NPM organised an inspiring trip to Silicon Valley for a selection of portfolio companies this year. On this NPM Capital Inspiration Tour, CEOs and other professionals from NPM companies learned about the latest trends in artificial intelligence (AI), bitcoin technology, virtual and augmented reality, and the transport, retail and the food sectors. ‘The focus on speed really hits you hard once you get there.’
Accompanied by a small team of NPM Capital, the group visited over 15 companies in the region in just four days’ time: from big names like Facebook, Cisco and Uber to impressive start-ups like Holobuilder (VR & AR) and Datavirtuality (data warehouses). They also saw presentations from serial entrepreneurs and academics, like world-famous AI and robotics specialist Pieter Abbeel of UC Berkeley.
Abbeel’s presentation on AI made a big impression, says Gerard Albers, Director Innovations at Hendrix Genetics, one of the participants on the trip. ‘One of the best presentations I’ve ever seen in my life: a crystal-clear explanation of how deep neural networks work and the implications they are going to have for our world,’ he says. ‘The subject was not entirely new to me – we’ve focused on this type of new development at our company – but it was only during this presentation that it really hit me where it’s all going right now in terms of hardware and software and the enormous impact it will have. The idea that there will one day be machines that are smarter than the human brain is very realistic, and is probably going to happen a lot sooner than we think.’
Jan Gorissen, CEO of Medux, was also impressed by Abbeel’s presentation as well as the visit to start-up Coinbase. ‘I knew that bitcoin technology is really starting to shake things up in the financial sector at the moment,’ he says. ‘But it was during this presentation that I suddenly understood how much potential this technology has to be disruptive in other markets as well.’
