Note
This is a static list, which means it may not be fully up to date. The dynamically generated list can be found here here, but is only viewable within Obsidian, not on the web.
By Stage:
Below is a list of venture ideas from the Proto Ventures process, categorized by stage of the process:
‘Discover’ Stage:
Early-stage gathering of as many venture ideas as possible. Sometimes a solution is identified and the application area is speculative; sometimes the application area is clear but the solution set is still speculative.
- A consumer service that helps you figure out why your electric bill is so high
- Adding impurities to molten salts to prevent crack propagation
- Additive manufacturing and AI-ML-assisted design for fusion components
- Aerogel-insulated induction cookware
- Autonomous inverters and distributed intelligence for the power grid
- Beryllium supplier and application developer
- Boiloff mitigation systems for liquid hydrogen
- Boosted vitrification for radioactive nuclear waste treatment
- Carbon footprinting platform for the electronics supply chain
- Converting desalination brine to NaOH for fight ocean acidification
- Deep geothermal drilling technology provider
- Distributed ledger for tritium accountancy
- Energy storage at the edge of the distribution network
- Energy storage using linear actuators and pumped hydro
- Global tritium broker company
- Increased thermal power plant efficiency using magnetohydrodynamic generators
- Load disaggregation & energy management service for commercial sector
- Low-cost bidirectional EV charger provider
- Low-cost, timely, high-resolution satellite imagery with simple data pipelines
- Magnetohydrodynamic generators for power generation in unconventional settings
- Mini Tokamak for AI-based plasma control systems
- Molten salt lab testing as a service
- Molten salt management & monitoring company
- New commercial applications of gyrotrons (WIP)
- Next-gen metal developer for power generation equipment (and ultimately for fusion)
- Proton radiation testing as a service
- Real-time sensing for wastewater treatment
- Rent out your EV charger
- Replacing the conventional industrial boiler
- Residential heat pump with integrated energy storage
- Superconducting Cable Company
- The Climate Disaster Planning Company
- The Fusion Magnetic Diagnostics Company
- The Fusion Materials Company
- The Fusion-Based Medical Isotope Company
- The low-carbon ethylene company
- The Porous Graphene Company
- The satellite-based wildfire prevention company
- The Tritiated Water Handling Company
- Transactive Energy Platform
- Transoceanic hydrogen transport using floating balloons
- US-based coated spherical graphite producer for Li-ion batteries
- Variable-voltage electrical panel to withstand voltage swings
- Vehicle-to-grid with school buses
- Vertical gallium nitride superjunction power devices
- Wastewater treatment using cold plasma technology
- Water desalination barges
- 100-GWh-scale energy storage using crushed rock and molten salts
- Accelerated materials design & development platform for nuclear applications
- Accurate, up-to-date flood maps
- AI-powered platform that helps grid operators streamline the grid interconnection assessment process
- Ammonia cracking equipment company
- Chimera Marine - Fusion-fission hybrid for cargo ships
- Distributed IoT sensors with representational learning
- Distribution grid planning software suite for electric utilities
- District heating using data center waste heat
- Fusion-fission hybrid for cargo ships
- Geo-mapping software platform to help energy developers optimize new project proposals
- Geo-mapping software platform to help renewable developers identify potential sites with nearby consumers that wouldn’t require transmission interconnection
- Gravity-based energy storage using linear actuators for data centers
- Grid-connected building heating with thermal storage
- High-Temperature Gas Separation Equipment Provider for the Hydrogen Industry
- Home electric system that enables a seamless transition to V2H islanded mode
- Informational interconnection study platform for utility-scale energy project developers
- Instant V2G interconnection pre-approval software
- Insurance that underwrites long-term congestion risk
- Interconnection pre-approval platform for distribution utilities
- Interconnection queue management software for grid operators
- Online consignment store
- Renewable energy-powered alkaline electrolyzer developer for green hydrogen
- Standardized electric interconnection hardware system for commercial businesses
- Technical study software for grid operators conducting interconnection assessments
- The Nuclear Power Plant Lifetime Extension Company
- The Vehicle-to-Home Company
- Virtual Power Plant based on residential vehicle-to-home chargers
’Explore’ Stage:
At this stage, Proto Ventures team members each explore 1-2 opportunity areas.
Key activities include targeted exploration of technologies & market and team formation (potential cofounders, advisors).
Rubric
Key metrics include:
- Personal interest
- Potential impact, market size
- TRL (targeting 3-4)
- Severity of pain point
- Time to market
- Magic Garbage Truck
- American Fusion Instruments
- Coating for fouling resistance in heat transfer surfaces
- Residential heat storage equipment company
’Build’ Stage:
- None at the moment
’Launch’ Stage:
Other Categorizations
One can also categorize these venture ideas by potential market size and likely venture type:
- Tadpoles: Promising and could become huge but need more R&D:
- Tunas: Improves an existing process. Good licensing opportunity:
- Orcas: Medium TAM (~$100M); Probably best fit for strategic VCs or a mega-fund.
- Moby Dicks: Large TAM ($1B+). Likely to capture a meaningful part of the value chain. Well poised to raise VC funding.