Robotics — LDV Capital Blog on Visual Technologies and AI — LDV Capital
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Luciana Lixandru, Partner at Sequoia Capital, focuses on enterprise and consumer technology companies across Europe and co-leads Sequoia's early-stage investment business. She is a Director of Pennylane, Robco, Stripe, Tacto, and VEED, and is passionate about helping founders unlock their potential and think on a global scale. Luciana joined Sequoia in 2021 to help open its London office - while the firm had been partnering with founders in Europe for years, a team on the ground has enabled them to spot outliers earlier and partner more deeply. With a decade of experience in the European venture market, prior as a partner at Accel, Luciana has deep domain expertise, having backed giants like UiPath (PATH), Deliveroo (DROOF), and Miro, among others.
At our 11th Annual LDV Vision Summit, Luciana and Evan discussed Luciana’s early investments, including UiPath – a company that initially leveraged computer vision and spent nearly a decade finding product–market fit before achieving major success. They also explored trends and early-stage investment opportunities in businesses harnessing visual technologies and AI. Check out the recording from our 11th Annual LDV Vision Summit or read our shortened and lightly edited transcript.
Every robot, drone, self-driving car, delivery bot, and surgical assistant that claims “intelligence” is fundamentally a product of visual and/or electromagnetic perception systems. The success of Physical AI doesn’t start with neural networks or GPUs – it starts with cameras, sensors, and spectral scanners that give machines their first sense of reality.
Physical AI will not succeed until machines can truly see.
The next guest in our Women Leading Visual Tech Series is Carol Reiley, a serial entrepreneur and a computer scientist with the nickname “Mother of Robots”. LDV Capital’s Abigail Hunter-Syed spoke with Carol about current trends in robotics and AI. They touched on autonomous cars, healthcare, the food industry, and arts – all subject to being drastically transformed by advances in deep learning.
Our second interview in Women Leading Visual Tech series is with Dr. Michal Lipson.
Michal is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University and a member of the National Academy of Science. Her research work is focused on nanophotonics.