Contactless Magnetic Gears, Anthropic Quietly Drops Opus 4.6, and Why Angel Groups Stall at 20-50 Members

Happy Thursday.

In today’s issue:

• Angel Deals of the Week | 143 Deals, 94 Networks

• Bookmarks I think you’ll enjoy

• An Observation from running 4 investor groups & consulting with dozens of others over the last 5 years

🔥 Angel Deals of the Week

Angel funding rounds announced in recent weeks, compiled from public sources. These deals represent the elite few that survived an angel network’s vetting process. Note: I have not personally analyzed these companies and am sharing for informational purposes only.

📊 Angel Network Investment Tracker: 143 Deals, 94 Networks.

Direct Kinetic Solutions | Radioisotopic nuclear battery manufacturer

Participating Group: Aggie Angel Network

Direct Kinetic Solutions manufactures Radioisotopic Power Sources (RPS) that provide maintenance-free energy for decades in extreme environments. The company says it built a $30 million defense pipeline following over $16 million in non-dilutive R&D funding. DKS launched its first commercial RPS in late 2025 after securing its Sealed Source Device Registration and Manufacturing and Distribution license. The company's technology targets applications in CubeSats, IoT sensors, and communications systems where traditional batteries fail. Aggie Angel Network recently announced an investment, with funds being used to support manufacturing capacity expansion and meet demand for long-term power solutions.

Ekhi Muniategui | Round Rock, TX | February 2026 | Source

FluxWorks | Contactless magnetic gear tech

Participating Group: Houston Angel Network

FluxWorks is developing contactless magnetic gears that use magnetic fields instead of mechanical teeth for power transmission in extreme environments. The company says its Celestial Gear delivers 99% efficiency and operates four times quieter than conventional gears while eliminating lubrication requirements. FluxWorks recently secured $5 million in seed funding led by Scout Ventures, with participation from Houston Angel Network and Michigan Capital Network, to commercialize its technology for space exploration, advanced manufacturing, industrial automation, and robotics applications.

Bryton Praslicka, PhD | $5M Seed | Conroe, TX | January 2026 | Source

Jaia Robotics | Micro autonomous aquatic drones

Participating Group: SideCar Angels

Jaia Robotics is developing micro-sized autonomous hybrid surface/underwater vehicles called JaiaBots for aquatic data collection. The company says its 33-inch robots operate in deployable pods of 1-20 vehicles and are priced at approximately $10,000 each, targeting environmental monitoring, defense, research, and aquaculture markets. Jaia recently raised $1.8 million in a Series Seed Bridge round with participation from SideCar Angels and other investors to support product development and growth.

Ian Estaphan Owen | $1.8M Series Seed Bridge | Bristol, RI | December 2025 | Exclusive

📣 Have an Angel Deal to Announce?

🔖 Bookmarks

1. 🗻📣 Made Me Laugh (@Trace Cohen on LI): VCs announcing their humble seed investment in a pre revenue pre product startup.

2. 📊 Data Data Data: My favorite Angel Capital Association publication, “Data Insights Monthly,” now compiled into a single easy-to-read report.

3. 🧠 Claude Opus 4.6 Dropped This Week: Anthropic's latest model features higher token context, multi-agent workflows, and office tool integrations across Excel and PowerPoint. Sweet.

🥇 The Nugget: Why Angel Group Growth Stalls at 20-50 Members

It’s Super Hard to Get the Angel Group Flywheel Going: More Members > Bigger Value > Better Deals 🔄

Many angel groups die or stall because the "core" team burns out too quickly.

I've written before about how angel groups are platforms: double-sided markets where founders and investors connect, consummated by a deal. In Platform Revolution, one of the most influential books on my thinking about angel groups, the authors explain why platforms are so hard to get started: both sides of the market need to show up for the thing to work, but neither side wants to show up until the other one already has.

In Angeldom, this means good founders don't want to spend time on a process and show up to pitch unless they see a large pool of active check writers. But angels don't want to pay membership dues and show up unless they know they'll see great startups.

Getting inertia going requires someone to push. And once they've pushed hard enough, for long enough, this magical flywheel starts spinning:

More members enable bigger value (check size + expertise). Bigger value draws better deals. Better deals draw more members.

The "bigger value" piece tends to be emergent - a result of solid focus on the other two pieces over time. As the group matures, members get more confident. They see some wins. They write larger checks & lean into more deals. That signals credibility to founders, which pulls in better deals, and the flywheel turns again.

Sounds great in theory, but what’s brutal in reality is that this flywheel requires constant attention. After years spent operating four angel groups and working with dozens of others, I've seen flywheels stall most often when the person pushing steps away too early - before the thing has enough inertia to sustain itself. The 20-50 member range in particular seems to be the hardest gap to overcome. The group is large enough to write meaningful checks, but not large enough to run itself. The founder or core operator is still doing everything - sourcing deals, recruiting members, running events, managing diligence - and they burn out before the flywheel ever reaches serious velocity.

I'm developing a real passion for serving groups in this range and working on ways to help, because it’s so so hard to grow out of it. If that's your angel group, send me a note. I'd love to ask you a few questions about what makes your life hard & help if I can.

Credit: Mike Bridges for helping me crystallize this concept over coffee.

Until Next Week 👋

Thanks for reading - have a great week.

-Andrew

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