Adventure Time: OSV in 2023
From school to space - meet the companies that joined our portfolio in 2023 (Part 1 of 2)
Synthesis School 🎒
Synthesis School seeks to identify the STEM leaders of tomorrow
"Jim and his team see the pervasive problems with the industrial-educational complex. It kills human ingenuity—our most vital resource. I'm thrilled to welcome Jim as an investor and partner in our mission to advance human civilization through education."
— Chrisman Frank (CEO)
In 2015, Elon Musk and educator Joshua Dahn joined forces to bring the world Ad Astra (Latin for "to the stars"), a school designed to educate the children of SpaceX employees.
Synthesis School is the next iteration of this groundbreaking educational project.
It was officially launched in November 2020, led by Dahn and CEO Chrisman Frank, a veteran educator and engineer from Ed-tech unicorn ClassDojo. Dahn and Frank want to help children nurture the kind of thinking that can tackle complex humanity-scale problems.
Synthesis School represents a new way of approaching education, focused more on how to learn instead of what to learn. Their programs leverage AI and team-based cognitive games to teach kids problem-solving, collaboration, and communication.
"Tuned-in parents already understand that the ability to solve complex problems is the most valuable skill and something that is rarely taught or practiced in traditional schools. O'Shaughnessy Ventures believes that next-generation learning opportunities are enormous, and Synthesis Schools is leading the way."
— Jim O’Shaughnessy
Chrisman, their CEO, describes Synthesis as akin to a “massive tournament” to find the next generation of STEM leaders. They hope to provide children with access to the world’s most innovative education program.
Atomos Space 🚀
Whether it is placing new satellites in their final orbit or moving old satellites into new missions, Atomos Space makes space more mobile.
“OSV immediately recognized the value of our orbital transfer vehicle services, as well as valuing who we are — our culture, scrappiness, and creative, technical approach. We are thrilled to welcome OSV to our team and excited to have its support to make our orbital transfer vehicles a reality.”
— Vanessa Clark (co-founder & CEO)
Since its founding in late 2017 by Vanessa Clark and William Kowalski, Atomos Space has been hard at work revolutionizing the domain of orbital logistics. Their mission is to provide last-mile transportation services for satellite operators. Simply, they want to help satellite operators “get to their place in space.”
Atomos develops and operates a fleet of proprietary orbital transfer vehicles (“OTVs”), positioning the company to serve a number of critical functions across the space logistics value chain, including orbit-raising, precision insertion, phasing, and plane change services for satellites.
The Atomos team sees their technology becoming a key part of the fabric of the future space economy, contributing important innovations like “ubiquitous and scalable spacecraft rendezvous capabilities, and break-through in-space propulsion”.
“The space economy is here, and it’s already changing the world for the better. Atomos’ remarkable propulsion technology and OTV services will unleash new possibilities for humanity. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with the Atomos team in their mission to make space more mobile.”
— Jim O’Shaughnessy
Atomos hopes to enable more companies to deploy commercial operations in space and to provide them with a more sustainable way to execute their plans.
Wand Technologies 🎨
Wand is a creative tool that gives artists the hands-on control and personalization they need to bring their ideas to life.
"I can't imagine a better possible partner for what we are building than OSV."
— Grant Davis (founder & CEO)
Founded by Grant Davis, Wand is a collaborative, AI-powered creative tool for visual artists. Unlike most AI tools, which emphasize text prompting, Wand emphasizes visual illustration to guide models like Stable Diffusion (as shown in this demo).
The other key ingredient in Wand's UX is personalization: artists can upload a handful of images from their portfolio to create a custom, fine-tuned AI that understands their style, and add it to their growing private collection (as demonstrated here).
Wand's core focus is to be a boon to artists and creative professionals in the ideation and exploration phase of their creative process, making it less tedious and helping to spark novel ideas. Artists can jam together on freeform mood boards and even collaborate on training custom models for their projects.
"At OSV, we are excited to find new ways to leverage the incredible power of AI to empower creators to fulfill their potential. We believe that the level of control and personalization that Wand provides artists will enable them to bring their ideas to life more easily and productively than ever before."
— Jim O’Shaughnessy
Affinity ✅
Affinity is a compliance training platform specially created for regulated industries.
"Traditional compliance training as it's been done for decades simply does not work. Affinity is here to change that for good. We've all seen it time and time again: Regulated companies that are able to build a culture of compliance just scale better in the long run. We're excited to welcome OSV, a company that aligns with our vision."
— Faraz Rana (co-founder & CEO)
Founded in 2023 by Peter Greczner and Faraz Rana (who helped build and scale fintech startup Bread), Affinity is a modern compliance training and learning management platform tailor-made for regulated tech industries.
"Industries that were once unaffected by compliance regulations are now facing greater scrutiny. Affinity provides leaders with the tools to train and educate their workforce on compliance-related issues, providing companies with a competitive advantage and acting as a protective measure against potential adverse events."
— Jim O’Shaughnessy
Affinity’s team want to shake up the landscape of compliance training. They’re building a full-featured platform that can meet the needs of large organizations with hundreds of clients as well as growth stage organizations who are just starting out.
Obviously AI 💡
Obviously AI makes machine learning more accessible by enabling companies to turn their raw data into predictive AI models.
"We are thrilled to welcome Jim, an investor with a remarkable track record of building lasting companies and deep domain knowledge in AI, and his team at OSV. With their support, Obviously AI is poised to accelerate its mission of helping every company become an AI company."
— Nirman Dave (co-founder & CEO)
Founded in 2020 by Nirman Dave and Tapojit Debnath, Obviously AI promises that companies can turn “AI into ROI by going from raw data to industry leading predictive models in minutes, not months”.
Whereas previously using AI to gather conclusions from data would be a costly and time-consuming process, Obviously AI makes the process possible with just a few clicks. Its software solution requires no data science team, no programming knowledge, and no AI background. It also offers ‘Data-Scientist-as-a-Service’, which matches Ph.D. Data Scientists with companies looking to level up their approach to data analysis and visualization, and those looking to build foundational AI models.
"The advent of AI creates an opportunity for corporations to leverage data and understand their customers, product, market, and business in ways they simply could not historically. Obviously AI bridges the gap between what and how, bringing AI to businesses of all sectors and sizes."
— Jim O’Shaughnessy
Valley 📲
Valley enables businesses to automate their outreach and sales call booking processes.
"We are thrilled to welcome O'Shaughnessy Ventures. Personally, it was a no-brainer for me given their team's focus on technological exploration and positive-sum leaps in technology. After our first meeting with the team, there was an immediate alignment and mutual belief in our vision of the role technology has played throughout history in automating away monotony and robotism in both personal and professional life. We both believe sales is one of the areas most poised for that disruption and having them in our corner means we are in pole position to continue making that vision a reality."
— Zayd Ali (founder & CEO)
Founded by Zayd Ali, Valley is an automated sales development representative that allows business leaders to leverage the power of AI in booking sales calls. In other words, it’s like having a salesman with superpowers.
Using Valley, businesses can automate their outreach and sales call booking processes in just a few easy steps, enabling them to expand their reach and generate more leads at a considerably lower cost.
“AI has the potential to free businesses from countless menial tasks. Sales prospecting is certainly one of them. We believe Zayd is a superb, passionate young founder with the chance to make a real mark in the sector."
— Jim O’Shaughnessy
 | A guest post by
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What stops someone from replicating what Synthesis School provides? What's their moat?
Uh oh that last one scares me as a business development rep for a tech startup. Ive often wondered when AI would come snatch my job away from me. Guess I gotta add to my skill stack if I want to continue to put food on the table!