Soctera Recording and Investment Link

Red Bear Ventures Community:

Great discussion with Soctera's Austin Hickman earlier today. 

The webinar recording is here (Passcode: RBV2026!) and the investment link is:

https://portal.angellist.com/l/dr/c0221cdf  

Here's a recap of the investment thesis for everyone's reference:

• Exceptional technical differentiation validated by the US government 

• Large and growing markets across defense, telecom, and SATCOM

• Ready to scale: name-brand foundry partnership in place

• Strong Cornell pedigree with a proven technical team

• Serious customer engagement from global brands

The minimum investment is $1,000 and the max is $200,000. Closing is at 5pm ET on Friday 4/17. Any questions, please reach out to us directly.

If you choose to participate, you will be prompted to a) submit evidence of your accreditation status to AngelList and b) fund your AngelList funding account to cover your commitment. 

More detail on the accreditation process can be found here. If you have any questions regarding the AngelList-specific steps outlined above, please reach out directly to the AngelList LP Relations Team: lp-relations@angellist.com.

If you have any questions about the company or the investment opportunity, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

Thanks!

Dan and Gus

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[sent 3/27/26]

Red Bear Ventures Community:

We are writing with an investment opportunity in Soctera's seed financing round - a $4M SAFE with a $20M post-money cap. RBV has been given a $400K allocation; other investors include Anorak Ventures and Mana Ventures. The round closes Friday, 4/17 at 5pm ET.

Soctera is developing the next generation of power amplifiers for wireless communication: the critical components that determine how far, how fast, and how efficiently signals travel in 5G networks, satellite communications, radar systems, and defense electronics. Think of a power amplifier as the engine that drives every wireless signal: the better the engine, the farther and faster the signal travels.

Soctera's breakthrough is a fundamentally new approach to building these amplifiers using aluminum nitride (AlN), a semiconductor material with a structure roughly 10 times thinner than what incumbents use. This ultra-thin structure allows heat to escape far more effectively, which is the core challenge in high-frequency electronics. The result is a power amplifier that delivers twice the power output, twice the signal coverage, and roughly 20% better energy efficiency compared to the current state of the art. And because Soctera's design uses dramatically less gallium, a critical mineral that has become a geopolitical pressure point, it also contributes meaningfully to semiconductor supply chain resilience.

You can find additional details in Soctera's deck here.

We will be hosting a webinar with Soctera's CEO, Dr. Austin Hickman, on Friday, April 3rd at 12pm EST. We will circulate the investment link after the webinar.

Austin earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University in 2021, where he developed this technology as part of his doctoral research. He co-founded Soctera at Cornell and has remained based at the Cornell Praxis Center for Venture Development since founding the company.

The minimum investment is $1,000 and the maximum investment is $200,000.

If you would like to join the webinar, please reply to this email and we will send you the Zoom invite.

We are excited about Soctera for several reasons:

Exceptional technical differentiation validated by the U.S. government: Soctera has raised $3.6M in non-dilutive funding from NSF, the Department of Defense, and CHIPS Act-related programs — a signal that multiple independent technical reviewers have validated the technology. This is a meaningful competitive moat, not just a lab experiment.

Large and growing markets across defense, telecom, and SATCOM: Power amplifiers are a foundational component in virtually every wireless system, and demand is accelerating as 5G infrastructure rolls out globally, satellite constellations like Starlink proliferate, and defense budgets expand around advanced electronics.

Foundry-compatible design — the right way to scale: Soctera's technology does not require exotic manufacturing processes. It is designed to work with today's standard semiconductor foundry infrastructure, significantly de-risking the path from lab to commercial production. Their first commercial production run completed successfully in 2025.

Strong Cornell pedigree with a proven technical team: Austin and his co-founder CTO, Dr. Reet Chaudhuri (also a Cornell PhD), bring deep domain expertise. Their advisory board includes Bruce Fishbein, a 30-year semiconductor veteran who has led technical teams at Intel, AMD, Marvell, and Innovium.

Early customer engagement underway: Soctera participated in Mobile World Congress and the IEEE Microwave Symposium in 2025, and has begun early conversations with RF system designers across their target end markets.

Please reply to this email if you would like to join the April 3rd webinar to learn more about the Soctera investment opportunity.

Thanks!

Dan and Gus

Red Bear Ventures (RBV) is a community-first investment platform which invests exclusively in companies founded by, or managed by, the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of Cornell University, one of the world’s most innovative and entrepreneurial universities. RBV invests across stages and verticals and syndicates investment opportunities to the RBV community via special purpose vehicles (SPVs). RBV is an independent platform wholly managed by its Managing Partners - it is neither affiliated with, nor endorsed by, Cornell University.

More information can be found at www.redbear.vc.

Red Bear Ventures is a service mark used under license from its owner, Red Bear Angels Management LLC, which operates the angel group, Red Bear Angels. Please see www.RBAngels.com for information.