Jeff specializes in new product development and go-to-market strategy. He received his Master’s of Science in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas at Austin. He previously worked in the Global Commercialization Group at the IC2 Institute at UT Austin, working with innovators from around the globe to take innovations out of the research lab and to the market.
He holds an undergraduate Business degree from UT Austin, and worked in the Technology practice of Deloitte Consulting. He previously founded several start-ups and a non-profit. He has a passion for entrepreneurship and using technology to solve social issues and improve the world.
Nicholas Paine is the co-founder and CTO of Apptronik. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. His graduate work focused on the development of the UT Series Elastic Actuator, a compact high performance actuator for robotics. He was a member of the NASA-JSC DARPA Robotics Challenge team where he helped design SEAs and developed actuator-level controllers for the Valkyrie robot. He worked for one year as a post-doctoral researcher at UT Austin, investigating forced-convective cooling of electric motors and embedded system design.
Since Apptronik's founding in 2016, he has directed technical strategy and execution. He has helped to lead numerous system design efforts ranging from commercial humanoids, to force-augmentative exoskeletons and novel robotic manipulators.
Kay has worked with entrepreneur-led companies in venture and private equity for much of her 25+ year finance career, with a focus on disruptive technologies. Kay currently serves as CFO to Apptronik, on the Finance Committee of the Contemporary Austin, and as advisor and investor to several investment funds and early-stage companies.
Kay’s experience includes CFO at ICON Technology, a 3-D printing robotic construction company in Austin, TX where she joined as the eighth employee and helped build from Seed stage to a nearly $2 BN valuation. Before ICON, Kay was CFO to Lighter, a software company, and worked at CircleUp, a finance platform for venture-stage consumer companies.
Prior to transitioning to CFO, Kay was a Managing Director of Investment Banking at Seaport Global in New York, where for 12 years she led financings and advisories for entrepreneur-led companies (both public and private) and specialized in structuring complex capital and helping management teams build for growth.
Kay spent the early part of her career at Morgan Stanley and Jefferies in New York. Kay holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Duke University and a Masters degree from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
Barry Phillips is Chief Commerical Officer at Apptronik where he oversees Sales, Marketing, Business Development, and Customer Success. Barry joins Apptronik after being the CMO of Fetch Robotics (acquired by Zebra Technologies), Maxta, Panzura, Egnyte and Wanova (acquired by VMware), where he led Marketing, Sales, and Business Development.
Prior to Wanova, Barry was the Group Vice President and General Manager of the Delivery Center Product Group at Citrix Systems. Barry joined Citrix through the acquisition of Net6. He began his career in United States Naval Aviation where he logged over 1,000 hours in a P-3C Orion. Barry holds a Bachelors of Computer Science from the United States Naval Academy and a Masters of Computer Science from UCLA.
Daniel Chu is Chief Product Officer at Apptronik. Daniel joins Apptronik with more than two decades of experience building and scaling product teams at frontier technology companies — always in pursuit of technologies that genuinely improve people’s lives. He has repeatedly scaled organizations at the leading edge of entirely new industries — from Waymo’s early commercial autonomy milestones to 23andMe’s evolution into a consumer health platform to products at Google. Daniel's leadership combines a rigorous technical foundation with deep empathy for end users and a disciplined approach to scaling teams and business lines.
Daniel holds a BS in Computer Science and an AB in Economics from Stanford University, an MPA, from Harvard Kennedy School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Steve O’Dea leads Engineering, Manufacturing, Field Service, and IT at Apptronik, guiding Apollo from prototype to high‑rate production and large‑scale customer deployment. His mandate is to fuse world‑class engineering with disciplined operational execution so Apollo can deliver immediate customer value on factory floors, in warehouses, and beyond.
Throughout his career, Steve has specialized in commercializing and shipping highly complex, innovative hardware‑software products in consumer, retail, and defense markets. He has a decade of robotics experience, along with technical and operational leadership roles in both start-up and Big Tech environments. He holds patents in robotic spatial mapping, sensor‑fusion interfaces, and automation technologies.
Steve graduated summa cum laude with an MBA from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, and holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering, highest distinction, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Gordon Daugherty is a bestselling author, seasoned business executive, startup advisor and investor. He has made more than 500 investments into early-stage companies and has been involved with raising more than $150 million in growth and venture capital. From his 28-year career in high tech, Gordon has both an IPO and a $200-million acquisition exit under his belt. Now, as co-founder and chairman of Capital Factory and as author of the book "Startup Success", Gordon spends 100 percent of his time educating, advising, and investing in startups.
Howard Morgan is the Chair and General Partner of B Capital and one of the pioneers of early-stage investing and the early internet. Howard co-founded First Round Capital, helped found Idealab Studio and served as Founding President of Renaissance Technologies (a quantitative focused hedge fund).
Howard’s research on user interface technology and the optimization of computer networks was critical to bringing the ARPAnet to Philadelphia in the 1970s and helping corporations and government agencies of all sizes use technology to improve their efficiency. He has deep experience with very large databases and served as the first Editor of the ACM Transactions on Database Systems Journal.
Before moving into the business of technology, he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University and an Executive Fellow at UC Berkeley. Throughout his career, Howard has mentored a range of talented professionals, from PhD students to early-stage entrepreneurs, taking companies from seed stage through initial public offering.
He currently serves as a Director of Idealab Studio and on the nonprofit boards of Cornell University, NY Public Library, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and Math for America. A respected author and a frequent speaker at major industry conferences, he has also served on a number of public company boards, including Franklin Electronic Publishers and Internet Brands, Inc.
Howard received a PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University and a BS in Physics from City College of the City University of New York. He is based in New York.
Greg has spent his career in Operations roles at technology companies taking them from start-up to full scale production. Greg was most recently COO of Vicarious, a manufacturer of automation machinery for robotics which sold to Google (Alphabet’s Intrinsic). He also led operations for Bossa Nova Robotics where he built and deployed first 350 robots and operated them successfully in Walmart stores. Greg’s other prior experience includes Senior VP of Engineering at Enphase Energy for 4 years, the Senior VP of Operations at the same company for 4 year and was the COO and VP of Operations for Advanced Fibre Communications for 7 years. Greg is currently on the Board of Exchange Bank and serves as the Board President for the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County.
Luis Sentis is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin and a contractor for NASA Johnson Space Center. He received his Ph.D.and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He went on to become a postdoctoral fellow in the Computer Science Department at Stanford. He holds a B.S. (Honors Thesis) degree in Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. He started his career in Silicon Valley as R&D Engineer.
In Austin, he also leads the Human Centered Robotics Laboratory, and experimental facility with many PhD students and humanoid robots. He was the UT Austin’s Lead for DARPA’s Robotics Challenge with NASA Johnson Space Center. His research focuses on designing human-centered robots, whole-body control software architectures, high performance series elastic actuators and embedded control systems, and motion planning for dynamic locomotion. He has received various awards such as the NASA Elite Team Award for his contributions on designing the Valkyrie humanoid robot, the 3rd Prize at the RoboCup@Home Domestic Standard Platform League, and the Best ICRA 2017 Paper Manipulation Award. He has over 100 scientific publications.
