StefanZlatev

StefanZlatev

Engineer, investor, operator.

I work on the physical bottlenecks of our economy: energy, power and industrial infrastructure, and the supply chains that build it.

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2014 – 2017 United Kingdom · Japan

Operator.

Rolls-Royce – gas turbines and nuclear propulsion. Engineer first, then the operating side: design, engineering, manufacturing plus sales.

Rolls-Royce

2019 – 2026 United States · Europe

Investor.

Seven years at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the last as Partner. Supporting more than 20 founders, early and late stage.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures

  • Resource recovery
  • Heat storage
  • Space propulsion
  • Grid transmission
  • Low-carbon cement and steel
  • Battery materials
  • Hydrogen
  • Building efficiency
  • Agriculture and forestry

Power · deep tech is the core

1939

  • Gas turbines The first utility gas turbine runs in Neuchâtel. Still the densest power machine we have, and where I started. 1939
  • Nuclear fission Obninsk puts the first reactor on a grid. Back on the build schedule seventy years later. 1954
  • Industrial automation Unimate joins a GM line. Automation is how industry gets rebuilt where people are scarce. 1961
  • Materials and magnets Neodymium magnets are invented. Critical minerals and magnets now decide who can build motors at all. 1983
  • Battery storage Lithium-ion goes commercial. Storage is what makes every other source dispatchable. 1991
  • Compute The cloud arrives. More compute per watt, and the power and cooling it needs, is now an energy problem. 2006
  • Space An orbital booster lands and flies again. Launch becomes industrial infrastructure. 2015
  • Generative AI A language model reaches everyone. Compute becomes the largest new load on the grid, and the way industry will be run. 2022
  • Physical AI Robots start to learn rather than be programmed. Factories and field operations follow. 2024
  • Nuclear fusion Now an engineering problem, not a physics one. The end of the energy story, and the start of the next. 2030s

Scroll to move through time

2026 → United States

Now.

Invest
Early and growth-stage deep tech, North America and Europe.
Operate
The supply chains that build the physical economy.
Build
Where AI meets industrial services and manufacturing.

Say hello.

[email protected] LinkedIn

Education

  • Harvard Business SchoolMBA, 2019
  • University of CambridgeMPhil Energy Technologies, 2013
  • University of EdinburghBEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering with Renewable Energy, 2012