E79: "Eclipsing" venture capital's traditional role, with Aidan Madigan-Curtis

Aidan Madigan-Curtis's path to becoming a partner at Eclipse hinges on fundamental and generalizable takeaways about the U.S. economy that are coming to the fore again. When she was on the manufacturing team at Apple, helping to launch the first Apple Watch, she realized many of the best minds in the world where whittling away at B2B SaaS even as 85% of global GDP, concentrated on how we make, move, and power things, would require step-changes in both hardware, production processes, and decarbonization and sustainability. To address that gap, Aidan and partners have built Eclipse Capital into a $10 billion venture firm that invests in and support companies combining novel approaches to both atoms and bits-focused businesses to rebuild American manufacturing, energy infrastructure, and industrial capacity.Fast-forward to 2026, and the results validate the insight into the core needs and the opportunity to address it: Eclipse recently raised another $1.3 billion across two new funds to back everything from sodium-ion battery storage (Peak Energy) to next-generation nuclear reactors to radiopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. The firm's portfolio also spans advanced metal 3D printing (Vulcan Forms), autonomous construction equipment (Bedrock Robotics), and cell therapy manufacturing (Solaris). And the thesis remains largely the same, namely that physical-world companies with durable advantages will define the next market cycle, especially as AI demand collides with infrastructural realities.There's a lot more to Nick and Aidan's convo than this, too. Nick and Aidan also zoomed out to examine topics such as: • How data center build-out could accelerate renewable deployment and other elements of the push to decarbonize and advance sustainability prerogatives• How and why public market narratives are shifting to reward companies with physical assets whereas these were less privileged even a few years ago• The power of manufacturing scale to create geopolitical advantages whether economically or in terms of national security. Tune in for all that and more! To learn more about Eclipse and to explore their portfolio, you can also explore their website here: https://eclipse.capital/Plus, to learn more about their recent fundraising and their theses moving forward, catch up on news articles like this one: https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/vc-firm-eclipse-raises-1-b-physical-industries-university-endowments/818546/Timestamps:00:02:21 - Eclipse's New Funds and Capital Raising00:03:34 - Eclipse's Focus on Industrial Technologies00:05:47 - Watching the Market Catch Up to Eclipse's Theses00:07:03 - Aidan's Experience at Apple00:08:43 - How COVID and Supply Chain Disruptions Catalyze Change00:09:14 - The Need for Domestic Manufacturing00:11:07 - Company Case Study: Peak Energy and Battery Storage00:12:23 - Company Case Study: The Nuclear Company and "Pre-approved Nuclear"00:15:38 - Geographic Dispersion of Technological Innovation and Impact00:18:23 - Grassroots Resistance to Data Centers00:22:14 - The Opportunity Inherent to Data Centers and Decarbonization00:24:46 - The Industrial Revolution and Rapid Transitions of The Past00:27:09 - The Role of Venture Capital in Sustainability00:28:27 - Shifting Public Market Appetite for Physical Companies00:31:13 - Public Market Dynamics and Narratives00:34:07 - Industrial Innovations and Manufacturing00:38:23 - Advanced Manufacturing in the U.S.00:40:01 - U.S. vs. China in Manufacturing Scale00:43:23 - An Eye Towards the Future of Energy and Climate Tech00:45:01 - Non-linearity in Climate ChangeFinal notes:To keep up with Aidan and her work, you can also follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-madigan-curtisPlus, you can stay up to date on all things Keep Cool here: https://keepcool.co/ and follow Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasvanosdol/Thank you so much.