Shahin Farshchi Ph.D, General Partner at Lux Capital

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Lux Capital General Partner Shahin Farshchi, PhD, joined Lux Capital in 2006. Lux, which manages $5 billion, is well known as one of, if not the premiere, “hard tech” investor with a contrarian stance. Founded on the heels of the “.com” bust, Lux has been at the forefront of innovations across multiple domains beginning with nanotechnology and now semiconductors, autonomy, space systems, and life sciences.

Shahin discusses his journey, emphasizing the importance of initiative and building relationships without immediate expectations. He illustrates how he reached out to Lux Capital offering to send them deals and do due diligence, a strategy that eventually led to a job offer and significant investments including Nirvana (one of the first semiconductor AI companies, sold to Intel), Zoox (an early autonomy player, sold to Amazon).  He discusses the formation of his passion for science and engineering developed in computer stores and auto shops in Iran, at UC Berkeley, and then with a PhD in Electrical Engineering at UCLA.

Ali and Shahin discuss Lux’s investment philosophy centered on funding world-class teams that tackle hard problems, and how to be at the frontier but not in the wilderness. The conversation also touches on specific areas of interest, including space logistics, AI advancements, and the future of robotics. Shahin shares his optimism about the potential of AI, space, and robotics to transform industries and improve living standards. He hopes entrepreneurs make him the the first call for their first institutional capital, highlighting Lux’s ability to nurture investments with long payoff horizons.  Notable portfolio companies include Anduril (defense drones), Databricks and Hugging Face in AI, Planet Labs in earth observation, Mosaic ML (an AI company acquired by Databricks), and Zededa in industrial IoT.