From Quantum Physics to Venture Capital — The Nerds have entered VC Funds

In this issue I had the pleasure of interviewing Daniel Bobruk, a theoretical physicist by craft and now Partner in the early stage VC fund, The Aventures.

So Daniel, pleasure to have you here. Why don’t you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Thank you so much for the introduction! Well, for starters my formal background lies in science, where I hold a degree in Astrophysics and Quantum Physics. Throughout my studies I developed my skills in programming, applied Machine Learning, and Data Science. I have also worked for a year at CERN, the world’s largest particle accelerator, right before I joined the fund.

That’s really interesting but I can’t help myself but ask, what made you make such an alternative transition from Physics to Venture Capital?

To be honest, I have always had a hard time putting myself in a box that is too narrow to encompass my skill set. While I love physics I am passionate about more than just that.

I am a very big tech nerd that loves to delve into sectors where I have a technical edge such as AI, Machine Learning, Software Development, Blockchain, and Quantum Technology to name some.

At The Aventures I get to do exactly that and leverage my background in a field that requires more tech expertise. The reason I joined the fund was because I align myself very well with the thesis and that the team and I are data driven tech nerds who not only invest in tech but also build tech.

What makes The Aventures fund different from other VC funds? Do you have a specific thesis that you are following?

At The Aventures we follow the thesis of how the deeptech landscape has an ever growing knowledge gap, which requires more and more specialized knowledge, and so it requires investors who themselves come with technical backgrounds that speak the same technical language as the founders.

It is exhilarating to experience the mutual joy from founders when investors actually understand their product on a fundamental level. The response we have received has been nothing short of impressive and is cementing my belief that we are onto something with our approach. Founders prefer us for our technical skills and because we can provide more than just capital. We know both the scope and limitations of the tech and can help from both a technical and product developmental perspective but also on the commercial and business developmental side of things.

Other VCs co-invest with us because we serve as a validation for the startup in terms of a tech due diligence perspective.

You mention that you also build your own tech. Can you elaborate on this point?

We have built our own Investor App which allows our Limited Partners to track the development of their investment in real time as well as see the historical performance of the fund and find all the related fund documents for their investments. All the portfolio company updates are also sent through here giving our LPs free access to the information on demand. Also, Capital Account Statement documents are produced by the click of a button giving LPs full overview of their investments.

Furthermore, I leverage my background in programming and machine learning to build some pretty cool in-house tools that help us on a daily basis with regards to fund administration and workflow optimizations. It is something that I wonder about why more VC funds don’t enable these kinds of options. I think many VCs could benefit from getting more technical competencies on their team. I sense a general shift in VC becoming more tech literate and data driven.

Our website is also built by our GP who is a successful ex-founder and fellow nerd. He founded a cloud hosting platform which completed an exit some years ago and he went from being a programmer to becoming more of a commercial profile.

What major trends do you expect to see in technology innovation over the next 5 years that excites you?

Obviously the development of the AI space has been garnering a lot of attention lately, but in the end AI is only as good as the processors that we can train the models with. I am deeply excited about the synergetic effects of technologies — especially Quantum Computing.

This will drive the next technological revolution ALSO AI/Machine Learning.

Once development of the Quantum Computer reaches a certain stage everything will change. And when it comes to AI I like to remind people that the stage of AI today is the worst it will ever be. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

I also see how digital identity, digital collectibles, and alternative assets continue to play a larger role and how the values of GenZ are becoming more prevalent in consumer behaviors today. These are all factors that we consider in our investment decisions.

Was a pleasure to have you here, Daniel. Before you leave, how can our readers follow you on social media?

I am active on my LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aventuresdaniel/) and we also have the LinkedIn page of our fund (https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-aventures/)