Featured Investor | April 2025 - Tom Springer of BMW i Ventures

Tom is an Analyst at BMW i Ventures, where he focuses on investments across robotics, energy, and climate tech. He joined BMW i Ventures in early 2023, initially based in Munich, where he gained cultural fluency in venture ecosystems beyond the Silicon Valley bubble. Now back in San Francisco, he's leveraging the region's unique concentration of talent and contrarian perspectives to identify meaningful outliers and feed an insatiable curiosity.

Previously, Tom began his career at an enterprise software startup, where he experienced firsthand the challenges of product-led growth—discovering intense customer engagement and precise alignment between product and market often matter far more than sheer technical innovation alone.

Since 2018, Tom has actively engaged in social impact initiatives in South Africa, working to drive meaningful outcomes in resource-constrained environments through higher education sponsorships and technology access initiatives where he currently serves as Vice Chairman of NGO Ditsala.

**EVCA: Describe a defining moment in your career and how it shaped where you are today.**

**Tom:** I won't point out a distinct moment, but an evolving mindset. In my early days as an investor, I believed my mechanical engineering background would provide a unique edge—giving me a distinct technical perspective and a specialized language to connect deeply with tech founders. I quickly learned that the most impactful conversations went far beyond this, as discussions around team dynamics, market opportunities, and paths to commercialization took center stage where I am always remaining a learner instead of an examiner. What has been underscored for me is the value of embracing disagreements constructively, holding strong opinions loosely, and especially cultivating better listening skills—a practice I found surprisingly rare among investors. I believe the real prerequisite to success in venture lies in an insatiable curiosity, being the learner in most contexts.

Today, I believe the real secret to success in venture capital lies in an insatiable curiosity. When you're authentically curious, there are few jobs more satisfying—because people genuinely enjoy sharing their expertise and experiences."

**EVCA: What is an emerging technology trend that will have a significant impact on the world in the next decade?**

**Tom: **I'm excited about the potential for generalizable foundation models to extend beyond natural language into advanced physical AI systems, such as robots and autonomous devices, enabling more autonomy. However, I take the view that unlike the rapid commoditization of large language models (LLMs), physical AI faces unique challenges, including limited form factor adaptability and persistent data scarcity. These hurdles will delay the standardization and scalability seen in LLMs, as robotics OEMs remain slow to unify sensor stacks, source software externally, and amass the datasets needed for broad generalizability.

As a result, I believe vertical robotics companies will continue to offer strong investment opportunities (such as our portfolio companies Fox Robotics and Kodiak Robotics). However, as foundational physical AI models mature, I expect to see the emergence of similar economics to LLMs at the model layer — characterized by API-enabled access on the edge and the rise of dominant providers offering commoditized AI capabilities.