​AI has become manifest in the world around us. It’s designing molecules, retooling factories, and taking the wheel of 80,000-pound trucks. Join First Star Ventures during Tough Tech Week for an evening with three startups transforming industries at the intersection of hard tech and AI.

​Bot Auto

​Bot Auto is an autonomous trucking company developing and operating a Transportation as a Service (TaaS) fleet for freight customers. They recently did a full driver-out demo.

​Paul Lam is Bot Auto's Chief Strategy Officer and will share stories from their journey raising $50m+ in capital, building their technology, partnering with customers, and preparing for road tests.

​Robigo

​Robigo is a biomanufacturing company using gene editing and AI to develop safer, more effective crop protection products. Robigo’s scalable, plug-and-play microbial platform protects crops from disease, boosting yields while being safe for beneficial microorganisms, pollinators, consumers, and the environment.

​Andee Wallace is co-founder and CEO of Robigo and will talk about building Robigo from an idea at a lab at MIT to raising venture capital, working with farmers, and deploying their microbes into fields.

​Phaseshift

​Phaseshift uses AI and an automated foundry approach to operate a platform discovering, developing, and synthesizing novel materials.

​Gurjot Dhaliwal is Co-Founder and CTO of Phaseshift and will talk about spinning research out of the University of Toronto, keeping focus with a small, early team, and raising capital from US firms as a Canadian startup.