Former Physician U.S. Congressman Bets Millions on Space and AI Deep Tech Startups

U.S. Representative Kelly Louise Morrison recently disclosed that on January 20 and 29 she purchased equity stakes in five unlisted deep-tech startups—including ventures in space pharmaceuticals, semiconductor design and quantum computing. Each individual investment ranged from $15,001 to $50,000, for a total outlay of at least $75,000 to $250,000. Of these, two companies stand out: Varda Space Industries, a space-pharma and hypersonic reentry firm, and Cognichip, an AI-driven semiconductor-design startup.

Varda Space Industries develops capsules and reentry vehicles that use microgravity to manufacture pharmaceuticals and then return them safely to Earth. The company has expanded its presence in both defense and space by signing hypersonic reentry test agreements and government payload contracts with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.S. Navy. After raising roughly $90 million in a Series B round in 2024, Varda closed a $187 million Series C in 2025, bringing its total funding to over $300 million. Although still privately held, these successive large financings have driven up its valuation. Two successful capsule reentries and growing government orders have heightened growth expectations—and help explain why Representative Morrison chose to back “space + defense” deep-tech.

Cognichip is building an “Artificial Chip Intelligence” (ACI) platform that leverages physics-based AI models to automate and enhance semiconductor design. Since its founding in 2024, the company closed a $33 million seed round in 2025, attracting global venture capital interest. At a time of GPU shortages and surging power demands in AI data centers, Cognichip’s promise to halve design cycles and cut costs by 75 percent has energized expectations of semiconductor and AI-theme upside. As a private company, it has no share price to track, but its large initial capital raise and the broader AI-infrastructure investment wave serve as direct drivers of its valuation.

Representative Morrison, a Democrat and former obstetrician-gynecologist, represents Minnesota’s 3rd District. She sits on the House Small Business Committee and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and serves as the Democratic ranking member of the Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Supply Chains. Because rural, energy, and supply-chain policies—as well as small-business support programs and federal procurement or SBIR budgets—can directly affect the growth trajectory of deep-tech startups like Varda and Cognichip, her private-company equity purchases may raise public questions about potential conflicts of interest, regardless of legal compliance. Bipartisan legislation in both chambers is already under discussion to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks. Even though her disclosures comply with the STOCK Act, tightening regulations and evolving ethics standards could place Morrison’s investments under sharper political and moral scrutiny.