I’m on the flight back from a quick trip to London, where I shared the DexMat story with investors, reconnected with friends, and savored the Dickensian Christmas vibe.
An Unexpected Party
The primary purpose of my trip was to participate in a small holiday party organised by Azeem Azhar of The Exponential View. If you haven’t read Azeem’s bestselling book, don’t subscribe to his newsletter, don’t follow his podcast, etc., stop what you’re doing right now (well, as soon as you finish reading this post), and do so. He is incredibly thoughtful about exponential technologies, what enables them, and the societal impacts that come from them. In a rapidly changing, exponential world, Azeem is the guide that we all need to see around corners and prepare ourselves for the next big thing.
Azeem is also a prolific investor in exponential startups, which includes DexMat. During his holiday party, which included entrepreneurs, investors, and journalists, he asked a some of us to say a few words about what we were working on. Below is a rough transcription of my remarks:
I’m Bryan Guido Hassin, the CEO of DexMat, where we produce Galvorn, an advanced nanomaterial made of pure carbon. Galvorn is many times stronger than steel, lighter than aluminium – lighter than carbon fibre even – as conductive as copper, and produced not by combusting carbon, but by capturing it.
One of the first questions people often have is: what can it do? The banal answer is: what can steel, aluminium, copper, and carbon fibre do? Galvorn can generally do the same things, and often do them a lot better, because of its better properties. For example, we can build Galvorn bridges 10-20 times as long as bridges that are constrained by the weight of steel.
What inerests us more, though, is what Galvorn can do that these incumbent materials can’t! For example, advanced power transmission lines that are stronger, lighter, more conductive, and more resilient to extreme weather; next-generation data centers that process heat more efficiently and use much less energy; and lightweight, flexible garments that provide cut and ballistic protection while simultaneously collecting and transmitting your vital signs.
The challenge for Galvorn has traditionally been cost, but that’s because we had traditionally taken the linear view. However, with the help of investors, advisors, customers, and storytellers we met through The Exponential View, we saw that Galvorn production has a very steep exponential learning rate – steeper than solar and batteries, even. We have scaled up production capacity 3,000x and reduced cost 99.6%. When we scale up another 3,000x, we will be at cost parity with specialty materials like carbon fibre and Kevlar. When we scale up a further 3,000x, we will have lower cost than even commodity materials like steel, aluminium, and copper.
Better properties and lower costs are traditionally the mix of conditions that lead to widespread materials revolutions, so the sky is the limit – as long as we maintain the exponential view!
It was an excellent party, full of very interesting people, and I was pleased that so many of them wanted to learn more about DexMat and Galvorn. I had with me a spool of 5,000 meters of Galvorn fiber, and everyone wanted to touch it to see how soft it is and hold it to marvel at how light it is.
A Chance Encounter
I actually highly recommend everyone to take a spool of Galvorn to Christmas parties or to bars/clubs, as it’s a great conversation starter! On my way out of the party, I encountered a random woman in the stairwell, and this is a rough transcription of our conversation:
Random woman: “What is that you’re holding?”
Bryan: “It’s an advanced nanomaterial, many times stronger than steel, lighter than aluminium, and as conductive as copper.”
Random woman: “Of course it is, but what’s it doing here?”
Bryan: “Isn’t it obvious? Don’t you walk around with advanced nanomaterials?”
Random woman: “Har har, but seriously, what’s it doing here?”
Bryan: “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”
Random woman: “I must know! What’s it doing here??”
Bryan: “I have to go now.”
Random woman: “AHHHHH! What’s it doing here???”
I like to think that 30 years from now she’s going to wake up and realize that everything is made from Galvorn. She’s going to try desperately to convince her friends that she knew about it 30 years prior when some international man of mystery refused to tell her more about it in the stairwell of a club, but nobody’s going to believe her.
Savoring London
Although this was a very quick trip – just two days – I packed in as many meetings and catch-ups as I could. This included climatetech investors, fellow entrepreneurs, the head of a major energy company, and IMD classmates. It was wonderful to see so many people in person whom I haven’t seen for years – and some of whom I had never met in real life before.
London welcomed me with cool, gray weather. It was so consistently gray that it reminded me of the scene in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves in which Azeem, trying to find East so that he can pray, laments, “Is there no sun in this accursed country?!”
It was dry, though, so I was able to walk all over the city, and even go for a run in The Regent’s Park. When time between meetings didn’t allow for walking, it was trivially easy to use public transportation. Google Maps navigation is real-time integrated with The Tube and local buses, and they all accept “tap” contactless payment by phone or credit card.
The entire city felt very much in the Christmas spirit: magnificent trees in every square, festive lights over many streets, and the airport security personnel were even wearing ugly holiday sweaters. This combination of London weather, Christmas trappings, and old buildings felt very Dickensian.
I hadn’t visited England since before the pandemic, but it was reassuring that the city really is timeless. Although it was just a quick trip to London, I was able to do a lot that simply can’t be done on Zoom – with people, places, and food – and it felt really good to be back!