The Hard Thing about Hardware
On June 2, we're teaming up with Puzzle Ventures for a panel on the new wave of hardware founders.
Software ate the world. Now AI is coming for the physical one. Founders Samuel Beek and Pieter Becking join Gloria Bäuerlein of Puzzle Ventures to talk about what it takes to combine AI with atoms.
During the panel, we'll get into:
Moats in hardware
Why VCs are investing in hardware after a decade away
How AI is collapsing the cost and time of building physical products
What founders get wrong when they jump from software to hardware
Agenda:
17:00 - Doors open
17:15 - Panel & Q&A
18:15-19:30 - Drinks and bites
About the panel
Gloria Bäuerlein is the Founding Partner of Puzzle Ventures, a €22 million solo GP fund backing European inception-stage B2B founders (e.g. Duna, Omnea, Rillet, Pigment). She has been on both sides of the table - as an investor at TCV and Index Ventures, and as an operator at KRY & Back.
Samuel Beek is the founder of Schematik, the "Cursor for hardware" - an AI tool that turns plain English into working electronics. Schematik recently raised $4.6 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners and angels like Salar al Khafaji (founder Monumental), Thomas Wolf (founder Huggingface), and Jelle Prins (co-founder Cradle).
Pieter Becking is the co-founder of Servo7 (Y Combinator W26), building robots that drop into existing warehouses and learn on the job from a few demonstrations - no facility redesign required. Angels include Durk Kingma (co-founder OpenAI), Thomas Wolf (founder Huggingface), Adriaan Mol (founder Mollie), and Jelle Prins (co-founder Cradle).
🐳 About Whale
The Whale brings together operators and founders from tier-1 startups and scaleups. Through expert-led sessions and hackathons, we create a space where people learn from each other, share what works (and what doesn't), and build together. Past sessions have featured Anthropic, Job van der Voort (founder, Remote), Duco van Lanschot (founder, Duna), and more.
🧩 About Puzzle Ventures
Puzzle Ventures is a €22M solo GP fund helping European inception-stage B2B founders put the puzzle pieces together - across first customers, talent, and global investor introductions.
🔒 Spots are limited - apply below to request an invite.