LDV Blog

At LDV Capital's 2026 Annual General Meeting, Principal Ash Cleary outlined how visual technology and AI are driving the next wave of intelligent automation across legacy industries. Moving beyond basic digitization, advances in computer vision, machine perception, robotics, digital twins, and spatial intelligence are enabling autonomous decision-making in logistics, construction, manufacturing, and mining. The article explores trillion-dollar opportunities emerging from these technologies and why visual data is becoming the foundation for the future of industrial infrastructure.

We are pleased to share an interview with Sumanta Talukdar, CEO & Founder at Gardin and Evan Nisselson.

1. What is Gardin’s mission?

Agriculture is the only foundational industry that doesn’t measure its product accurately and at scale. This has kept a $1T digitization opportunity virtually untapped. Gardin’s mission is to unlock this opportunity by enabling food producers, for the first time, to measure the biology of their crops in real-time and effectively at scale.

2. How is Gardin’s optical phenotyping stack differentiated from alternative sensing or analytics solutions in precision agriculture today?

Gardin is the only solution that delivers on 4 critical requirements simultaneously to greenhouse growers. First, our multimodal robotic optical sensors measure crop photosynthesis in real time and at scale. Second, our Gardin AI brain transforms raw biological signals into clear, actionable insights for growers. Third, the entire platform operates fully autonomously, removing manual data collection and interpretation. Fourth, Gardin is delivered through a scalable SaaS model, aligning our success with our customers’ outcomes.

Explore the "Internet of Eyes" (IoEyes) concept: a network of visual sensors and cameras that will give inanimate objects the ability to "see," exponentially impacting businesses and humanity through computer vision and AI. Written by Evan Nisselson, Founder and General Partner at LDV Capital, this article was originally published on The Next Web on May 13, 2016, and is being reposted without changes.

Arcturus has created a volumetric video platform that captures and broadcasts sports action in full 3D. They redefine how we connect with our favorite sports moments by delivering compelling new camera angles for 2D broadcasters and new 3D sports experiences never possible before on mobile or immersive devices. Their SaaS platform delivers the capture, processing, production and distribution of this content. We are thrilled to partner with Steve Sullivan, Devin Horsman, Ewan Johnson, Fraser McArthur and the entire Arcturus team as they deliver the future of live 3D broadcast quality sports coverage.

Evan Nisselson, Founder and General Partner of LDV Capital, explores technological advancements that are transforming bathrooms into triage centers for monitoring health, extending health spans and proactively saving lives.

At our 11th Annual LDV Vision Summit earlier this year, a panel of distinguished experts explored the future of materials science powered by visual tech and AI. Click the link below to hear from Dr. David Smith, Associate Chair and James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of ECE at Duke University; Dr. Kristin Schmidt, Strategy Assistant for Accelerated Discovery and Vice Chair of the Physical Sciences Council at IBM; Dr. Chirranjeevi Gopal, Co-Founder and CTO at Mitra Chem, the first lithium-ion battery materials manufacturer; Dr. Amanda Petford-Long, Director of the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Lab; and Ash Cleary, Associate at LDV Capital.

We are very excited to partner with the fantastic deep tech team at ResiQuant that is developing a platform that utilizes agentic AI and computer vision to transform data into actionable, building-level insights. This empowers property owners and carriers to mitigate vulnerabilities, streamline workflows and enhance underwriting decisions.

In September 2021, Ash Cleary began his venture capital journey by joining Evan Nisselson and our LDV Capital team as an Analyst, investing out of Fund III as part of a two-year program. After successfully completing the program, Ash was promoted to Associate and now invests out of LDV Capital's fourth fund.

We are excited to partner and invest in the brilliant VitVio team. They are building an AI-driven computer vision platform designed to enhance the safety and efficiency of hospital operating theaters.

LDV Capital's Evan Nisselson and Ash Cleary cover topics ranging from spectroscopy and nanomaterials to enhance food and agricultural production, to renewable energy forecasting and grid management, and predictive digital twins for the supply chain.

Meet Dr. Molly Gibson – Co-Founder and Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at Generate:Biomedicines, Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering. LDV Capital's Founder & General Partner Evan Nisselson discussed with Molly how AI and machine learning empower and disrupt the scientific process across life sciences, biotech, advanced materials and more.

Matt Uyttendaele is the director of the AI for Chemistry group at Meta. His group applies machine learning to material discovery for several applications: clean hydrogen, sorbents for direct air capture, and next-generation displays. In 2024, we were honored to have him speak at our Annual General Meeting about a new application of AI that he has been working on for the last few years and how it relates to his career in visual technologies.

As the biotech industry heavily relies on data filtering, analysis, and sharing, visual technologies play a critical role in detecting and imaging biological systems. This paves the way for the future of life sciences tools, enabling next-generation therapeutics, biomanufacturing, and longevity. At our 10th Annual LDV Vision Summit earlier this year, a panel of experts delved into these topics and explored various critical aspects shaping the future of biotechnology.

We at LDV Capital celebrated our 10th LDV Vision Summit Anniversary! People from over 30 countries were part of our premier global gathering in visual tech & AI. We were thrilled to welcome speakers from Sequoia Capital, Wellville, Generate:Biomedicines, DCVC Bio, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Nobias Therapeutics, Snap, Future Ventures, Meta, Axios and more. Two of our LDV Capital portfolio companies presented as well: Synthesia and Sonus Microsystems.

We believe that visual technologies will continue to be the crux of advancements in materials science, across nanomaterials and metamaterials, resulting in the transformation of various industrial, medical and consumer applications. Embedded AI will enable materials to reconfigure themselves autonomously in response to their environment. As sensing abilities and algorithms improve, the full potential of navigating the compositional and configurational possibilities of materials will catalyze widespread transformation for optics, biomarker diagnostics, robotics, 3D printing and more.