LDV Capital – 10 Years Investing In People Building Businesses Powered by Visual Tech & AI

WOW! Ten years is a long time!

We could not have accomplished this exciting milestone without our inspiring portfolio founders, experts, community members, co-investors and LDV LPs. Thank you!

Evan’s keynote at How To Web, 2016. Bucharest, Romania. ©How To Web

The Only Visual Technology Venture Fund

After successes and failures over 18 years as an entrepreneur and building 4 businesses powered by visual tech, we founded LDV Capital in 2012 with the thesis of investing in people building businesses powered by visual technologies.

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.

Visual data can be any data across the light and electromagnetic spectrum, from visible to ultraviolet, thermal, Radar, LiDar, MRI, Spectroscopy, and much more. Our eyes capture and send information about shape, color, depth, opacity, speed, and more to our brains similar to how visual sensors capture and send data to computers empowered by cutting-edge algorithms that analyze it faster and at scale.

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.

Friends and strangers told me that our LDV Capital thesis-driven venture fund investing in people building businesses powered by visual tech was cute, niche and science fiction. That wasn't the only aspect they felt was crazy! In fact, many felt we were 10x crazy!

Thesis: Visual Tech.
Deep tech.
Solo GP.
Investing pre-revenue & pre-product.
LDV Platform launched in 2012 because we knew the power of network effects which I leveraged as an entrepreneur.
Highly concentrated portfolio.
Get involved without getting in the way.
We do extensive research before we make an investment.
Offer term sheets before companies are incorporated, ~30% of the time.
Geography = 60-70% North America & 30-40% Europe.

10 years later, LDV Capital continues to follow the above strategies because they are working. Some of them are now commonplace among many successful venture capital firms. LDV Capital will continue to push the envelope of what is cutting-edge to deliver value to our partners.

“LDV Capital was our first investor in Mapillary which was acquired by Facebook in 2020,” says serial entrepreneur and computer vision expert Jan Erik Solem, a co-founder of Mapillary, an LDV Expert in Residence, and LDV investor. “They were a tremendous value-add to our Mapillary team from our first prototype to our acquisition by Facebook. Their visual technology focus, strong conviction, exceptionally strong network and hands-on collaboration make them great investors and I highly recommend them to fellow entrepreneurs.”

As an entrepreneur, I learned that the most valuable businesses leverage unique domain knowledge and are highly differentiated. They are defensible, created at the right time of the macro trend and deliver unique value beyond their competition. These are the pillars that we built at LDV.

"Evan has partnered with us from the very first day we came up with the idea of our data-driven workplace mental health monitor. We started collaborating before our company was incorporated. He and the whole LDV team are always available for us whenever we need them. They help us prepare presentations, plan KPIs, connect us to top-tier investors, provide hands-on support when things get hard and challenge us in the best way possible. Their entrepreneurial approach, big vision, strong conviction, expert guidance and hands-on execution is the best mix an early-stage company could wish for to get to the next level." Karin Andrea Stephan & Herbert Bay, co-founders of Earkick.

Differentiated and Defensible Deep Tech Domain Expertise

Our LDV Capital team leverages unparalleled domain expertise to invest extremely early in businesses that are powered by state-of-the-art computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence used to analyze visual data.

Examples of our extensive network of vision experts include individuals from Instagram, Youtube, Columbia University, Lyft, Meta, NYU School of Medicine, Cornell Tech, University, Apple, University of Copenhagen - DIKU, MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Additionally, we are fortunate that about a third of our investors are what we can call the “imaging mafia.” They are serial entrepreneurs who have built and sold their businesses powered by visual tech.

People typically say that we invest in people building technology that is technically and physically impossible, BUT if it works it will be tremendously valuable. We are honored to invest in these outliers who are building extremely valuable businesses. We don’t have all the answers. We do extensive research before we make each and every investment. This is where our network becomes invaluable.

Visual tech is enabling computers to see. Cameras and visual sensors are built to function in a similar way to the human eye by capturing light, creating data and analyzing it. Our 2017 LDV Capital Insights report estimated that by 2022, there will be 45 billion cameras in the world collecting exponential amounts of visual data. A majority of that data will never be seen by a human eye.

LDV Capital Insights

In 2016, I wrote an article forecasting that the Internet of Eyes would be larger than the Internet of Things. Every inanimate object will have the ability to see and act on what it sees. The technologies that capture, manage, distribute, and analyze visual data are visual technologies.

LDV Capital Platform Delivers Early Access & Network Effects

When we started in 2012, only a couple of venture capital funds had platforms. Only a couple had platforms that delivered both valuable public and private events (for a fund’s portfolio) as well as content marketing strategies to add value. As a frequent speaker, moderator and master of ceremonies at technology conferences, I realized that a platform delivering valuable network effects are keys to success. We have focused on empowering our growing visual tech ecosystem and creating value for our portfolio companies.

Our unique LDV Platform launched in 2012 exponentially delivers high-quality deal flow, value for our companies, and co-investment opportunities. More than 90% of our investments originate via our annual LDV Vision Summit, LDV Entrepreneur Dinners, LDV Happy Hours, LDV Interview Series: Women Leading Visual Tech, LDV Insights (in-depth sector research), LDV proprietary tools, portfolio executives and our LPs.

LDV Vision Summit

“Congrats, amazing, 7 years of the LDV Vision Summit in New York and this sector has evolved so much. Really amazing that you started off with a somewhat contrarian futurist perspective on computer vision. Our co-investments in Ezra & Synthesia and others in our portfolio such as Pinterest and Hyperscience are proving that your thesis is working today.” Rick Heitzmann, FirstMark, Founder & Partner spoke in a fireside chat with Evan in 2022.

“I know it is their tagline but the LDV Vision Summit truly is the premier global gathering in visual tech. At Lux, we never miss it and are always happy to take the stage and share our thoughts around the greatest opportunities in visual tech with this fabulous community.” Deena Shakir, Lux Capital, Partner

We are thrilled to invite you to our 10th Annual LDV Vision Summit (virtual) on March 21, 2024 – the premier global gathering that showcases cutting-edge computer vision, machine learning and AI solutions to improve the world we live in. Sign up now for your free ticket.

LDV Community Dinners

"A fantastic gathering of entrepreneurs, investors and generally interesting people from our city and beyond. Was really great to meet folks outside of the typical circles." Alex Cavoulacos, Co-Founder & CEO, Meta Angels, Co-Founder, The Muse

"The group you curate and the format you’ve established are top notch. In fact, several of us were saying how we usually try to avoid “networking” events at all cost - but that your dinners are the absolute outlier/exception. Very inspiring, actionable - and more than wonderfully enjoyable LDV dinners that he hosts.” Gesche Haas, Founder, Dreamers & Doers

LDV Community Happy Hours

LDV Interview Series: Women Leading Visual Tech

LDV Portfolio Generates Positive Impact And Value Creation

96% of LDV Capital portfolio companies that have gone out fundraising have successfully closed their financings. Co-investors that follow LDV’s early investments include Sequoia, Union Square Ventures, Insight Partners, Google, Atomico, FirstMark, Menlo Ventures and NEA among others.

LDV Capital invests horizontally across all sectors such as healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, agriculture, food, content, metaverse, security, mobility, climate, energy and more.

Example sectors are:

Healthcare AI: Ezra (NYC & Toronto), CIONIC (San Francisco), Norbert Health (NYC & Paris), Earkick (Zurich), ImVitro (Paris).

Generative AI: Synthesia (London), Uizard (Copenhagen), Memorable AI (Boston), Daimon Labs (NYC), Aquifer Motion (Austin), Headroom (San Francisco), Earkick (Zurich), and BurnerPage (NYC). LDV started investing in Generative AI in 2018; we have 8 investments in this area.

Agriculture & Food AI: Gardin (UK)

Content, Media, Metaverse & Entertainment AI: Clarifai (NYC & DC), Synthesia (London and NYC), Aquifer Motion (Austin), Memorable AI (Boston & NYC), TVision Insights (Boston).

Construction & Real Estate AI: Gryps (NYC).

Mobility AI: Sea Machines (Boston), ROADIO (San Francisco), Voyant Photonics (NYC).

Productivity AI: Headroom (San Francisco), Synthesia (London), Uizard (Copenhagen).

Optics & Sensors: Glass Imaging (San Francisco), Voyant Photonics (NYC).

IVF Fertility AI: ImVitro (Paris).

Virtual Beings: Daimon Labs (NYC).

Security AI: Camio (San Francisco).

Portfolio examples:

Clarifai is a pioneer in deep learning-based computer vision and a leader in AI enterprise software. Matthew Zeiler founded Clarifai after working closely with Yan LeCunn and Rob Fergus at NYU. Clarifai is a leading computer vision, NLP, and deep learning AI lifecycle platform for modeling unstructured image, video, text and audio data. It helps both public sector and enterprise customers solve complex use cases through object classification, detection, tracking, geolocation, facial recognition, visual search, and natural language processing.

LDV invested in their first financing pre-product when there were only two people on the team and all they had was an award-winning algorithm.

“As an investor Evan is accessible, knowledgeable and very hands-on when we need him. He’s been a huge help with decision making, recruiting and making introductions to clients as he is very well connected.” Matthew Zeiler, Clarifai, Founder & CEO

Synthesia is the #1-rated AI video creation platform. The company is based in London. It was co-founded by Victor Riparbelli, Steffen Tjerrild, Dr. Lourdes Agapito and Dr. Matthias Niessner. Generative AI is radically changing content production as we know it. It empowers creators, accelerates creative expression, narrows the gap between ideas and content, as well as unlocks new methods of communication and storytelling.

In April 2019, LDV led their seed when they were pre-product and pre-revenue.

"Evan feels like a part of the team, much more so than any other investor I have worked with. He is always available for valuable sparring and his own entrepreneurial experience gives him a unique ability to not only understand the business challenges very well but also emphasize our personal journey.” Victor Riparbelli, Synthesia, Co-Founder & CEO

In June 2023, Synthesia announced their exciting $90 million Series C financing. The round is led by Philippe Botteri at Accel along with NVIDIA and existing investors. The company now officially hits unicorn status, and we are extremely proud of the entire Synthesia team!

Uizard changes the status quo in the multimedia & design software sector with its design tool for non-designers. The company is based in Copenhagen. It was co-founded by Tony Beltramelli, Henrik Haugbølle, Ioannis Sintos and Florian van Schreven. When they started, their goal was to improve the broken designer/developer workflow. Along the way, the team realized that Uizard’s AI was also empowering everyone in a given team to bring their imagination to reality easily—regardless of their design and technical background. Uizard’s Generative AI transforms the way people create websites and mobile/web applications.

Updated on February 23, 2023: Uizard’s Autodesigner is the latest AI design feature enabling anyone to generate multi-screen mockups by typing project ideas in plain English.

In May 2018, LDV led their pre-seed financing when they were pre-product and pre-revenue.

“Evan has been a key asset to our business and is always ready to get his hands dirty by working closely with us whenever we need him. He doesn't just invest capital, he genuinely and deeply cares about the companies he invests in and is fully ready to help them grow. ” Tony Beltramelli, Uizard, Co-Founder & CEO

Gardin builds the future of agriculture with their proprietary optical remote sensing technology, machine vision and analytics to monitor crops and provide actionable data to farmers. The company was founded by Dr. Sumanta Talukdar. With Gardin, food can be better, it can be tastier, it can be more secure and the systems that provide it, if managed sustainably, can contribute to the health of our planet rather than advance its decline.

In January 2021, LDV led their pre-seed financing when they were pre-product and pre-revenue.

“We wanted our pre-seed lead investor to be someone who was perfectly aligned with what we are doing and equally why. Someone who knows first-hand what it’s like to be a founder, who talks directly, has extensive visual tech domain expertise, valuable platform we can leverage, helps when we ask and who rolls up their sleeves and delivers high-quality help rather than some token gesture. Evan and LDV Capital met all of these and continue to do so. If you want hard work, straight-talking and a high-quality value-add investor - Evan and the LDV team are a great choice.” Sumanta Talukdar, Founder & CEO of Gardin

Ezra – next-generation cancer screening technology that uses AI & MRIs. The company was founded by Emi Gal. Hopefully, people will no longer hear that they have late-stage cancer and there is nothing they can do about it. The company recently raised $18 million in Series A funding. Our co-investors: FirstMark, Accomplice, Founders Future, Credo, Seedcamp, Angels. They are based in NYC.

“I've known Evan since 2012 and I've always been in awe of the incredible network he's created around him at LDV. Through that network, within weeks of becoming an Ezra investor, Evan helped us hire a salesperson, find a PR agency, and generate hundreds of leads. Combine that network with Evan's passion for helping founders and his focus on computer vision, and I think you have something incredibly special.” Emi Gal, Ezra, CEO & Founder

CIONIC – bionic clothing and a platform for human augmentation. The company was founded by Jeremiah Robison. The team continuously challenges the expectations of human capabilities, pushing for a world beyond disability. Most recently, CIONIC raised $12.5M in series B funding. Our co-investors: Epic Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Angels.

Updated on October 20, 2023: the company announced a $12 Million Series A extension led by L Catterton with new partners THVC and Enable Ventures.

"In 2018, when LDV Capital invested in CIONIC, we were a one-person team with an alpha prototype of the revolutionary CIONIC Neural Sleeve and a mission to help millions of people with mobility difficulties from conditions like multiple sclerosis, stroke, cerebral palsy, and more to walk without walkers or crutches. Throughout the years, Evan and the team at LDV supported CIONIC at each stage of the process. They provide guidance on raising capital, hiring and they roll-up their sleeves to help whenever we need them for absolutely anything in order to help us succeed!" Jeremiah Robison, Founder & CEO of CIONIC.

See the full list of our portfolio companies.

After 10 Years & For Many More Decades

We are honored to have an incredible LDV team and community of experts that help us filter, review and advise people building incredibly valuable businesses.

We are always looking for brilliant people to join our team, help us create value and hopefully improve our world.

We are looking to partner with outliers that are building leapfrog deep tech solutions. It is never too early to reach out via mutual connections or here. Here is to many more decades partnering with brilliant people, solving huge problems, hopefully improving the world and making all of us a lot of money while we sleep!

We are truly grateful for everyone who has helped bring us to the now! The next ten years will be exciting and rewarding.

Our Annual General Meetings are invite-only exclusive gatherings that bring together our investors, experts, special guests and portfolio companies. For the first time, we have made the decision to share a few photographs from our most recent Annual General Meeting hosted in New York City to give you a glimpse into what it is like to be a part of our LDV Capital Inner Circle.

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LDV Capital - 10 Years Investing In People Building Businesses Powered by Visual Tech & AI