Explore Science founders — Tall Order portfolio

AI training data infrastructure

Explore Science has developed an end-to-end platform for scientists to manage the scientific process from thesis development to journal publication. Their autonomous peer-review product is used by 6,000+ researchers including at NASA, Oxford, Harvard, Stanford and MIT.

Frontier AI Fund III

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The founders

David Lightfoot

Co-Founder

David pioneered over-the-counter and custody solutions for blockchain assets out of Brisbane, then led Bullion Asset Management Services as chief executive. In 2022 he founded Cardinal Pictures, a feature film studio, and has since produced Numbered Lives and worked as associate producer on Land of Bad. He co-founded Explore Science in 2023, and co-authored Virtuous Machines, a paper on an AI system that designed and ran three psychology studies on its own.

Shane Ehrhardt

Co-Founder

Shane is the corresponding author of Virtuous Machines, a 2025 paper on an AI system that ran a scientific workflow fully autonomously. He has first-class honours in biomedical science at the University of Queensland, and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. His research tested whether brain stimulation paired with training helps learning generalise, and it ran in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2024.

Why this team

Shane proved an AI could run a scientific study, not in theory but in print, as corresponding author on 2025's Virtuous Machines. Gabrielle built the pipeline behind it. David's taken a company to a profitable exit, so the commercial side is covered.