Nicolas Sauvage is betting on the boring parts of AI
Nicolas Sauvage, founder of TDK Ventures, emphasizes long-term bets on emerging technologies, particularly in AI infrastructure, often focusing on overlooked or 'boring' areas. His early investment in AI chipmaker Groq, which specializes in inference, exemplifies his strategy of identifying future bottlenecks. Sauvage continues to back specialized robotics and alternative compute solutions that address specific industrial challenges.
- ▪Nicolas Sauvage founded TDK Ventures in 2019, which now manages $500 million across four funds.
- ▪He invested in Groq in 2020, well before the generative AI boom, due to its focus on inference and efficient chip architecture.
- ▪TDK Ventures backs technologies like solid-state transformers, sodium-ion batteries, and specialized robotics companies such as Agility Robotics and ANYbotics.
- ▪Sauvage’s investment philosophy centers on identifying technological bottlenecks four years ahead and supporting founders solving them.
- ▪He believes demand for inference computing will continue growing as AI agents make more complex, multi-step queries.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Nicolas Sauvage believes it takes four years for the best bets to look obvious — thinking that he shared on stage last week at StrictlyVC’s San Francisco event, which TDK Ventures co-hosted. It’s a theory he’s been working to prove since 2019, when he founded the corporate venture arm of the Japanese electronics giant, which is now managing $500 million across four funds. The AI chip startup Groq, valued at $6.9 billion during its most recent funding round last fall, is the highest-profile example of this thinking. In 2020, well before the generative AI boom made infrastructure bets look obvious, Sauvage wrote a check into the company, which was founded by Jonathan Ross — one of the engineers who built Google’s Tensor Processing Units.
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