Will is CEO and Co-Founder of Varda Space Industries, a microgravity-enabled life sciences company whose reentry capsules leverage the unique environment of microgravity in low-Earth orbit. Prior to Varda, Will co-founded a small venture fund called Also Capital and served as Director of Global Equities Technology at Bank of America. He was the lead avionics engineer at SpaceX and flew Dragon on eight missions to the International Space Station. Will holds a B.S. in Applied Physics from Cornell and a master's in Systems Engineering. He was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and his hobbies include flying and maintaining his Cozy MK4 aircraft.

Ian Cinnamon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Apex, a spacecraft bus platform manufacturer offering productized, configurable satellite bus platforms. With a focus on meeting the needs of the rapidly expanding space industry, Ian leads a team, backed by $125M+ from the world’s best investors, dedicated to providing proliferated, attritable solutions to both the commercial and government sectors.

Prior to his work with Apex, Ian founded Synapse Technology Corporation, a company specializing in artificial intelligence for security and defense. Ian led the company through acquisition by Palantir. Earlier in his career, Ian co-founded Superlabs, which was sold to Zynga, where he served as Director of Product after the acquisition.

Ian is a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree, and an alumnus of Y Combinator. He received his B.S. from MIT and his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Matt Gialich is the CEO and Co-Founder of AstroForge, a pioneering company leveraging space technology to address Earth's critical mineral shortages. With over a decade of experience leading high-performing engineering teams, Matt has built a reputation for driving innovation in the aerospace industry.
After earning his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, he began his career at Toyon Research, where he developed groundbreaking navigation algorithms. He then joined the founding technical team at Virgin Orbit, playing a key role in the company’s early success. There, he led the Flight Software and GNC teams, while also overseeing the recruitment and development of the Avionics division.

Following his tenure at Virgin Orbit, Matt transitioned to Bird, where he served as Director of Vehicle Software. Under his leadership, his team successfully developed the Bird 2 and Bird 3 vehicles, advancing the company’s technology and market position.
Now at the helm of AstroForge, Matt is at the forefront of space mining, driving the company toward its mission of unlocking the vast resources of asteroids to build a more sustainable future on Earth.

Nick is a partner at Upfront Ventures. He focuses on early-stage investments in hard tech and critical infrastructure sectors like advanced manufacturing and robotics, aerospace and defense, energy and resources, and communications. Prior to joining Upfront, Nick was at Crosscut Ventures leading seed investments. Before Crosscut, Nick was an early employee at Warby Parker, where he was the general manager of the Home Try-On business. Nick also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Human Ventures and as an investor with the Dorm Room Fund, First Round Capital’s student-run investment fund. Nick graduated with a degree in economics from UC Berkeley and earned his MBA from The Wharton School.