Dear {{First_name|Friend}},
If you couldn’t make it or want to relive the experience — here's the full conversation from our second-ever Hard Things evening.
No Shortcuts: The Hard Truth About Robotics in 2026
Last Thursday, we again gathered a room of founders, investors, and builders in San Francisco for the second-ever Hard Things — an invite-only series hosted by Mavka Capital.
Our guest, Andra Keay, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics and Robotics Fellow at Singularity University is one of the most connected voices in the global robotics ecosystem. She brought 15 years of front-row pattern recognition across every wave of the industry — from the days VCs laughed at hardware to today's flood of generalist capital — and gave the room a framework that cuts through the noise:
Study the graveyard — the founders who failed doing exactly what you're attempting are more valuable than any success story. Chase high-value labor gaps, not low-hanging fruit. And stay flexible, because the teams that survive long enough to iterate are the ones that win.
Robotics is no longer a bet on the future. It's a platform shift happening right now. And the founders who pick the right wedge, build toward invisible automation, and treat failure as a data source will define the next decade of physical AI.
Thank You
A special thank you to Louis Lehot, Tiaan De Nysschen, and Sahar Mor at Foley Lardner for sponsoring and hosting the event.
Hard Things Continues.
Hard Things #2 delivered exactly what it promised — sharp minds, unfiltered takes, and the conversations you never hear on a main stage.
We're doing it again.
📅 Thursday, May 28, 2026
📍 Palo Alto
🎤 Special Guest Speaker: Touraj Parang, President & COO at Serve Robotics | Serial Entrepreneur, Advisor, Investor, and Author of Exit Path
Same format. Intimate. Unfiltered. The insights at the frontier of Physical AI that don't come from keynote stages.
Space is limited and by invitation only. Request your seat now.
For fundraising, M&A, or strategic advisory on Physical AI and agentic AI, reach out to the Mavka team by replying to this email or directly: mavkacap.com
Stay sharp,
Vitaly Golomb
Managing Partner
Mavka Capital
[email protected]
Louis Lehot
Partner
Foley & Lardner LLP
[email protected]
