When Crisis Strikes
Torch Systems
By Jared Campbell
October 2025
When the devastating Los Angeles wildfires erupted in January 2025, most people fled. Jo Morris, co-founder of our portfolio company’s early fire detection startup, flew from England straight into the chaos. Within hours, he and Torch CEO Vasya Tremsin team were on the ground distributing their sensor technology to at-risk communities, wearing the same clothes for three days as they worked tirelessly to put their product to work protecting lives and property.
“Are you the guys with the sensors?” became the question that greeted them everywhere they went. Despite being exhausted and disheveled, locals treated them like celebrities—not for fame, but for bringing real solutions to an urgent crisis. This defining moment crystallized everything we saw in this investment: a team that doesn’t just build technology, but deploys it where it matters most.
What initially attracted us to this investment was the exceptional founding team composition. CEO Vasya brings youthful energy and organizational prowess, shaped by scientist parents and validated by international science competition wins and Ivy League education. CTO Anton Tremsin is a world-renowned scientist with over 30 years building custom sensors deployed globally—including on the Hubble Space Telescope. Co-founder Jo Morris provides crucial commercial strategy and financial acumen, understanding that groundbreaking science means nothing without market viability.
This balanced triumvirate represents what sets them apart: deep technical expertise, operational excellence, and commercial sophistication united under a shared vision. Each founder owns their domain while maintaining mutual accountability to overall strategy, operating under an Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) that ensures alignment and execution. Their EOS provides a simple but helpful framework for establishing individual and company goals, defining clear focus areas, ensuring clarity on ownership, and systematically tracking tasks and to-dos—creating the operational backbone that allows their diverse expertise to function as a unified force.
Despite being exhausted and disheveled, locals treated them like celebrities—not for fame, but for bringing real solutions to an urgent crisis.
The company’s approach to growth demonstrates remarkable strategic discipline. Despite significant consumer and international demand, they’ve deliberately said no to pursue focus over expansion. Instead, they’re targeting large-scale deployments with utilities and government entities—fewer customer interfaces, greater impact potential.
Their lean operational model strategically leverages trusted contractors and consultants across software development, hardware design, and specialized engineering, while keeping core competencies and key strategic functions in-house. This approach has proven financially effective while maintaining quality, with their fractional CFO providing systematic financial modeling and compliance from day one—a decision the founders wish they’d made even earlier. The key is knowing which capabilities are central to their competitive advantage as they grow.
The LA wildfire response wasn’t just a humanitarian gesture—it became their first significant contract with a major utility provider. The crisis validated what we believed: that this technology addresses a critical market need with immediate, measurable impact. Their willingness to deploy solutions that were ready and reliable—rather than waiting for perfection—demonstrated the team’s bias toward action.
The company plans to deploy 600-1000 sensors by the end of 2025, requiring a head of operations with IoT scaling experience and a backend/AI engineer to handle sensitive multi-industry data. These strategic hires will build the team necessary for the next growth phase.
What excites us most isn’t just the technology or market opportunity—it’s the team’s core identity. Their willingness to learn quickly, set egos aside, and be “the dumbest person in the room” creates a culture of continuous improvement that scales.
From Hubble telescopes to burning hillsides, this team transforms scientific innovation into real-world solutions. Sometimes the best investments reveal themselves not in boardrooms, but in moments of crisis when founders choose to fly toward the fire instead of away from it.