The War Over AI Will Be Won with Visual Data – Where are the Startup Opportunities?
/ Guest UserLDV Capital invests in people building businesses powered by visual technologies. We thrive on collaborating with deep tech teams leveraging computer vision, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to analyze visual data.
Evan Nisselson – Founder & General Partner at LDV Capital – presented at a virtual event hosted by NYU Entrepreneurial Institute last week. He shared his insights on the exciting world of visual tech. Learn what the current trends are and see what problems can be solved with visual technology in the future.
He highlights details about what he looks for when assessing startups and opportunities and references some companies LDV Capital has invested in.
We hope you enjoy the presentation as much as the following people did:
“Loved this session. Interesting thesis and insightful speaker.”
“Investor perspective as opposed to the entrepreneurs’”
“Great ppt and experience of Evan”
“Very open & engaging Q&A. Thank you.”
© Mercy Virtual – a virtual care center, which operates solely through the use of telemedicine
We’d like to thank NYU for the opportunity to share this video with you. Use this password to see the recording: LDVAI!#1 and stay tuned for other insightful online events.
You might be also interested to read Evan’s latest article, “Visual technologies on the frontline to flatten the curve”.
LDV Capital is thrilled to partner with Staer, the spatial intelligence company enabling autonomous mobile robots to see, understand and coordinate across dynamic real-world environments. Built by the founding team behind Mapillary, which LDV Capital first backed in 2014 before its acquisition by Meta, Staer is delivering live 3D mapping, real-time tracking and fleet orchestration across robot vendors. The article explores why spatial intelligence is becoming foundational infrastructure for Physical AI, how Staer is helping warehouses and industrial environments solve observability and coordination challenges, and why visual technology is essential for the next generation of autonomous robotics.
At LDV Capital's 2026 Annual General Meeting, Principal Ash Cleary outlined how visual technology and AI are driving the next wave of intelligent automation across legacy industries. Moving beyond basic digitization, advances in computer vision, machine perception, robotics, digital twins, and spatial intelligence are enabling autonomous decision-making in logistics, construction, manufacturing, and mining. The article explores trillion-dollar opportunities emerging from these technologies and why visual data is becoming the foundation for the future of industrial infrastructure.
We are thrilled to share a few photographs and stories from this year’s invite-only Annual General Meeting – a special event where our LPs connect in person with our team, portfolio companies and experts.
It was a pleasure to host entrepreneurs, investors, researchers and special guests such as Maria Gotsch, Andy Parsons, Mark Kalow, Fernando De La Torre, Thomas Knox, Rebekah Griesenauer, Hani Eskandari, Omar Issa, Rebecca Paoletti, Robert Levitan, Serge Belongie, Emi Gal, Summer Bedard, Dave Zohrob, Dawn Barber, Jeremiah Robison and many more!
Our Annual General Meeting was a true highlight – full of thoughtful conversations, valuable insights and genuine connection. We’re grateful to everyone who joined us and contributed to making it a success!
Our 12th Annual LDV Vision Summit brought together deep tech entrepreneurs, technologists, academics, researchers and investors for engaging discussions on innovations in cutting-edge visual tech and AI. We continue to be excited by the accelerating convergence of visual tech and AI across both the digital and physical worlds.
We were thrilled to welcome speakers from Insight Partners, Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School, Bek Ventures, 01 Advisors, University of Oxford, The Pioneer Centre for Artificial Intelligence, and LocalGlobe among others.
A special thank you goes to our speakers and attendees!
We are pleased to share an interview with Sumanta Talukdar, CEO & Founder at Gardin and Evan Nisselson.
1. What is Gardin’s mission?
Agriculture is the only foundational industry that doesn’t measure its product accurately and at scale. This has kept a $1T digitization opportunity virtually untapped. Gardin’s mission is to unlock this opportunity by enabling food producers, for the first time, to measure the biology of their crops in real-time and effectively at scale.
2. How is Gardin’s optical phenotyping stack differentiated from alternative sensing or analytics solutions in precision agriculture today?
Gardin is the only solution that delivers on 4 critical requirements simultaneously to greenhouse growers. First, our multimodal robotic optical sensors measure crop photosynthesis in real time and at scale. Second, our Gardin AI brain transforms raw biological signals into clear, actionable insights for growers. Third, the entire platform operates fully autonomously, removing manual data collection and interpretation. Fourth, Gardin is delivered through a scalable SaaS model, aligning our success with our customers’ outcomes.
We are honored to work with brilliant people every day!
Since founding in 2012, LDV Capital is a thesis-driven early-stage venture fund investing in people building businesses powered by visual technology and artificial intelligence. Our thesis = a majority of the data our brains analyze is visual. Therefore, the majority of the data artificial intelligence will analyze will also be visual across the light and electromagnetic spectrum.
People used to say that our thesis was cute, niche and science fiction. Now it is validated.
We invest horizontally across all sectors such as: agriculture, healthcare, nanotechnology, logistics, manufacturing, entertainment, mobility, construction, optics, sensors, life sciences and biotech, robotics, materials science, video, mapping, security and much more.
LDV Capital IV: We are investing out of our 4th fund which was announced in 2024.
LDV Capital I & II are returned. We continue to have significant upside potential across each of our funds thanks to our brilliant entrepreneurs, experts, team and LP partners.
Explore the "Internet of Eyes" (IoEyes) concept: a network of visual sensors and cameras that will give inanimate objects the ability to "see," exponentially impacting businesses and humanity through computer vision and AI. Written by Evan Nisselson, Founder and General Partner at LDV Capital, this article was originally published on The Next Web on May 13, 2016, and is being reposted without changes.
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.
Arcturus has created a volumetric video platform that captures and broadcasts sports action in full 3D. They redefine how we connect with our favorite sports moments by delivering compelling new camera angles for 2D broadcasters and new 3D sports experiences never possible before on mobile or immersive devices. Their SaaS platform delivers the capture, processing, production and distribution of this content. We are thrilled to partner with Steve Sullivan, Devin Horsman, Ewan Johnson, Fraser McArthur and the entire Arcturus team as they deliver the future of live 3D broadcast quality sports coverage.
We led their $2.3M seed round with participation from Myelin VC, Vanderbilt University and angel investors including Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York.
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.