Groundlight, which raised $10 million in seed funding last year, is backed by investors including Madrona Venture Group, Greycroft Partners, Founders' Co-op, Flying Fish, Ascend, and Essence VC.

Andrew Woodfield and Chris Le are the founding partners of Actuate Ventures. (Photo Courtesy of Chris Le)Two former employees of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company are striking out on their own with Actuate Ventures, a venture studio that specializes in supporting startups in the space industry and other deep-tech markets.Actuate’s founding partners, Chris Le and Andrew Woodfield, set up shop less than a year ago — but the studio is already building up connections with collaborators, investors and entrepreneurs. This week, they’re participating in events at SF Tech Week, and they’re also in the midst of a campaign to create their first $25 million venture fund for investment.Le said it’s not just about the money. “We think of ourselves as ‘co-founders in a box,'” he told GeekWire. “The venture studio model in particular is a hybrid. It’s like if an incubator and a VC had a baby

The sun sets on Spokane Falls, as viewed from the Monroe Street Bridge. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)SPOKANE, Wash. — Treasury4 is tapped into the power and history of this place.The headquarters of the financial and treasury data analytics startup, in the Wonder Building, runs on electricity from the nearby hydroelectric dam on Spokane Falls. Co-founder and CEO Steve Helmbrecht likes to point out that Treasury4 makes its technology with help from the region’s abundant renewable energy.Another of Treasury4’s co-founders, Chief Product Officer Ed Barrie, has been spending time in the building since he was a kid. His late father, Richard Barrie, worked there for 22 years as controller for the former Wonder Bread plant.Barrie remembers crawling around under the ovens with his brothers to pick up promotional trading cards that hadn’t made it into the plastic Wonder Bread sleeves.Inside Treasury4, with the Spokane Falls power plant in the background. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)Working in the building now, there’s “just a bit of nostalgia,” Barrie says.It’s one of those “only in Spokane” stories that have made the Inland Northwest such a fun and fascinating place to cover in this “GeekWire on the Road” series.On my most recent visit, I stayed in Spokane’s historic downtown, strolled through the Kendall Yards Night Market, explored the Expo ’74 50th Anniversary exhibit at the Northwest Museum of Arts Culture, enjoyed some great restaurants and coffee shops, did a little thrifting, and talked with tech and business leaders about what’s next for the region’s innovation economy.Here are my takeaways as we wrap up this special series, including some emerging stories and themes that we’ll continue to track as part of our regular coverage.Efforts to unite the broader region are gaining momentum