s16vc - Founders for Founders Fund

We just raised $21M to lead the new era of industrial automation with AI-powered robots. The round is led by Kibo Ventures, with participation from Kfund (Leadwind), Inditex (Mundi Ventures), and other exceptional backers. Our ambition is clear: To turn Barcelona into the global epicenter of next-gen robotics. We’re deeply grateful to everyone who believed in this vision from the beginning. Especially to JME Ventures, Itnig - Startup Ecosystem, #Mission, s16vc - Founders for Founders Fund, Carles Reina, Verónica Pascual, Sergej Epp, Lakestar, Felipe Navío, Calafia Iberia, Dr Fatima P. Godall, Albert Domingo Melgosa, Juanjo Mostazo, Joaquín Durán. Engineers, builders, scientists, doers: whether you’re a seasoned expert with a world-class portfolio or a top-of-your-class emerging talent, if you’re obsessed with solving hard problems, this is your moment. We’re hiring the best talent. Join us to build AI-powered robots that learn, adapt, and operate where no machine has ever succeeded before. At THEKER, you won’t just have a job, you’ll shape the future of robotics. We’re not assembling a team, we’re assembling the team. Defining a new category, building a legendary company. We’re building the robots of the future. Poem: Charles Bukowski Voice: ElevenLabs #BuildingTheRobotsOfTheFuture #THEKER

𝗔𝗜 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗹-𝗨𝗽𝘀: 𝗩𝗖 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗧𝘄𝗶𝘀𝘁, 𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗘 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘁? Join us to listen in & ask questions of the leading builders what it's like to be in the AI Roll-Up race in 2025. Don’t know about you, but I feel queasy when the 100th AI notetaker app (verticalized for dog walkers or plywood practitioners) comes through the door. And when 9-year-olds are building functioning tools on Lovable (true story), I get even queasier thinking about the value of software in 2025. How do you sell yet another intelligent assistant to a disinterested, overwhelmed SMB owner? Sure, they get some efficiency. But do they care? Will they implement it? And can you even reach them — before the CAC kills you and the LTV never comes? 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳, 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗠𝗕, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗶𝘁? What if you embedded your tech directly into the revenue base, rewrote the ops from within, and scaled the margins post-acquisition? That’s the AI roll-up play.  It’s essentially a PE strategy — except instead of just leverage and cost-cutting, you bring prompts, fine-tuned models, and a dream of rebuilding old industries from the inside out. 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗱-𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿. We’ve been actively investing in this space, and thinking deeply about what actually makes these plays work — and where the bodies might get buried. Our mental model is simple: three angles must intersect:  🟡 A real industry wedge  🔸 A scalable AI uplift  🟢 A team that can execute at speed across M&A Capital goes right there, in the middle. The strategy makes intuitive sense: Find fragmented, low-tech industries with sticky revenue and high human cost. Consolidate. Automate. Compound. But intuition isn’t execution. The margin uplift doesn’t always show up. The AI doesn’t always integrate cleanly. The acquired teams don’t always survive contact with startup culture. And the exit strategy? Still a question mark. To discuss all this, we're teaming up with Zeynep Yavuz of General Catalyst, the firm that has been pioneering this thesis, for a podcast with three founders building AI roll-ups in the wild: 🔹 Dan Lifshits Dwelly  Leading AI roll-up execution in the UK property sector. 🔹 David Alonso Martinez, Zinco AI  Cracking the pro services market in Spain — the EU’s 4th largest economy. 🔹Leo Shangin, Pioneers  Bringing the AI roll-up thesis to America’s oldest staffing rails. If you’re watching this space, building in it, or just wondering why all your VC friends suddenly sound like junior PE associates, this one’s for you. 🎧 𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁.

𝗚𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 - 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 We just closed $70M Fund II (oversubscribed!), and for the first time ever, talked about our story publicly. Big thanks to Andreas Munk Holm from EUVC for nudging us into the spotlight and giving us space to tell it our way. 15 years ago, Aleks Shamis and I were roommates on Shmitovsky Lane 16. We accidentally started a community of builders and founders that somehow turned into a VC fund. We never planned for any of it. No site, no press, no big announcements. Just people we liked building things together. That same spirit now powers s16vc - Founders for Founders Fund — a fund that works like a product, built for founders by founders, and run by a tight-knit crew that treats every founder request like it’s our own (and still plays a lot of poker). Today, s16vc has over $100M AUM across two funds, 70+ portfolio companies (including Synthesia, Oyster® and Finom), and the backing of 150+ founders and operators—folks behind companies like Datadog, UiPath, Wolt, Hugging Face, and Miro. If you’ve got 40 minutes and a soft spot for slides, give it a watch. And if you’ve followed our journey, we’d love a shoutout, a like, a sarcastic comment, or a story about s16vc. Link to the episode in the first comment. As of now, it has exactly one like (thanks eu.vc! ❤️)

🚀 Breaking News from Dubformer! 🚀 We are proud to announce that we have raised $3.6M in seed funding to bring emotional AI dubbing to the forefront of media and entertainment! This round was led by Almaz Capital, with participation from s16vc - Founders for Founders Fund, FinSight Ventures and others, along with angel investors like Arul Menezes, founder of Microsoft Translator, Funa Maduka, former Head of International Original Films at Netflix. 🎬 AI-powered dubbing is already used by YouTube, Netflix and other major media companies—but research shows that audiences still detect robotic voices unless there’s a rich layer of emotion. That’s where we come in. Our Emotion Transfer technology generates the fine details of speech—intonation, emotion, and rhythm—making AI dubbing sound deeply natural and immersive. Unlike text-to-speech or voice cloning, it doesn’t just replicate a voice—it brings performances to life. 🌎 We are thrilled to have this incredible support as we continue to make high-quality content accessible and enjoyable for global audiences. A huge thank you to our investors, team, and partners for believing in our vision. And a special thank you to Mark Shmulevich for being an amazing advisor and helping us along the way. Stay tuned—this is just the beginning! P.S. We are HIRING! https://lnkd.in/efhUQW4A #AI #dubbing #localization #futureofmedia #dubformer