Damien Petty
Partner at Morpheus Ventures
Damien Petty
Partner at Morpheus Ventures
Los Angeles, California
Overview
Work Experience
Partner
2016 - Current
Morpheus Ventures is an LA-based venture capital firm. We look to partner with innovative entrepreneurs to disrupt large markets. We have capital to invest and are looking for new investments. We are not limited to geography and we can invest into complex situations.
Board Member / Investor
2023
Quoherent has developed a novel quantum computing modality leveraging topological materials that enable ambient temperature operation and edge capability with low quantum noise. This innovation allows construction of quantum processors on silicon, making them scalable and capable of integrating with standard PCB technology. Its mission is to deploy the world’s first high-fidelity, scalable quantum processors on mobile platforms, delivering quantum processing at the edge.
Observer / Investor
2023
Q-CTRL’s quantum control infrastructure software delivers the highest performance error-correcting and suppressing techniques globally, and provides a unique capability accelerating the pathway to the first useful quantum computers and quantum sensors. Q-CTRL operates a globally leading quantum sensing division focused on software-level innovation for strategic capability. Q-CTRL also has developed Black Opal, an edtech platform that enables users to quickly learn quantum computing.
Board Member / Investor
2021
Ten63 Therapeutics is a venture-backed startup focused on improving human health by developing better, more durable therapeutics against some of the world’s most lethal diseases. We are leveraging our proprietary in-silico technology to hit previously undruggable targets while bringing the paradigm of durable response into early drug design. We achieve this through a unique platform that is capable of searching unprecedented chemical and comformational space with highly accurate physics-based models. The results are novel therapeutics that are resilient to the emergence of drug resistance and able to modulate previously undruggable targets. We are an innovative, young, motivated and highly technical team on a mission to improve human health. We started building our pioneering in-silico drug design technology in Bruce Donald’s lab at Duke University, and we have published over 50 papers related to it.
Board Member / Investor
2022
VeriSIM Life's platform of AI enabled biosimulation models tackle one of the biggest obstacles of drug development: animal testing for drug development. Animal testing is slow, ethically questionable, and doesn't act as much of a filter: 92% of all drug candidates that pass this preclinical testing never make it to market. VeriSIM's disease-specific biosimulation models platform allows pharma and biotech researchers to model in-silico how a drug will interact in animals. This enables testing 1000x more potential candidates in the same unit of time, ensuring that drugs that do make it to (human) clinical trials are far more likely to work, thereby saving millions in annual costs and years of development time.
Vice President
2002
Europlay Capital Advisors (ECA) is a boutique financial advisory firm and fund manager that provides early stage financing, startup support, business development and merchant banking services to its portfolio companies and clients. ECA specializes in start-up and venture-financed technology, life science and new media companies. ECA’s mission is to deliver extraordinary value to its portfolio companies, clients and their shareholders by solving their most challenging business problems creatively and creating shareholder value in the process.
Board Observer / Investor
2015 - 2022
Starship Technologies builds self-driving local delivery robots. We are disrupting a 2-trillion-dollar local deliveries industry. Starship was launched by Skype co-founders and has offices in San Francisco, London, UK and Tallinn, Estonia. It has made over 1 million deliveries in cities and on campuses in the US and Europe.
Investor
2014 - 2022
Vicarious is using 10 years of advanced research in AI and robotics to transform manufacturing. Customers like Pitney Bowes and Sephora benefit from zero upfront capex and see immediate savings in high-mix, high changeover manufacturing operations.
Board Observer / Investor
2020 - 2022
Rigetti Computing is building the world’s most powerful computers to help solve humanity’s most pressing and important problems. These systems will perform computations that today’s fastest supercomputers are incapable of — unlocking entirely new classes of problems and offering a direct path to solutions. We are scientists, engineers, builders, and visionaries. We believe quantum computing is going to significantly affect health care, how we treat disease, how we generate energy, and how we feed humanity. Rigetti is the only company deploying full-stack solutions for hybrid classical/quantum computing. Our 31-qubit quantum computer is available online through our Forest platform and on Amazon Braket, and the first commercially useful applications are already under exploration.
Vice President / Portfolio Manager, Minority Investments
2007 - 2021
Iconical Fund Advisors is the investing arm of Iconical. It has a proven track record of helping Iconical entrepreneurs and projects build industry leading companies. Involved at the very earliest stages, and typically allied with the founders themselves, Iconical Fund Advisors leverages its team’s experience as successful investors and entrepreneurs to offer significant product, operational and transactional expertise to select Iconical portfolio companies.