Why We Started SENU Venture Partners

Technologies that expand human capability and extend healthy lifespan are advancing fast enough that the question ‘Can this actually work?’ has a much shorter shelf life than it used to.

In robotics, artificial intelligence, and human-machine systems, capabilities that once lived in sci-fi novels and theoretical research papers are becoming proven technologies people can build products around. We believe this shift will dramatically accelerate in the coming years, expanding what people can do and how long they can stay healthy, independent, and engaged in the world.

As technical feasibility improves, the bottleneck shifts: working technology still needs a company capable of taking it to market and scaling it.

Someone has to make new tech reliable. Bring the cost down. Hire the team. Find the customer. Navigate the regulatory path. Build a brand customers trust. Figure out and execute the right strategy. And make sure the product works when the inventor is no longer standing next to it.

We seek to partner with bold builders at the transition where scientific and technical feasibility are established, and the central challenge becomes building a scalable commercial product. We call that moment Day +1.

We’ve spent much of our careers working through those problems as founders, operators, and investors. So, today, we’re launching a new firm, SENU Venture Partners, to back founders taking on that work.

We chose the name SENU for its associations with renewal, regeneration, and human connection. Those ideas reflect why we want to do this work. We’re starting SENU now because we believe more technologies that can improve human experience, capability, and longevity are reaching that point, and the experience we bring becomes especially useful there.

Consider what has to come together for a promising machine or device to become a viable business. The underlying technology has to work. Development and manufacturing costs have to support a price someone will pay. The product has to fit how people live or work. The need has to be strong enough to make customers change their behavior. And the companies building products and delivering services need a community of suppliers, contract manufacturers, and distributors, along with scientists and researchers pushing the technical boundaries even further.

Our thesis is that advances in AI, simulation, robotics, and engineering tools are bringing more companies within reach of those conditions. Progress in one area helps the others: better simulation can shorten development cycles; better software can make hardware more capable; shared tools can reduce the cost of testing and deployment.

At the same time, the problems these technologies can address are becoming harder to put off. Aging populations need ways to remain independent. Care teams need help meeting demand. Employers need ways to reduce physically punishing work. People with limited mobility need better options. The opportunity is to build products that meet those needs at a price that makes adoption possible.

That is where our attention goes. We want to know whether a robot can do a useful job reliably enough to justify its cost. Whether an assistive device can give someone more control over their day. Whether a software platform can make it cheaper and faster for hundreds of companies to bring those products to market. Those questions shape our three investment categories:

• 01Embodied and Physical AI

  Robots and intelligent systems that do useful work in factories, warehouses, laboratories, clinics, and care settings.

• 02Cybernetics

  Technologies that connect people and machines to restore or extend human capability, including prosthetics, exoskeletons, and neural interfaces.

• 03Acceleration Infrastructure

  The software, components, and tools that make those products faster and less expensive to develop, test, manufacture, and deploy.

We would rather back the company that makes a capability affordable than the one that makes it first.

Across all three, affordability is central to our thinking. A technology can be extraordinary and remain out of reach for almost everyone who needs it. We would rather back the company that makes a capability affordable than the one that makes it first. Lower costs can create a much larger business while putting the benefits into more people’s hands.

We will invest from Seed through Series A, when founders are making decisions that will shape their companies for years: what to build first, whom to hire, how to price, which customers to pursue, and where to commit limited capital.

This is work our founding team knows.

Jeremie Bacon, Co-Founder and General Partner, has built and sold software companies, led early-stage investments for more than 15 years, and teaches entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth. Garry Cooper, Co-Founder and General Partner, is a neuroscientist who co-founded a successful software company and a pre-seed venture fund. Chris Gladwin, our co-founding Venture Partner, has built and sold multiple software companies and founded mission-driven organizations. Between us, we’ve spent decades building, financing, scaling, acquiring, selling, and investing in companies.

We know how much happens between having a product that works and having a business that works. We’ve recruited teams, sold to customers, raised capital, and made decisions with incomplete information. We’ve also made enough mistakes to have specific suggestions.

At SENU, that experience will show up in the work we do. Helping recruit a commercial leader. Pressure-testing a business model. Opening a door to a customer. Bringing in a partner who understands manufacturing, regulation, or a particular market better than we do.

Our networks matter because of the people they can put around a founder when a specific problem needs solving. The founder and their team run the company. Our job is to be useful.

The ability to walk, communicate, learn, work, and care for one another shapes our lives. Helping people retain or expand those abilities is an ambition worth building a firm around. We believe the companies that make them more accessible can become enduring businesses.

The pace of technological progress is why we’re starting SENU now. The hard work of turning that progress into something people can depend on is where we believe we can be most useful.

If you’re a founder building at Day +1, we’d like to meet you. If you’ve brought a difficult technology to market, or you’re a customer who needs these products to exist, we’d like to meet you, too.

There is a lot to build. We’re getting to work.

This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security.