Hello World.
We are thrilled to formally launch Ironbird Studio today. “Ironbird” is aerospace slang for the early prototype of any new vehicle concept. An Ironbird is ugly by design — it is meant to address the hottest tech risks of a new product at the highest speed and lowest cost, hence no frills. The modern aerospace industry has been built by Ironbirds, and you bet we have our favorites. The XP-80 “Lulu-Belle” was the first jet fighter built for the allies during WW2 and went from proposal to prototype in 143 days. Unheard of today. This ironbird was the inception of the famed Skunk works which went on to develop some of the most iconic aircraft in history. SpaceX’s “Starhopper” is also close to our hearts as it contained a lot of our team's blood, sweat, and tears. This flying water tower (photo above) ushered in the Starship era which is driving launch costs magnitudes lower then any time in history.
We have built Ironbird Studio around this ethos. Over the next few years we will use this high speed, low cost philosophy to launch companies that solve the hardest problems in aviation, transport & logistics, and commercial space. Put simply, Ironbird Studio will identify hard problems worth solving, build great tech to crack them, and co-found companies to bring those solutions to market. If you are interested in our take on the Venture Studio model, stay tuned. We have lots of thoughts to share.
None of this means anything without a truly superb team. Here is ours:
Josh Hathaway will lead software & embedded systems at Ironbird. He has built Ironbirds at NASA, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, and ABL. He has written many of the autonomous guidance and landing algorithms for Falcon 9, was a core part of the initial concept team for Starship, and was an early member of ABL Space helping spearhead its rapid 10x growth and a valuation of $2.4B as VP of engineering.
Tarek Kandalaft will lead hardware and vehicle development for Ironbird. He is an experienced Ironbird builder from SpaceX, Relativity, and ABL Space and is credited with the design for over 3,000 parts across them. He is a recognized expert in materials, manufacturing and vehicle design and has been instrumental in building everything from racecars to 3D printed rockets to human rated space vehicles.
Conor Godfrey will lead business development and investor relations for Ironbird. He spent his career in counter-terrorism at the U.S. State Department, before leading corporate development as part of the $5B George Kaiser Family Foundation for the last 3 years. He brings an extensive corporate and capital partner network to Ironbird’s portcos.
We are also joined by fellow SpaceXer turned VC Rosa Rivas as a venture partner, as well as a fantastic group of advisors who have built and sold companies and products across all of our core industries and technologies. We are deeply grateful to have Steph Speirs, Christina Van Houten, Kevin Griffin, Sean Alexander, and Gabe Sherman formally onboard. We also want to thank Tulsa Innovation Labs for their early support for this vision!
Why Now?
For decades you had to be a billionaire or a government to truly disrupt how people and goods moved around the planet (Nod to notable exceptions such as Uber). Companies like Waymo, SpaceX, Tesla, Amazon, and others had to incur the “tech debt” to bring cost curves down for LIDAR, AI, IoT sensors, battery tech, and launch costs, among other physical technologies. As hardware commoditizes there is a window of opportunity for the right teams — and the early-stage capital that backs them — to drive the digital transformation of industrials such as transport & freight, aerospace, and manufacturing. Ironbird Studio is that team.
What to Expect Next
There is no reason to keep a secret — our first ‘ironbird’ is already being assembled in a warehouse in Tulsa, OK. We are excited to reveal it soon with a fully integrated SW/HW demo coming in January! We’re just getting started!