Space Lasers, AI GTM, and the Mortgage Loophole

From space-based solar power to AI-driven sales intelligence—here’s what’s shaking up tech. Plus, this week’s top startup jobs.

Apr 03, 2025

Hello!

Welcome back to Why Join.

A few new roles this week:

Account Executives (B2B SaaS) — $50K+ deals, CTOs/engineers, multi-stakeholder sales. Hunter mindset. SF/NYC.
BDR/SDRs — Top SaaS performer or competitive background. Grit, creativity, strong outreach. SF/NYC/London.
AI Engineers — 3+ yrs in Go, Python, Rails, or React. Build with frontier AI models/tools. Product-focused. Remote (US/UK).

Know someone? Or is that you? Hit reply—I read every email.

Now, onto this week’s edition.

This Week in Startups

🇺🇸 Aetherflux

Funding - Series A, $50M; Investors - Index Ventures, Interlagos (co-leads), Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Vlad Tenev, Dan Gallagher, Jared Leto, Laurent and François-Paul Journe, and others.

TL;DR: Developing satellites that collect solar power in space and beam it to Earth using lasers.

Space-based solar power has been a sci-fi dream for decades. The physics check out—space has unlimited sunlight, no clouds, no nighttime, and no atmosphere to scatter photons. The hard part? Beaming that energy back to Earth efficiently.
Aetherflux, founded by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, is actually trying to make it work. The plan: Satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) capture solar energy using Apex Space’s Aries satellite bus, generating up to 1 kW of power. Instead of using microwaves (like Caltech’s 2023 demo), Aetherflux is betting on laser-based power beaming. Ground stations equipped with photovoltaic arrays convert the laser energy into electricity, storing it in batteries for later use. First test launches are set for 2026.
Why it matters? Power anywhere, anytime. For now, the focus seems to be military applications. The DoD’s Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund (OECIF) is backing Aetherflux’s first test, seeing potential for fuel-free energy in contested regions.
But scaling this up is where it gets tricky. Large-scale laser power transmission is unproven. High-energy lasers face strict regulatory hurdles. And so far, no one has made this tech commercially viable—only lab and small-scale tests have worked. Still, Aetherflux is moving fast.
China and the European Space Agency are working on similar projects, so the race is on.

Hiring: Mechanical Engineer, Embedded Software Engineer, Lead Software Engineer - San Francisco

🇺🇸 Actively AI

Funding - Series A, $17.5M; Investors — Bain Capital Ventures (lead). Previously unannounced - Seed, $5M; Investor — First Round Capital (lead). Total funding - $22.5M.

TL;DR: AI-driven GTM strategy and revenue optimization.

The old sales playbook was simple: more emails, more calls, more automation. That playbook is dead. Buyers ignore generic outreach. Automation fatigue is real. Top sales teams know that quality—not quantity—wins deals.
Actively isn’t just another AI assistant spitting out email drafts. It’s GTM superintelligence—an AI that thinks like your best seller but scales across your entire org. Instead of just surfacing signals, it analyzes millions of data points (calls, Salesforce fields, buying intent) to form precise hypotheses on which deals will close and why. No more scraping LinkedIn or running simplistic “if, then” rules. Actively then guides every revenue move—from outbound to upsell—so teams execute at an elite level, every time.

Hiring: Software Engineer - AI/LLM, Prompt Engineer, Product Manager, Sales Development Representative, Enterprise Account Executive, Deployment Strategist, Data Scientist - NYC

🇺🇸 Adaptive

Funding - Series A, $43M; Investors - Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), OpenAI Startup Fund (co-leads), Abstract Ventures, Eniac Ventures, CrossBeam Ventures, K5, and execs from Google, Workday, and Shopify.

TL;DR: AI-driven cybersecurity training and real-time risk mitigation.

AI-powered social engineering is evolving fast—deepfake calls, spoofed emails, and SMS scams that sound exactly like your CEO, your boss, or even you. Meanwhile, security training is stuck in the past. CISOs know compliance courses and phishing tests aren’t enough.
Adaptive Security flips the model. Instead of passive training, it runs live, AI-powered adversary simulations—deepfake voices, cloned emails, multi-channel social engineering—tailored to real-world threats. Employees get real-time feedback. Security teams get a risk engine that maps emerging threats based on actual behavior. The result? Training that actually works.

Hiring: Software Engineer, Recruiting Associate, Business Development Representative, Product Designer, Demand Generation Specialist, Growth Marketing Manager, Product Marketing Manager - NYC, LA, SF

🇺🇸 Roam

Funding - Series A, $11.5M; Investors - Khosla Ventures (lead), Founders Fund.

TL;DR: Unlocks assumable mortgages for homebuyers, letting them take over low-interest loans from sellers.

Mortgage rates shot up from 2.5% during COVID to 6.6% in 2025, making homeownership brutally expensive. But there’s a loophole: assumable mortgages—where buyers take over a seller’s old, ultra-low-rate loan. The problem? They’ve been nearly impossible to find, let alone close.
That’s Roam’s bet. Founded in 2023 by ex-Opendoor product leader Raunaq Singh, Roam helps buyers find and secure assumable mortgages nationwide. The startup has already facilitated $200M in home sales and drawn in 200K+ buyers, charging 1% of the purchase price—which translates to $2M in revenue for 2024.
Why it matters? There’s $1.4T in assumable FHA/VA mortgages from the 2020–2021 low-rate era—one in three homes qualify.

Hiring: Product Engineer, Customer Experience Associate, Intern - Market Launch, Product Manager - NYC

Top News

Tesla’s Q1: Tesla just posted its worst quarter since 2022, delivering 336,681 vehicles—a 13% drop and well below Wall Street’s 390K+ estimate. The Model Y refresh slowed production, but Musk’s political entanglements may have done more damage, sparking protests and investor backlash.
The fallout:
- U.S. sales stalled, despite expectations that buyers might rush in ahead of Trump’s tariff hikes.
- China pain continues—BYD widened its lead, with a 58% surge in Q1 sales.
- Europe tanked—Tesla’s registrations plunged 43% while overall EV sales rose 31%.
  The bright spot? Tesla’s energy business soared—10.4 GWh deployed (+154% YoY).
Amazon Wants TikTok: Amazon just threw in a last-minute bid for TikTok, days before ByteDance’s April 5 deadline to sell or face a U.S. ban. The problem? No one’s taking it seriously. The bid reportedly went to VP JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—not ByteDance or TikTok. Meanwhile, Oracle and Blackstone are pushing a workaround: adding U.S. investors without a full sale, but legal approval is murky. Amazon’s motive is clear—TikTok Shop is a growing e-commerce threat, and its own TikTok clone flopped.
Circle’s IPO: Circle—the issuer of USDC ($28B+ market cap)—is finally going public. The business? A profitable custodian of massive reserves. But the numbers raise questions. $1.7B in 2024 revenue sounds great—until you see the $908M paid to Coinbase in distribution costs. Net income? Just $156M, while Tether pulled in $13B and Coinbase $2.6B. The real issue? Interest rates. 99% of Circle’s revenue comes from reserve interest income—which craters if the Fed cuts rates (widely expected this year). To hedge, Circle acquired Hashnote, a tokenized money market fund issuer, aiming to diversify revenue. The IPO will test whether the market sees a high-growth fintech—or just a glorified money market fund.
Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs: Trump just dropped reciprocal tariffs—a sweeping set of trade levies designed to match what other countries impose on U.S. goods. Every country now faces at least a 10% tariff, with dozens hit harder based on their existing barriers.
Key takeaways:
- China (34%), India (26%), and Vietnam (46%) are among the hardest hit.
- EU gets 20%, while allies like Canada and Mexico stick with existing tariffs.
- Major industries like steel, autos, semiconductors, and lumber are exempt—but will have separate tariffs.
- The 20% fentanyl-related tax on Chinese goods remains.
Markets did not take this well. The Dow cratered 1,600+ points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had their worst drops since 2020. Investors expected a 10-20% cap, not a minimum.
Plaid’s $575M Raise: Plaid just raised $575M at a $6.1B valuation, down over 50% from its $13.4B peak in 2021. Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, and BlackRock led the round—but this isn’t a growth play. Most of the cash covers tax liabilities from employee stock grants, with a small tender offer for employee liquidity. Despite the valuation cut, Plaid is rebounding. Revenue grew 25% in 2024, crossing $300M+ with ~80% gross margins—though still not GAAP profitable. The company has expanded beyond bank connections into credit-risk analytics, fraud prevention, and pay-by-bank. Fintech funding is heating up—$10.3B raised in Q1 2025—and IPOs for Chime and Klarna are coming. But Plaid? Still sitting out the IPO wave.
OpenAI’s $40B Power Play: OpenAI just secured $40B at a $300B valuation, nearly doubling from $157B in October. SoftBank leads with $7.5B, alongside Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive. A second $30B tranche lands by year-end, with $22.5B from SoftBank. Why it matters? Scale. With hundreds of millions of users, OpenAI remains the generative AI heavyweight—and is now the most expensive private tech company ever.