America’s Frontier Fund has officially launched as a nonprofit investment fund with a focus on scaling companies and their deep technologies to ensure that the U.S. and its allies maintain tech advantage amid a great power competition.
AFF said Thursday its initial focus areas will include artificial intelligence, microelectronics, next-generation networks such as 5G and 6G, synthetic biology, advanced manufacturing, new materials and quantum sciences.
Gilman Louie, former commissioner on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, co-founded AFF with Jordan Blashek, formerly vice president of business formation at Schmidt Futures, and Edlyn Levine, formerly chief technologist at Mitre’s Acceleration Office.
Louie serves as CEO of AFF and Blashek is president and chief operating officer of the investment fund. Levine serves as a partner and chief science officer of the fund.
AFF has developed a framework, dubbed FrontierCast, to identify and invest in novel technologies that are aligned with national strategic interests by integrating scientific and financial expertise. The model uses multidimensional analyses and backcasting to assess technology platforms from market demand, economics, geopolitics and scientific perspectives.
In May, the fund announced that it will oversee the Quad Investor Network, which seeks to strengthen tech cooperation by bringing together investors from the U.S., Japan, Australia and India.
The members of AFF’s board of directors are:
- Ash Carter, former secretary of defense
- Cliff Sobel, former ambassador, managing partner, Valor Capital Group
- Eric Braverman, CEO, Schmidt Futures
- H.R. McMaster, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former national security adviser
- J. Michael McQuade, special advisor to the president, Carnegie Mellon University
- Jennifer Pahlka, founder, Code for America
- Joanne Isham, former deputy director of science and technology, CIA
- John Hurley, managing partner and CIO, Cavalry Asset Management
- Leslie Brun, chairman and CEO, Ariel Alternatives
- Michele Flournoy, co-founder and managing partner, WestExec Advisors
- Mignon Clyburn, former Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
- Nick Beim, partner, Venrock Associates
- Richard Kang, managing partner, Prism Global
- Samuel Palmisano, former CEO, IBM
- Suzanne Nora Johnson, chair, board of directors, Intuit
