“Most investors come from a finance background or something, and robots and lasers and nuclear reactors scare them,” he told Business Insider in an interview. “The part I’m useful for is understanding the technology early, believing in it early, being willing to invest in it at the beginning before anyone else does.”

While Deep Future’s other managing partner, Michael Reid, is a neuroscientist, Holman didn’t go to college or grad school. Holman said that Deep Future’s bets are ambitious but less farfetched than they may seem at first glance. For instance, he argued that the growing cost-effectiveness of space travel has made solar panels on satellites commercially viable. And while he wants to tackle the world’s biggest problems such as waste, impact isn’t Deep Future’s sole priority.

“I’m not really selling moonshots here,” he said. “I think the returns are very important because without them, we don’t get to keep doing this kind of work, and these companies aren’t going to go anywhere. I’m not running a charity.”

Why moonshots are less risky than they may seem

Deep Future is a small fund with big ambitions. Its first fund recently closed with $17 million and made pre-seed investments in 14 startups with no exits yet. Holman’s goal for the first fund is 75 portfolio companies. A second fund won’t be in the works for at least another year. Investors include family offices and tech founders, including Matt Mullenweg, cofounder of WordPress.

In some ways, Deep Future’s mission harkens back to Silicon Valley’s roots, he said. Holman took aim at “SaaS-Holes,” venture capitalists who mainly invest in enterprise software with more predictable returns.

“This is just really what the Silicon Valley of the eighties was about,” he said. “We would back and invest in new technologies, and that’s just not been true for so long and we lost sight of it.”

Deep Future takes a different approach to evaluating risk, as the success of its startups hinges on inventions. For instance, he said, traditional VCs investing in an iPhone app take little technical risk but higher market risk. The app can likely be built, but it is unclear how many people will pay for it.

As for Deep Future’s investments, the challenge is whether the technology can be built and made cost-effective, ideally within its investment horizon of 10 years. However, their portfolio companies carry little market risk. One of Deep Future’s portfolio companies, Descycle, is developing non-toxic chemicals to separate gold in electronics in landfills. There are uncertainties when it comes to scale, but gold “defines liquidity,” he said.

Getting investors on board with mad scientists

With Deep Future’s niche, getting investors’ attention has been easy, Holman said. Getting investors comfortable with hard-to-understand science is another matter.

What usually wins over investors without a science background is Deep Future’s focus on solving pressing problems, he said.

One investor, tech and media transactions lawyer Alfred Steiner, likes to research many portfolio companies but admitted that often doesn’t fully grasp the science behind them. Most of his investments are passive, as he can’t afford to take big risks. But he made a small investment in Deep Future with the hopes of advancing scientific breakthroughs more than financial returns.

“I’m interested in it because of the excitement,” he told Business Insider, “chasing what seem to be, in some cases, pipe dreams or very difficult problems to solve.”