Venture Capital for AI Innovation
We invest in companies enabled
by the latest AI technologies.
We invest in building trustworthy intelligent
machines to solve global challenges.
We use the latest AI tools
to accelerate startups.
AI & Neuro-tech arenaturally symbiotic,
each informing and
accelerating
the other.
each informing and
accelerating
the other.
We are founder-first
investors, relentlessly
scaling companies.
Join us to reinvent and even create new
industries worldwide.
industries worldwide.
PITCH US!
Is your AI-enabled company concept a world changer?
Are you looking for venture capital for AI Innovation?
Tell us about it so we can help make it happen!
Tell us about it so we can help make it happen!
"*" indicates required fields
INVEST WITH US!
Want to bring about positive societal change & help solve global challenges?
Would you like to invest Venture Capital for AI Innovation?
Join our growing community of active AI and deep-tech investors!
"*" indicates required fields
OUR STORY
-
After graduating from Cornell University with a Bachelor's degree in Physics, Dr. Alvelda's first job was to develop spacecraft sensors for interplanetary spacecraft. But a visit from a few Admirals and Generals coaxed him to become NASA's first technical staff member working on neural computation inspired AI architectures.
-
MIT's AI Lab
Inspired by his early work in neural network and AI application theory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. Alvelda earned his Masters and P.Hd. degrees at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to learn how to build the systems he had theorized about. His dissertation focussed on exploiting the computational properties of designed materials to create ultra-low power intelligent machines.
-
MicroDisplay Launched
Dr. Alvelda's first company was an microchip and display design company spun-out from MIT based on one chapter in his dissertation. It was built upon machine learning and AI techniques to design new electro-optic materials, CMOS VLSI chip designs, and optical systems for VR glasses and projection displays. MicroDisplay's technology was ultimately licensed by Google as the foundational enabling component of the Google Glass.
-
Idetic, Inc. Founded
After creating the first mobile phone with a super-high resolution display at MicroDisplay, Dr. Alvelda and his two co-founders, Paul Scanlan and Jeff Annison decided, thanks to a literal bolt of lightning (ask us about the story!) to build Smart Proxy telecom infrastructure software to make the mobile Internet possible.
Learn More -
Idetic becomes MobiTV
When the dot-com bubble finally burst, it took our mobile internet software business model with it. After growing 400% year-on year every customer cancelled all purchases for the next three years. Staring corporate death in the face, we pivoted the company to deliver live mobile television, enabled by our mobile Internet proxy software.
Learn More -
MobiTV wins an Emmy
By 2005 MobiTV was a rocket ship, having enabled the entirely new mobile distribution channel for the most important media company content, with licenses to all the best channels including those from Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and Discovery. So the Academy of Motion Pictures awarded the company a Technical Emmy Award.
Learn More -
Phillip Joins DARPA | BTO
After working on artificial Intelligence technologies since his days at NASA in the mid-eighties, President Obama's Department of Defense recruited Dr. Alvelda to lead efforts in its new Biological Technology Office to connect AI-enabled electronics directly to the human cortex to allow communication and control with nothing but thoughts.
Learn More -
Brainworks Launched
After catalyzing the whole new Brain-Machine Interface industry at DARPA, Phillip left government service to found Brainworks, Inc., a new AI-focussed startup created to transition new DARPA discoveries to solve global challenges.
Learn More -
Medio Labs Spins-out
In response to the unprecedented COVID pandemic, Phillip led the Brainworks spin-out to create Medio Labs, an AI-enabled Molecular Diagnostic company with the mission to apply new synthetic biology tech to first, make state-of-the-art mass COVID testing affordable for schools, and then go on to transform clinical lab testing in general.
Learn More -
Infinite Entertainment Launch
When Paul, Jeff, and Phillip realized that the burgeoning AI tsunami was going to be an even bigger revolution in media production and distribution than the Mobile revolution that made MobiTV a rocket ship, they grabbed their startup surfboards to catch this next wave. Robert Tercek joined to round out the founding team of Infinite Entertainment, now on a mission to empower creative professionals to tell more powerful stories that matter to more people than ever before.
LEARN More
With the mission to empower creative professionals with AI superpowers in a workflow that engages fans directly in the production process, Infinite Entertainment was born. AI + the Legion = Media Magic. -
Brainworks Ventures
With new AI technologies compressing and accelerating new product development and even company launch timelines, the old models for startup finance, incubation, and acceleration are now obsolete.
Brainworks Ventures is an entirely new type of VC entity designed to offer venture capital for AI innovation, along with AI support for company creation, finance, and scaling.
Leadership
Dr. Phillip Alvelda
Managing Partner
Dr. Alvelda, is an experienced AI technology innovator, entrepreneur, and investor who has created several industry-defining companies across a storied career. He is the Managing Partner of Brainworks Ventures, a new type of investment and startup incubator designed from the ground-up to offer venture capital for AI innovation. Brainworks leverages the latest AI technologies to create and scale AI-enabled companies and improve capital efficiency in AI investments to address global challenges.
Prior to Brainworks Ventures, Dr. Alvelda created the Brainworks Foundry which spun out two AI-enabled startups as a model for what became Brainworks Ventures including Medio Labs, a molecular diagnostics company founded to address the COVID pandemic. Brainworks grew out of Dr. Alvelda’s stint in the Obama Administration’s DARPA | Biological Technologies Office where he developed national-scale R&D programs and technologies at the intersection of AI and neuroscience, to catalyze the Brain-Machine Interface Industry.
Prior to Medio Labs, Brainworks, and DARPA, Dr. Alvelda was the founding CEO of MobiTV, which launched the world’s first live TV service for mobile phones over cellular networks. For this work, Dr. Alvelda was awarded an Emmy and was chosen as a “World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer” in 2007.
Prior to MobiTV, Dr. Alvelda founded The MicroDisplay Corporation the creator of the display device in the Google Glass, and developed ai-enhanced spacecraft sensors (Space Shuttle, Galileo, Magellan and Cassini) and new AI architectures at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Dr. Alvelda holds over 30 patents and patents-pending on a wide range of technologies, a technical Emmy Award, a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cornell University, and Masters and PhD degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Volker Hirsch
European Partner
Volker, Brainworks Ventures’ European Partner, covers the continent and UK markets. An experienced entrepreneur, company operator, and investor, he has founded or co-founded 6 companies to date, including Blue Beck, a 30-strong mobile development house. Volker coaches and mentors the European Commission’s EIC programs, and is the Chairman of School GPT.
Prior, Volker was a partner at Amadeus Capital, the Cambridge and London-based “deep tech” venture capital firm. With over 25 well-known AI investments in its portfolio, across sectors ranging from AI-specific semiconductors to foundational AI models, and applied AI, Amadeus Capital is one of Europe’s most active AI investors.
Prior to joining Amadeus Capital, Volker was an active angel investor and among the first investors in Yoto, Pi-Top, Bibblio (acquired by Ex.Co; where he was also Chairman), Enroly, and Wonde, with over 15 personal investments across Europe and the U.S.
Volker was also Chief Commercial Officer and built the investment program for the UK’s Medicines Discovery Catapult, a non-profit research organization in early-stage drug discovery, and mentors the Cancer Tech Accelerator and the EIC Scaling Club’s New Biotech Platforms program.
Previously, Volker was the Chief Strategy Officer at Scoreloop, a mobile social gaming platform, which he helped grow to 450m users at its peak. When the company was acquired in 2011, he served as BlackBerry’s Global Head of Business Development – Games, to offer more than 25,000 games, making it the largest gaming platform launch in history.
A thought leader on new technologies and their application, Volker is a frequent keynote speaker at technology conferences and corporate events around the world, often around the topic of “AI and the Future of Work.”. He has delivered keynotes to audiences totaling more than 100,000, including at conferences such as TEDx (3x), SXSW, MWC/4YFN (4x), CTIA, GDC and TechCrunch Disrupt.
Volker has been at the forefront of industries that were once described “niche” since 2000 . He helped launch the world’s first mobile music services (with Britney Spears, Duran Duran and Snoop Dogg). He then helped publish mobile games from Activision, Marvel, Hasbro, LEGO and many more as well as the first titles for a small studio called Rovio – later of Angry Birds fame.
Volker is an M&A lawyer by original profession. He studied law at the Universities of Tübingen and Hamburg and holds a postgraduate degree from the College of Europe Hamburg.