LDV Community is Helping Each Other Succeed: February 2023 Happy Hour Photos
/Here at LDV Capital, we continue celebrating over a decade of investing in people building businesses powered by visual technologies and artificial intelligence. When we were starting, friends and strangers told Evan Nisselson, Founder & General Partner, that our thesis-driven venture fund was “cute, niche and science fiction” but now we do not hear that anymore. Our thesis is that the majority of data that human brains analyze is visual, therefore visual data is critical to the success of artificial intelligence across all businesses. This thesis might have been less substantiated in 2012, but 10 years later it is validated and will continue to be viable for many more decades.
We host our LDV Community Dinners & Happy Hours to bring together the world’s brightest technology innovators, serial entrepreneurs, deep tech researchers and investors to discuss the latest trends in visual tech.
(L-R) Kat Kolambet-Lopez, Director of Content & Marketing at LDV Capital, is speaking with Rick Smolan, former Time, Life, and National Geographic photographer best known as the co-creator of the Day in the Life book series. He is CEO of Against All Odds Productions. Rick has been part of our LDV Community for over a decade. At our inaugural LDV Vision Summit, back in 2014, Rick gave a keynote speech, titled “The Future of Visual Communications.”
After two years of virtual events, we are excited to be hosting a range of invite-only LDV Community events in person. The photographs are by Robert Wright.
(L-R) Ryan Measel, Co-Founder of LDV portfolio company Fantasmo that has been acquired by TIER Mobility, where Ryan currently holds the position of VP of Engineering, speaking with Amir Tasbihi - Co-Founder and CTO at Gryps – an LDV portfolio company that delivers enterprise robotic process automation (RPA) leveraging computer vision and machine learning to the construction industry.
(L-R) Evan Nisselson, Founder and General Partner at LDV Capital, is speaking with Andrew Bloom, Chief Commercial Officer at Data Axle, a big data, analytics and marketing services provider that delivers best-in-class data-driven customer-centric technology solutions. Their data and software-as-a-service offerings help from small companies to Fortune 100 enterprises, increase their sales and customer loyalty.
(L-R) Amanda Zalka, Senior Product Manager at Spotify, is speaking with Chloe Kaufman, Associate at Cooley, an international law firm.
(L-R) Carlos Bhola, Managing Director at Celsius Capital, is speaking with Andrew Cohen, a serial entrepreneur, SVP and Head of Product Development at AT&T. Previously, Andrew led product IoT product and engineering group at Samsung, was Director and General Manager of Kindle Direct Publishing at Amazon, SVP/GM at bit.ly, and Director of Search & Navigation at AOL.
Jason Goodman, CMO at LDV portfolio company Ezra, the company transforming early cancer screening using full-body MRI scans and AI. Jason is a 'right-hand advisor' to CEOs at Cleo.AI, Naama, Plumguide, and Koos.io. Jason co-founded and led from start to exit Eastnine, Albion, and Tribal DDB. He then focused on learning the craft of investing as an angel investor since 2008.
(L-R) Dareen Salama, co-founder and CEO at Gryps, a robotic process automation (RPA) company focused on the construction industry, speaking with De-Ann Abraham, Programs Manager at the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute, a university-wide initiative to accelerate the pace of technology commercialization and the launch of successful startups founded by NYU's 60,000 students, faculty and researchers.
(L-R) Jonathan Zobel, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets, is speaking with Steffen Tjerrild, Co-Founder, COO & CFO at LDV portfolio company Synthesia, the #1 rated AI video creation platform, with +30,000 companies creating videos in +120 languages at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional production. Steffen will speak about this generative AI-powered video platform eliminating the need for cameras, actors, studios, or microphones at our 9th Annual LDV Vision Summit on March 28th. Did you sign up yet?
(L-R) Amanda Zalka, Senior Product Manager at Spotify, is speaking with Miruna Macri, Partner & Creative Director at Lateral Inc, a design & development studio.
For attendees of our Happy Hour event and for you reading this post, we are happy to share the promo code that grants $150 OFF your Ezra scan: LDV150. Book your scan in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, or Las Vegas.
Tristan Louis, a serial entrepreneur, is now the President and CEO of Casebook PBC – the creators of the patented award-winning Casebook Human Services platform. Tristan co-founded 6 companies (led to 2 IPOs and 3 sales) and served as Global Chief Innovation Officer for HSBC and Global Head of Mobile and Internet for Deutsche Bank. He is a published thought leader on digital innovation in the financial and media industries.
Ryan Benmalek, co-founder and CEO at stealth company. Ryan was the 2018 winner of our Entrepreneurial Computer Vision Challenge. A brilliant Ph.D. student studying Computer Science at Cornell University’s Computer Vision Lab under Serge Belongie at the time, he presented the “Neural Painter” – a novel method to design & prototype anything you can imagine by simply describing it long before the overheated trend of Generative AI.
Eric Berry, entrepreneur-turned-life sciences & healthcare investor. Former co-founder and CEO of TripleLift, the advertising technology company reinventing ad placement. Ernst & Young LLP named Eric an Entrepreneur Of the Year® 2019 New York Award winner in the category of Marketing and Advertising. He is a board member of LDV portfolio company TVision. Most recently, Berry became the Co-Managing Partner of Bedford Bridge, an investment firm with expertise in biotech, tech, and private equity. At our 1st LDV Vision Summit back in 2014, Eric delivered a keynote speech, “Computer Vision to Deliver Native Advertising at Scale”.
(L-R) David Berkowitz is speaking with Tristan Louis. David is the Founder of the Serial Marketer consultancy firm as well as the Serial Marketers community. Most recently, he became an Executive in Residence at Progress Partners, a corporate advisory firm that works with buyers and sellers of emerging growth companies to complete M&A or private placement transactions.
(L-R) Eric Rachlin, the founder of a stealth startup, previously the cofounder and CTO of Body Labs, is speaking with Miruna Macri, Partner & Creative Director at Lateral Inc, Amanda Zalka, Senior Product Manager at Spotify, and Rob Spectre, a technologist, Founder of childsafe.ai and LDV Expert.
Jonathan Zobel, managing director in RBC Capital Markets’ financial institutions group. He is responsible for M&A and financing transactions for public and private companies. Prior to joining RBC, Jon served as a Managing Director in the Financial Institutions Group at Citigroup, as well as Deutsche Bank. Jon has more than 20 years of investment banking experience, covering clients in the insurance industry as well as other financial services sectors. He has advised numerous clients in the Life and P&C insurance sectors on a broad range of M&A and financing transactions, both inside and outside the US.
(L-R) Matthew Futterman, the New York Times sports editor, is speaking with Yan Liu, Co-founder and CEO at LDV portfolio company TVision. Matthew is the author of 2 books: “Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed” and “Players: The Story of Sports and Money, and the Visionaries Who Fought to Create a Revolution”. He has previously worked for The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Star-Ledger of New Jersey, where he was a part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News in 2005.
Eric Rachlin, the founder of a stealth startup, was previously the co-founder and CTO of Body Labs. Body Labs was spinning out computer vision and machine learning technology developed at Brown University and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. The company provided the world's most statistically accurate 3D models of human shape, pose and motion. Body Labs was acquired by Amazon in 2017 and Eric then joined Amazon as a Principal Scientist, Product Graph.
(L-R) Evan Nisselson is speaking with William O'Farrell, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman of Body Labs. Jeremy Kagan, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, Cornell and NYU, author of "Digital Marketing: Strategy and Tactics" and "Designing the Successful Corporate Accelerator”. Jeremy previously founded PricingEngine.com, a venture-backed SaaS MarTech company.
Yan Liu is Co-founder and CEO at LDV portfolio company TVision, the company transforming how brands, their agencies, and TV media sellers determine the true value of TV content. Yan co-founded TVision while earning his MBA at MIT. Prior to TVision, Yan started and managed Yo-ren, a leading digital marketing agency in China.
(L-R) Amir Tasbihi, Co-Founder and CTO at Gryps, is speaking with Ryan Measel, VP of Engineering at TIER Mobility (previously, co-founder of Fantasmo). Following its acquisition of Fantasmo, TIER Mobility is now deploying its latest parking validation solution for e-scooters in London, Tel Aviv and Utrecht.
(L-R) Peter Stern, CEO of LDV portfolio company Voyant Photonics, is speaking with Dareen Salama, Co-Founder and CEO at Gryps, and Rob Spectre, a technologist, Founder of childsafe.ai, the artificial intelligence platform protecting kids from predators online and previously VP Developer Evangelist at Twilio. Peter has spent the last 25 years creating and growing companies in a wide variety of sectors spanning from financial services to social media, and now LiDar chips. He built and served as CTO for Datek Online until its multi-billion dollar merger with another brokerage firm, founded and sold Zenbe to Facebook, and was the first CEO of bit.ly.
Carlos Bhola, Managing Director at Celsius Capital, an investment and advisory services firm focused on companies in the technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sectors.
Portfolio companies include: EachNet (acquired by eBay); Vonage (NYSE IPO, where Carlos was co-Founder and President); gate5 (acquired by Nokia); Zenbe (acquired by Facebook); SmartPay/Jieyin (acquired by Ping An); and kikin (where Carlos was co-Founder and CEO). With Audi, BMW and Daimler, Celsius acquired HERE from Nokia.
Matt Wichrowski, a Partner at Fly Ventures, a day-zero, a pan-European venture that is specialized in backing technical founders solving hard problems. He has worked in the global startup ecosystem since 2015 as a VC and angel in the US, UK, France, Germany, Singapore and Hong Kong. He focuses on deep tech investing. Matt and his firm co-invested with us at LDV Capital in the SaaS platform ImVitro, which applies AI to in vitro fertilization imaging needs. He volunteers time at Imperial College London and the Conception X program.
Derek Stewart, COO at Stay at Lina, a service to rent vacation homes throughout New York, is speaking with MiCHAEL Moretti, Former Market Manager at Silicon Valley Bank. Prior to joining SVB in 2003, Michael founded fintech startup LConnect Inc. and was in the international, corporate and investment banking markets since 1982.
