Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United States based Founder operating in the Robotics space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Pieter Abbeel
Founder, President, Chief Scientist of Covariant
Pieter Abbeel joined covariant.ai as Co-Founder, President, Chief Scientist in 2017. Pieter Abbeel is Professor at UC Berkeley [2008- ], Co-Founder covariant.ai [2017- ], Co-Founder Gradescope [2014- ], Research Scientist at OpenAI [2016-2017], Founding Faculty Partner AI@TheHouse, Advisor to many AI/Robotics start-ups. He works in machine learning and robotics, in particular his research focuses on making robots learn from people (apprenticeship learning), how to make robots learn through their own trial and error (reinforcement learning), and how to speed up skill acquisition through learning-to-learn (meta-learning). His robots have learned advanced helicopter aerobatics, knot-tying, basic assembly, organizing laundry, locomotion, and vision-based robotic manipulation. He has won numerous awards, including best paper awards at ICML, NIPS and ICRA, early career awards from NSF, Darpa, ONR, AFOSR, Sloan, TR35, IEEE, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Pieter’s work is frequently featured in the popular press, including New York Times, BBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Forbes, Tech Review, NPR.
Follow Pieter Abbeel:
About Covariant, University of California Berkeley: Covariant is an AI Robotics company developing a universal AI that enables robots to see, reason, and act on the world around them.
_______
Jiajun Zhu
Co-Founder and CEO of Nuro
Jiajun Zhu is a co-founder of Nuro. he used to be the principal software engineer of Google. He eraned his master’s degree ta University of Virginia and his bachelor’s degree at Fudan University.
Follow Jiajun Zhu:
About Nuro: Nuro develops and operates a fleet of electric self-driving vehicles that are built to deliver assorted local goods.
Aditya Singh
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Neotribe Ventures
Adit is a hands-on early stage company builder having helped build three startups with an operating career spanning 15 years before entering venture capital. From 2013 to 2017, he led the b2b/enterprise practice at Foundation Capital as a Partner investing across the stack from enterprise applications, cloud infrastructure, analytics and cybersecurity. Adit graduated from University of Illinois (BS/MS in Computer Engineering) and from the University of Chicago (MBA). He started his career as an engineer at Growth Networks (a NEA/Lightspeed company) which was acquired by Cisco for $355m. At Cisco, he led the datacenter infrastructure team as a senior technical leader and delivered several products (converged servers, switches and edge routers) for data center infrastructure. He co-founded a networking appliance company, Bitsplay Systems that streamed video from data centers, out of the EIR program at Foundation Capital. In 2008, he joined Enphase Energy (networked solar microinverters), a Series A startup as their first product manager through IPO on the NASDAQ in 2012. When Enphase went public, Adit was Senior Director of Product Management and responsible for the main microinverter business. He is extremely connected in the the deeply technical circles of silicon valley and has the reputation of building companies from the bottom up by working hand in hand with founders.
Follow Aditya Singh:
About Bloomreach, Cockroach Labs, Neotribe Ventures, Phantom: Neotribe Ventures is an early stage-venture capital firm which invests in breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination.
Steven Bragonier
CFO and Co-Founder of Neotribe Ventures
Follow Steven Bragonier:
About Gainspeed, Neotribe Ventures: Neotribe Ventures is an early stage-venture capital firm which invests in breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination.
Faraz Sayyed
Founder of VIVID Technologies
Omer Khan is one of the co-founders for Vivid technologies. He has over 10 years of experience working with several blue chip telecom companies and banks, including AT&T, Barclays, Telenor, Apple and BNYM. He has been project managing and leading the telephony infrastructure that runs a business of more than $200 M. His last engagement was for Barclays UK where he was leading the Contact Center infrastructure engineering team responsible for implementing speech recognition IVRs. In recent past, Vivid technologies has been incubated by Microsoft Ventures, UK and now a part of acceleration program in Silicon valley (Blackbox). Omer has also published research papers on SIPs weaknesses and how to mitigate them. He has also been a speaker at Black Hat, Chase and HITB Malaysia. Interestingly Omer is not only a techy/co-founder but also a part-time musician who has played with mainstream bands (Noori, MHB, EP) in Pakistan and a half baked writer. He has assisted in scripts for 2 feature films in Pakistan (Khuda key liye, Bol).
Follow Faraz Sayyed:
About Living Amsterdam, Living Amsterdam, Notion Technologies, systemini internet technologies, VIVID Technologies: VIVID Technologies are transforming the traditional customer service experience.
Eliot Horowitz
CEO and Founder of Viam
Eliot Horowitz is the CEO and Founder at Viam.
Follow Eliot Horowitz:
About Viam: Viam is a robotics company that aims to build products that helps people’s daily life.
Erik Palitsch
Co-Founder & CEO of Freeform
Erik Palitsch is a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Freeform Future.
Follow Erik Palitsch:
About Freeform: Stealth-mode additive manufacturing company.
Thomas Ronacher
Co-Founder & CTO of Freeform
Thomas J. Ronacher is a Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Freeform Future.
Follow Thomas Ronacher:
About Freeform: Stealth-mode additive manufacturing company.
Eugene Izhikevich
Co-Founder & CEO of Brain Corp
Eugene M. Izhikevich is Chairman and CEO of Brain Corporation in San Diego and was formerly Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at the Neurosciences Institute, San Diego.He is editor-in-chief of Scholarpedia, the free peer-reviewed.
Follow Eugene Izhikevich:
About Brain Corp, Scholarpedia: Brain Corp develops core technology for the robotics industry.
Allen Gruber
Co-Founder, Executive Vice President, Board Member of Brain Corp
Allen Gruber is a neuroscientist, physician, and founder of several successful technology companies. In 1993, Gruber co-founded INTERVU, Inc, a streaming video provider, which went public and was sold to Akamai Technologies, Inc.(NASDAQ: AKAM) for $2.8 billion. He founded Kintera, Inc., in 1999, and later served as Executive Vice President in charge of Engineering for Kintera, Inc., an online fundraising and marketing platform for nonprofit organizations. Kintera reached a market capitalization of $500 million and was sold to Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLKB). Gruber graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Biochemistry and also with an MD. He attended Washington University for clinical and research training and was on the faculty of the University of Texas. Gruber was a Senior Fellow in the Institute of Neural Computation at UCSD in 2007. His professional memberships include the American Academy of Neurology, the Society for Neuroscience, and IEEE.
Follow Allen Gruber:
About Brain Corp, Intheon: Brain Corp develops core technology for the robotics industry.
Grant Canary
Founder & CEO of DroneSeed
Grant Canary is CEO of DroneSeed, a Techstars Seattle 2016 company which is paid by Timber companies per acre to plant tree seeds, spray to protect them, and monitor growth–by drone swarm. This year DroneSeed received the FAA’s first approval for up to five aircraft to be flown by a single pilot each carrying a 57lb payload. DroneSeed works for 3 of the 5 largest timber companies and recently signed a contract with The Nature Conservancy to restore post wildfire burn sites. They are backed by Social Capital and Spero Ventures. This is Grant’s second venture. His first was acquired. Under the acquirer the team raised $10M and built a 60k square foot factory to produce industrial insect protein from food waste for sustainable salmon feed. The company is still going strong. Grant’s spent his entire carrier working within for-profit companies to benefit the environment including Vestas Wind Energy and the US Green Building Council. Grant loves meeting and championing awesome people working on cool things and sometimes hires them.
Follow Grant Canary:
About DroneSeed: DroneSeed is paid per acre to plant tree seed vessels after a wildfire — using heavy-lift Drone Swarms
Bay McLaughlin
Co-Founder of Brinc
I’ve supported technology startups for the last 13 years. Half of this time was spent at Apple as a founding team member of their global SMB channel and as the founder of their first Entrepreneurship Evangelism channel. To support startups at Apple, I partnered with the world’s best founders, venture capitalists, incubators and accelerators to identify and solve their most pressing strategic issues. My team at Apple grossed more than $350M USD in sales and is still the #1 team globally in Apple SMB’s division. The other half of my career has been spent inside of or founding startups, two of which failed, one of which exited successfully. Currently, I have equity positions in 143 companies across 35 countries, ranging from B2B SaaS platforms to the number one website in surfing and medical and drone technologies that improve lives and our world every day (plus two Unicorns ;-). Most recently, I’ve co-founded Brinc.io, a global venture accelerator platform. We have 9 accelerator programs, offices in 6 countries, and 2 venture capital funds. We are also one of the top 10 largest early-stage venture capital firms globally. I also serve on the Boards of Brinc, Soundbrenner, SilentMode (combined worth more than $100M and growing fast) and the not for profit entrepreneurship society called EYES. I create content from the heart and only want to do one thing well… provide value to everyone that interacts with me and help everyone out just like others have done for me.
Follow Bay McLaughlin:
About Brinc: Brinc is a leader in global venture acceleration, operating 18 multidisciplinary accelerator programs in 7 countries.
Ben Marcus
Co-Founder of AirMap
Ben Marcus is an aviation expert and executive. Prior to AirMap, he co-founded and was CEO of jetAVIVA, the world’s largest light business jet sales company. He started his career as a flight instructor and later became a flight test engineer. Ben currently serves on the board of Angel Flight West. He is an FAA-certified Airline Transport Pilot and Flight Instructor with over 4,500 hours of flight experience and ratings in airplanes, helicopters, seaplanes, gliders, and six types of jets.
Follow Ben Marcus:
About AirMap, UP Partners: AirMap operates as an airspace services platform for unmanned aircraft.
Bret Chilcott
Founder of AgEagle Aerial Systems
Bret founded AgEagle in 2013 as a spin off of Kansas State University research project. Prior to founding the Company, Mr. Chilcott held sales and marketing positions with Cessna Aircraft and Cobalt Boats. In addition, he led product Development & Engineering for Snap-on for 12 years.
Follow Bret Chilcott:
About AgEagle Aerial Systems: AgEagle is a technologically advanced aerial imagery-based data collection and analytics solutions.
Pen King
Co Founder and Partner of Innovating Capital
Follow Pen King:
About Innovating Capital, PKJ Ventures: Innovating Capital is a premier technology fund with a focus on financial, cybersecurity, insurance, and life sciences.
John B. Rogers
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Local Motors
John B. Rogers, Jr. is the CEO and co-founder of Local Motors, a technology company based in Phoenix that designs, builds and sells vehicles. This disruptive company is redefining vehicle development by pairing micro-manufacturing with co-creation. Local Motors is the first company to utilize Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) in vehicle production, as evidenced when it debuted the world’s first 3D-printed car, the Strati, in September of 2014. Rogers founded Local Motors after serving for seven years in the United States Marine Corps, where he was an Infantry Company Commander. He has worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Co., as an investment analyst at Ewing & Partners, and at a startup medical device company in the People’s Republic of China. He serves as the Chief Investment Officer and Director of the RBR Foundation, a philanthropic foundation focused on education and healthcare. A graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Rogers holds a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar).
Follow John B. Rogers:
About Local Motors: Local Motors is an American motor vehicle company that creates and delivers safe and accessible mobility solutions for local communities.
Chiu Chau
Co-Founder, CTO of OpenTrons
Chiu worked in biotech for 20+ years before building the first OpenTrons robot. In his previous company (bought by Immucor in 2008) he led the engineering team to build the core multiplex qPCR automation technology now used in most blood banks for advanced blood typing. Chiu grew up in Hong Kong and is a diehard raquetball player.
Follow Chiu Chau:
About OpenTrons: OpenTrons is a developer of a pipetting robot technology designed to automate experiments.
Will Canine
Co-Founder and CPO of OpenTrons
Follow Will Canine:
About OpenTrons: OpenTrons is a developer of a pipetting robot technology designed to automate experiments.
Marc Raibert
Founder of Boston Dynamics
Marc Raibert is founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics, a company that creates some of the world’s most advanced dynamic robots, such as BigDog, Atlas, Spot and Handle. These robots are inspired by the remarkable ability of animals to move with agility, dexterity, perception and intelligence. A key ingredient of these robots is their dynamic behavior, which contributes to their effectiveness and versatility in the real world. Before starting Boston Dynamics, Raibert was Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at MIT and Carnegie Mellon. While at CMU and MIT Raibert founded the Leg Laboratory, a lab that helped establish the scientific basis for highly dynamic robots and that set the stage for the work done at Boston Dynamics. Raibert is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Follow Marc Raibert:
About Boston Dynamics, Boston Dynamics: Boston Dynamics is an engineering company that specializes in building dynamic robots and software for human simulation.
Jordan Kretchmer
Co-Founder and CEO of Rapid Robotics
Jordan Kretchmer is the Founder and CEO of Livefyre. Livefyre brings the social web right to any publisher or brand site to drive real-time conversations and community engagement. The company’s suite of real-time products include LiveComments, LiveBlogs, and social content curation, and Livefyre’s customers include FOX News, CBS, Dow Jones, AOL, TIME Magazine, and thousands of others. Kretchmer founded the San Francisco based startup in December 2009, and has overseen its growth to the 7th largest site network on the web, delivering 1 billion live content streams every month. Before launching Livefyre, Kretchmer was the Vice President of Brand at Current TV where he led brand redevelopment for the media company. Previously, he was the Digital Creative Director at Butler Shine Stern and Partners, and Vice President/Associate Creative Director at Mullen Advertising. Kretchmer lives in San Francisco.
Follow Jordan Kretchmer:
About Livefyre, Rapid Robotics: Rapid Robotics provides out-of-the-box automation for manufacturers.
Sampriti Bhattacharyya
Founder of Hydroswarm
Sampriti Bhattacharyya is a roboticist, and founder of an underwater drone startup, Hydroswarm. She is a PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, with a MS in Aerospace Engineering, and a BS in Electrical Engineering. Hydroswarm has gained both national and international attention, being featured by leading outlets like Forbes, The Guardian, Smithsonian, TechCrunch and many others. Sampriti has been as named one of Forbes 30 under 30, Class of 2016; Robohub’s 25 Women in Robotics, 2014; and Connected World’s 2016 Women of M2M. She is an active advocate for women in STEM fields.
Follow Sampriti Bhattacharyya:
About Hydroswarm, Navier, ONET Global: Hydroswarm is building data infrastructure for the world’s oceans.
Kai Yu
Founder & CEO of Horizon Robotics
Dr. Kai YU is the founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics Inc. He is a recognized pioneer and leader in deep learning and artificial intelligence. He was the founder and Head of Baidu Institute of Deep Learning (IDL), the first and most established artificial intelligence R&D center in China industry. Dr. Yu is elected to China “Top 1000 Talents”, a prestigious group of technology leaders of the country.
Follow Kai Yu:
About Horizon Robotics: Horizon Robotics focuses on artificial intelligence computing for smart mobility.
Chang Huang
Co-Founder & VP of Algorithm of Horizon Robotics
Chang Huang was Principle Scientist and Architect (T10) at Baidu, one of core leaders in founding IDL. He is one of the top researcher in computer vision, machine learning, pattern recognition and information globally. As a renowned deep learning expert in both industry and academia, he has over 4400 citations and owns 6 US patents. The face recognition system he developed was adopted by a wide range of digital cameras (80 percent of the market) and image management applications including Apple’s iPhoto. At Baidu, he led the image technology team at IDL launched multiple important products including a full-web face search engine, similar image search, text recognition in natural scenes, mobile image search, image smart match, etc. Prior to Baidu, Dr. Huang served as a researcher at the University of Southern California and NEC Labs America. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. Degree from the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University, where he received many awards including MSRA Fellowship of 2006, Tsinghua’s Excellent PhD Thesis Award of 2007, Beijing’s Excellent PhD Thesis Award of 2007, etc. Dr. He also won the 2012 1st Excellent Research Achievement Award with his project “Theory and Methods of Geometrical Computation in Visual Media” and participated in China’s 973 Plan project “3D-Space Oriented Theory and Methods of Information Processing of Internet Information in Chinese.
Follow Chang Huang:
About Horizon Robotics: Horizon Robotics focuses on artificial intelligence computing for smart mobility.
Ming Yang
Co-Founder & VP, Software of Horizon Robotics
Ming Yang is one of the founding members of the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) and a former senior researcher at NEC Labs America. Dr. Yang is a well-recognized researcher in computer vision and machine learning. His research interests include object tracking, face recognition, massive image retrieval and multimedia content analysis. Dr. Yang owns 14 US patents, and has over 20 publications in top conferences like CVPR and ICCV and 8 publications in the top international journal T-PAMI with more than 5300 citations. During his tenure at Facebook, Dr. Yang led the deep learning research project “Deep Face”, which had a significant impact in the deep learning research community and got widely reported by various media including Science Magazine, MIT Tech Review and Forbes. Dr. Yang has served as a member of the program committee for multiple top international conferences including CVPR, ICCV, NIPS and ACMMM. He has also been a reviewer for several top international journals including T-PAMI, IJCV and T-IP. As the leader of the NEC-UIUC team, Dr. Yang and his team achieved the best result in the TRECVid 2008 and 2009 Event Detection Evaluation. He was also a member of the NEC team to win the 1st place in the ImageNet 2010 Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge. Moreover, Dr. Yang is the owner of 14 US patents. Dr. Ming Yang received his B.Eng. and M.Eng. Degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University and Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern University.
Follow Ming Yang:
About Horizon Robotics: Horizon Robotics focuses on artificial intelligence computing for smart mobility.
Annie Tao
Co-Founder & VP, Operations of Horizon Robotics
Annie Tao has extensive experiences in top-notch technology and internet companies globally, with in-depth strategic thinking and analytic capabilities of the industry in both US and China. Prior to Horizon Robotics, she worked in Google Sales group at Silicon Valley and Baidu in both US lab and China. She led a number of global projects at Google, including product search operations optimization and key payment product operations at launches. TAO received Master’s Degree in Marketing from Northwestern University，Chicago, and was exchanged to Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania during undergraduate.
Follow Annie Tao:
About Horizon Robotics: Horizon Robotics focuses on artificial intelligence computing for smart mobility.
Jennifer Gill Roberts
Co-Founder, Managing Partner of Grit Ventures
Startup investor, entrepreneur and technologist with a passion for launching startups, both for-profit and non-profit in Silicon Valley. Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Grit Ventures. Grit believes artificial intelligence is changing the world. We fund pre-seed and seed-stage Robotics + AI startups that are disrupting major verticals like construction, transportation, manufacturing, agtech, and logistics.
Follow Jennifer Gill Roberts:
About Grit Ventures: Grit Ventures invests the Clean Machine Revolution with investment hubs in the Bay Area, Denver, Austin, and Pittsburgh.
Kelly Coyne
Co-Founder, Managing Partner of Grit Ventures
Follow Kelly Coyne:
About Grit Ventures: Grit Ventures invests the Clean Machine Revolution with investment hubs in the Bay Area, Denver, Austin, and Pittsburgh.
Jorge Heraud
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Blue River Technology
Jorge is the co-founder and CEO of Blue River Technology Inc. (www.bluerivert.com), a start-up company that intends to revolutionize weeding and dramatically reduce chemical use.
Follow Jorge Heraud:
About Blue River Technology: Blue River Technology employs computer vision and robotics technologies to build intelligent solutions for the agricultural industries.
Sasan Amini
Co-Founder and CEO of Clear Labs
Sasan combined his academic expertise and passion for healthy living when he co-founded Clear Labs with a mission to set a new paradigm for food safety and quality. Prior to serving as the CEO of Clear Labs, he worked in the Advanced Research department at Illumina. Sasan earned his PhD in Genomics from Princeton and holds multiple patents and publications in the field.
Follow Sasan Amini:
About Clear Labs: Clear Labs is a provider of a fully-automated sequencing platform for turnkey diagnostics.
Vikas Gupta
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Wonder Workshop
Follow Vikas Gupta:
About Wonder Workshop: Wonder Workshop provides a platform that makes programming fun and accessible for children while they play.
Paul L Hunter
President & Chief Executive Officer & Founder of Sterling Payment Technologies
A Tampa businessman for more than 30 years, Mr. Hunter became involved in the payment industry by investing and serving on the board of a small developer of electronic payment technology. During his 12 years as a merchant, Mr. Hunter helped test and install a PC based point of sale system designed for a specific auto service vertical. That experience, coupled with his experience investing in payment gateway development in the late 1990s, led him to start Sterling Payment Technologies. Mr. Hunter launched Sterling Payment Technologies with a long-term commitment to building a technology focused payment processor from the ground up. Mr. Hunter received a BBA in Finance from the University of Georgia in 1977. Before and during college he worked in the banking and grocery industries. After receiving an MBA from Georgia State University in 1980, he held a position with Smith Barney selling stocks, bonds, and private placements primarily to small financial institutions, large private investors and retirement plans.
Follow Paul L Hunter:
About Sterling Payment Technologies: Sterling Payment Technologies is one of the most innovative, customer-focused payment processors in the industry.
Abraham Bachrach
Founder, CTO of Skydio
Follow Abraham Bachrach:
About Skydio: Skydio uses artificial intelligence to create flying drones that are used by consumer, enterprise, and government customers.
Gene Munster
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Gene Munster is the Managing Partner and founder at Loup Ventures.
Follow Gene Munster:
About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Doug Clinton
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Doug Clinton is a managing partner and co-founder at Loup Ventures. Prior to Loup Ventures, Doug was a research analyst at Piper Jaffray where he covered the internet space with Gene Munster. Covered companies included Apple, Google, and Facebook. Prior to joining Piper Jaffray in 2008, Doug was an early employee in sales and operations at Enpocket, which was later acquired by Nokia. Doug’s experience at Enpocket led to his interest in startups. Doug holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Boston University.
Follow Doug Clinton:
About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Andrew Murphy
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Andrew Murphy is the Managing Partner and founder at Loup Ventures. Before that, he was the Senior Marketing Manager at Ecolab.
Follow Andrew Murphy:
About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Dileep George
Co-Founder of Vicarious
Follow Dileep George:
About Vicarious: Vicarious is an artificial intelligence company that uses the computational principles of the brain to develop general intelligence.
Mike Collett
Founder & Managing Partner of Promus Ventures
Mike Collett is Founder and Managing Partner of Promus Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Chicago, San Francisco and Luxembourg investing in deep-technology software and hardware companies in the U.S., Europe and New Zealand. Mike has been a venture capital investor in software and hardware for over 15 years. He has invested in more than 70 private technology companies, including areas such as artificial intelligence/machine learning, space, fintech, robotics, synthetic biology, computer vision, connected car, blockchain, healthcare, insurance, agriculture, nanotechnology and others. Mike currently serves on numerous Boards of Directors of private technology companies, including Spire, Gauss Surgical, ICEYE, CrossLend, Rhombus and others. Mike previously was Founder and Managing Partner of Masters Capital Nanotechnology Fund, a venture capital firm. Investments included companies in quantum cascade lasers, quantum dots, photonic integrated optoelectronic devices, nano-engineered fabrics and others. While at Masters Capital, a hedge fund, Mike invested in private technology software and hardware companies. Prior to venture capital, Mike was a Vice President at Merrill Lynch in their Mergers & Acquisitions group as well as an Associate at Duff & Phelps. Mike holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Math and Bachelor’s of Arts in English from Vanderbilt University. He also holds a Masters of Business Administration in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis. Mike and his wife Paige have four children and live in Chicago.
Follow Mike Collett:
About Promus Ventures: Investing in early-stage deep-tech software/hardware companies run by visionary and tenacious founding teams.
Vitaliy Goncharuk
CEO and Founder of Augmented Pixels
I am CEO and founder of Augmented Pixels, based in Palo Alto, California, which provides software for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) for augmented reality(AR/VR Glasses) and autonomous navigation(Robots / Drones). In 2016 I was honored to be a mentor and a judge at NASA(USA) Space Race project (link: http://bit.ly/2k1pTRX ) and was also asked to report in front of the board of directors of National Academy of Sciences (USA) about the long-term impact of Artificial Intelligence in several industries(link: http://bit.ly/2jPQ3Vy ). My hobbies: Skydiving, Good books, Mafia game(not Werewolf :=)), Jiu Jitsu(japanese style) and Control Line.
Follow Vitaliy Goncharuk:
About Augmented Pixels: Augmented Pixels – a leader in precise 3D geolocation and 3D maps crowdsourcing technologies
Phillip Walker
CEO, Co-Founder, Board Member of Transcend Robotics
A serial entrepreneur who values hitting milestones for investors and producing scalable results.
Follow Phillip Walker:
About Transcend Robotics: Transcend Robotics is a startup that develops ground-based mobile robots.
Mark Gosselin
Founder & CTO of Glowforge
Mark did the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, firmware, and v1 software at the past two companies he founded. His last startup sold for $112M. He built a combination plasma torch, 3D printer, laser, & milling machine in his garage. For fun.
Follow Mark Gosselin:
About Glowforge: Glowforge is a manufacturer of 3D laser printers intended to offer printing services on a wide range of materials and many more.
Colin Angle
Chairman, CEO and Founder of iRobot
Colin Angle is incurably optimistic about the future of people and robotics. A robot builder from MIT who wanted to change the world by making practical robotics a mainstream reality, Colin envisions a world where intelligent and and purpose-first robots help people do more. As a visionary at the forefront of the growing home robot industry, today Colin serves as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the iconic consumer robot company he founded in 1990: iRobot. He is an industry pioneer and one of the world’s leading authorities on practical robots. Under Colin’s leadership, iRobot has grown from a MIT startup to become the global leader in consumer robots, with $884 million in revenue and more than 1,000 employees in twelve countries. In 2002, iRobot established the home robot category with the creation of the award-winning Roomba robot vacuum. The company’s product line, including the Roomba and the Braava family of robot mops, made practical home robots a reality for the first time and have become the most successful consumer robots in history, with more than 25 million sold worldwide.
Follow Colin Angle:
About iRobot, Ixcela, Robots in Service of the Environment, Science From Scientists: iRobot is an American technology company that designs and builds behavior-based AI robots.
Jackie Wu
Founder & CEO of Corvus Robotics
Follow Jackie Wu:
About Corvus Robotics: Corvus Robotics make indoor drones for warehouses Inventorying.
Forrest Meyen
Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Lunar Outpost
Lunar Outposts builds autonomous systems and infrastructure for space and extreme environments. We have made great strides in using the resources of space to benefit Earth through the accomplishment of several historical firsts. We signed the first contract for the sale of space resources to a government (the United States) and contributed to the first utilization of space resources on another planet through our work on MOXIE by creating oxygen from the atmosphere of Mars. Lunar Outpost rovers are the mobility solution of choice for scientists and industry. We are happy to work with you to plan and design your mission on the surface of the moon and beyond. On Earth, Lunar Outpost is building infinite-life, independent, inspection robots for chemical plants, the energy industry, and other extreme environments. We also produce a line of environmental monitoring sensors that are currently deployed in over 20 states and have collected over 20 billion data points. Forrest is a co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Lunar Outpost. He helps prepare get robots to space and run Lunar Outpost’s Mars Operations for MOXIE on the NASA Perseverance Rover. He also hosts the podcast Tough Tech Today with Meyen and Miller. Previously he designed spacecraft and Draper, developed MOXIE at MIT, and co-founded Raptor Maps Inc.
Follow Forrest Meyen:
About Destiny Space Systems, Lunar Outpost, NASA: Lunar Outpost creates technologies that enable a sustainable presence in cislunar space while driving a positive impact here on Earth.
Justin Cyrus
Founder and CEO of Lunar Outpost
Follow Justin Cyrus:
About Lunar Outpost: Lunar Outpost creates technologies that enable a sustainable presence in cislunar space while driving a positive impact here on Earth.
Steve Hogan
Founder of Fetch Robotics
Follow Steve Hogan:
About Fetch Robotics, Tech-Rx, Tech-Rx, Thiel Fellowship: Fetch Robotics provides the market’s only cloud-driven Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) solution for warehousing intralogistics environments.
Ryan Chin
Co-Founder & Chief Policy Officer of Optimus Ride
Dr. Ryan C.C. Chin is Co-founder and Chief Policy Officer of Optimus Ride Inc – an MIT spinoff company based in Boston, MA that develops self-driving technologies that enable safe, sustainable, and equitable mobility access. Dr. Chin was the Managing Director of the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Lab (2012-2015). He conducted Smart Cities research in the areas of urban mobility, housing, energy, and big data analytics. He researched Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand (MoD) Systems – a network of self-driving, shared-use, electric vehicles (EVs). He developed EVs including the GreenWheel, RoboScooter, Persuasive Electric Vehicle, and the CityCar – a foldable, electric, two-person vehicle. Time Magazine named the CityCar the “Automotive Invention of the Year” in 2007. His research led to the MIT Press publication of Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century by Mitchell, Borroni-Bird, and Burns in 2010. Dr. Chin advises industry and government agencies on Smart Cities innovations. He is a member of PCAST’s (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) working group on “Technology and the Future of Cities.” His MIT Professional Education course “Beyond Smart Cities” attracts global participants from corporate, public, and educational sectors. He frequently travels as a speaker at conferences like TEDx, MIT EmTech, and Smart City Expo. His op-ed articles have been featured in publications like the Guardian and BBC. His work has been exhibited at the Cooper Hewitt, Venice Biennale, and London Science Museum. Dr. Chin has won awards for his research including the Katerva Award (2014) and the 100K Buckminster Fuller Challenge (2009). Esquire Magazine named him as one of the “Best and Brightest Innovators” under the age of 35 (2006). He received at MIT his PhD (2012) and MS (2004) in Media Arts and Sciences and a MArch (2000) in Architecture. He earned both his BCE and BSArch from the Catholic University of America (1997).
Follow Ryan Chin:
About Optimus Ride: Optimus Ride is a self-driving vehicle company providing communities with safe, reliable, convenient, and sustainable mobility services.
Sertac Karaman
Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Optimus Ride
Sertac Karaman is an Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (since Fall 2012). He is the Director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) – interdepartmental research center committed to advancing research and education in the analytical information and decision sciences. He has obtained B.S. degrees in mechanical engineering and in computer engineering from the Istanbul Technical University, Turkey, in 2007; an S.M. degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 2009; and a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science also from MIT in 2012. His research interests lie in the broad areas of robotics and control theory. In particular, he studies the applications of probability theory, stochastic processes, stochastic geometry, formal methods, and optimization for the design and analysis of high-performance cyber-physical systems. The application areas of his research include driverless cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, distributed aerial surveillance systems, air traffic control, certification and verification of control systems software, and many others. He delivered the the Robotics: Science and Systems Early Career Spotlight Talk in 2017. He is the recipient of an Amazon Faculty Award in 2020, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award in 2017, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2017, Army Research Office Young Investigator Award in 2015, National Science Foundation Faculty Career Development (CAREER) Award in 2014, AIAA Wright Brothers Graduate Award in 2012, and an NVIDIA Fellowship in 2011. He serves as the technical area chair for the Transactions on Aerospace Electronic Systems for the robotics area, a co-chair of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee of Algorithms for the Planning and Control of Robot Motion. He serves on the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) Foundation Board and acts as the Secretary of the RSS Foundation. He is also co-founder of Optimus Ride, a Boston-based MIT-spinoff startup company that is developing self-driving vehicle technologies to enable accessible, equitable, safe and sustainable mobility for all.
Follow Sertac Karaman:
About Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Optimus Ride: Optimus Ride is a self-driving vehicle company providing communities with safe, reliable, convenient, and sustainable mobility services.
Ramiro Almeida
Co-Founder, President & Chief Strategy Officer of Optimus Ride
Ramiro Almeida has been appointed Professor and Director of The Innovation Lab at MDC. He recently spent three years conducting research at the intersection of innovation, social transformation, technology and entrepreneurship at the MIT Media Lab. Prior to his appointment at MIT, he was a Fellow at Harvard University. He was awarded the prestigious Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design. During his tenure he published the book A Line in The Andes, as part of a research studio that aimed at detailing the potential for urban design solutions required to meet the transportation challenges in developing a city’s first subway line. As an entrepreneur, he invested in early stage startups including the publication of the first Spanish version of Wired magazine in 1999, where he was first exposed to disruptive technologies. He later invested in Libri Mundi in 2006, the most prestigious bookstore and publishing company in Ecuador, which was acquired by La Favorita, the largest retail corporation in the country. As part of an alternative creative process, he explores publishing and film production. During his residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab in 2013, Mr. Almeida started the project to produce a feature animation film about technology, life and evolution. With MIT colleagues, he is working on designing self‑driving vehicle systems.
Follow Ramiro Almeida:
About Optimus Ride: Optimus Ride is a self-driving vehicle company providing communities with safe, reliable, convenient, and sustainable mobility services.
Jenny Larios Berlin
Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of Optimus Ride
Jenny Larios Berlin is a veteran of car sharing technology and operations, having worked previously for the disruptive Zipcar. As a General Manager, Jenny introduced Zipcar operations into several university campuses nationwide. She created the strategic vision and managed the sales, marketing, and operations teams to deliver groundbreaking mobility solutions. Jenny was also the National Members Services Manager for Zipcar and was responsible for their service operations in all of their cities. In 2015, Jenny earned her Master’s in City Planning and MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While at MIT, Jenny worked in the Transportation Lab investigating mobility and urban transportation systems in low- income communities. She was also the recipient of the Public Service Center Fellowship to produce a participatory filmmaking project with an affordable housing community in the heart of Boston, MA. Ms. Larios Berlin collaborated with MIT Prof. Donald Sull on innovative frameworks for strategy development and implementation, which culminated in the publication of the book Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World (2015).
Follow Jenny Larios Berlin:
About Optimus Ride: Optimus Ride is a self-driving vehicle company providing communities with safe, reliable, convenient, and sustainable mobility services.
Jonah Myerberg
Co-Founder & CTO of Desktop Metal
Jonah Myerberg is a Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Desktop Metal, a company committed to accelerating the transformation of manufacturing with end-to-end metal 3D printing solutions. As CTO, Myerberg is responsible for leading the vision and direction of Desktop Metal’s 3D printing solutions. His duties include translating the technology behind the company’s metal 3D printing systems into reliable parts for customers, and identifying opportunities to expand manufacturing capabilities through additive manufacturing. Prior to joining Desktop Metal in 2015, Myerberg held senior positions with a variety of organizations focused on battery development and performance, including Renovo Motors and Boston Impact, which he founded, and A123Systems. At A123Systems, Myerberg established a new business unit focused on the development of high performance batteries. His team designed a new high performance cell for Formula One, as well as number of automotive partners. Additionally, he helped launch Gradiant Corp., where he managed the deployment and operation of large scale water desalination plants that converted fracking water into fresh water. Myerberg also held engineering and product development roles at both Bose and Black & Decker. Myerberg earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University and his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Manufacturing from Johns Hopkins University.
Follow Jonah Myerberg:
About Desktop Metal: Desktop Metal is a provider of metal and carbon fiber 3D printing accessible to all engineers, designers, and manufacturers.
Ric Fulop
Co-Founder and CEO of Desktop Metal
Ric Fulop is the CEO and co-founder of Desktop Metal, a company committed to accelerating the transformation of manufacturing with end-to-end metal 3D printing solutions. Founded in 2015 by leaders in advanced manufacturing, materials science, and robotics, the company is addressing the unmet challenges of speed, cost, and quality to make metal 3D printing an essential tool for engineers and manufacturers around the world. Prior to founding Desktop Metal in October 2015, Ric was a General Partner at North Bridge, a VC fund with $3 billion under management, for five years following a fifteen-year career as an entrepreneur. Fulop is the founder of six technology companies, including A123 Systems, Boston’s largest IPO in the past decade and one of the world’s largest automotive lithium ion suppliers with revenue exceeding $500M in 2016. At North Bridge, Ric led the software and 3D investing practices, and was an early stage investor and board member in Dyn (acquired by Oracle for $600 million), Onshape, MarkForged, Salsify, Lytro and Gridco. Ric is a former Board Member of the Electric Drive Transportation Association and holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School where he was a Sloan Fellow.
Follow Ric Fulop:
About Desktop Metal: Desktop Metal is a provider of metal and carbon fiber 3D printing accessible to all engineers, designers, and manufacturers.
Christopher A Schuh
Co-Founder of Desktop Metal
Christopher A. Schuh is a co-founder of Desktop Metal, where he has helped guide the company’s advances in materials science. A leading expert in metallurgy, Professor Schuh also serves as the Department Head and the Danae and Vasilis Salapatas Professor of Metallurgy in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. Prof. Schuh earned his B.S. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He has published more than 220 papers and dozens of patents, and received a variety of awards acknowledging his research accomplishments, including his appointment as a MacVicar Fellow of MIT, acknowledging his contributions to engineering education, and his election as Fellow of The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society. In addition to Desktop Metal, Prof. Schuh has co-founded a number of metallurgical companies, including Xtalic Corporation and Veloxint Corporation.
Follow Christopher A Schuh:
About Desktop Metal, Veloxint: Desktop Metal is a provider of metal and carbon fiber 3D printing accessible to all engineers, designers, and manufacturers.
Ely Sachs
Co-Founder of Desktop Metal
Emanuel “Ely” Sachs, a pioneer of 3D printing, is the inventor of binder jet printing and a co-founder of Desktop Metal, a company committed to accelerating the transformation of manufacturing with end-to-end metal 3D printing solutions. Prof. Sachs is also a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. Founded in 2015 by leaders in advanced manufacturing, materials science, and robotics, Desktop Metal is addressing the unmet challenges of speed, cost, and quality to make metal 3D printing an essential tool for engineers and manufacturers around the world. As a visionary and inventor of the MIT 3D printing process and binder jet printing, Prof. Sachs has played a key role in the development of Desktop Metal’s mass production system, which builds metal parts in a matter of minutes instead of hours with high precision, single-pass technology. At MIT beginning in the late 1980s, Prof. Sachs became a visionary in rapid prototyping. With colleagues, he developed the concept of 3D printing, ultimately allowing engineers to create functional parts rather than models or patterns for prototyping and testing, as well as for creating finished product components. 3D printing technology has since been applied to a wide variety of systems and application areas including metal end-use parts. His work in this area yielded more than 40 patents and launched a brand new industry. Prof. Sachs became a member of the MIT faculty in 1986. In addition to 3D Printing, Prof Sachs is also known for his invention of conformal cooled molds and contributions to the manufacturing of photovoltaics, particularly for the invention of processes which make silicon wafers directly from molten silicon with no sawing required. He has co-founded several companies in this field including 1366 Technologies Inc, of Bedford, MA. He is also known for his work on process control of microelectronic manufacturing. He has been recognized for pioneering new approaches to teaching undergraduate education, focusing on active, hands-on participation by students in the discovery of knowledge. Sachs’ numerous honors and awards include membership in the National Academy of Engineering, the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1995; the Institute of Corrosion’s T.P. Hoar Award in 2001; the R&D 100 Award in 2004; and the TMS Champion H. Mathewson Award in 2006. Sachs earned his SB, MS and Ph.D., all in mechanical engineering and all from MIT. He has authored more than 110 technical papers and holds more than 55 patents.
Follow Ely Sachs:
About Desktop Metal: Desktop Metal is a provider of metal and carbon fiber 3D printing accessible to all engineers, designers, and manufacturers.
Rick Chin
Co-Founder and VP, Software Development of Desktop Metal
Rick Chin is a co-founder and Vice President of Software Development at Desktop Metal, where he is responsible for the development of a robust, effortless software platform for Desktop Metal’s 3D printing systems. Chin is a veteran of CAD software beginning his career at Unigraphics and Parametric Technologies Corporation. He was the 10th employee at Solidworks and was responsible for the eDrawings product which has several million users. Immediately prior to co-founding Desktop Metal in 2015, Chin served as Director of Product Innovation at DS SolidWorks, where he led the team focused on the development and implementation of an Augmented Reality (AR) app for product design. Additionally, he helped launch the SolidWorks SustainabilityXpress product, enabling engineers to improve the environmental impact of their designs. Chin was also the founder of Xpress3D, a pioneering marketplace for 3D printing services acquired by Stratasys which served as the foundation for Redeye Parts/Stratasys Direct. Chin earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He currently holds five U.S. patents for CAD modeling and related features.
Follow Rick Chin:
About Desktop Metal: Desktop Metal is a provider of metal and carbon fiber 3D printing accessible to all engineers, designers, and manufacturers.
A. John Hart
Co-Founder of Desktop Metal
John Hart is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and Mitsui Career Development Chair at MIT. Before joining the MIT faculty in July 2013 he was an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and art/design at the University of Michigan. He has PhD (2006) and SM (2002) degrees from MIT, and a BSE (2000) from Michigan, all in mechanical engineering. At MIT, John leads the Mechanosynthesis Group, which creates new machines, materials, and design principles for advanced manufacturing, including carbon nanomaterials, additive manufacturing processes, and origami-inspired materials design.
Follow A. John Hart:
About Desktop Metal, VulcanForms: Desktop Metal is a provider of metal and carbon fiber 3D printing accessible to all engineers, designers, and manufacturers.
Matanya Horowitz
Founder & CEO of AMP Robotics
Matanya Horowitz is the founder of AMP Robotics, a robotics company with the mission of making recycling efficient and profitable. Matanya started the company shortly after finishing his PhD at the California Institute of Technology where he studied robotic path planning, artificial intelligence, and computer vision. Matanya is distinguished by having earned four undergraduate degrees and a masters in his four years of study at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is passionate about the questions of automation, in both the mathematics underlying the problems central to robotics as well as their wider implications for society.
Follow Matanya Horowitz:
About AMP Robotics: AMP Robotics is a pioneer in AI, robotics, and infrastructure for the waste and recycling industry.
Ryan Tseng
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Shield AI
Ryan Tseng is Shield AI’s Co-Founder and CEO. Prior to founding Shield AI, Ryan founded and led a series of other successful technology companies, including WiPower, a wireless charging company that was acquired by Qualcomm. The technologies Ryan and his WiPower team created launched the magnetic resonance wireless power industry; technology pioneered by WiPower now forms the cornerstone of the Airfuel (previously, Rezence) wireless charging standard that has been adopted by over 200 companies including market leaders Samsung, Intel, and Verizon. Ryan earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from University of Florida and his MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Follow Ryan Tseng:
About Shield AI: Building the world’s best AI pilot.
Brandon Tseng
Chief Operating Officer & Co-Founder of Shield AI
Brandon Tseng is Shield AI’s Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to founding Shield AI, Brandon proudly served in the US Navy for seven years. As a Navy SEAL, he served two deployments to Afghanistan and one to the Pacific Theater. Previously, he was the Assistant Chief Engineer aboard the USS Pearl Harbor (LSD-52) and deployed to the Persian Gulf. Brandon earned his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Naval Academy and his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Follow Brandon Tseng:
About Shield AI: Building the world’s best AI pilot.
Andrew Reiter
Co-Founder & Technical Fellow of Shield AI
Andrew Reiter is Shield AI’s Co-Founder and Technical Fellow. Prior to founding Shield AI, Andrew led the development and deployment of one of Draper Lab’s most successful visual-inertial guidance systems that is now widely deployed on programs of critical importance. In addition to his work on visual-inertial guidance, Andrew led both Draper’s autonomous exploring quadrotor program and 3D-mapping for dense environment reconstruction program. He also has experience developing stereo, and RGB-D SLAM systems for GPS-challenged navigation of humans, robots, cars, and UAVs. Andrew earned his Master’s in Robotics at Harvard University, and his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University.
Follow Andrew Reiter:
About Shield AI: Building the world’s best AI pilot.
Jake Rubin
Founder & CEO of HaptX
Follow Jake Rubin:
About HaptX: HaptX is a leading haptics company that brings realistic touch to virtual reality for the first time with HaptX Gloves.
Brendan Fallis
Founder/General Partner/Investment Committee Member of Leawood Venture Capital
Brendan Fallis is the Founder, General Partner, and Investment Committee Member at Leawood Venture Capital. He is the former President of a $2 Billion Verizon unit and experienced technology executive in both domestic and international markets. Over 20+ years’ experience in senior leadership roles in sales, distribution, go-to-market, business development, and strategy. Technical expertise in wireless, IoT, SaaS, PaaS, and Cloud solutions. He increased revenue from $1 Billion to $2 Billion in six years as a Region President with Verizon Wireless, personally executed revenue committed contracts with 25% of the Fortune 500, led a $250 million technology and infrastructure acquisition and integration, lead negotiator for a $7.7 Billion long term services contract, named to the top 40 under 40 business leaders. He earned a B.A. from Pomona College, an M.B.A. at the Norwich University, and executive programs at Harvard and Stanford.
Follow Brendan Fallis:
About Leawood Venture Capital: Investing in Disruptive Early-Stage Technology Companies Nationwide
Melissa Brandao
Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of HerdDogg
Melissa Brandao is Founder and CEO of HerdDogg. For the past decade, Melissa has been a pioneer in the Internet of Things, for the farm. Recognized as a rural innovator at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian, she advocates for entrepreneurship and jobs as a path towards economic recovery for small town America. Prior to HerdDogg, Melissa founded the electric vehicle company, Barefoot Motors, the first female ever to found a vehicle company. She was recently invited by President Obama to participate first ever White House Demo Day. She has lived and worked in several countries including Russia, Brazil and Mexico. She is a multi-patent holder, she speaks several languages and appeared in the 2016 reality TV show, America’s Greatest Makers.
Follow Melissa Brandao:
About HerdDogg: HerdDogg is a global herd health and data science platform.
Michael Kohen
Founder & CEO of SparkAI
Michael Kohen is the Founder and CEO at SparkAI.
Follow Michael Kohen:
About SparkAI, Stealth Mode: SparkAI is a real-time edge case resolution for AI in production.
Piet Morgan
Founder & CEO of Hammerhead
Piet’s passion for biking began in his childhood in South Africa, where he cycled with his friend and classmate, Chris Froome, one of the best cyclists in a generation. The challenge of navigating on a bike became fully apparent to Piet when he biked across the United States, and he dedicated himself to a solution through the power of software. Piet graduated from Yale University, where he was a cyclist and member of the Yale Crew, stroking the varsity 8.
Follow Piet Morgan:
About Hammerhead: Hammerhead is building the world’s best bicycle computer.
Laurence Wattrus
Co-Founder & SVP Hardware of Hammerhead
Laurence is a passionate mountain biker and engineer. He studied electromechanical engineering at the University of Cape Town while cycling and paddling competitively. He went on to complete his master’s degree at Brown University in 2013. Laurence is an expert navigator and seeker of innovation. From age twelve his room was covered in disassembled gadgets and bike parts. He spends time behind the camera and maintains a deep respect for nature.
Follow Laurence Wattrus:
About Hammerhead: Hammerhead is building the world’s best bicycle computer.
Jon Morgan
Co-Founder & COO of Hammerhead
Follow Jon Morgan:
About Hammerhead: Hammerhead is building the world’s best bicycle computer.
Matt Hershenson
Co-Founder and General Partner of Playground Global
Matt Hershenson, a Founding Partner at Playground Global, knew he was going to be an engineer from an early age. As a teenager, he had an after-school job at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, where his size made him ideal for running cables under the raised floors in labs and machine rooms and above the dropped ceilings in the offices. He also learned how to repair and maintain the Computer Science Department’s Xerox Altos. His earliest professional experience was at Apple, where he worked first in manufacturing engineering in Apple’s “Mac Factory” and later worked in the PowerBook group on the design of Apple’s line of PowerBook laptops. In 2000, Matt co-founded Danger, which went on to produce the first consumer smartphone. After creating nine versions of the T-Mobile Sidekick and beginning the process of going public, Danger was purchased by Microsoft. Matt stayed at Microsoft for two years after the acquisition, serving as a Partner in Hardware Engineering. Leveraging his mobile hardware experience, Matt joined Google’s Android team as Director of Hardware. At Google, Matt built the Android hardware team to span all aspects of hardware development – from chip design to regulatory compliance and everything in-between. Matt and his team shipped over 10 generations of devices across phones, tablets, and streaming receivers. In late 2014, Matt joined up with the founding team to start Playground. The idea was to invest in transformative companies with multigenerational impact, while working side-by-side with portfolio companies to help them advance faster than if they were on their own. Today, Matt is still unafraid of technological risk. His reasoning is: if you’re going to go through the trouble, you might as well create something with significance. Matt lives in the Bay Area with his wife of over 20 years and three children.
Follow Matt Hershenson:
About Danger, Playground Global: Playground is an early-stage firm investing in science companies working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and automation.
Peter Barrett
Co-Founder & General Partner of Playground Global
Peter Barrett is a founder and CTO of Playground Global. Peter believes the computing revolution—and arguably even the industrial revolution—haven’t happened yet. He is drawn to the toughest challenges at the boundaries of deep tech and hard science. Peter has been writing software since he was a teenager. At 19, his first security program caught the attention of the NSA. From his first company, Rocket Science Games, he’s had an adventurous career in technology from creating the first widely used video codec in the early 90s, building the world’s most popular IPTV platform at Microsoft, cloud intelligence for automotive at CloudCar and now quantum and optical computing, robotics and artificial intelligence at Playground. He holds over 100 patents. At Playground, Peter delights in the opportunity to deeply collaborate with entrepreneurs and help create transformative companies with multigenerational impact. He thrives on technologies that lie somewhere between improbable and impossible and companies whose success will help move civilization forward. Peter lives in Palo Alto with his wife, two children, a surly cat, and a friendly dog.
Follow Peter Barrett:
About Playground Global: Playground is an early-stage firm investing in science companies working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and automation.
Clint Chao
Co-Founder & General Partner of Moment Ventures
Clint Chao is a founding General Partner of Moment Ventures. Moment is a Palo Alto based early stage VC firm investing in the Future of Work: startups bringing technology into and across other industries to transform the business or labor operations in areas such as logistics, food, oil & gas, education, healthcare, construction and more. Clint has invested in companies including Flowspace, Pod Foods, Swing Education, Validere, TARA AI, Netsil (acq by Nutanix), Skyward (acq by Verizon), and Payable (acq by Stripe). Prior to Moment, Clint was a co-founding Managing Director at Formative Ventures, an early-stage VC firm. During his time at Formative, Clint invested a third of the fund’s capital in early-stage technology startups, focusing on software infrastructure, web services, cloud computing applications and advanced semiconductors. Clint’s investment and board leadership experience include Mashery (acq by Intel), SOASTA (acq by Akamai), Silicon Clocks (acquired by Silicon Labs), Vungle (acq by Blackstone) and Zyray Wireless (acquired by Broadcom). Clint is an experienced technology executive who brings more than 20 years of start-up operating experience including marketing, sales and business development to Formative Ventures. Prior to co-founding Formative Ventures, Clint served as the first Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Business Development at SkyStream Networks (acquired by Tandberg TV), a leading provider of video routing solutions. Under his leadership, SkyStream became the worldwide leader in MPEG routing solutions to the broadcast, networking and enterprise markets. Prior to joining SkyStream, Clint served as Senior Director of Marketing at C-Cube Microsystems where he was responsible for marketing for the PC Division, a group he co-founded and grew to run rates exceeding $50M in sales annually. Clint began his tenure at C-Cube as the first Salesperson for the company, where he created the company’s sales representation network around the country. While there, C-Cube became the dominant supplier of digital video and imaging compression chips to the consumer electronics, computing and communications markets. Before joining C-Cube, Clint held numerous sales and sales management positions at Motorola’s Semiconductor Products Sector, where he was recognized as one of the company’s top salespeople. Clint earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Follow Clint Chao:
About Formative Ventures, Moment Ventures, PANTASTIC: Moment Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the future of work.
Ammar Hanafi
Co-Founder & General Partner of Moment Ventures
Ammar Hanafi joined Alloy Ventures as a general partner in 2005. At Alloy, he focuses on investments in communications and IT infrastructure, as well as internet-enabled consumer and enterprise applications and services.Operating experience:Ammar has over a decade of financial and operational management experience in the communications and technology industry. He previously served as vice president of new business ventures at Cisco Systems, where he led new product efforts in the enterprise datacenter market. From 2000 to 2002, he was vice president of corporate business development, and in that capacity, he was responsible for Cisco’s acquisitions, acquisition integration, investment, and joint venture activity on a global basis. He joined Cisco in 1997 as a member of the Corporate Business Development Group. During Ammar’s tenure at Cisco, he helped the company complete over 100 investment and M&A transactions, including 50 successful acquisitions and over $750 million in venture capital investments. Leveraging his deep industry expertise, he helped lead Cisco into a number of major new businesses, including optical networking and integrated voice and data infrastructure and applications.Prior to Cisco, Ammar held leadership positions at PanAmSat Corp., a global satellite services provider, and the investment banking firms of Morgan Stanley and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.Ammar received a BS in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University (1988) and an MBA from Stanford University (1995). Current board seats:Ammar serves on the board of directors of 3Leaf Systems, YouSENDit, Retrevo, Mavenir Systems, GigaOM, Qwaq, Infineta Systems and Moxsie. He also led Alloy’s investment in Cortina Systems. Ammar also serves on the board of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, a non-profit.
Follow Ammar Hanafi:
About Alloy Ventures, Moment Ventures: Moment Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the future of work.
Gabe Sibley
Founder & CEO of Verdant Robotics
Gabe Sibley is the Founder & CEO at Verdant Robotics, Inc.
Follow Gabe Sibley:
About University of Colorado Boulder, Verdant Robotics, Zippy.ai: Verdant Robotics manufactures robotics systems; the company’s current platform delivers transformative agricultural services.
Bill Huang
Founder & CEO of CloudMinds
Bill Huang is the Founder and CEO of CloudMinds, the world’s first intelligent cloud robot operator. Mr. Huang has been a new technology advocate for the telecom industry with near 30 years of work experience in the development of key technologies. He has in-depth experience and insightful thoughts in the areas of next generation mobile switching systems (3G/4G/5G), IP media streaming (IPTV/OTT), EPON/GPON, Multi-service mobile Softswitch, Operation Support System (OSS/BSS), Mobile Internet and mobile communication industry.
Follow Bill Huang:
About CloudMinds: As the First Cloud Robots services company, CloudMinds is developing an end-to-end ecosystem to support cloud connected smart machines
Michael Winn
CEO and Co-Founder of DroneDeploy
Michael Winn is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DroneDeploy, a cloud-based drone platform that provides automated flight safety checks, workflows, real-time mapping, and data processing.
Follow Michael Winn:
About DroneDeploy: DroneDeploy is a cloud-based drone mapping and analytics platform to help businesses get things done.
Jono Millin
Co-Founder of DroneDeploy
Jono Millin is a founder of DroneDeploy, the cloud-based drone management platform. Jono completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Information Systems and Applied Maths at Rhodes University before moving to the UK to obtain an MSc in Artificial Intelligence, and 2/3 of a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Edinburgh. During his time in Edinburgh, Jono co-founded Zoom2Work and AdvertEyes before moving to San Francisco with DroneDeploy.
Follow Jono Millin:
About DroneDeploy: DroneDeploy is a cloud-based drone mapping and analytics platform to help businesses get things done.
Nicholas Pilkington
CTO, Co-Founder of DroneDeploy
Nicholas Pilkington is the founder of DroneDeploy, a platform for simple managed drone operations. Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, he completed degrees in computer science, maths and information systems at Rhodes University. After graduating he started a Ph.D in machine learning at the University of Cambridge (Magadalene College) on a Nelson Mandela Rhodes University Scholarship. While at Cambridge Nicholas co-founded MyMoneyDog and Curious-Orange as well as the South African Bitcoin Exchange, Bitx. He currently resides in SOMA, San Francisco.
Follow Nicholas Pilkington:
About DroneDeploy: DroneDeploy is a cloud-based drone mapping and analytics platform to help businesses get things done.
Tianyue Yu
Chief Development Officer, Co-Founder of Quanergy Systems
Tianyue Yu co-founded Quanergy and serves as the Chief Development Officer. She has a strong technical foundation with extensive experience in high-resolution imaging, 3D laser scanning and microfabrication, high throughput sensing, nanotechnology, and advanced electronics materials. She oversees the company’s product design, architecture, engineering, and construction to ensure the successful implementation of the product roadmap. Prior to founding Quanergy, she had various roles at established technology companies as well as startups from principal scientists to leadership positions building cross-functional teams, and leading technology development and commercialization. She started her career at Affymetrix on sensor miniaturization and high-resolution imaging. She holds more than 15 patents in sensing, nanotechnology, and system design. Dr. Yu earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University with a concentration on nanomaterials and nanotechnology and a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical physics from the University of Science and Technology of China.
Follow Tianyue Yu:
About Quanergy Systems: Quanergy is a developer of solid state sensors used to offer smart sensing services for self-driving cars.
Jed Dean
Co-Founder of Zymergen
At Zymergen, Jed is responsible for building and operating the robotic workflows for genome engineering and high throughput screening. Prior to his work at Zymergen, he developed technology and automation for life sciences at Amyris and at the Stanford Genome Technology Center. He earned his bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from Purdue University and has a PhD in biochemistry from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Follow Jed Dean:
About Zymergen: Zymergen is a biotechnology company that specializes in machine learning, big data, and artificial intelligence.
Zach Serber
Co-Founder of Zymergen
Zach Serber is a founder at Zymergen. He was previously the Director of Biology at Amyris and the Principal Investigator on a DARPA contract to develop advanced tools for synthetic biology. Dr. Serber has 15 peer-reviewed publications, 5 filed patents, and worked as a research fellow at Stanford University Medical School. He has a PhD in Biophysics from UCSF, an MSc in Neuroscience from the University of Edinburgh, and a BA from Columbia University. He lives on a sailboat in Sausalito with his wife and daughter.
Follow Zach Serber:
About Zymergen: Zymergen is a biotechnology company that specializes in machine learning, big data, and artificial intelligence.
Stefan Seltz-Axmacher
Founder & CEO of Starsky Robotics
Stefan Seltz-Axmacher is CEO and Founder of Starsky Robotics, a driverless truck startup launched in August 2016, which aims to make roads safer and allow truck drivers to work closer to home. Starsky Robotics began moving freight on the highway in February 2017, and in February 2018 drove a truck fully unmanned for seven miles on the highway. Starsky raised a $16.5 million Series A round led by Shasta Ventures, with substantial contributions from previous investors like Y Combinator, Trucks.vc, 50 Years, 9Point Ventures, and many others. Prior to founding Starsky Robotics, Stefan worked with a number of Silicon Valley startups, partnering with innovators in logistics and engineering fields. He holds a degree in International Business from Drexel University.
Follow Stefan Seltz-Axmacher:
About Starsky Robotics: Starsky Robotics is a San Francisco-based autonomous trucking company.
Robert Stefanski
Co-Founder and Managing Director of eLab Ventures
Robert Stefanski is an entrepreneur with deep operational and board experience in the software, mobile and Internet markets. He was on the founding management team of TIBCO Software, where he served as the Executive Vice President, Corporate Development, General Counsel and Secretary. As a member of TIBCO’s executive management team, Bob had broad responsibility for day to day business operations from its founding in 1997 to its emergence in the early 2000s as one of the leading enterprise infrastructure software companies in the world. TIBCO remains a world leader today in enterprise infrastructure software, with annual revenue exceeding $1 billion. Bob left TIBCO in 2008 to more actively pursue his passion as an advisor and board member for Silicon Valley early stage startups. He began his career as an attorney with Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York City, where he represented technology, media and entertainment companies in a broad range of matters. He joined Reuters 1996 as Director of Intellectual Property. He has also been involved with the UM Center for Entrepreneurship since its inception in 2007 and currently serves on its Board of Directors as well as being a mentor at the student startup incubator, TechArb. In addition to his work with Michigan eLab, he is a partner with the international law firm Reed Smith in its Silicon Valley office. Bob is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and University of Michigan Graduate School of Engineering. He has an undergraduate degree in computer science/mathematics from Northern Michigan
Follow Robert Stefanski:
About eLab Ventures: eLab Ventures is an early stage technology venture capital fund.
Rick Bolander
Co-Founder and Managing Director of eLab Ventures
Rick Bolander is a General Partner at Michigan eLab Venture Fund. Rick has been a private investor since 1988 launching Blue Sky Ventures, a real estate investment firm, and entering the venture capital industry in 1994 at Apex Venture Partners where he was general partner. In 1999, he co-founded Gabriel Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in and assists information technology startups. Rick identifies the smartest entrepreneurs and works side-by-side with them to build highly successful companies from the ground up. Rick has been involved in more than 50 venture deals, and has led over $100 million in early-stage financings and has had over $200 million in realizations. Rick has served on the boards of AccessLine Communications (acquired by Telanetix), Arula Systems (acquired by Raritan), Concord Communications (IPO – NASDAQ: CCRD), Exodus Communications (IPO – NASDAQ: EXDS, then acquired by Savvis), IPWireless (acquired by Nextwave), Jacked (acquired by Roundbox), Neopath (acquired by Cisco), NetScaler (acquired by Citrix Systems), Persistent Systems (IPO – BSE India: PER EQ), Placeware (acquired by Microsoft) Tut Systems (IPO – NASDAQ: TUTS), and Chegg (IPO – NYSE:CHGG). Education MBA – Harvard Business School MS – Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan (full fellowship) BS – Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan (with honors)
Follow Rick Bolander:
About eLab Ventures: eLab Ventures is an early stage technology venture capital fund.
Doug Neal
Co-Founder and Managing Director of eLab Ventures
Doug Neal is Co-Founder and Managing Director of eLab Ventures.
Follow Doug Neal:
About eLab Ventures, New Vital Signs: eLab Ventures is an early stage technology venture capital fund.
Bradley Bogolea
Co-Founder & CEO of Simbe Robotics
Bradley Bogolea, also known as Brad, is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Simbe Robotics.
Follow Bradley Bogolea:
About Simbe Robotics: Simbe Robotics builds automation solutions for shelf auditing and analytics.
Jeff Gee
Co-Founder and CDO of Simbe Robotics
Jeff Gee is the Co-Founder and Product Designer at Simbe Robotics.
Follow Jeff Gee:
About Simbe Robotics: Simbe Robotics builds automation solutions for shelf auditing and analytics.
Mirza Shah
Co-Founder & CTO of Simbe Robotics
Mirza Shah is the Co-Founder and CTO at Simbe Robotics.
Follow Mirza Shah:
About Simbe Robotics: Simbe Robotics builds automation solutions for shelf auditing and analytics.
Jack Wu
Co-Founder & CEO of Nightingale Security
Jack Wu joined Nightingale Security as Co-Founder & CEO in 2014.
Follow Jack Wu:
About Nightingale Security: Nightingale Security is a autonomous drone solution in aerial robotic security.
Jon Binney
Co-Founder & CTO of Iron Ox
Jon Binney is a Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Iron Ox.
Follow Jon Binney:
About Iron Ox: Iron Ox operates autonomous robotic greenhouses that grow every plant at its best from seed to harvest.
Brandon Alexander
Co-Founder & CEO of Iron Ox
Brandon Alexander is the CEO and cofounder of Iron Ox, a company building robotic greenhouses to make premium produce accessible to everyone. Inspired by his family farm and his career in robotics, Brandon sought to find a sustainable approach to feeding the world’s growing population in an industry that’s challenged with a declining labor force and extreme weather conditions. With his cofounder Jon Binney, he traveled all across California to talk with local farmers about the challenges facing the industry and how robotics can provide modern solutions. Brandon has a track record of laying the groundwork for successful robotic deployment. He previously played a key role in Google[x]’s drone delivery program, Project Wing, where he developed the flight mission control software. He has also worked at the robotics think tank Willow Garage.
Follow Brandon Alexander:
About Iron Ox: Iron Ox operates autonomous robotic greenhouses that grow every plant at its best from seed to harvest.
Jeffrey DeCoux
CEO and Founder of Hangar Technology
Follow Jeffrey DeCoux:
About Hangar Technology: Hangar is a software technology company enabling robotics across industry.
Colin Guinn
President and Founder of Hangar Technology
Follow Colin Guinn:
About Guinn Partners, Hangar Technology: Hangar is a software technology company enabling robotics across industry.
James McAndrew
CTO and Founder of Hangar Technology
Follow James McAndrew:
About Hangar Technology: Hangar is a software technology company enabling robotics across industry.
Sammy Khalifa
Co-Founder and CTO of Vicarious Surgical
Follow Sammy Khalifa:
About Vicarious Surgical: Vicarious Surgical improves the lives of patients and surgeons by giving access to high quality care through the use of surgical robotics.
Adam Sachs
Co-Founder and CEO of Vicarious Surgical
Follow Adam Sachs:
About Vicarious Surgical: Vicarious Surgical improves the lives of patients and surgeons by giving access to high quality care through the use of surgical robotics.
Paz Eshel
Co-Founder & COO of Kodiak Robotics
Follow Paz Eshel:
About Kodiak Robotics: Kodiak Robotics develops autonomous technology for long-haul trucking.
Don Burnette
Co-Founder & CEO of Kodiak Robotics
Follow Don Burnette:
About Kodiak Robotics: Kodiak Robotics develops autonomous technology for long-haul trucking.
Santosh Sankar
Co-Founder and Partner of Dynamo
Follow Santosh Sankar:
About Dynamo: Dynamo invests in founders building technology businesses in supply chain and mobility.
Barry Large
Co-Founder and Partner of Dynamo
Barry Large is a General Partner at Lamp Post Ventures. He is currently employed at Lamp Post Group. Barry Large is responsible for financial and investment decisions. He also manages Dynamo accelerator program. He is the founder of Nooga Media. In 2003, he was co-founder of Horizon Stone. Previously, Barry Large Co-founded Access America Transport in 2002. He also served as its Chief Financial Officer. From 2000 to 2006, he was employed at Key-James Brick. He has a background in finance. Barry Large earned bachelor’s degrees in Business Management and History from Samford University.
Follow Barry Large:
About Dynamo, Lamp Post Group, Nooga.com: Dynamo invests in founders building technology businesses in supply chain and mobility.
Ilan Abehassera
Co-Founder, President & COO of Willo
Ilan Abehassera is the Co-Founder, President & COO at Willo.
Follow Ilan Abehassera:
About Diaspora Ventures, Oui Are New York, Willo: Willo develops technology in oral health that automatically empowers everyone to achieve the best at-home clean possible.
Hugo de Gentile
Co-Founder & CEO of Willo
Hugo de Gentile is the Co-Founder and CEO at Willo
Follow Hugo de Gentile:
About Willo: Willo develops technology in oral health that automatically empowers everyone to achieve the best at-home clean possible.
Paul Mikesell
Founder / CEO of Carbon Robotics
Follow Paul Mikesell:
About Carbon Robotics: Carbon Robotics develops robots for agriculture-related applications.
Victor Darolfi
Founder & CEO of RoboTire
Follow Victor Darolfi:
About RoboTire: RoboTire automates vehicle maintenance by combining robots and computer vision.
