New Mexico
New Mexico’s sovereign wealth fund is investing $50M in a bet that scientists will build startups in Albuquerque
In downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, Adam Hammer is showing me around the building of his newly-launched venture shop, called Roadrunner Venture Studios—an old mattress factory turned open-air office space where he hopes he can convince scientists, engineers, and deep-tech founders to come and build companies.
Hammer walks me over to a wall to the left of the front door—pointing to a graphic of technologies or companies that had their roots right there in New Mexico, but then moved elsewhere once they started to scale. Microsoft is the prominent example: Bill Gates and Paul Allen started building their first microcomputer in Albuquerque before they moved the company to Bellevue, Wash. so they could be closer to the West Coast’s talent pool.
“What we’re trying to do is continue a legacy here in New Mexico of bold ideas— imaginative people,” Hammer says. This time around—he’s hoping his team can convince founders to stay.
Roadrunner Venture Studios is the first venture studio spinoff of America’s Frontier Fund (AFF), the venture capital arm of the policy and education-focused non-profit that is funded by the likes of Mark Cuban, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel. Roadrunner is the first of a series of studios AFF plans to scatter across the country, with the intention of helping scientists or researchers from national, university, or corporate laboratories get capital, recruiting help, and the resources they need to turn their work into viable commercial products. Behind it all is a mission to ensure that the U.S. continues to be dominant in innovation.
Nathaniel Paolinelli/Courtesy of Roadrunner Venture Studios
Albuquerque is where things will start—in part because of its proximity to Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Lab, the Air Force Research Lab, and the University of New Mexico. But also because the state’s sovereign wealth fund, the New Mexico State Investment Council, two weeks ago agreed to invest $50 million as an anchor check into Roadrunner’s first venture capital fund, approximately $20 million of which will go directly into Roadrunner itself. The sovereign wealth fund, which just started making venture capital investments a few years ago and has invested in deep tech-focused funds like Lux Capital, Playground Global, and Anzu Partners, has asked these funds in limited partner agreements to at least look at companies based in New Mexico. In the case of Roadrunner, it’s asking the studio to build companies in New Mexico.
“I obviously wanted it to start here, and was willing to anchor the fund to make sure that occurred,” says Chris Cassidy, who oversees the private equity investments of New Mexico’s sovereign wealth fund.
The premise of Roadrunner is to bridge the gap—what Hammer calls the “valley of death”—between the technology being invented and funded in laboratories in New Mexico and elsewhere, and turning the projects into commercially viable companies. Right now, Roadrunner is working with labs like Nokia Bell Labs, the University of Michigan, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Roadrunner’s new general partner, Mike Mettler, who is joining Roadrunner as part of this new fund, was out at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California last week, Hammer says, meeting directly with scientists and assessing which ideas might be ready for company creation. Hammer is hoping to get various stakeholders on the same page, from local municipalities and state governments to other venture capital firms. He touts Hydrosonics, one of the studio’s first three companies, which is building electrolysis technologies to enable affordable hydrogen fuel. Hydrosonics’ founder, Dr. Luis Chavez, had been a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory before starting a company with Roadrunner last year.
“We met Luis in one of our scouting trips,” Hammer says, explaining how Chavez moved to Albuquerque, set up shop here and within a year had raised approximately $875,000 in venture capital as well as non-dilutive funding from the Economic Development Department.
Gilman Louie, the CEO of America’s Frontier Fund who formerly ran the CIA-funded investment firm In-Q-Tel, says that Roadrunner Venture Studios is part of the investment side of AFF’s business, and that there is “no crossover” and “no financial interest” between its non-profit donors, including Schmidt, Thiel, or Cuban. “All of our philanthropy is kept separate from all of our for-profit activities,” he says, noting that Roadrunner will be squarely focused on working with scientists who need capital.
The problem with any kind of new studio or venture capital firm is that it can take a long time—sometimes a decade—to actually deliver meaningful results or returns. In the near term, SIC’s Cassidy will be monitoring how many companies and how much talent moves to Albuquerque as a result of Roadrunner and is hopeful that Albuquerque, with its renowned Christmas chile sauce and more affordable real estate, can have a startup scene that takes off—and sticks around—too.
“What we’re trying to do is build this center of gravity here,” Hammer says.
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New Mexico
Running hot and cold: New Mexico runners earn 17 All American awards at national XC championships
YOUTH SPORTS
Gianna Chavez earns fourth in boys 8-and-under race
New Mexico had 17 athletes earn All American awards at the 2025 National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championship meet held Saturday at snowy Blue River Cross Country Course in Shelbyville, Indiana.
Gianni Chavez, of Albuquerque Athletics Track, earned his fourth USA Track & Field All American award with a fourth place finish in the 8-and-under boys 2K race. Chavez, an Osuna Elementary third-grader, ran his 2K race in a personal best time of 7 minutes, 44.9 seconds.
The top 25 individual finishers and top three teams earn USATF All American awards.
The Cougar Track Club 8U girls team, based out of Albuquerque, placed second and was led by Antonette Marquez, who finished 12th. Other CTC 8U girls team members include Kimberly Reed (31st), Viola Crabbe Maple (55th), Payton Pacheco (61st), Chloe Chino (85th), Emery Grieco (113th) and Zay’a Cheromiah (149th).
Others individual All American award winners include Ava Denton, of AAT, 16th in 13/14 girls 4K; Brynlee Reed, of CTC, 22nd in 15/16 girls 5K; Sihasin Fleg, of Running Medicine, 21st in 8U girls 2K; Eden Pino, of Running Medicine, 12th in 9/10 girls 3K; Nizhoni Fleg, of Running Medicine, 14th in 17/18 girls 5K; Brady Garcia, of Running Medicine, seventh in 17/18 boys 5K; Justice Jones, of Zia, 14th in 9/10 girls 3K; Emilo Otero Soltero, of Dukes Track Club, 12th in 9/10 boys 3K; Miles Gray, unattached, 21st in 9/10 boys 3K.
Also Saturday, at the Brooks Cross Country Nationals in San Diego, Eldorado’s Gianna Rahmer placed 17th in the girls championship 5K with a time of 18:00.7 and Moriarty’s Carmen Dorsey-Spitz placed 25th 18:09.4.
El Paso police seek suspect in East Side robbery, burglary
An unidentified man is suspected in an East Side robbery and a restaurant burglary on Oct. 20, 2025, in Crime Stoppers of El Paso’s Crime of the Week.
Provided by Crime Stoppers of El Paso
An Anthony, New Mexico man was sentenced to nearly two decades in federal prison for selling methamphetamine from a trailer on his parents’ property, authorities said.
A federal judge sentenced David Amaya, 43, to 19 years and seven months in prison on one count of possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, New Mexico federal court records show. He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release after he serves his prison term.
U.S. District Judge Margaret I. Strickland handed down the sentence on Wednesday, Dec. 10, at the federal courthouse in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk Williams prosecuted the case.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico Ryan Ellison and FBI Albuquerque Field Office Special Agent in Charge Justin A. Garris announced Amaya’s sentencing in a joint news release.
Amaya pleaded guilty to the charge in September as part of a plea agreement that dismissed one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, court records show.
Anthony, New Mexico man sells meth on parents’ property
FBI agents began investigating Amaya after he sold methamphetamine to a “controlled buyer” in July and August 2024, the news release states. Controlled buys are when law enforcement uses an undercover agent or a witness to purchase drugs from a suspected drug dealer.
The agents obtained a search warrant on Aug. 22, 2024, for a “specific tow-behind type trailer that Amaya was known to be living in and conducting narcotics transfers out of,” a federal complaint affidavit states. The trailer was located on property owned by Amaya’s parents in Anthony, New Mexico, the news release states.
The trailer did not have a restroom, but agents found a small makeshift bathroom structure with a porta-potty inside next to the trailer. The agents then obtained a warrant to also search the small bathroom structure.
The agents found “a large quantity of white crystalline substance suspected to be methamphetamine” throughout the trailer and bathroom structure, the affidavit states. In the bathroom, agents found a clothing hamper with “a gallon zip lock bag full of suspected methamphetamine” hidden inside.
Agents found a black Ruger .357 caliber handgun containing five rounds of .357 caliber ammunition and a black Mossberg 500 E410 gauge shotgun on the bed inside the trailer, the affidavit states. The news release states agents found “hundreds of rounds of ammunition.”
They also found about 4.42 grams of methamphetamine on the bed and another 26 grams under the bed, the affidavit states. Agents found eight more grams of methamphetamine on a nightstand.
Amaya told agents during an interview that the methamphetamine was his, he had acquired it over a period of time, and did not realize how much it was, the affidavit states. He added he “needed the guns for protection, so people would know he has them, making him safer,” the affidavit states.
In total, the agents found 1,183 grams of methamphetamine.
Aaron Martinez covers the criminal justice system for the El Paso Times. He may be reached at amartinez1@elpasotimes.com.
GRANTS, N.M. – The City of Grants is canceling this year’s annual Christmas light parade, citing the safety of the public and their own officers.
Dozens of floats were supposed to roll down Santa Fe Avenue on Saturday night, but Grants police are holding off until next year after three incidents where someone shot at law enforcement officers.
“It was definitely a difficult decision, but due to the incident that took place on December 8, where law enforcement was shot at in the area of Santa Fe Avenue, we made that decision to protect the citizens of Grants,” says Grants Police Chief Maxine Monte.
She says a New Mexico State Police officer was shot at while making a traffic stop. The officer walked away uninjured, but this was too much for the chief.
“We’ve had three different incidents where law enforcement was shot at. One was May of 2025, the other one was August of 2025, and then the recent event of December 8 of 2025,” says Monte.
It’s not a risk the chief wants to take, and points out people would be standing exactly where the last shooting happened.
“We have a lot of citizens that attend our parade, and our main concern was that they were out in the open in the middle of the night, and in the same area that our latest shooting took place.”
Grant residents will be able to see the floats during the day on Saturday. But even some daylight isn’t convincing some residents.
“I’ll be staying home,” said Amy Brigdon. “There’s too many people in the world that want to see bad things happen to other people. I’m not one of them.”
Police still don’t have a suspect for this week’s attempted shooting. Anyone with information is asked to get in touch with the Grants Police Department.
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