filings as manager of the issuer, and Boost VC Deep Tech Fund 4 Partners LLC is listed as a director.[^10] TechCrunch reported on December 17, 2025 that [[Radiant Nuclear]] had raised $300 million in a round led by [[Draper Associates]] and Boost VC, with [[Ark Venture Fund]], [[Chevron Technology Ventures]], [[Founders Fund]] and others participating, at a valuation above $1.8 billion.[^11]
Boost VC SPV, LP files a separate Form D for each deal vehicle, with series names such as UP Fund I and WY Fund I (2020), FI Fund I (December 2020), RI Fund I and ET Fund I (2021), SH Fund I (2021), VE Fund I and UN Fund II (2022), RA-0206 Fund I (2023), KS-1222 Fund I and RA-1011 Fund II (2024), NE-0324 Fund I and NE-0722 Fund II (2025), and MO-0129 Fund I and CA-0724 Fund I (2026). Excluding the 2025 Nuclear series, the single-series offerings run from $239,040 (RI Fund I, 2021) to $10,229,686 (ET Fund I, 2021).[^12] The 2020 filings list the general partner's directors as [[Belltower Fund Group]], Ltd. and a second entity with "Fund GP, LLC" in its name, both of [[Seattle, Washington]]; the SH Fund I filing of December 2021 lists AngelList Canada GP, Inc. of [[Ottawa]] in place of the second entity.[^13] One series, RI Fund I, was later reported under the same CIK as NI Fund I, a series of [[Hampton VC Funds]], LP, with the same $239,040 offering.[^12]
Two other Form D filings name Draper or Williams as a director. Brayton Williams is listed as a director of [[Octane AI]], whose June 2021 filing reports $5,000,000 sold to five investors.[^14] Adam Draper is listed as a director of [[Make School]], whose October 2017 filing reports $10,129,992 sold to 21 investors.[^15]
### Investments and stated thesis
The FAQ says Boost VC is a "$400M AUM" firm that makes "$500k" lead or co-lead pre-seed investments, with checks flexible between $100k and $1M and $50k fellowship checks for founders "building sci-fi tech."[^1] The site describes the firm as generalist and lists the sectors as robotics, AI, bio, health, materials, space tech, computing, crypto, ocean tech, AR/VR, climate and energy.[^1] Its "What We Look For" text says the firm is "generalist investors who have invested in Nuclear Reactors, 10 ton Satellites, Electric Boats, Brain replacements, Bio Super powers and more."[^4] The fellowship page lists backed founders including "Teenage drone builders," "Sperm sorting to eliminate genetic disease," "Cancer sniffing dogs," "Alchemical 3D printers" and "Brain replacements."[^16]
The FAQ names [[K2 Space]], [[Prospera]], Radiant Nuclear, [[Colossal Biosciences]] and [[New Limit]] as "BIG idea examples," and says the firm's themes include "global financial changes sparked by peer-to-peer money like Bitcoin."[^1] The FAQ says the firm "led Radiant Nuclear's $300M Series D round," a company it had backed since its pre-seed round.[^1] Fortune reported that Radiant closed a $165 million Series C in May 2025.[^3] Fortune also lists Colossal Biosciences, which it describes as claiming to have brought back the dire wolf from extinction, among the deep-tech companies Adam Draper has backed.[^3] The home page links to press items on Radiant Nuclear's raise, a $130 million [[Deepgram]] round at a $1.3 billion valuation, and a $20 million round for [[Grid Aero]]'s autonomous cargo drones, and it links to the websites of K2 Space, [[Starfish Space]] and [[Volley Games]].[^4]
Adam Draper is listed on the site as an angel investor in Coinbase.[^4] The Amended and Restated Investors' Rights Agreement of March 15, 2021, filed as Exhibit 4.2 to Coinbase Global, Inc.'s March 17, 2021 Form S-1/A, lists the holders of Coinbase preferred stock on its Schedule A, and the list includes Boost VC Fund 3, L.P., [[Ghost Angel LLC]], and three Draper entities: Draper Associates V, L.P., Draper Associates Partners V, LLC and Draper Associates Investments, LLC.[^17]
A Regulation A offering statement for [[Mr. Mango LLC]], filed in October 2022 under the CIK later used by [[Skybound Holdings LLC]], lists Boost VC Fund 4, LP as holder of 239 Series B preferred interests and Ghost Angel LLC as holder of 1,917, both at 55 East 3rd Avenue, San Mateo.[^18] A 2025 Form 1-K/A for the same CIK includes signature pages to the Eighth Amendment to the company's operating agreement on which Boost VC Fund 4, LP signs through [[Boost VC Fund 4 Partners LLC]] by Adam Draper as managing director, and Ghost Angel LLC signs by Adam Draper as managing member.[^19] The same filing's ownership table lists Ghost Angel LLC at 55 East Third Avenue, San Mateo, with 68,890 Series B preferred interests, 19.32 percent of the class.[^19]
### ELDAEON
The company's X profile names Boost VC as a pre-seed backer of [[ELDAEON]] and [[1517 Fund]] as an angel backer.[^20] A September 27, 2026 post from the company reads: "Our backers @1517fund and @BoostVC are early to the UAP tech industry. Will you be?"[^20]
### Tim Draper and the 2014 bitcoin purchase
Tim Draper bought all of the nearly 30,000 bitcoins that the [[United States Marshals Service]] auctioned on a Friday in late June 2014, coins confiscated in October 2013 when the FBI shut down the online market [[Silk Road]].[^21] The report says Draper planned to work with [[Vaurum]], a bitcoin exchange, to supply bitcoins to emerging markets, and quotes his statement: "Bitcoin frees people from trying to operate in a modern market economy with weak currencies."[^21] Fortune calls the 2014 purchase "iconic" and says the family is now best known for its enthusiasm around crypto.[^3]
### William H. Draper Jr.
William H. Draper Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, on August 10, 1894, took a bachelor's and a master's degree in economics at [[New York University]], and was chairman of the student delegation to Henry Ford's 1915 peace expedition to Europe, according to his 1972 oral history interview at the [[Harry S. Truman Library]].[^22] After the First World War he worked at [[National City Bank]] and [[Bankers' Trust Company]], and he joined [[Dillon, Read and Company]] in 1926, where [[James Forrestal]] was already a senior member.[^22] He served in the Army, was called to the general staff in 1940, worked with Lewis B. Hershey on the Selective Service Act, and in 1945 went to Germany at the request of General [[Lucius D. Clay]] to take charge of the economic side of the occupation.[^22] The Truman Library lists his posts as Chief of the Economics Division of the Control Council for Germany (1945 to 1946), military government adviser to the Secretary of State at the 1947 Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, Under Secretary of War in 1947, Under Secretary of the Army from 1947 to 1949, and United States Special Representative in Europe with the rank of ambassador from January 1952 to June 1953.[^22]
In 1947 Draper went to [[Japan]] soon after taking the post of under secretary and later took a group of businessmen there for about a month, including [[Paul Hoffman]] of Studebaker and [[Percy Johnston]] of Chemical Bank, to study the Japanese economy. The group's report, which the State Department described as compiled by Draper's senior advisers during his trip, was released to the press on May 19, 1948.[^22][^23] In the 1972 interview Draper said the report led the President to change policy on Japan's economy on the recommendation of the Secretary of State, that he then recommended [[Joseph M. Dodge]], who had run the finance division in Germany, for Japan, and that Dodge balanced the Japanese budget within about six to nine months.[^22] The historian [[Howard Schonberger]] wrote that [[Harry Kern]], foreign affairs editor of [[Newsweek]], was the most notable of the conservative critics of the occupation reforms in Japan, and that Kern and Secretary of Commerce [[W. Averell Harriman]] were the catalyst for the shift in American policy.[^24]
In his interview Draper said that after leaving government in mid-1953 he ran the Mexican Light and Power Company for six years, and that in 1959 he moved to California and formed a financing firm with General Frederick L. Anderson, his deputy in NATO.[^22] The 1981 White House announcement lists his son as an associate of Draper, Gaither & Anderson from 1959 to 1962, and the Computer History Museum describes the firm as formed by Draper with Rowan Gaither and Fred Anderson in 1958.[^25][^26] Draper told the Truman Library that he later became chairman of Combustion Engineering, retired as chairman in 1965, and from then on devoted his time to the population problem: he was honorary chairman of the [[Population Crisis Committee]], sat on the governing body of the [[International Planned Parenthood Federation]], represented the United States on the [[United Nations Population Commission]] by appointment of [[Richard Nixon]], and helped Paul Hoffman raise government contributions for the [[United Nations Fund for Population Activities]], about $30 million from 46 governments in the most recent year.[^22]
In November 1958 President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] appointed a group of "eminent Americans" to "undertake a completely independent, objective, and nonpartisan analysis of the military assistance aspects of the U.S. Mutual Security Program," with Draper as chairman of the [[Draper Committee]].[^27] Its members were [[Dillon Anderson]], Joseph M. Dodge, [[Alfred M. Gruenther]], [[Marx Leva]], [[John J. McCloy]], [[George McGhee]], [[Joseph T. McNarney]], [[Arthur W. Radford]] and [[James E. Webb]], with [[Tracy Voorhees]] as counsel.[^27] The committee's interim reports are dated March 17, June 3 and July 13, 1959, and its final report is dated August 17, 1959.[^27][^28] The committee's mailings series includes material on the "population explosion," and its economic assistance folders include a paper titled "The Population Explosion."[^27]
### William H. Draper III
[[Ronald Reagan]] announced on March 18, 1981 that he would nominate William H. Draper III as president and chairman of the [[Export-Import Bank of the United States]].[^25] The White House announcement described him as founder and general partner of [[Sutter Hill Ventures]] in Palo Alto, California, a firm that had supplied equity capital to 150 young manufacturing companies, and listed earlier posts as an associate at [[Draper, Gaither & Anderson]] from 1959 to 1962 and a sales representative for [[Inland Steel]] in Chicago from 1954 to 1959. It gave his birth as White Plains, New York, on January 1, 1928, a Yale B.A. in 1950 and a Harvard M.B.A. in 1954, and listed him as a fund-raiser for the Reagan-Bush campaign in California in 1980, national cochairman of the finance committee for [[George H. W. Bush]]'s presidential campaign in 1980, and a candidate for Congress in 1967.[^25] The Computer History Museum traces the family line from William H. Draper III to his son Tim Draper, and says Tim formed Draper, Fisher Jurvetson in 1985 and now invests through Draper Associates.[^26]
On December 22, 1983 [[Richard W. Murphy]] of the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs sent Under Secretary [[Lawrence Eagleburger]] an action memorandum on whether to sign a letter recommending that EXIM approve financing for [[Iraq]]. Eagleburger signed the memorandum and sent the letter to Draper on December 24, 1983, addressed "Dear Bill," stating that "the terrorism issue, therefore, should no longer be an impediment to EXIM financing for U.S. sales to Iraq."[^29]
The United Nations Development Programme's list of past administrators gives Draper's service as president and chairman of the Export-Import Bank from 1981 to 1986 and as UNDP administrator from 1986 to 1993.[^30] The General Assembly confirmed him as administrator on April 28, 1986.[^31]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Boost VC, "FAQ," https://www.boost.vc/faq, viewed October 14, 2026.
[^2]: Adam Draper, "Boost VC Ranked #1 Deep Tech Fund," Substack, August 27, 2026. https://www.adamdraper.vc/p/boost-vc-ranked-1-deep-tech-fund
[^3]: Leo Schwartz, "Adam Draper, scion of the VC royal family, raises over $87 million for new Boost fund," Fortune, September 29, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/09/29/adam-draper-boost-vc-crypto-bitcoin-venture-capital/
[^4]: Boost VC, home page, "Team" and "What We Look For," viewed October 14, 2026. https://www.boost.vc/
[^5]: Form D, Boost VC Fund 3, L.P., CIK 0001697257, accession 0001697257-17-000001, signed February 6, 2017, filed February 7, 2017. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1697257/000169725717000001/primary_doc.xml
[^6]: Form D, Boost VC Fund 4, L.P., CIK 0001824889, accession 0001824889-20-000001, filed September 16, 2020. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1824889/000182488920000001/primary_doc.xml
[^7]: Form D, Boost VC Accelerator 3, L.P., CIK 0001888614, accession 0001888614-21-000001, filed October 29, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1888614/000188861421000001/primary_doc.xml
[^8]: Form D, Boost VC Crypto 1, L.P., CIK 0001914443, accession 0001914443-22-000001, filed March 2, 2022. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1914443/000191444322000001/primary_doc.xml
[^9]: Form D, Boost VC Deep Tech Fund 4, L.P., CIK 0002030333, accession 0002030333-24-000002, filed July 19, 2024; amendment, accession 0002030333-25-000002, filed September 5, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2030333/000203033325000002/primary_doc.xml
[^10]: Form D, RA-1022 Fund III, a series of Boost VC SPV, LP, CIK 0002096029, accession 0002096029-25-000001, filed December 17, 2025; Form D/A, Boost VC Nuclear, a series of Boost VC Lead, LP, accession 0002096029-25-000003, filed December 23, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2096029/000209602925000003/primary_doc.xml
[^11]: Tim De Chant, "Radiant Nuclear raises $300M for its semi-sized 1 MW reactor," TechCrunch, December 17, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/17/radiant-nuclear-raises-300m-for-its-semi-sized-1-mw-reactor/
[^12]: Forms D, Boost VC SPV, LP series, accessions 0001835230-20-000002 (UP Fund I), 0001835243-20-000002 (WY Fund I), 0001835231-20-000002 (FI Fund I), 0001875356-21-000002 (RI Fund I), 0001875356-21-000005 (NI Fund I, a series of Hampton VC Funds, LP, amendment), 0001876202-21-000002 (ET Fund I), 0001883358-21-000001 (RI Fund I), 0001901546-21-000001 (SH Fund I), 0001920344-22-000002 (VE Fund I), 0001924720-22-000002 (UN Fund II), 0001973006-23-000002 (RA-0206 Fund I), 0002008169-24-000002 (KS-1222 Fund I), 0002041510-24-000002 (RA-1011 Fund II), 0002068295-25-000001 (NE-0324 Fund I), 0002082459-25-000001 (NE-0722 Fund II), 0002111648-26-000001 (MO-0129 Fund I), 0002149467-26-000001 (CA-0724 Fund I). https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Boost%20VC%22&forms=D
[^13]: Forms D, FI Fund I, a series of Boost VC SPV, LP, CIK 0001835231, accession 0001835231-20-000002, filed December 7, 2020; SH Fund I, accession 0001901546-21-000001, signed December 29, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1835231/000183523120000002/primary_doc.xml
[^14]: Form D, Octane AI, Inc., CIK 0001805951, accession 0001805951-21-000001, signed June 4, 2021, filed June 7, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1805951/000180595121000001/primary_doc.xml
[^15]: Form D, Make School Inc., CIK 0001706173, accession 0001553246-17-000005, filed October 10, 2017. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1706173/000155324617000005/primary_doc.xml
[^16]: Boost VC, fellowship page, https://www.boost.vc/fellowship, viewed October 14, 2026.
[^17]: Coinbase Global, Inc., Form S-1/A, accession 0001628280-21-004939, filed March 17, 2021, Exhibit 4.2, Amended and Restated Investors' Rights Agreement dated March 15, 2021, Schedule A. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679788/000162828021004939/0001628280-21-004939.txt
[^18]: Mr. Mango LLC (CIK 0001867925), Form 1-A/A offering statement, accession 0001493152-22-029929, filed October 31, 2022, operating agreement schedule of members. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1867925/000149315222029929/0001493152-22-029929.txt
[^19]: Skybound Holdings LLC (CIK 0001867925), Form 1-K/A, accession 0001641172-25-021777, filed July 31, 2025, signature pages to the Eighth Amendment to the Sixth Amended and Restated Operating Agreement, and Item 4 ownership table. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1867925/000164117225021777/0001641172-25-021777.txt
[^20]: ELDAEON INC. (@eldaeonuap), X profile and post of September 27, 2026. https://x.com/eldaeonuap
[^21]: Bryan Cronan, "Why Tim Draper bought an auction's entire bitcoin cache," Christian Science Monitor, July 2, 2014. https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2014/0702/Why-Tim-Draper-bought-an-auction-s-entire-bitcoin-cache
[^22]: Truman Library, oral history interview with William H. Draper Jr. by Jerry N. Hess, Washington, D.C., January 11, 1972, catalog description and transcript. https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/oralhist/draperw.htm
[^23]: Department of State, Walton Butterworth to Dickover, May 24, 1948, "Johnston Committee Report," Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, volume VI, document 547. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v06/d547
[^24]: Howard B. Schonberger, *Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952* (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1989), p. 7.
[^25]: Ronald Reagan, "Nomination of William H. Draper III To Be President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States," March 18, 1981, American Presidency Project. https://presidency.ucsb.edu/node/247393
[^26]: Computer History Museum, "Venture Capital in the Blood: Three Generations of Drapers in Silicon Valley," May 19, 2017. The article names the first generation as "William Draper II," which the Truman Library and Eisenhower Library records identify as William H. Draper Jr. https://computerhistory.org/blog/venture-capital-in-the-blood-three-generations-of-drapers-in-silicon-valley/
[^27]: Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, "U.S. President's Committee to Study the United States Military Assistance Program (Draper Committee): Records, 1958-59," Accession 67-9, scope and content note, committee membership, and folder lists. https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/finding-aids/pdf/us-presidents-committee-to-study-us-military-assistance-program.pdf
[^28]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, volume IV, editorial note on the President's Committee to Study the United States Military Assistance Program, document 245. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v04/d245
[^29]: Richard W. Murphy to Lawrence S. Eagleburger, action memorandum, "EXIM Bank Financing for Iraq," December 22, 1983, approved December 24, 1983, with Eagleburger to William H. Draper III, President and Chairman, Export-Import Bank of the United States, letter of December 24, 1983, National Security Archive EBB No. 82, Document 33. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq33.pdf
[^30]: United Nations Development Programme, "Past Administrators," archived copy of the 2024 snapshot, https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://www.undp.org/our-leadership/past-administrators
[^31]: United Nations, press release BIO/2173 DEV/1674, "William H. Draper III Confirmed by General Assembly as New Administrator of UN Development Programme," April 28, 1986, archived copy, https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3801166

106
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/ELDAEON.md Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
---
aliases:
- ELDAEON
- ELDÆON
- ELDAEON INC.
- Eldaeon Inc.
- Eldaeon Technologies
- eldaeon.com
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- UAP
- Startup
- VentureCapital
- PassiveRadar
- CounterUAS
- ITAR
summary: "California corporation formed in 2025 by David Dominguez Hooper to design UAP detection systems, registered with the State Department's arms-export directorate and backed by 1517 Fund and Boost VC."
location: "Azusa, California"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[David Dominguez Hooper]]"
reverse: true
role: "agent for service of process on the initial filing of June 11, 2025; sole officer (chief executive officer, chief financial officer, secretary) and sole director on the Statement of Information of June 4, 2026"
start: 2025-06-11
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[1517 Fund]]"
reverse: true
role: "named as angel backer in the company's X profile (October 2026)"
fn: 4
- type: funded
with: "[[Boost VC]]"
reverse: true
role: "named as pre-seed backer in the company's X profile (October 2026)"
fn: 4
---
ELDAEON INC. (styled ELDÆON) is a California stock corporation, entity number B20250161991, whose initial filing with the [[California Secretary of State]] is dated June 11, 2025. The articles authorize 10,000,000 shares of a single class and name [[David Dominguez Hooper]] as agent for service of process, with a principal office in [[Azusa, California]].[^1] Its Statement of Information of June 4, 2026 lists Hooper as chief executive officer, chief financial officer, secretary and sole director, with no vacancies on the board, and gives the type of business as "Design and development of UAP detection systems."[^2] A further statement of August 17, 2026 moved the principal office to another address in Azusa; the Secretary of State lists the corporation as active and in good standing.[^3]
The company's X account, @eldaeonuap, opened in May 2025 and describes the company as "UAP detection & defense. dual-use multimodal sensor tech for gov & civilian customers," backed by [[1517 Fund]] ("angel") and [[Boost VC]] ("pre-seed"), with the identifiers "DDTC M53536 CAGE 1ZMV5." The profile gives its location as Los Angeles and labels the account a defense company.[^4] The same registration number and CAGE code appear in the footer of every page of eldaeon.com.[^5]
### Founder
Hooper's X profile describes him as founder and chief executive of ELDAEON, formerly of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], founder of UAVs at Berkeley, a real estate investor, a "Tech Hacker / Reverse Engineer," and the holder of amateur radio call sign KM6JLE.[^6] The speaker page of Deep Tech Week SF 2025 describes his background in computer science, electrical engineering, reverse engineering and LiDAR, and says his detection hardware combines multispectral sensing, time dilation measurement and quantum-scale anomaly detection.[^7]
On June 15, 2024, a year before the corporation was filed, Hooper posted that he had "presented our UAP detector to [[Eric Davis]]," and that during the demonstration he had shown its capability to detect "the potential blue-shifting effect on EM waves, a phenomenon theorized by" [[Hal Puthoff]] in his spacetime metric engineering paper.[^8] The company's May 2026 article says "We have been building toward this day since 2020."[^9]
### Backers
1517 Fund states that its founders, Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, "cofounded the [[Thiel Fellowship]] with [[Peter Thiel]] in 2010," that Strachman joined at the fellowship's founding to lead its design and operations, and that 1517 was started in 2015 to expand the fellowship's vision, taking "young people, the uncredentialed, and renegade scientists seriously."[^10] Boost VC lists its founder and managing director as Adam Draper, "Founder of Boost VC, 4th Generation VC," with co-founder Brayton Williams.[^11] On September 27, 2026 the company posted: "Our backers @1517fund and @BoostVC are early to the UAP tech industry. Will you be?"[^12]
### Products
The company's site names three products. DIONYSUS is described as a multi-sensor UAP detection platform "for autonomous field deployment," priced from $25,000, with more than 28 configurable sensors in six categories: audio (infrasonic and ultrasonic microphones), electro-optical (UV, pan-tilt-zoom, all-sky, two thermal and digital night vision cameras), radio frequency (software-defined radios for passive radar, ADS-B and spectrum analysis), quantum (a muon detector and atomic clocks), environmental (GPS, fluxgate magnetometer, EMF meter, Geiger counter, gas, CO2, particulate, pressure and lightning sensors, gyroscope-accelerometer) and biometric (EEG, galvanic skin response, pulse oximeter, a true random number generator and a pupillometer). Under the heading "Consciousness Interface," the site states that the EEG, GSR and TRNG sensors "monitor observer biometric states during anomalous events, capturing the relationship between consciousness and phenomena."[^13] The May 2026 article describes DIONYSUS as "Modeled on the architecture used by AARO's Gremlin program" and "built on the same multimodal fusion principles as AARO's Gremlin sensor suite."[^9]
NEMESIS is a $500 passive bistatic radar built on a Raspberry Pi 5 and an FPGA-based software-defined radio, using FM and DVB-T broadcast signals as illuminators and the open-source blah2, readsb and adsb2dd software, connected over a Tailscale mesh VPN to the DIONYSUS network. Reservations for a second batch are taken with a $50 deposit. The page states that NEMESIS "is subject to ITAR export restrictions. U.S. customers only at this time."[^14] On August 7, 2026 the company posted a live demonstration of NEMESIS by Hooper.[^15] SOTERA is a free iOS application that identifies satellites overhead from CelesTrak orbital data, with map, sky-dome and augmented reality views.[^16]
The Distributed Passive Radar Project of the [[Sol Foundation]], led by Hooper, deploys NEMESIS as a citizen-operated network "modeled on the [[FlightRadar24]] ADS-B receiver community." The project page describes it as a program to evaluate, deploy and analyze "low-cost passive radar systems."[^17]
The site's data menu lists DisclosureOS and a Joshua Tree data set, and its missions page lists "Joshua Tree, Night 1" on July 28, 2026.[^18] On September 1, 2026 Hooper posted "preliminary video frame data from Day 1 of our recent field mission in Joshua Tree."[^19] On September 11, 2026 the company pinned a post thanking the production company Soon for a documentary on "America's UFO-tracking industry," writing "UAP detection is becoming an industry. We're building it."[^20]
### Government posture
The site's home page cites "$22M spent by government programs like [[Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program|AATIP]] and [[KONA BLUE]] with zero deployable systems delivered to the field," and describes the company's advisers as "a diverse network of engineers, scientists, philosophers, whistleblowers and experiencers."[^5]
In a September 13, 2025 article on community feedback, the company wrote that many of its users, "especially those with direct UAP/NHI (Non Human Intelligence) experiences, expressed concern about privacy, data security, and potential government or military misuse of detection devices," that "Our devices do not emit signals to attract UAP," and that its privacy framework would include "no data sharing with government or military entities without your explicit consent."[^21]
On May 8, 2026, the day the [[Department of Defense|Department of War]] released the first batch of UAP files under the PURSUE directive with the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]], the [[Director of National Intelligence|Office of the Director of National Intelligence]], [[NASA]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], the company quoted the release's line "The Department of War welcomes the application of private sector analysis, information and expertise," and stated that it "is not affiliated with or endorsed by" any of those agencies.[^9] Its May 28, 2026 article, "Built for the Phenomenon. Drones and Counter-UAS Followed.," stated that "UAP detection is what brought ELDÆON into existence" and presented the same passive radar as a counter-drone coverage layer at roughly $500 per node.[^22]
On June 8, 2026 the company filed a public comment, signed by Jonathan Wagner, in FAA docket FAA-2026-4558, the proposed rule implementing Section 2209 restrictions on drone flights over fixed-site facilities. The comment states that "Eldaeon Inc. is registered with the U.S. Department of State's [[Directorate of Defense Trade Controls]] (DDTC) and is pursuing a Commodity Jurisdiction determination for our flagship system, Nemesis, under ITAR," describes NEMESIS as "a non-emitting, non-cooperative drone detection platform," and asks the [[Federal Aviation Administration]] to recognize passive radar as an approved method of meeting the "protective security measures" requirement of 14 CFR 74.54.[^23] The company's July 2026 article on the rule, citing [[Executive Order 14305]], "Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty," said the NEMESIS systems give airports, prisons, energy sites and stadiums "the means to legally enforce the rule at their sites."[^24]
The company's August 8, 2025 article, "Detecting the Invisible: The Future of Sensors Against Psionic Weaponry," cited the 1988 [[Air War College]] report *Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier* by Lieutenant Colonel Dolan M. McKelvy, "later archived by the CIA," discussed the [[Havana Syndrome]] incidents, and proposed sensor suites for directed energy and "psionic" attack.[^25] The report, held in the CIA's STARGATE collection, reads: "With this tremendous power comes an entirely new battlefield dimension which, if ignored, poses a threat to self and country more serious than nuclear weapons."[^26]
### Interviews
In an October 6, 2026 interview with [[CB Insights]], Hooper, identified there as chief executive officer, described the company as selling "low-cost sensing for the airspace below a few thousand feet" into two segments, counter-UAS and UAP detection. He said: "If we're wrong about the anomalous side, we built a good counter-UAS company at a price nobody can match."[^27]
### Footnotes
[^1]: California Secretary of State, ELDAEON INC., entity B20250161991, Articles of Incorporation (initial filing), June 11, 2025. https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/search/business
[^2]: California Secretary of State, ELDAEON INC., Statement of Information, control ID BA20261195122, June 4, 2026.
[^3]: California Secretary of State, ELDAEON INC., Statement of Information, control ID BA20261634198, August 17, 2026; entity detail record, viewed October 14, 2026.
[^4]: ELDÆON INC. (@eldaeonuap), X profile, viewed October 14, 2026. https://x.com/eldaeonuap
[^5]: ELDÆON, "Building the world's first tactical UAP-detection network," home page, viewed October 14, 2026. https://eldaeon.com/
[^6]: David Hooper (@davidhooperr), X profile, viewed October 14, 2026. https://x.com/davidhooperr
[^7]: Deep Tech Week, "David Hooper," speaker page, Deep Tech Week SF 2025. https://www.deep-tech-week.com/speakers/david-hooper
[^8]: David Hooper (@davidhooperr), post, June 15, 2024. https://x.com/davidhooperr/status/1802138370790809628
[^9]: ELDAEON INC., "The U.S. Just Opened the Files on UAP. We Built the Sensors to Detect Them.," May 8, 2026. https://eldaeon.com/articles/disclosure/
[^10]: 1517 Fund, home page and "Founding Team," viewed October 14, 2026. https://www.1517fund.com/
[^11]: Boost VC, home page, "About Us," viewed October 14, 2026. https://www.boost.vc/
[^12]: ELDÆON INC. (@eldaeonuap), post, September 27, 2026. https://x.com/eldaeonuap
[^13]: ELDÆON, "DIONYSUS: Multi-Sensor UAP Detection Platform," viewed October 14, 2026. https://eldaeon.com/dionysus/
[^14]: ELDÆON, "NEMESIS: Consumer-Grade Passive Radar for Distributed UAP Detection," viewed October 14, 2026. https://eldaeon.com/nemesis/
[^15]: ELDÆON INC. (@eldaeonuap), posts, August 7, 2026. https://x.com/eldaeonuap
[^16]: ELDÆON, "SOTERA," viewed October 14, 2026. https://eldaeon.com/sotera/
[^17]: The Sol Foundation, "Distributed Passive Radar Project," project page (archived copy captured August 26, 2026). https://web.archive.org/web/20260826160852/https://thesolfoundation.org/distributed-passive-radar-project/
[^18]: ELDÆON, site navigation and "missions," viewed October 14, 2026. https://eldaeon.com/missions
[^19]: David Hooper (@davidhooperr), post, September 1, 2026, quoted by @eldaeonuap the same day. https://x.com/eldaeonuap
[^20]: ELDÆON INC. (@eldaeonuap), pinned post, September 11, 2026, quoting Soon (@soontechnology). https://x.com/eldaeonuap
[^21]: ELDAEON INC., "Building ELDÆON Together: Your Voice Helps Us Shape Our Mission," September 13, 2025. https://eldaeon.com/articles/building-eldaeon-together-your-voice-helps-us-shape-our-mission
[^22]: ELDAEON INC., "Built for the Phenomenon. Drones and Counter-UAS Followed.," May 28, 2026. https://eldaeon.com/articles/sensors-for-uap/
[^23]: Eldaeon Inc., comment FAA-2026-4558-0285 on "Designation, Restrict the Operation of Unmanned Aircraft in Close Proximity to a Fixed Site Facility," posted June 8, 2026, tracking number mq5-mf2y-5853. https://www.regulations.gov/comment/FAA-2026-4558-0285
[^24]: ELDAEON INC., "Earning a Protected Sky Under Section 2209," July 2026. https://eldaeon.com/articles/faa-2209/
[^25]: ELDAEON INC., "Detecting the Invisible: The Future of Sensors Against Psionic Weaponry," August 8, 2025. https://eldaeon.com/articles/psionics
[^26]: Dolan M. McKelvy, *Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier*, Air War College research report, Air University, 1988, CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3
[^27]: CB Insights, "CEO Interview: Eldaeon," October 6, 2026. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/ceo-interview-eldaeon/

7
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Painting Decorating Maintenance.md
View file

@ -9,10 +9,13 @@ tags:
category: "Private Organization"
summary: "Painting Decorating Maintenance (PDM) was a construction company owned by John Wayne Gacy in Norwood Park, Chicago."
location: "Chicago, Illinois, USA"
updated: 2026-10-15
---
Painting Decorating Maintenance (PDM) was a construction company owned by [[John Wayne Gacy]] in Norwood Park, [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]]. PDM served as both a legitimate contracting business and the site of one of the worst serial murder investigations in American history. After [[John David Norman]] went back to prison in June 1978, [[Phillip Paske]] lost his job as a children's supervisor at a public swimming pool and went to work at PDM. Receipts for three payslips made out to [[Phillip Paske]] from PDM, dated 12 September 1978, 19 September 1978, and 25 September 1978, were found in the archives of the company's financial records from that period.[^1]
Painting Decorating Maintenance (PDM) was a construction company owned by [[John Wayne Gacy]] in Norwood Park, [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]]. PDM served as both a legitimate contracting business and the site of one of the worst serial murder investigations in American history. After [[John David Norman]] went back to prison in June 1978, [[Phillip Paske]] lost his job as a children's supervisor at a public swimming pool and went to work at PDM. Receipts for three payslips made out to Phillip Paske from PDM, dated 12 September 1978, 19 September 1978, and 25 September 1978, were found in the archives of the company's financial records from that period.[^1]
[[Robert Piest]] disappeared from a pharmacy where he worked part-time. [[John Wayne Gacy|Gacy]] was an acquaintance of the pharmacy owner, and PDM had recently completed a remodelling job there. The crawlspace beneath the PDM premises at 8213 Summerdale Avenue served as a mass grave for [[John Wayne Gacy|Gacy]]'s victims. [[Michael Rossi]], an accomplice of [[John Wayne Gacy|Gacy]] linked to the [[Odyssey Network]] through [[Phillip Paske]] and [[John David Norman]], dug graves in the crawlspace. [[John Wayne Gacy|Gacy]] named Rossi alongside [[David Cram]] and [[Phillip Paske]] as individuals who assisted in his operations. The discovery of 29 bodies at the PDM premises in December 1978 became known as the [[Dean Corll Murders|Houston Mass Murders]]-scale investigation that exposed [[John Wayne Gacy|Gacy]]'s killing spree.[^1]
[[Robert Piest]] disappeared from a pharmacy where he worked part-time. Gacy was an acquaintance of the pharmacy owner, and PDM had recently completed a remodelling job there. The crawlspace beneath the PDM premises at 8213 Summerdale Avenue served as a mass grave for Gacy's victims. [[Michael Rossi]], an accomplice of Gacy linked to the [[Odyssey Network]] through Phillip Paske and John David Norman, testified at the 1980 trial that he dug trenches in the crawl space at Gacy's direction.[^2] Gacy named Rossi alongside [[David Cram]] and Phillip Paske as individuals who assisted in his operations. David Cram worked on PDM crews in 1976 and lived in Gacy's house for part of that year, according to Michael Rossi's trial testimony.[^3] The discovery of 29 bodies at the PDM premises in December 1978 became known as the [[Dean Corll Murders|Houston Mass Murders]]-scale investigation that exposed Gacy's killing spree.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
[^2]: *People v. Gacy*, 103 Ill. 2d 1 (1984), Illinois Supreme Court, No. 53212, June 6, 1984. https://static.case.law/ill-2d/103/cases/0001-01.json
[^3]: Testimony of Michael Rossi, *People v. Gacy*, Circuit Court of Cook County, Indictment Nos. 79-69 et al., trial transcript Volume 5 of 13, February 1980. https://archive.org/details/Gacy_trial

14
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Sol Foundation.md
View file

@ -85,8 +85,13 @@ relations:
start: 2023-09-15
role: "San Francisco law firm; a paralegal of the firm prepared the Articles of Dissolution of the Alabama corporation"
fn: 11
- type: participant_in
with: "[[David Dominguez Hooper]]"
reverse: true
role: "leads the Distributed Passive Radar Project, per the project page captured August 26, 2026"
fn: 36
created: 2026-10-03
updated: 2026-10-04
updated: 2026-10-14
---
The Sol Foundation for Advanced Scientific and Policy Research is a [[California]] nonprofit public benefit corporation that described itself on its launch date, August 15, 2023, as established "to research the philosophical, policy, and scientific implications of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena." It was led at launch by [[Garry Nolan]] of the [[Stanford University]] School of Medicine and the sociocultural anthropologist [[Peter Skafish]].[^1] Its first public sign was a set of documents that surfaced in early August 2023 under the name "Sol Foundation for Advanced Studies," among them the résumé of [[David Grusch]] filed with the [[House Committee on Oversight and Accountability]].[^2][^3]
@ -143,7 +148,7 @@ The expense lines include $117,000 for management fees, $269,797 for conferences
Schedule I lists one grant to an individual: $10,000 as a "research grant for white paper on geopolitical implications of unidentified anomalous phenomena." Its supplemental statement says the organization grants funds to experts "in exchange for white papers," that grantees are selected by the board of directors and that the papers are published on its website. Schedule O describes the November 22 to 23, 2024 symposium at the [[Fort Mason Center]] in [[San Francisco]].[^7]
The [[UAP Disclosure Fund]], a San Francisco 501(c)(4) in care of [[Yuan Fung]] (EIN 99-2834592, IRS ruling date July 2025), has Fung as its executive director on the November 12, 2024 scientists' letter to Congress that Nolan, Skafish, Pasulka, Gallaudet and others signed, and Gallaudet's House biography lists him as an advisory board member of both the Fund and the Sol Foundation.[^26][^23] The [[Sol Foundation Inc]] of [[Carmel, Indiana]] (EIN 99-3863647; 1051 Oswego Road, in care of [[Lawrence Baker]]; IRS ruling date August 2024; private non-operating foundation) is a separate entity. Its Form 990-PF for the period December 24 to December 31, 2024 (submitted November 14, 2025; prepared by [[L M Henderson & Company LLP]] of [[Indianapolis]]) reports $25,000,000 in contributions received, $17,976 in interest and dividends, $89,482 in expenses, $24,928,494 in assets, no grants paid, and three directors, Lawrence Baker, [[Patricia Baker]] and [[Charles Hertlein]], each at one hour a week and unpaid. It lists no website and a telephone number in the 513 area code. Nothing in that filing refers to unidentified anomalous phenomena, to the California corporation or to any of its officers.[^27]
The [[UAP Disclosure Fund]], a San Francisco 501(c)(4) in care of [[Yuan Fung]] (EIN 99-2834592, IRS ruling date July 2025), has Fung as its executive director on the November 12, 2024 scientists' letter to Congress that Nolan, Skafish, Pasulka, Gallaudet and others signed, and Gallaudet's House biography lists him as an advisory board member of both the Fund and the Sol Foundation.[^23][^26] The [[Sol Foundation Inc]] of [[Carmel, Indiana]] (EIN 99-3863647; 1051 Oswego Road, in care of [[Lawrence Baker]]; IRS ruling date August 2024; private non-operating foundation) is a separate entity. Its Form 990-PF for the period December 24 to December 31, 2024 (submitted November 14, 2025; prepared by [[L M Henderson & Company LLP]] of [[Indianapolis]]) reports $25,000,000 in contributions received, $17,976 in interest and dividends, $89,482 in expenses, $24,928,494 in assets, no grants paid, and three directors, Lawrence Baker, [[Patricia Baker]] and [[Charles Hertlein]], each at one hour a week and unpaid. It lists no website and a telephone number in the 513 area code. Nothing in that filing refers to unidentified anomalous phenomena, to the California corporation or to any of its officers.[^27]
No filing under the client name Sol Foundation appears in the [[United States Senate]] lobbying disclosure database, and no contribution record under the names of Skafish, Berte or Mindrila appears in the Federal Election Commission database.[^28]
@ -163,6 +168,10 @@ Volume 1, No. 2 gives "Board Director: Dr. Garry Nolan" and "Executive Director:
In June 2026 Loeb announced that he would lead a "UAP Science Advisory Council" and, in a list he supplied to the news outlet [[DefenseScoop]] (published June 17, 2026), named twelve other members with focus areas, among them Gallaudet (oceanography), Nolan (molecular biology and materials science) and Skafish (anthropology). An official of the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] told DefenseScoop that the office, the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] and the [[Department of Defense]] had established an interagency UAP Governance Board, that it "met for the first time yesterday" (June 16, 2026), and that the board is supported by outside advisory groups including the council. Loeb said the council would help the [[All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office]] "resolve the UAP mystery."[^34] The Sol Foundation described the council in a June 22, 2026 release as announced by the [[Director of National Intelligence|Office of the Director of National Intelligence]] "with the support of the FBI"; Loeb wrote on June 16, 2026 that "I was tasked by the [[White House]], the Pentagon's All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI, and the Intelligence Community, to assemble" it. A search of the Federal Register on October 3, 2026 returned no document naming the council, and no ODNI, AARO or White House release establishing it was located.[^35]
### Distributed Passive Radar Project
The foundation's project page for the Distributed Passive Radar Project names [[David Dominguez Hooper]] as its leader. The page describes a program to evaluate, deploy and analyze a distributed network of "low-cost passive radar systems," with two stated objectives: detecting non-cooperative aerial threats near commercial airports, and collecting "instrumentally verified scientific data on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)." It describes the NEMESIS passive radar platform of [[ELDAEON]], "a $500 bistatic receiver based on commodity hardware and open-source signal processing software," as the basis of a citizen-operated network "modeled on the [[FlightRadar24]] ADS-B receiver community." The page states that the project's academic analysis would be conducted by an unnamed university, announcement forthcoming, and that the foundation provides "scientific expertise and review, project coordination, volunteer resources, and publication support."[^36]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Micah Hanks, "The Sol Foundation: How a New Think Tank of Academics is Applying 'Cutting-Edge Research' to the UAP Mystery," *The Debrief*, September 12, 2023. https://thedebrief.org/the-sol-foundation-how-a-new-think-tank-of-academics-is-applying-cutting-edge-research-the-uap-mystery/
@ -200,3 +209,4 @@ In June 2026 Loeb announced that he would lead a "UAP Science Advisory Council"
[^33]: Karl E. Nell, "The UFO Enigma: A Call for US Government Disclosure," The Policy Papers of the Sol Foundation, Spring 2025, Executive Summary and "About the Author." https://thesolfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/The-UFO-Enigma_Sol-Foundation.pdf
[^34]: "New science advisory council forms to help US government 'resolve the UAP mystery,'" *DefenseScoop*, June 17, 2026. https://defensescoop.com/2026/06/17/new-science-advisory-council-forms-to-help-us-government-resolve-the-uap-mystery/
[^35]: Sol Foundation, release "Sol Foundation Co-Founders Named to UAP Science Advisory Council," June 22, 2026 (modified July 13, 2026), https://thesolfoundation.org/sol-foundation-co-founders-named-to-uap-science-advisory-council/ ; Avi Loeb, "More Details on the UAP Science Advisory Council," Medium (avi-loeb.medium.com), June 16, 2026, read in a Wayback Machine copy; Federal Register search for "UAP Science Advisory Council," https://www.federalregister.gov/api/v1/documents.json?conditions%5Bterm%5D=%22UAP+Science+Advisory+Council%22 (count 0 on October 3, 2026).
[^36]: The Sol Foundation, "Distributed Passive Radar Project," project page (archived copy captured August 26, 2026). https://web.archive.org/web/20260826160852/https://thesolfoundation.org/distributed-passive-radar-project/

28
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Thiel Fellowship.md
View file

@ -11,10 +11,23 @@ tags:
- PeterThiel
- Recruitment
- Education
summary: "The Thiel Fellowship is a program of the Thiel Foundation, founded in 2010 by Peter Thiel, that awards 250,000 dollars over two years to people aged 22 or younger on the condition that they skip or stop out of college to pursue a venture, and whose alumni include Vitalik Buterin and other founders who entered the Thiel commercial network through the program."
summary: "Thiel Foundation program founded in 2010 by Peter Thiel that awards 250,000 dollars over two years to people aged 22 or younger who skip or stop out of college, with alumni including Vitalik Buterin."
location: "San Francisco, California (Thiel Foundation)"
created: 2026-06-17
updated: 2026-06-17
updated: 2026-10-14
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Danielle Strachman]]"
reverse: true
role: "cofounder of the fellowship; later cofounder of 1517 Fund"
start: 2010
fn: 5
- type: founded
with: "[[Michael Gibson]]"
reverse: true
role: "cofounder of the fellowship; later cofounder of 1517 Fund"
start: 2010
fn: 5
---
The Thiel Fellowship is a program of the [[Thiel Foundation]], founded by [[Peter Thiel]] in 2010 (originally as "20 Under 20"), that awards 250,000 dollars over two years to people aged 22 or younger on the condition that they skip or stop out of college to pursue a venture. The fellowship is the entry point into the Thiel commercial network for a cohort of founders who were recruited into the network as teenagers or early-twenties entrants, before they had passed through the conventional university and career pipeline. Notable alumni include [[Vitalik Buterin]] (the creator of [[Ethereum]]), [[Ritesh Agarwal]], [[Laura Deming]], [[Austin Russell]], and [[Dale Stephens]].[^1][^2][^3]
@ -23,6 +36,8 @@ The Thiel Fellowship is a program of the [[Thiel Foundation]], founded by [[Pete
Thiel announced the fellowship in 2010 as "20 Under 20," with the explicit framing that university education had become overpriced, risk-averse, and credential-oriented, and that the most talented young people would produce more value by building ventures outside the university than by completing degrees. The original cohort of twenty fellows under the age of twenty was selected in 2011. The award was initially 100,000 dollars over two years; it has since been raised to 250,000 dollars over two years, and the program has shifted from a strict "drop out" requirement to a "skip or stop out" formulation that permits fellows to pause rather than permanently leave their studies.[^1][^4]
[[Danielle Strachman]] and [[Michael Gibson]], who later founded [[1517 Fund]], describe themselves as cofounders of the fellowship. Strachman joined at its founding to lead its design and operations. A post on the fund's site says the program was conceived 24 hours before an interview with [[Sarah Lacy]] held on Gibson's first day of work, and a 2022 interview with Gibson dates that day to September 27, 2010 and gives an account in which Thiel came up with the idea on a flight the night before and planned to announce it at TechCrunch Disrupt the next day.[^5][^6] Bloomberg Businessweek called the two co-heads of the fellowship in 2016.[^7]
The anti-university thesis is continuous with the broader Thiel argument that credentialism and institutional consensus have captured the conventional education and career pipeline. The fellowship's institutional expression of that thesis is the offer of capital and network access in exchange for exit from the institution, which inverts the standard model in which the institution is the gateway to capital and network. The fellowship has run continuously since 2010 and has selected roughly 20 to 30 fellows per cohort.[^1][^3]
### Notable Alumni and the Network Effect
@ -33,9 +48,9 @@ The alumni network provides continuing access to the Thiel commercial orbit. Fel
### The Recruitment Layer
The fellowship identifies high-potential individuals in their teens and early twenties, supplies them with capital and network access, and brings them into the commercial, convening, and ideological infrastructure of the Thiel orbit at an age at which their trajectories are still forming. The approach is continuous with the [[JD Vance]] recruitment (capital and mentorship supplied at the career-formation stage) and the [[Teneo Network]] model of identifying and placing ideological allies across institutional sectors.[^5]
The fellowship identifies high-potential individuals in their teens and early twenties, supplies them with capital and network access, and brings them into the commercial, convening, and ideological infrastructure of the Thiel orbit at an age at which their trajectories are still forming. The approach is continuous with the [[JD Vance]] recruitment (capital and mentorship supplied at the career-formation stage) and the [[Teneo Network]] model of identifying and placing ideological allies across institutional sectors.[^8]
The fellowship operates alongside the other documented Thiel-network recruitment and convening vehicles: the Founders Fund portfolio companies, the [[Dialog]] conference, [[Hereticon]], the [[Per Aspera Policy]] political-action vehicle, and the Teneo Network conservative-leadership layer. The fellowship is the earliest-stage layer, recruiting at the point of educational exit rather than at the point of commercial or political entry.[^5]
The fellowship operates alongside the other documented Thiel-network recruitment and convening vehicles: the Founders Fund portfolio companies, the [[Dialog]] conference, [[Hereticon]], the [[Per Aspera Policy]] political-action vehicle, and the Teneo Network conservative-leadership layer. The fellowship is the earliest-stage layer, recruiting at the point of educational exit rather than at the point of commercial or political entry.[^8]
### Footnotes
@ -43,4 +58,7 @@ The fellowship operates alongside the other documented Thiel-network recruitment
[^2]: "Gen Z and millennial founders who dropped out for the fellowship." *Fortune,* August 16, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/08/16/gen-z-millennial-founders-college-dropout-entrepreneurs-peter-thiel-fellowship/
[^3]: "Thiel Fellowships don't require students to drop out." *Inside Higher Ed,* November 13, 2012. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/13/thiel-fellowships-dont-require-students-drop-out
[^4]: For the original 2010 "20 Under 20" announcement and the founding program design, see contemporaneous press coverage and the Thiel Foundation's own historical materials.
[^5]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
[^5]: 1517 Fund, home page ("Founding Team") and "How to Apply to the Thiel Fellowship," blog post, April 18, 2019. https://www.1517fund.com/ and https://www.1517fund.com/post/thiel-fellowship
[^6]: "An Entrepreneur's Perspective: Interview with Michael Gibson," Raging Capital Ventures, July 8, 2022. https://ragingcapitalventures.com/an-entrepreneurs-perspective-interview-with-michael-gibson/
[^7]: Lizette Chapman, "Thiel-Backed 1517 Fund Is Stalking the Next Zuckerberg," Bloomberg Businessweek, December 1, 2016. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-01/thiel-s-1517-fund-is-stalking-the-next-zuckerberg
[^8]: Cameron, Dell, and Yulia Almazova. "Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society." *WIRED,* June 16, 2026. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/

5
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Thiel Foundation.md
View file

@ -180,7 +180,7 @@ relations:
role: "3,000,000 dollars"
fn: 21
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-14
---
The Thiel Foundation (employer identification number 20-3846597) is a private foundation exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, with an [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling date of May 2006. Its first Form 990-PF covers November 22 to December 31, 2005, and reports California as the state in which it is registered. [[Peter Thiel]] is the substantial contributor named on every Schedule B or contributor statement opened for the years 2005 through 2023, and he appears as a director or as chairman of the board in every return from the first to the most recent. The Internal Revenue Service's current record for the foundation gives an address at 215 NW 24th Street, Suite 801, [[Miami]], [[Florida]].[^1][^2] The returns record grants under four program labels (general foundation grants, Imitatio, Breakout Labs, and a fellowship program that the returns call "20under20" through 2016 and the [[Thiel Fellowship]] from 2017), followed in the 2020s by grants to [[DonorsTrust]] labelled "donor advised fund" and a single grant to the [[New Venture Fund]].
@ -257,7 +257,7 @@ The return for 2014 lists 152,983 dollars to the Association Recherches Mimétiq
### Thiel Fellowship and Breakout Labs
Fellowship grants are labelled "20under20 fellowship" in the returns for 2012 to 2016, "Thiel Fellowship Grant" in the returns for 2017 and 2018, and "fellowship" in later returns. Fellowship totals were 2,093,046 dollars in 2013, 2,025,438 dollars in 2014, 2,369,206 dollars in 2015, 2,637,858 dollars in 2016, 2,224,071 dollars in 2017, 2,054,946 dollars in 2018, 1,650,000 dollars in 2021, 2,193,650 dollars in 2022 and 2,187,500 dollars in 2023. The returns for 2013 to 2016 list [[Dylan Field]], [[Delian Asparouhov]] and [[Vitalik Buterin]] among the 20under20 grantees.[^8][^11][^16][^17][^18][^19][^20][^21][^23] The amended return for 2021 reports fellowship grants of 100,000 dollars each on expenditure responsibility statements, and its schedule of other income includes 1,360,000 dollars labelled "grant conversion".[^22] The return for 2012 lists a grant of 200,000 dollars to David Allen Dalrymple under the general program.[^15] The returns for 2012 to 2014 list [[Danielle Strachman]] as a contractor for management of the 20under20 program, paid 275,163 dollars (2012), 250,845 dollars (2013) and 174,363 dollars (2014).[^15][^16][^17]
Fellowship grants are labelled "20under20 fellowship" in the returns for 2012 to 2016, "Thiel Fellowship Grant" in the returns for 2017 and 2018, and "fellowship" in later returns. Fellowship totals were 2,093,046 dollars in 2013, 2,025,438 dollars in 2014, 2,369,206 dollars in 2015, 2,637,858 dollars in 2016, 2,224,071 dollars in 2017, 2,054,946 dollars in 2018, 1,650,000 dollars in 2021, 2,193,650 dollars in 2022 and 2,187,500 dollars in 2023. The returns for 2013 to 2016 list [[Dylan Field]], [[Delian Asparouhov]] and [[Vitalik Buterin]] among the 20under20 grantees.[^8][^11][^16][^17][^18][^19][^20][^21][^23] The amended return for 2021 reports fellowship grants of 100,000 dollars each on expenditure responsibility statements, and its schedule of other income includes 1,360,000 dollars labelled "grant conversion".[^22] The return for 2012 lists a grant of 200,000 dollars to David Allen Dalrymple under the general program.[^15] The returns for 2012 to 2014 list [[Danielle Strachman]] as a contractor for management of the 20under20 program, paid 275,163 dollars (2012), 250,845 dollars (2013) and 174,363 dollars (2014).[^15][^16][^17] In 2015 Strachman and [[Michael Gibson]] founded [[1517 Fund]], a venture fund that describes its grant program as having been scaled from the foundation's own work: its site says that when the two were at the foundation they "put $100K grants behind young people," and that in their last year there the team piloted smaller $1,000 grants.[^29]
Breakout Labs grants first appear in the return for 2011 (Arigos Biomedical, 50,000 dollars). The return for 2012 lists 3Scan (340,000 dollars), Arigos Biomedical (300,000 dollars), Avetech Energy (300,000 dollars), General Genomics (350,000 dollars), Immusoft (398,607 dollars), Siva Therapeutics (350,025 dollars) and Longevity Biotech (346,726 dollars).[^14][^15] Breakout Labs totals were 1,113,513 dollars in 2013, 1,616,000 dollars in 2014 (including 350,000 dollars to Cortexyme), 1,970,000 dollars in 2015, 1,315,000 dollars in 2016, 3,775,000 dollars in 2017 and 1,775,000 dollars in 2018, and the return for 2019 lists six grants of 500,000 dollars each.[^8][^9][^16][^17][^18][^19][^20] The amended return for 2021 lists a holding in Cortexyme valued at 193,149 dollars and investments in unconsolidated entities valued at 18,477,914 dollars.[^22]
@ -301,3 +301,4 @@ The return for 2022 lists "general foundation grants" of 100,000, 120,000 and 12
[^26]: Mithril II LP, Schedule 13D on BlackSky Technology Inc., filed September 20, 2021 (event date September 9, 2021), SEC accession 0001193125-21-277424 (cover page). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1753539/000119312521277424/d234079dsc13d.htm
[^27]: Seasteading Institute, EIN 26-2386590, Form 990 for 2013, submitted October 15, 2014, ProPublica object ID 201412889349300226 (Part VII, Section A). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201412889349300226/IRS990
[^28]: American Friends of Bilderberg Inc., EIN 51-0163715, Forms 990-PF for 2013 (object ID 201431369349100608), 2014 (201501349349102800) and 2015 (201622229349100732), Part I line 1, Part VIII line 1 and Part IX-A. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201501349349102800/IRS990PF and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201622229349100732/IRS990PF
[^29]: 1517 Fund, "1517 Medici Project," undated page. https://www.1517fund.com/medici