Erik Kriessmann took an unusual path to becoming a venture partner at Altimeter, starting his career building talent functions at Khosla Ventures and Index Ventures before transitioning to growth-stage investing. He focuses on companies where software meets real-world scale, particularly in defense, space, and energy, while maintaining his early-stage approach of building long-term relationships with founders and using talent networks to spot exceptional teams early.

• A strong thesis on American Dynamism and defense technology. He frequently champions startups that contribute to national security through deterrence, specifically highlighting the importance of manufacturing hypersonic systems at scale and cost. He often points to companies like Anduril and Castelion as examples of essential innovation in this sector.
• Support for the revitalization of the American industrial base and supply chain resilience. He actively promotes the idea of re-shoring manufacturing capabilities, citing investments in companies like Hadrian, which focuses on high-throughput aerospace manufacturing, and Vulcan Elements, which secures domestic supply for critical materials.
• Interest in next-generation energy infrastructure to power the future of AI and industry. He sees a direct link between reliable power and economic prosperity, expressing specific enthusiasm for nuclear energy and domestic fuel production to ensure the grid can support increasing computational demands.
• Appreciation for a specific founder mindset centered on agency and problem-solving. He values leaders who shift their focus from worrying about potential failures to actively figuring out how to make complex projects succeed, noting that this psychological approach is a key differentiator in recruiting and execution.
• A focus on deep tech infrastructure that enables scaling artificial intelligence. He looks for technical innovations that solve bottlenecks in the AI stack, such as new inference engines built by the creators of major open-source projects, rather than just application-layer tools.
• Belief in earning the right to expand product offerings through customer value. He uses fintech examples like Ramp to illustrate that startups should first deliver undeniable value in one area before leveraging that trust to solve additional problems for their user base.