Why Software Lost Its Moat and Deep Tech Is Winning with Jacob Jackson of Julian Capital

**Jacob Jackson** (0:01)
This is too simple to compete with companies, and it's all about capital, it's all about going to market, it's all about technology. And so that's why I personally realized that deep tech was the future, where you can actually build really, really hard technology that's defensible.

**Matt Cohen** (0:15)
Welcome back to Tank Talks. I'm your host, Matt Cohen, founder and managing partner of Ripple Ventures, and today's guest is Jacob Jackson from Julian Capital, a deep tech seed fund and also the founder of Deep Checks, one of the most respected networks and intelligence platforms for deep tech founders and investors. We dig into Jacob's own path from building new MRI techniques and physics labs to founding a B2B SaaS company, angel investing and now backing Frontier technical teams at the earliest stages. In this conversation, we explore why he believes the best moats in the age of AI are increasingly built in the physical world and how AI is creating powerful tailwinds for deep tech and why many software focused investors still fundamentally misunderstand the risk, timeline and return profile of the category. We dig into the founder assessment of deep tech teams, the evolving role of patents versus trade secrets, and how to think about venture backable timelines in areas like fusion and quantum, and the data from deep checks showing that deep tech exits are happening faster, with stronger unicorn density than many will assume. Jacob also shares practical advice on hiring signals, infrastructure bottlenecks and where he's most excited to deploy capital over the next five years. Now, let's jump in the tank for this week's episode with Jacob from Deep Checks.
Thanks for joining us in the tank today, Jacob.

**Jacob Jackson** (1:34)
Thanks for having me, Matt. Super excited to be here.

**Matt Cohen** (1:36)
Awesome. It would be great if you can give our listeners a quick background, where you grew up, your early career highlights, and how you ended up in your current role at Julian Capital and running Deep Checks.

**Jacob Jackson** (1:46)
Totally. I'm Ottawa born, spent my whole childhood there, moved out to BC to go to UBC, studied physics and got sucked into the research world at the university before realizing it wasn't for me and started a couple of companies. Then started Angel Investing and then met Julian, who started Julian Capital and circled back to my physics and engineering roots, building and funding now deep tech companies, building hardware, real engineering challenges, and tackling really big world problems.

**Matt Cohen** (2:26)
Yeah, it feels like it came full circle for you. I mean, you started in physics, as you mentioned, building new MRI techniques, you know, pivoted to B2B SaaS as a founder. Then you did some angel investments. What were some of those early angel investments that you're making and what was the network you had at the time to even find deals?
Yeah, totally.

**Jacob Jackson** (2:43)
So when I started the first company, it was a hardware company and that was more up my alley. The second company, I got pulled into SaaS and spent a long time there building in SaaS. And so that became my skill set and my network.
And so when I started angel investing, I actually was investing in SaaS companies that needed support from a revenue, sales, marketing, customer success standpoint, getting their growth engine off the ground at the earliest stage. And so that's how I invested. I invested in angel checks and then got really involved with SaaS companies to help them grow.

**Matt Cohen** (3:17)
But you were always interested in deep tech, I feel.

**Jacob Jackson** (3:20)
Exactly, yeah. And so the second I had that realization again, and based on some of the learnings I had in the company that I built too, I realized that the future of investing in general, but particularly for me, was deep tech. And so made the full circle loop back and haven't looked back since.

**Matt Cohen** (3:38)
And how did you connect with Julian in the first place? Julian Shapiro.

**Jacob Jackson** (3:42)
Well, Julian's a big internet guy. He's all over Twitter, LinkedIn, and that's how I found him. So he put out a call for people to help him with the venture fund, and we connected over the internet, and I've been working with him ever since.

**Matt Cohen** (3:56)
Internet connections, social networks are still valuable. So this day, can you give our listeners a bit of a background on Julian to share what he's up to and how he got to where he is?

**Jacob Jackson** (4:05)
Yeah, for sure. So Julian has always been a growth guy. He worked at a bunch of billion dollar companies as a leader in growth. He started an organization called Demand Curve, which became the go-to growth agency for YC companies. He took it through YC and then he worked with literally hundreds of YC companies. Some of them became unicorns. He worked with organizations like LinkedIn, ancestry.com and Webflow, all on growth. Then he took those growth learnings and started angel investing himself, helping companies with growth, and then he built a fund around it.