Graham Littlehale
Partner
Bio
Graham Littlehale is a partner at Felicis, where he focuses on deep tech and hard tech investing, including aerospace, defense, energy, manufacturing, and robotics.
Before joining Felicis, Graham was at Point72, where he helped build the firm’s investing practice across national security and deep tech. During his time there, he worked across investments ranging from pre-seed to pre-IPO and was involved in a portfolio that included companies such as Shield AI, Vannevar Labs, Overland AI, Stokes Space, Apex Space, Starfish Space, Rune Technologies, Endurance Energy, General Matter, Smack Technologies, and Vector Defense.
Earlier in his career, Graham was at Makena Capital, where he invested in natural resources and energy infrastructure, and later joined Nuro, a robotics startup, where he worked on strategy and commercial expansion. Across investing and operating roles, he has built a reputation for deep curiosity, rigorous research, and a strong belief that great founders are defined by their willingness to learn quickly and go deep.
Graham is especially drawn to founders tackling complex, real-world problems in sectors where technical insight, mission orientation, and persistence matter most. He grew up in a blue-collar household, a background that helped shape his appreciation for physical systems, infrastructure, and the people who build enduring things.
Outside of work, Graham is a lifelong gamer who has loved competitive games since childhood, starting with ranked Halo at age 10. He is also an obsessive learner who is often reading, listening to, or watching something about an emerging technology just for fun.
FEATURED COMPANIES
Q&A
Why are you personally passionate about deep tech?
These businesses are physical. Early in my career I was investing in energy and natural resources, which meant upstream oil and gas fields in the middle of Texas, terminaling assets in Corpus Christi, one of the largest battery energy storage farms in the world. Then a robotics company. Then space launch companies. Same instinct every time. I understand businesses better that I can see and touch.
The other reason is competitive. Complex physical projects are hard to build and hard to copy. You cannot raise the capital, hire the team, and master the technology to rebuild most deep tech businesses over a weekend. That difficulty can lead to moats that last lifetimes.
How do you get smart about a new area?
You can never escape reactive investing, and some of the best investments will always be reactive: A founder walks in with something you know nothing about and you have 72 hours or less to get smart. However, I try and spend the other half of my time proactively digging into thematic areas before anyone is pitching me.
That means talking to everyone around a company rather than only the company: competitors, operators, customers, industry stakeholders, professors, researchers. You start to see the problem from each of their positions and when the right solution is pitched, it immediately resonates. This requires a lot of unglamorous input. I listen to technical talks on my morning walk, I keep an Obsidian database of things I want to reread, and I read research papers so that I understand technologies at a fundamental level.
The point is to arrive with the most prepared mind possible. When I meet a founder, we're able to talk as peers at an advanced level rather than them just pitching me cold — it feels more like two people geeking out over a hard problem than an interview. And because that proactive thematic research means talking to dozens of operators, customers, and stakeholders around a space, I walk into that first conversation already knowing people who could become their first hires, their first customers or pilots, or great advisors.
What mindset do you look for in founders?
I love it when someone tells me something I've never heard before, and it sounds outlandish, but they make it sound so rational. The other thing I look for is if I leave a meeting and >10% of me would drop everything and go work for them. I’ve almost joined past founders I’ve invested in because I found them so compelling.
The founders I've worked with have ranged from early 20s into their 50s. What they all have in common is an undying desire and ability to will something into existence. Without anything but a small round, they can convince early employees, customers, and investors that their company will be inevitable.
How has your upbringing shaped your worldview?
My parents were blue-collar workers and didn't go to college. I learned from them that there is no replacement for hard work and trust. Up until my late teens, I thought I would follow their path. It wasn’t until my grandfather passed away and I took interest in his life that my trajectory changed. He didn’t have a PhD, but had the great fortune of working with talented engineering teams across a variety of projects that shaped all of our lives. Ocean research with WHOI, Apollo guidance computer engineering with Draper Lab, Exxon oil spill expert witness, etc. He seemed to know something about everything, and it all came back to his true love for learning. Reading through the wide variety of books in his bookcase ignited an insatiable curiosity in me which I still have until this day. Investing lets me push that curiosity day in and day out, and I feel so fortunate to call this my career.