Josh Latin

Angel investor & operator · Santa Monica & Montecito, CA

I write early checks into pre-seed and seed companies in robotics, manufacturing, and everything else on my research list. The rest of my time goes to building software and working with founders and investment teams.

STN 46221 · SANTA MONICA SWELL 3.2 FT WATER 64°F 34.02°N 118.49°W STATUS OFFSHORE
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Angel investments

Personal checks at pre-seed and seed, with larger syndicated allocations case by case.

Anatar SEED American-made textiles, composites, and soft goods engineered for aerospace and defense.
Blue Ocean Materials SEED Precision-cut, certified engineering plastics for machine shops, aerospace, and semiconductor buyers. SendCutSend for plastics.
Robo SEED Affordable, fast-to-deploy robots for the manual work traditional automation never solved. Actively deployed in commercial facilities today.
Transcend Mechanics SEED Generative design for compliant mechanisms, making robotic hardware radically cheaper – starting with grippers. Read my deep dive
FOUNDERS

Thinking about raising? Reach out: josh@joshlatin.com

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Things I've built

Convergence 2026 · YEAR 1 OF 50 A lifelong research project leveraging Hermes Agent, tracing how consciousness evolves and how ideas go from "that's insane" to "that was obvious," to map where the world goes next.
What's next 2026 · IN PROGRESS Searching for SMB acquisition targets where robotics and AI can 10x a business that already works.
HEAT 2022–2025 · SUNSET A marketplace for human motion data, backed by A16Z Speedrun. Born too early to power the humanoid robotics revolution, too late for Hollywood mocap.
Signature Resolution 2019–2022 · EXIT Led business development, recruitment, and special projects at the fastest-growing private mediation firm in the country.
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Writing

The Factory is the Moat 2026 Reshoring, reindustrialization, and compounding data advantage. Why the durable moats are migrating from software to the physical layer, and what HEAT taught me about it.
Transcend Mechanics is Building a Matter Compiler 2026 A deep dive on compliant mechanisms, the design bottleneck in hardware, and why I invested.
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Areas of research

space defense robotics ai infrastructure automated manufacturing chemical manufacturing energy subsea economy financial infrastructure brain-computer interfaces critical minerals longevity bio
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2026 reading

A Will to Power
Friedrich Nietzsche
IN PROGRESS
Outwitting the Devil
Napoleon Hill
IN PROGRESS
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Carl Jung
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology
Carl Jung
A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung
Robert H. Hopcke
Against Method
Paul Feyerabend
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas Kuhn
Something Deeply Hidden
Sean Carroll
Magicians of the Gods
Graham Hancock
One Nation Under Blackmail
Whitney Webb
/offline44m · seafloor

Off the clock

contemporary art · ancient civilizations · consciousness · philosophy · psychology · longevity · yoga · hiking · padel · sailing · scuba · techno · good stand-up