VC @balderton. Previously: Founder/CEO blinkx (now TRMR.L) and US CTO Autonomy. Yet more previously: CompSci @Cambridge_Uni
Cambridge UK; San Francisco CA
Joined April 2009
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1/ hearing about many tough bridge/other rounds situations this year due to VC reserve strategies coming unstuck in the rapid market shift. Building on @fredwilson's great post avc.com/2017/01/reserves/ I wrote up some of the new dynamics I've seen/heard. link.medium.com/7KRYnDUEWsb
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
NEW: Palantir’s revolving door.
A new investigation by @thenerve_news has found Palantir has recruited more than 30 senior officials from UK govt, a strategy transparency experts say poses an ‘acute risk’ of corruption.
1/
Link ⬇️
Have worked with @Sethwinterroth and @EclipseVentures for 7+ years on the board of @wayve_ai. They were talking about physical tech a decade before it became trendy and are still ahead of the market today. If you’re building with atoms, you’d be a moron not to talk to them!
Eleven years ago we started @EclipseVentures and bet everything on atoms. Rockets, robots, chips, factories, power systems, defense. The things civilization actually runs on.
Today, we're announcing $1.3B in new capital to keep building.
The physical world is overdue for transformation. Transportation runs on systems designed decades ago. The energy grid cannot keep up with demand. Healthcare depends on manual procedures that don't scale. Defense development moves at a fraction of the speed threats evolve. These are not software problems. They are full stack engineering and operations problems, and they have been underinvested in for a generation.
But there has never been a better moment to solve them. The best engineers are leaving big tech to build in the physical world. AI is compressing timelines from years to quarters. Policy is aligned. And customers are not waiting — the DoD, the hyperscalers, hospitals, and the Fortune 500 are all desperate for technology that makes physical systems smarter, faster, and more resilient. Talent, capital, technology, policy, and demand are all converging at once.
This is our moment 🇺🇸
We built Eclipse for this exact moment and in doing so, we launched a movement. Today that movement is 100 companies strong (and growing!). These companies supply each other, share customers, and help solve each other's hardest problems. Propulsion systems powering orbital defense. Modern supply chain infrastructure moving the worlds goods. Autonomous vehicles on three continents. Surgical robots performing procedures that used to require the world's best hands. Cloud hardware powering the AI revolution built on American soil. That's not a fund. That's an economy — an Eclipse Economy.
The door is open to rebuild the physical infrastructure of the country. We intend to run through it.
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
Got my stripey socks on as I head into @CUH_NHS to visit the @camraredisease team and the @East_Genomics crew stands for #RareDiseaseDay on the rarest day! #showyourstripes @M4RareDiseases @BritSocGenMed @theAGNC @GeneticAll_UK @Unique_charity
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
Language is the future for how we interact with robots.
Today @wayve_ai is sharing a first look at LINGO-1, a new vision-language-action AI model. To give you a glimpse of its capabilities, here is a video of me playing with LINGO-1 yesterday morning.
Call to #healthtech #ai and #tech startups with products that have positive impact for people with #RareDisease. The NHS @EasternAHSN Innovation Challenge closes Sep 4: submit your work/product/idea and get huge exposure to this growing market. @camraredisease @zincvc @balderton
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
How hard should it be to run a venture-backed tech startup? 996 hard? 247 hard? call-your-mum-in-tears hard? I spoke to @simonbeckerman @surangac &more about why founder burnout is bad for business. The story is on today's #FTEdit app (free 30 day trial!) ftedit.onelink.me/Ju3k/gofjg…
See these great videos captured during drives in London? No you didn't ... these are entirely generated by @wayve_ai's AI. Generative AI and LLMs aren't just for chat ... they're for generating virtual worlds and autonomous vehicles too.
Today we’re sharing results from #GAIA1 … which is a mind blowing demonstration of how this year’s Generative AI and LLM breakthroughs apply to autonomous driving too.
(These videos are entirely synthetically generated from our AI driving in our world model!)
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
Huge 🙌🏼 to @Jeremy_Hunt and cross-Whitehall Team who supported the 🇬🇧 #tech sector from the moment the #SVB crisis hit & worked tirelessly with @Dom_Hallas @Coadec and others to find a swift solution that helps the sector without burdening taxpayers.
Government at its best 🙏🏼
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
Yesterday we received the very welcome news that the College’s plans to install solar panels on the roof of the Chapel had been unanimously approved by @camcitco. Here's a thread to explain more 🧵👇
the @churchofengland runs 1 in 4 primary schools in England and just refused to back gay marriage. meanwhile 83% of UK adults support gay marriage. Why are these dinosaurs allowed to have so much influence over our children?
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
Congrats to the magnificent @checkwarner MBE. So deserved @adaventures
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
I feel fortunate to be building @wayve_ai in the UK with an environment that supports innovative startups. But I'm concerned the proposed R&D tax credit cuts threaten to undo this strength the UK has developed in promoting deeptech companies in areas like AI and biotech.
UK tech start-ups call for rethink to R&D cuts that ‘punish’ innovation on.ft.com/3j3OTIp
I was interviewed (along with all the other people, pictured!) for @BetterVenture by @ErikaBrodnock and @JFLenhard a while ago. The book is finally out today, full of practical DEI insights for VCs and tech. You can read a preview or get it on @holloway.
holloway.com/b/better-ventur…
Watching the inspiring UniqueFeet at @camraredisease’s #rarefest22 sharing their passion for dance and movement. And now the brilliant instagram.com/be_yourself_dy… talking about his contemporary urban photography. #camrare
Remember when politics was more like this?
Congratulations @SpeakerPelosi on a remarkable, historic run of service in the People's House. We were able to disagree without being disagreeable. You've been unfailingly gracious to me and my family.
Imagine being eight and running around a stately home unfettered with your brother or sister. I wish I was a kid again and thanks to the ever-far-sighted @nationaltrust for this brilliant initiative. theguardian.com/uk-news/2022…
Suranga Chandratillake retweeted
This year we’ve seen many incredible AI breakthroughs from very large foundation models:
CLIP = image/language
Stable Diffusion = caption2image
GPT-3 = language
Whisper = speech2text
etc
But what does this mean for robotics and autonomous driving?
Ex-PMs can claim up to £115k a year for life. Using a traditional 4% retirement assumption, that means @trussliz just made £2.875M in 45 days. That's £64k a day or £23M a year - more than, say, @GaryLineker or an average premiership footballer. Buys a lot of tofu.