and butenolide containing cembrenoids (furanocembrenoids) have attracted considerable multidisciplinary interest in the late 20 th and 21 st century. 1 Within the synthesis community, this is exemplified by the twenty-four (successful and unsuccessful) elegant approaches towards this class of natural products. 2 Biosynthetically, it is evident that Bipinnatin J (1, Figure ) serves as a pivotal intermediate en route to more highly oxidized family members. The furan and butenolide moieties can be subsequently manipulated to produce highly congested, polycyclic frameworks. Indeed, there have been numerous studies and reviews detailing the various proposed biosynthetic interrelationships pertaining to furanocembrenoid-derived natural products (Figure ); some of these propositions have been validated in a laboratory setting, such as in the syntheses of Intricarene 2 and Coralloidalide B 3 from 1. Other family members presumably derived from 1 have remained elusive for decades, such as Bielschowskysin 4 and Lophotoxin 5, which have accumulated an additional 29 synthetic approaches collectively. While 4 has been found to show highly potent and selective anticancer properties based on preliminary biological evaluation, 5 has undergone much more extensive study and implementation as an irreversible neuromuscular acetylcholine antagonist. This communication delineates our inaugural entry into this class of natural products culminating in a concise (10-step), scalable (single-pass, gram-scale), enantioselective, convergent preparation of 1 enabled by powerfully simplifying Ni-catalyzed C-C bond forming reactions.