033 Investing in Hardware Startups with Grit Ventures Managing Partner Kelly Coyne

On today’s show, we sit down with Kelly Coyne who is deeply immersed in the Silicon Valley start-up community. Having grown multiple start-ups from conception to over $100M valuations, she is a leading Go-To-Market expert. After earning her MBA from Oxford University, Kelly served at the helm of several early-stage hardware companies (Lily, Mimosa, Candl) and advised many others.

Kelly has broad technology experience, but specializes in guiding Robotics, AI, AR/VR and computer vision companies from concept to launch. She has tremendous experience managing successful betas, developing use cases, connecting products to the right customers, and leading successful product launches. She has also seen some of the extreme pitfalls of SV start-ups - this unique knowledge helps her guide new companies to success. She is a Techstars and Oxford Creative Destruction Labs mentor.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How have the VCs changed over time in relation to their paths and career backgrounds before becoming a VC?
• What are the skills or knowledge that is going to be key to be a successful VC in the future?
• What does it look like to be a fundable pre-seed hardware company?
• What are the two largest issues that early-stage robotics and artificial intelligence startups face?
• What is “humanized AI”?

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Guest

• Kelly Coyne on Linkedin
• GritVentures.com

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