01:33:24 · Jon Wang, John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Jeffery Liu
[01:33:24] S10: be on hold for thirty minutes. Right? They can actually finally get access to care. You know, elementary school teachers working from 8AM to 5PM can actually, like, get access to care after after their work. Right? So stuff like that is really heartwarming to hear. It's awesome. So, yeah, that's been a really inflection point in the market. [01:33:41] S1: Sure. Awesome. Congratulations on the round. Thanks so much for coming on the show. [01:33:45] S0: Do you guys wear the cowboy hats normally or just for [01:33:47] S1: Fundraising? [01:33:48] S0: For the show? [01:33:48] S1: Yeah. When you're [01:33:49] S2: on We wear it at our board meetings, all hands, customer events. We just had a huge customer event in Sonoma last week. We we went all out. [01:33:57] S1: I love it. [01:33:57] S2: I love It's the Asian cowboys. Very memorable, you know? It's great. It is. [01:34:01] S0: It is. You gotta be being quirky. It's your edge. Yeah. It's your Love it. Well, gentlemen Cheers. It's been an honor. [01:34:08] S1: How are you? [01:34:09] S2: Have a good one. Cheers. [01:34:10] S1: See you out there. Goodbye. Let me tell you about Console. Console builds AI agents that automate 70% of IT, HR, and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password reset. Our next guest is Eliot Pence from Dominion Dynamics. He's the founder and CEO. Welcome to the show. [01:34:30] S0: Hey, guys. Sorry. That's a special sound effect. It's very dramatic. [01:34:33] S1: It's very dramatic. But we're [01:34:35] S0: very But I feel like it's fitting.
01:34:35 · Jordi Hays, Julian Hoenig, John Coogan, Eliot Pence
[01:34:35] S0: very But I feel like it's fitting. [01:34:37] S3: It fitting. [01:34:38] S0: Let's do it again. Welcome to the show, Alex. [01:34:42] S1: Welcome to the show. How are you doing? [01:34:44] S11: Love it. I'm great. It's hard to follow the Asian cowboys though. [01:34:47] S0: I know. Tough act. Tough act. Well, we'll hit the gong even harder for you. Yes. We'll make it up. [01:34:52] S1: Tell us about yourself. Tell us about the company. Tell us about the round. [01:34:56] S11: Yeah. For sure. So we just raised a 100,000,000. Company is called Dominion Dynamics. It's focused on we're we're we're building a a Canadian neo prime. Okay. So we connect autonomous systems. We're focused on domain and awareness in the Arctic. [01:35:15] S1: All software or hardware as [01:35:17] S11: Software and hardware, we've built 10 things, five hardware, five different platforms [01:35:25] S0: Yeah. [01:35:25] S11: And we're about to build a a big drone. [01:35:27] S1: Why is that not why is that not crazy? Like building one thing is hard. Building 10 things, five things, like that that that feels like like, you know, series a, it's great. But like, you know, isn't there a value to focus? Why is this industry different? [01:35:43] S11: No. Look, the opportunity in Canada is not to focus. It's such a wide opportunity landscape. [01:35:48] S1: Sure. [01:35:49] S11: Canada used to have a very rich and deep defense tech history. [01:35:53] S1: Yeah.
01:35:53 · John Coogan, Eliot Pence
[01:35:53] S1: Yeah. [01:35:53] S11: You know, you you can track it back to Canadair and Bombardier, and they have all these companies. First first autonomous submarine, first two operational drones, first passenger jet, and then we basically went on a starvation diet. So there's talent in tech here [01:36:09] S1: Mhmm. [01:36:09] S11: But we've not actually had a large prime for some time. So Okay. I think actually the the the opportunity is to basically do a land grab and but to do it with software, not just Sure. [01:36:20] S1: Kind of [01:36:20] S11: one specific thing. So, like, in The US, yeah, there's 970 companies that have been backed over the last six years, but in Canada, it's a g seven country without a defense prime. That's insane. [01:36:32] S1: Yeah. That's crazy. Wow. The in America, Palmer Lucky's talked about how the government does not want Andoril to be a monopoly. It can be a great business. It can be a big business. But if it gets to be the only supplier of something, the government will say, look, we're going to give a contract to someone else because we want a diversity of supply chain. [01:36:52] S11: Of Of course, the government's not gonna want to have a monopoly. That's not the point. Like, the point is have the best capability. Yeah. But it is likely that some of those companies will build the best capability. And if they build the best capability, they should have a monopoly.
01:36:52 · Eliot Pence, Jordi Hays
[01:36:52] S11: Of Of course, the government's not gonna want to have a monopoly. That's not the point. Like, the point is have the best capability. Yeah. But it is likely that some of those companies will build the best capability. And if they build the best capability, they should have a monopoly. [01:37:05] S0: Okay. Yeah. How are you how are you thinking about you you guys feel uniquely, you know, situated to be able to dominate in with like Arctic capabilities. How big is the opportunity outside of Canada in your view? [01:37:21] S11: Yeah. So what we wanna build is a global company. Mhmm. We want it to be a Canadian company headquartered in Canada, majority owned, majority controlled, which it is. Mhmm. We think it's a huge opportunity. What we're really building is not just Arctic. Right? The reason we're starting Arctic is it's the harshest operating environment in the world. But the other reason is because you have to architect solutions very differently. There's no comms. The hardware situation is insane because power doesn't work. The ground, what they call breeze because of the tundra, so it, like, cracks and breaks, so runways don't work. If you're building drones, you've gotta go 5,000 kilometers. So, like, it's basically like building for the moon. If you build for the moon, you will build massive moats because it's the hardest thing to do. Mhmm.
01:37:21 · Eliot Pence, John Coogan
[01:37:21] S11: Yeah. So what we wanna build is a global company. Mhmm. We want it to be a Canadian company headquartered in Canada, majority owned, majority controlled, which it is. Mhmm. We think it's a huge opportunity. What we're really building is not just Arctic. Right? The reason we're starting Arctic is it's the harshest operating environment in the world. But the other reason is because you have to architect solutions very differently. There's no comms. The hardware situation is insane because power doesn't work. The ground, what they call breeze because of the tundra, so it, like, cracks and breaks, so runways don't work. If you're building drones, you've gotta go 5,000 kilometers. So, like, it's basically like building for the moon. If you build for the moon, you will build massive moats because it's the hardest thing to do. Mhmm. [01:38:08] S1: In terms of Canadian ownership, what does that look like when you go out to fundraise? I see Valor Equity Partners, Atrides, Bessemer, amazing funds. I think of them as American funds. Is do do you draw the line around g seven investors, or is there is there a broader scope that you can think about? Or or do you think about cap table construction one way or another? [01:38:30] S11: A 100% we can talk about and think about cap table construction. We've been super intentional about who we bring in. So we wanted to have pension funds in. [01:38:38] S1: Sure. [01:38:38] S11: Canada has 2 and a half trillion under management by the Maple eight, so we brought two of those pension funds in. Exactly. BCI and OMERS. Just for
01:38:38 · Eliot Pence, John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[01:38:38] S11: Canada has 2 and a half trillion under management by the Maple eight, so we brought two of those pension funds in. Exactly. BCI and OMERS. Just for [01:38:50] S1: the for the pensioners. It's good luck for the Canadian pensioners. It's fantastic. [01:38:58] S11: But, you know, those those funds like valor entries, investment, they're all global funds. Right? They have mandates to do global investing, and we wanted the best of the best. So we went out and got the best of the best. [01:39:09] S0: Very cool. What what have been the biggest breakthroughs since you were on the show last? I think it January of this year? [01:39:17] S11: Five months. Well, we did a 5,500 kilometer snowmobile operation across the Northwest Passage with Orinat, which is our our kid, our back end. So [01:39:28] S1: the drone ball? [01:39:30] S11: Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Across the Northwest Passage. [01:39:34] S0: Wait. Is that a snowmobile a drone snowmobile or you guys are like No. [01:39:39] S11: Literally snowmobiles. Dudes on snowmobiles for three months across that, testing out the communications back end. [01:39:47] S1: That's very cool. I [01:39:48] S11: love No Gong for that. [01:39:50] S1: No. We'll hit it again. [01:39:51] S0: We'll hit it again. [01:39:55] S1: My god. [01:39:55] S0: Tremendous tremendous Great to have you back on. Thank you, You're you're you're coming on at a good clip. So I I Yeah. Confident that we'll see you again this year. [01:40:06] S1: You know the name of the you know the name of the communications platform? Aura?