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This Q2 2026, we leaned in to the most important part of our work: the people. In June, we hosted our 2026 TPO Portfolio Summit in Deer Valley, bringing together 100 leaders from the TPO and 53 Stations ecosystem for three days of conversations and activities. The through line across every session was the importance of your team: who you hire, how you lead them, and why that matters more than any framework. As capital partners, we place that same level of importance on who we choose to back.

Jason joined David Weisburd on the How I Invest podcast to talk about how 53 Stations thinks about founders, boards, and the jump from private equity to venture. “I will take an incredible founder over a perfect thesis all day long,” he told David. We also welcomed three new additions to 53 Stations, plus three MBA fellows for the summer. We’re excited to continue prioritizing our partners, both internal and external, in the second half of 2026.

News From Our Portfolio

We celebrated a key milestone with Jordan Bramble and the Antares team as their Mark-0 reactor reached criticality, sustaining a self-perpetuating nuclear chain reaction. It's the first privately developed advanced reactor to do so in decades and, fittingly, the 53rd reactor to operate at the lab.

We announced our investment in Wealth.com’s $65M oversubscribed Series B. We first backed the company at their Series A because CEO Rafael Loureiro and team had a sharp thesis on estate planning and the enterprise chops to build toward it. We’re proud to return as investors this round alongside Charles Schwab, GV, Citi Ventures, and others.

We celebrated our first exit, with Black Buffalo’s acquisition by ITG Brands. We led Black Buffalo’s Series A in 2022. The bet was on the people: Mark Hanson and the team had the vision and the staying power to build something real. Black Buffalo is now in tens of thousands of retail stores and has carved out its own category in reduced-harm tobacco. We’re excited to see what’s next with ITG behind them.

News From the Team

Managing Partner Jason Pritzker sat down with David Weisburd on the How I Invest podcast. Listen to the full conversation here.

Investor Ben Sack spoke with Engineering News-Record (ENR) about the impact AI is having on the construction industry. “The industry has managed preconstruction the same way for decades,” Ben told ENR. AI-powered procurement and preconstruction platforms, like Kaya AI and ConCntric, are changing that. Read the full story here.

Q2 also marked a moment of real expansion for our team. We welcomed Chris Oh onboard as a Principal based in New York. Chris joined us from GreenPoint Partners, and over his career, he has deployed over $180M in capital and advised on over $5B in financial transactions. More on Chris here.

Ally Dweck joined us as Director of Network and Ecosystem, also based in New York, with past experience at Newmark and the Carlyle Group. Connecting founders to the right partners and operators is one of the most valuable things we do, and Ally is now leading that function.

Angela Pontarolo came on as SVP of Marketing & Communications. With nearly two decades of comms experience at Sparkpr, Chegg, and Comcast Ventures, Angela brings the range to help us tell our story as we grow.

This summer, three MBA fellows joined the 53 Stations team. Welcome, Lynn Kha, Alex Hammerman, and Samuel Souleles! With deep experience in healthcare, hardware, and venture, we are excited for them to jump in and join the investment team.

Recap: TPO Portfolio Summit

Read our full readout of the Summit here.

We’re spotlighting Deb Wolf from our Wayfinder Operator Network. Deb is CMO at Dataminr and was previously at Lookout, BetterUp, and Workday, where she was the company’s first marketing hire.

After leading marketing from early stage through IPO, Deb offers hard-won perspective on early GTM decisions, hiring strategy, and making AI adoption stick inside a team. One piece of advice she comes back to often: Get the narrative right before you hire for demand generation. The foundational work of messaging, positioning, and pricing has to be solid first. Only then should founders bring in the pipeline engine.

More insights from Deb here.

Thanks for reading.