5 Year Frontier

The future of manufacturing and robotics. In it we cover advanced factory automation, humanoid robots, how digital twins simulate and optimize manufacturing lines, AI-led product and parts design, nanotechnology, and the next generation of physical technology founders and startups. Lior Susan, a pioneering force in digital transformation for physical industries who wears the hat of a CEO and investor simultaneously to extreme success. A serial entrepreneur, Lior is CEO of Bright Machines, delivering advanced robotics and automation for manufacturing. Funded to the tune of $300M Bright Machines operates out of the US, Mexico, and Israel. Its key funder is the VC firm Eclipse that Lior also co-founded and works as a General Partner. A firm that become one of the first specialists in physical industry transformation and since grown to manage over $4B and partnered with over 70 companies. Lior sits on both sides of the table and offers a uniquely deep perspective on how our world is being reshaped. Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of 3D printing. In it we cover mass customization at scale, computer-led design, creating the un-makable, printing body parts and food, rethinking global trade, and the future of product design and production. Philip DeSimone, co-founder of Carbon. Headquartered in California and serving customers in 17 countries from Adidas to Ford, Carbon is a 3D printing technology company helping businesses develop better products and bring them to market in less time. Carbon is a vertically integrated organization developing 3D printer hardware, advancing material science inputs, and designing the software to make it all work seamlessly. With over 300 patents filed, Carbon has raised $680M from the likes of Sequoia, Temasek, Adidas, BMW, and Google. Coming up to 12 years since co-founding Carbon, Phil leads Carbon’s go-to-market strategy and manages their most strategic partnerships and customers. Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of air travel. In it we cover arrival of flying cars to our cities as soon as next year, what they will look like, the reorganizing of the industrial complex to scale them en mass and how our concept of cities and daily lives will evolve as a result. Adam Goldstein is founder and CEO of Archer Aviation, a publicly listed company advancing sustainable air mobility. Archer builds electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft as part of its quest to develop new urban air mobility networks. Yes we’re talking about flying cars. A future that Archer sees arriving as soon as 2025. Partnering with industry giants like United airlines and NASA, Archer is bringing its first aircraft, called Midnight, to ferry commuters over crowded highways and allow airlines to more efficiently feed their large hubs with passengers from the outer suburbs. Before Archer, Goldstein co-founded and led Vettery, a recruiting software company, which was sold to The Adecco Group for over $100 million. Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of gaming. In it we cover games coming to life with AI powered characters and perpetually evolving worlds. We discuss how it reshapes gameplay, the economics of gaming, and extends out into the rest of our world in places such as media, education, commerce and health. At its core it shines a light into how humans and AI could interact and co-evolve. Kylan Gibbs is Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Inworld, the leading AI engine for games. Inworld is on a mission to bring games to life with Ai-powered characters and worlds that evolve with each action. Founded in 2021, the company is the most well funded AI gaming startup with over $120M raised from the likes of Lightspeed and Kleiner Perkins. Calling Disney, Warner Brothers, Niantic, and Xbox amongst its numerous customers. Kylan is responsible for Inworlds product vision and draws on his experience developing novel Ai at both Google’s DeepMind and Bain & Company. He can also be found guest lecturing at Stanford University. Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of sports and the fan experience. In it we cover disrupting the economics around sport, the rise of fan owned leagues, teams, and athletes, winning Kentucky Derby as a startup, the 21st Century sports agency, and the future of media and entertainment.    Brian Doxtator is the CEO of Commonwealth, an LA based startup challenging the economic model of horse racing, golf, and sports more broadly. Commonwealth enables its 20,000+ members to buy shares in horses and athletes, competing head on with wealthy sports owners for winnings while unlocking a new level of fan engagement and experience through ownership. Commonwealth has taken horse racing by storm: in 2022 their horse Country Grammer was the world’s highest earner, in 2023 Mage won for them the Kentucky Derby. The company continues to expand into other sports and has the backing of renowned investors such as Roger Ehrenberg and athletes like Larry Fitzgerald. Brian has spent his career in technology startups, notably growing mobile-marketing company PlayHaven from $0 to $45M in revenue before its acquisition.   Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of Ai’s ability to see and make sense of our world. In it we cover topics including predictive security systems making our lives safer, breakthrough advances in large vision models, counteracting big brother and bias, and the future of multi-sensory AI. Shikhar Shrestha is co-founder and CEO of Ambient Ai, the silicon valley startup that rocketed out of stealth in 2022 with over $50M in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, adding a further $20M in 2023, and who boasts a list of fortune 500 as customers. Ambient equips security cameras with computer vision technology that enables them to see and understand the world around them. Shikhar spans a technical career from DARPA to Apple and Google, earning a Masters in Mechatronics, Robotics and Smart Imaging Systems from Stanford University. A true expect in computer vision technology i’m excited to learn from him where this transformative technology is taking us. Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of biosecurity and securing our environments from virus and disease. In it we cover the power of light to disinfect and protect our indoor spaces, advances in sensor technologies and data to pick up future pandemics, risk modeling for real estate operators and the insurance industry, all the way to biosecurity at our borders and protecting humans as they travel through outer space. Ben Boyer is co-founder of R-Zero Systems, who builds autonomous systems that disinfect indoor environments using UV light. Founded in response to COVID RZero has become a leader leveraging light, sensors, and data to keep our environments safe from disease — deploying their technology in hospitals, schools, offices and with the government. This year they raised over $100M from the likes of Qualcomm, Mayo Clinic and Upfront Ventures. In addition to Rzero, Ben is co-founder of Tenaya Capital, a growth stage venture firm with over $1.5B AUM backing technology companies such as Lyft, Kayak and PlanGrid amongst others. Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of the construction industry, more specifically how money flows within construction. In it we cover topics such financial automation from the CFO office right down to the job site, the move from a backwards looking workflow to a real-time and predictive one, as well as the industry tailwinds accelerating overall technology adoption of a $15T segment of the global economy. Bassem Hamdy is founder and CEO of Briq, a next generation financial platform to make construction projects more profitable. Briq, a 150 person tech company out of Santa Barbara, commands a significant share of US construction firms as its customers and now has expanded internationally. The industry uses Briq to gain visibility over the flow of money on a project in order to make better planning decisions and predict profits more confidently. Bassem is a rare breed, he’s been in construction software for over two decades, before it was cool and before there was even an industry around it. First seeing the introduction of resource planning software at CMIC (which now handles over $100B in construction revenue each year) to then being EVP of Enterprise Strategy at Procore (a now public company) helping construction transition to the cloud. Today we get to talk about what the next evolution is. He’s also one of the very few that can speak construction as authentically as he speaks technology. Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fritz Lanman, CEO of Mindbody, discusses the evolution of software ecosystems, predicting customer behavior, embedded finance, and the global appetite for fitness in the industry. He explores the growth and vision of MindBody, partnerships between vertical SaaS and FinTech, potential collaborations with fitness influencers, and the global adoption of health and wellness practices.

The future of sustainable cities and real estate. In it we cover topics including the most impactful projects of the Empire State’s $300M retrofit, new innovations in sustainability for buildings old and new, the importance of economic incentives and the incoming regulation putting pressure on the real estate industry globally. Anthony Malkin is CEO of Empire State Reality Trust, Inc (NYSE:ESRT), a leading real estate investment trust which owns and operates office and retail properties throughout New York — most notable being the Empire State Building coined ‘The Worlds Most Famous Building’. Tony has transformed the 100 year old Empire State building into a shining example of energy efficiency and modernization, open sourcing their work to the world and advancing the cause of green buildings in partnership with others such as the Clinton Climate Initiative. Tony has led the development of standards for building energy efficiency and, amongst his many positions, is a member of the Board of Governors of the Real Estate Board of New York and member of Partnership for NYC’s Innovation. Tony is an intellectually forward and bold thinker, deep in innovation through personal investments in VC and the technology industry. A man of action, mission-driven by our green city future yet equipped with the business mind to make it economically viable and practical to achieve. Sign up for new podcasts. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.