AI is the new electricity. Just as it transformed entire industries 100 years ago, AI is poised to do the same today. AI Fund is a venture studio that was formed to be at the forefront of this revolutionary wave. We harness artificial intelligence to create innovative solutions for the big challenges of today. With the collective aspirations of our co-founders, we build companies from inception to market launch. We innovate, ideate, and validate to address some of the most pressing issues in human capital, healthcare, wellness, and other traditional industries.
Founded in 2017 by Dr. Andrew Ng, the $176 million-dollar funded venture studio is backed by top-tier VC firms and investors, and powered by the AI Fund teams’ combined experiences as AI pioneers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and operators.
About The Project
We are incubating a cutting-edge technology company aimed at solving one of the hardest challenges for Robots (AGVs, AMRs), and Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) - Edge Cases - using a fundamentally different technical approach.
Our breakthrough technology approach has the potential to revolutionize the way autonomous vehicles and mobile robots handle edge cases, and we are looking for a world class entrepreneur to help us bring this vision to life.
The project has significant initial financial funding and support from a syndicate of Auto OEMs and their suppliers. Subject to achieving technical milestones, this syndicate has committed to investing significant amounts of capital to help the company scale.
We have identified a number of interesting applications for our technology, presenting a substantial opportunity to make a meaningful global impact. We are seeking individuals who share our passion for harnessing technology to enhance people’s lives.
What We Seek
We are looking for a co-founder with firsthand experience in the autonomous vehicle/robotics domain. Ideally, we want an individual with a proven track record in building deeply technical products and businesses, taking them to commercial success. You may have co-founded and successfully exited a deep tech business in the autonomous or robotics space, or perhaps you’ve served as a senior computer vision leader or business leader in one of the top autonomous vehicle or robotic companies. Finally, we want a leader who can attract and inspire the highest caliber technical talent, get others excited about their vision, and build the company into a foundational company within this space.
Why partner with AI Fund
We’ve been there. We’ve founded and scaled successful companies ourselves, and we know that creating meaningful startups is really hard. Many entrepreneurs toil with ideas for years. Many spend time building something without the foresight of limiting factors that could have been easily dismissed upfront. Accomplished execs often teeter between a desire to start a company and creating something great versus taking a job that is less fulfilling. If only someone could help with taking the risk out of turning an idea into reality and accelerate the company building process, more people would be inspired to start a company.
What You Will Be Doing:
- This company will be already fully funded for the Pre-seed round and the FIR will work with AI Fund Leadership and our strategic partners to launch and scale the business.
- Build a High-Caliber Team: With AI Fund’s support, You will build a high caliber technical AI and engineering team with the right specialist expertise.
- Work with the company’s early design partners and customers to deliver the initial technical milestones.
- Strategic Technical Milestones: Develop a technology roadmap with achievable milestones for the first 12 months, define performance metrics for each milestone. and estimate capital requirements for each milestone.
- Execution of all technical milestones while ensuring project deliverables are met on time and within budget.
- Work with AI Fund Leadership and strategic partners to develop go-to-market strategies and industry connections.
- Raise additional capital from our strategic partners, AI Fund and a syndicate of other investors.
Must Haves For the Role Include:
- Prior self driving/autonomous vehicle leadership experience
- Deep understanding of autonomous vehicle perception stack
- Integral part of building technology companies from 0 to 1
- Strategic thinking
- Self-starter who will thrive in an ambiguous startup environment
- Competitive, entrepreneurial mindset
- Demonstrated experience building products and leading teams
- Demonstrated track record of entrepreneurial success
- Demonstrated ability to fundraise
- Demonstrated ability to move fast and make sound judgment while doing so
- BA/BS degree or equivalent practical experience
- Ability to attract and motivate great team members
- Good communication skills and team player
Nice To Haves Include:
- Advanced degree or equivalent practical experience
- Skill to foster good company culture
Characteristics That We Value:
- Accountability: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions while doing so with the highest regard for integrity.
- Leadership: able to influence others to follow you and lead the team to a brighter future.
- Grit: able to stick with projects and work hard through good and bad times. High pain tolerance and can perform well under stress or pressure.
- Scrappy: Takes initiative and is proactively able to get things done with low resources, but doing creative things, begging, borrowing, and whatever is needed in an ambiguous environment or situation.
- Ownership Orientation: Demonstrated orientation of extreme ownership over all aspects of the company and extremely results-driven in nature.
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At AI Fund, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation, and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. AI Fund believes that diversity and inclusion among our employees is critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop, and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. Selection for employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.
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