Samuel Gerace

I’m lucky to work alongside colleagues like Richard Fruehauf, who constantly push my thinking. His latest piece unpacks why U.S. robotics and drone manufacturing faces uphill economics, and how public policy can help turn the tide. One key takeaway: 232 tariffs on robotics imports could help reset the economics that are holding back U.S. investment and production. It’s a sharp perspective on how policy can shape the future of advanced tech here at home. Well worth a read: https://lnkd.in/edMPTQPQ Richard Fruehauf, Robert J. Szczerba, Michael Lutzky, Edward Ovando, Karl Sanchack, Herman Herman, Jeff Legault, Phil English, Richard Fruehauf, Ryan Aument, Michael Guido, Sheila Fitzgerald Sterrett, David McCormick

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Working with NRF to pursue our patent strategy is an important step in recognizing that proprietary AI systems and workflows are becoming a new form of intellectual property for modern firms. Great to partner with George, John McBride, and the team at Norton Rose Fulbright as we work at the frontier of how AI can transform investment decision-making in venture capital. At Decasonic, we believe the next generation of companies will reinvent with AI workflows and systems how organizations operate, how leaders make decisions, and how teams collaborate with intelligent systems. In going through this streamlined process, it's clear to me that many more startups should clarify their IP strategy. Our internally developed AI platform, RLEN, reflects that philosophy. We are building AI not to automate tasks and flourish outcomes, in collaborative ways for human and AI teammates. This enables our investors to test ideas, explore alternative perspectives, and reach deeper insights faster when navigating uncertainty. More broadly, we are seeing trailblazing work across industries and cities as leaders experiment with how AI can reshape communities, companies, and countries. Leadership with AI forever transforms. We are still in the early innings. Appreciate the partnership and collaboration from the Norton Rose Fulbright team as we continue inventing and innovating. Special shoutout to my colleague Abdul Al Ali who's listed as a co-inventor.

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Learn more about how our IQT team is actively investing in resilient advanced manufacturing and innovative AI-enabled discovery platforms as important foundational elements to national security. #IQT #nationalsecurity #advancedmanufacturing #resilientsupplychain #supplychain #venturecapital

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Excited to finally share what we’ve been building over the past year. Today we’re announcing the first investment from ARKITEKT EQUITY. Over the past year, we have been closely observing the structural shifts occurring within semiconductor ecosystems. As manufacturing systems become more complex, the infrastructure enabling those systems becomes increasingly strategic. These environments demand operational clarity, coordination, and long-term alignment. ARKITEKT was built around a simple idea: durable value is created where frontier technology meets pragmatic execution. Our investment in BBTech reflects this conviction. This is just the beginning of what we aim to build at ARKITEKT EQUITY. Stay tuned! https://lnkd.in/g_pQiBZY

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**Navigating Strategic Divestitures in Tech** In the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, mergers and acquisitions often reshape market dynamics. Luminar's move to potentially sell its lidar business for $22 million to Quantum Computing Inc. illustrates a strategic realignment that can unlock value. At ElevenX Capital, we believe such transitions present unique investment opportunities for discerning Limited Partners. As we witness these shifts, how can investors best identify which segments of a company to support or divest? #investing #innovation #venturecapital #entrepreneurship

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AI isn’t just a computing story. It’s becoming an energy story. This piece looks at the proposed ~9 GW gas power project in Ohio tied to AI data center demand. The scale is staggering. Projects like this highlight how quickly electricity demand from AI could reshape power infrastructure planning and economics. One point that stands out: the cost of reliable, large-scale power for AI may be far higher than many expect. As hyperscalers push for dedicated generation and firm capacity, the traditional model of grid expansion and cost sharing starts to break down. It raises a bigger question for the energy transition: Who ultimately pays for the massive power buildout required to support AI? Worth the read. https://lnkd.in/e36NsBd5

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Camber Creek led the $3.7 million Seed round for TwinKnowledge, which is tackling an important problem in the built environment. Construction projects get delayed and rework is required because of discrepancies across construction documents, submittals, requests for information, design, and other plans. TwinKnowledge’s AI Agents absorb structured and unstructured project data, surfacing and preventing conflicts before the work begins. We’re excited about our partnership with CEO Ivan Panushev and his team. #construction #AEC #AI #technology https://ow.ly/mBYX50VtaVG

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MemryX Inc.’s MX3 AI accelerator chips offer server-like performance and accuracy at low power and low cost, and is positioned for Edge AI applications including autonomous driving, robotics, and machine vision. It is encouraging to see the $44m Series B raise for a University of Michigan Innovation Partnerships company.

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We are initiating coverage of Varda Space Industries for the America2030 Portfolio at IPO CLUB, strategically focused on investments in Space and Dual-Use technology innovation. Investment Thesis: Varda operates at the forefront of in-space manufacturing, a paradigm-shifting sector set to unlock new commercial possibilities and optimize the production of high-value materials that cannot be manufactured on Earth. By leveraging microgravity environments, Varda aims to deliver products with superior properties for pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and advanced materials industries, while also catering to the unique requirements of defense and government stakeholders. Key Drivers: • Emerging Markets: Rapidly growing interest in microgravity-enabled products, with increasing demand from both commercial and defense sectors. • First Mover Advantage: Proprietary return-to-Earth capabilities position Varda as an early leader in the commercialization of in-space manufacturing. • Dual-Use Readiness: Technologies developed are inherently dual-use, appealing to both private sector innovators and government agencies seeking strategic materials and manufacturing capacities. Risks & Considerations: The in-space manufacturing industry is still in its formative stages, with considerable technological, regulatory, and market adoption risks. Successful execution of return missions and long-term contract acquisition will be pivotal for Varda’s growth trajectory. We see Varda as a high-potential addition to our America 2030 Portfolio, reflecting our conviction in Space and Dual-Use technologies as next-generation growth engines. Latest Update: Varda - In June 2025, Varda launched its fourth W-series mission, debuting its fully in-house satellite bus, heat shield, and a solution-based pharmaceutical processing module—all developed at its El Segundo HQ. This flight marked the first commercial missions under its new FAA re-entry vehicle operator license (Part 450), granting re-entry permissions through 2029.  In July 2025, Varda secured $187 million in Series C funding, led by Natural Capital andShrug Capitall with participation fromFounders Fundd, Peter Thiel,Khosla Venturess,Lux Capitall,Caffeinated Capitall, andAlso Capitall—bringing total funding to approximately $329 million. This round will accelerate its flight cadence and build out expanded pharmaceutical labs, including a 10,000 sq ft facility in El Segundo staffed with structural biologists and crystallization scientists. More on the deal 👉 www.ipo.club/deals/varda #InvestmentResearch #IPOClub #America2030 #SpaceTech #InSpaceManufacturing #DualUse #Innovation

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Surgical robotics is the tip of the spear for AI meeting the real world. Check out our upcoming webinar to learn more

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My DCVC partner Milo Werner at the announcement of MIT's New Manufacturing Initiative: the highly automated factories of the future will re-industrialize the United States, tightly couple R&D and manufacturing to accelerate innovation, and decarbonize industry.

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We're only a month in but we're already seeing demand from clients for Benzinga's APIs. Platforms want better access to account data, trading infrastructure, and high quality data feeds (like Benzinga's Newsfeed API and their earnings call transcripts) to help them build a one stop shop for the retail investors of tomorrow to do their research. Thanks Clint Rhea and Michael Saad for the shout-out in the news article!

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Over the weekend I was thinking about how GPT-5 and other recent model upgrades will push industrial automation forward, and translate into physical-world actions. Our focus at nvp capital is on founders building in vertical AI, and while much of that is LLM based today, in the future (especially for industrial use cases) we see a world where that becomes driven by Vision–Language–Action models (VLAs). GPT-5 takes a real step forward in multimodal reasoning — not just reading text, but interpreting images in context. Drop in a photo of a landmark and it often nails the location (and yes, it will tell you it’s better than GPT-4!). 📸 Multimodal context is a bridge to actions, where productivity gains can really scale. Today, OpenAI and other foundation model players focus on digital actions, while physical actions -- the domain of VLAs -- are mostly pursued by companies with physical assets and data, like Gemini or Grok. For founders building in industrial and robotic automation 🤖, interest in VLAs is growing — even if they’re still too early for broad commercial use. GPT-5’s integrated handling of text, images, and other inputs could make it an ideal VLA “brain,” capable of interpreting scenes, following nuanced instructions, and planning precise, multi-step actions that lead to highly adaptable agents moving seamlessly from perception to action. An open question is whether OpenAI will step into that physical domain — or leave VLAs to those already playing in the hardware-heavy world ⚙️. Either way, if you’re building vertical software using VLAs, we’d love to talk to you!

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We've officially entered into manufacturing - and we’re doing it with a powerhouse partner. Lantern Partners AI is proud to announce our partnership with Estee Bedding Company, the nation’s leading truck mattress manufacturer out of Chicago with 12 facilities and 45 distribution centers across the U.S. Estee has deployed LanternBRP™ (our AI-native, modular Business Resource Planning platform) to replace a well known legacy ERP that had become a bottleneck - and they’re projected to drive $4.2M in annual savings by improving: ✅ Bill of materials (BOM) management ✅ Inventory control and imbalance reduction ✅ Production scheduling and downtime prevention ✅ Sales visibility and faster decision-making What makes this meaningful isn’t just the software - it’s the shift: mid-market manufacturers deserve operational intelligence that matches the pace of their business, without the rigid, fragmented tools they’ve been stuck with for years. As Estee’s CEO Tim Enright put it: their former ERP couldn’t keep up. LanternBRP™ gives them one coherent platform so teams can operate as a synchronized unit — and build for what’s next. This is the first step into manufacturing, and we’re just getting started. 🌐 Learn more: LanternPartners.ai #lanternpartnersai #Manufacturing #ERP #SupplyChain #Operations #SaaS #AI #DigitalTransformation #MidMarket #Industry40 #BusinessIntelligence

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Big milestone for Ayar Labs — $500M Series E at a $3.75B valuation. This raise underscores just how critical optical I/O and co-packaged optics (CPO) have become in the AI and HPC era. As compute scales, the bottleneck is no longer just processing — it’s moving massive amounts of data efficiently, with lower power and latency. That’s where Ayar’s photonics platform is positioned to fundamentally reshape system architecture. Notably, this round combines top-tier institutional investors (Neuberger Berman, ARK, Insight, QIA, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, 1789 Capital) alongside strategic leaders like AMD, MediaTek, NVIDIA, and Alchip. That mix of financial and commercial backers signals both capital confidence and ecosystem pull. The focus now: scaling high-volume production and test capacity to accelerate deployment of their CPO solution. Moving from breakthrough technology to manufacturing scale is the real unlock. Congrats to the Ayar Labs team on continuing to push the semiconductor and photonics frontier forward. #optical #photonics #semiconductor #AI #HPC

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Thank you to Brian Gormley and The Wall Street Journal for including my perspective on Generate Biomedicines’ IPO. “Generate represents exactly where this industry should be heading - AI-driven optimization of what reaches the clinic should be table stakes. That said, the market will ultimately value these companies in their programs, not their AI platform.” Optimizing what gets into the clinic matters. The deeper paradigm shift, though, is using AI to truly model human biology and reshape development from end to end. That is when the economics and outcomes of drug development begin to change.

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There’s a massive opportunity in automating industrial manufacturing processes. That’s why we’re backing RobCo in their series C as they scale their physical AI driven robotics platform and expand their U.S. presence. As global labor supply continues to tighten, automation in manufacturing is shifting from “nice to have” to essential. RobCo's Robotics-as-a-Service model removes traditional friction, enabling rapid deployment and real production output in weeks – faster than most B2B software implementation timelines. In Roman Hölzl we immediately saw that rare leader – one who pairs a bold, long-term vision for transformative AI with a relentless focus on real-world productivity today. We couldn’t be more excited to back RobCo as they execute on an ambitious roadmap! Press release: https://lnkd.in/euCx6WX2 Roman Hölzl, Dennis Hauser, Arjan van Staveren, Stefan F. Heidenreich Lightspeed, Sequoia Capital, Kindred Capital VC, Greenfield Partners, Leitmotif, The Friedkin Group, Alexander Schmitt, Luciana Lixandru, Leila Rastegar Zegna, Marc Sieberger, Raz Mangel #Lingotto #LingottoInnovation #PhysicalAI cc Clemente Dadoo Lomeli

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Seed Stage Venture Debt? Most early founders think venture debt is something you raise at the Series B.  It’s seen as something you layer on once the business is fully “bankable”. But what if this paradigm is limiting growth for early stage companies? And what if founders can utilize a flexible product to reduce dilution? At Top Corner Capital we see it differently… ✅ We underwrite The Founder and to enterprise value, not formulaic metrics ✅ We believe debt can work much earlier, typically right after product-market fit (Seed/Series A) ✅ Our debt is designed to support founders, not constrain them ✅ Our structures are flexible, with none of the traditional debt mechanics that weigh down early stage founders (financial covenants, MAC defaults or investor support clauses) ✅ Our process is fast (think weeks, not months) ✅ Our capital is significantly less dilutive than equity, but can be used just like a dollar of equity: to hire, build, experiment and scale When used for growth (not survival), debt can help teams hit more milestones and empower founders to raise their next round on stronger terms…all while preserving meaningful ownership for both founders and early investors. A recent example… Top Corner partnered with NxLite in February 2025, providing Seed-stage debt capital that allowed the company to acquire critical equipment and fully prepare its production facility prior to raising additional equity. NxLite’s advanced coatings for windows and transparent barriers dramatically reduce energy consumption and support a more sustainable built environment. With this early capital, NxLite achieved production capacity to serve a strong roster of Fortune 500 enterprises, creating a strong foundation for its next phase of growth. NxLite closed a $9.2M Series A in September 2025 at a meaningful valuation increase. We’re excited to support David Mather and the NxLite team as they build on this momentum.

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AI isn't just powering software. BrightAI just raised $51 million to automate inspection and other hardware-based AI capabilities. As Alexa von Tobel, co-founder of Inspired Capital put it: “So many people are so focused on the future of digital AI, but we’re excited about this new layer of AI: the physical world AI.” We are in the early innings of a series of AI-fueled innovations! https://lnkd.in/enhmafvH

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