01:19:07 · John Coogan, Dillon Baxter, Jordi Hays
[01:19:07] S0: Well, what what are you... So you raised 8,000,000 Top secret coffee cups. What what what are you using the capital for? Is it, building more manufacturing capacity, hiring more people? What's the use of funds? [01:19:20] S7: Yeah. So a couple of things as we got in. So, you know, we had the kind of base technology. Now we've developed the ability to extrusion coat paper, which opens up this massive new category. Yeah. So we have to fund manufacturing to get into this new lane. Yep. And then we're also expecting a huge boom in sales with some of the distribution partnerships. So this will help with some of the working capital. Yeah. [01:19:41] S0: That makes sense. Well, I'm glad you have the money. $8,000,000 raised. Let me hit the gong. Dang. Thank you so much. [01:19:49] S1: Thank you for your service. [01:19:50] S0: On the show. Thank you for getting rid of paper straws. [01:19:53] S1: He did it. [01:19:54] S0: He did it. This is, this is an American hero right here. [01:19:57] S1: Somebody had to do it. [01:19:58] S0: Thank you for everything you've done. Have a great day. [01:20:00] S1: Great to meet [01:20:01] S0: dude. We'll talk to you soon. Goodbye. Let me tell you about Codex. Codex is a powerful workspace for getting work done with AI agents. Whether you're writing code, analyzing data, creating content, or automating business workflows, Codex helps you move projects forward from start to finish. Our next guest [01:20:16] S1: Our last guest solves Starson from Stellios Straz. Founder and CEO. Our next guest fixed... Made a new microwave.
01:20:16 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Richard Starson, Brian Manning
[01:20:16] S1: Our last guest solves Starson from Stellios Straz. Founder and CEO. Our next guest fixed... Made a new microwave. [01:20:26] S0: Okay. Tell us about it, Richard. Thank you for joining TVPN. How are you doing? [01:20:31] S5: I'm doing excellent. Gentlemen, thank you so much for inviting me. It's hard to imagine a better place to launch a deep tech company than TVPN. Been a huge, huge fan of the work that you are doing and excited excited to be with you. [01:20:44] S0: Take us through it. Introduce the company and the product. [01:20:47] S5: Let's let's do it. Yeah. So we started Stellius with the vision to build the future of high energy power systems in America. We... In The United States, we actually pioneered all of those technologies from directed energy to HPM, high power microwaves to compact fusion, but many of those industries were allowed to atrophy over the years. We are bringing them back. We are innovating, making them better, more compact, more powerful, and making sure that we're building those systems here in The United States of full vertical integration with domestic production and making those systems affordable and readily available, essentially for our warfighter, for the country. And eventually, with our fusion business, we wanted to make sure that America leads in compact fusion and next generation energy sources. [01:21:44] S1: So you are making web... Microwaves to microwave people? Is it... [01:21:52] S5: Hopefully hopefully not hopefully not people. [01:21:54] S4: No. But but
01:21:54 · Brian Manning, Jordi Hays, Richard Starson, Matthew Prince, John Coogan
[01:21:54] S4: No. But but [01:21:55] S1: defense defense is like the first category that you're focused on. What are the different applications? Drones? [01:22:01] S5: Yeah. So it's a... Yeah. Yeah. Great great question. [01:22:04] S1: No. I just wanna be I just wanna be clear. [01:22:06] S2: Just It [01:22:08] S5: is an important question to clarify. Yes. Sure. High power microwaves, so megawatt class, gyrotrons, glistrons, they have a wide range of applications. [01:22:17] S0: Mhmm. [01:22:18] S5: The vast majority of them today are driven by defense. Mhmm. If you're... If if you've got a a thousands of drones flying at you that are extremely cheap to produce, you want to be able to take them down without expending extremely expensive munitions. And, megawatt class microwaves are, uniquely, con... Conditioned and and and capable of taking down those large swarms of drones. So that will be the the biggest application. Counterelectronics, frying electronics on drones, on any, on humanoid robots, or, you know, satellites, as well. There's space space space domain as well. Yes. They can be used for area denial for anything, and they are non lethal to humans, but this is, not, the driving force. [01:23:09] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
01:23:09 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Richard Starson
[01:23:09] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. [01:23:10] S1: What about what about, with drones, like, obviously, you're still, you know, developing and improving the technology, but what about, like, range and how much area can you cover if a drone, you know, a drone swarm is, or the operator is aware that that this technology is out there? I'm assuming they would, you know, spread out the drones over a a really wide area. So, like, what what are the different trade offs? Obviously, microwave tech would be a part of a broader system of sort of drone denial, but, like, where where does it shine? [01:23:47] S5: That's that's... This is exactly right. It's one of the components of a layered of a layered defense system. Right? If you've got an area of, let's say, a few 100 meters that a swarm is approaching you, you can configure the beam to take them down simultaneously. [01:24:07] S0: Mhmm. [01:24:07] S5: And this is, the range, that we are targeting is, one to two miles for complete area denial and then disruption at further distances and jamming at further distances. This is where, going into, megawatt class microwaves is so important. So, basically, with solid state technology or with lasers, it's really hard to go, above tens of kilowatts, hundreds of kilowatts. Mhmm. The devices that we're building are more configured for 100 kilowatts to a megawatt class of operation. And so the more power you've got, the, longer range and more, defensive capabilities you build.
01:24:07 · Richard Starson, John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[01:24:07] S5: And this is, the range, that we are targeting is, one to two miles for complete area denial and then disruption at further distances and jamming at further distances. This is where, going into, megawatt class microwaves is so important. So, basically, with solid state technology or with lasers, it's really hard to go, above tens of kilowatts, hundreds of kilowatts. Mhmm. The devices that we're building are more configured for 100 kilowatts to a megawatt class of operation. And so the more power you've got, the, longer range and more, defensive capabilities you build. [01:24:48] S0: So what is powering that work? Look mean, a megawatt, are you... Is this like a shipping container sized diesel generator that's on a truck and then that sits next to the array of microwaves? [01:24:59] S5: Yeah. It's a it's a great question. So for 100 kilowatt class devices, they can be mobile on mobile platforms. For megawatt class devices that are more stationary, they will be protecting things like forward operating bases, data centers, borders. Sure. And as we all know, data centers are becoming a big, a big target for u... For UAS, and we've some interesting discussions in in protest. [01:25:24] S0: Right? Yeah. [01:25:25] S5: Yeah. Data centers all over the world. [01:25:27] S0: And, I mean, even going back to, like, I don't know, maybe ten years ago, there was a drone attack on some oil and gas infrastructure in The Middle East. [01:25:34] S5: Exactly. There's been a whole [01:25:35] S1: bunch of...
01:25:35 · Jordi Hays, Richard Starson, John Coogan
[01:25:35] S1: bunch of... [01:25:36] S5: Exactly. And even even in the recent conflict, the... One of the first targets that was hit was a data center Yeah. In in Middle East. So [01:25:45] S0: Is this not useful for high flying drones? Like, if there's a if there's a drone that's more than a mile in the air, and then and then it it it... Maybe it's disabled as it's coming down, but then it's just falling and it already has a warhead. You need a different solution for that type of attack? You would [01:26:00] S5: need you would need a layered solution. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. You would need a layered solution, but, the more we advance in, on the power spectrum Mhmm. And frequency, eventually, we will be able to protect higher and higher or [01:26:14] S0: Sure. [01:26:14] S5: Altitudes, longer ranges from bigger and more shielded UAS systems. [01:26:21] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So, yeah, it's all part of the Ensemble. And, I mean, we've talked to tons of companies that do everything from, like, kinetics using five five six rounds to the anvil technology from Andoroll and running a drone into, you know, all sorts of different technologies are gonna be used in concert here. Sorry, Jordy. Do have another question? [01:26:41] S1: Yeah. Talk about talk about the progress to date.