Jul 24, 2026 · 33 min · 10 segments
Host: Nicola Marchese Guest: Vincent Berk, Partner at Apprentis Ventures \---------- 👉 Subscribe to our newsletter: thescenarionist.com/welcome \---------- #PhysicalAI…
Vincent BerkGuest
Nicola MarcheseHost
To start our conversation on cybersecurity, firstly, I'd like to know more about your investment focus and maybe a bit of your breakdown, if possible.
I started 25 years ago by getting a PhD in machine learning and AI, which is like nobody really cared about back then.
So I spent most of my career actually trying to use machine learning techniques and AI techniques on cybersecurity problems, right? Cause it's, you know, that was, that's always been a pretty, pretty hot market.
Apprentice Ventures is really focused on very early stage, like first money in, pre-seed startups where it's usually just a founder still trying to work on often interesting industrial problems.
One thing I'll say is that with the recent advances in AI, what we're seeing is that almost anyone can build software, but not everyone truly understands all the problems in often very specific markets.
And so If we think, for instance, about traditional industries, classic industries, which is where we see ourselves making a lot of investments, there's often people that really truly understand that industry and have great ideas on how to make it better, but up until now didn't have an opportunity to actually build software.
Founders that maybe typically wouldn't have thought about starting a software company and now, because of how the world has changed, are in a position to do so.
To start our conversation on cybersecurity, firstly, I'd like to know more about your investment focus and maybe a bit of your breakdown, if possible.
I started 25 years ago by getting a PhD in machine learning and AI, which is like nobody really cared about back then.
So I spent most of my career actually trying to use machine learning techniques and AI techniques on cybersecurity problems, right? Cause it's, you know, that was, that's always been a pretty, pretty hot market.
Apprentice Ventures is really focused on very early stage, like first money in, pre-seed startups where it's usually just a founder still trying to work on often interesting industrial problems.
One thing I'll say is that with the recent advances in AI, what we're seeing is that almost anyone can build software, but not everyone truly understands all the problems in often very specific markets.
And so If we think, for instance, about traditional industries, classic industries, which is where we see ourselves making a lot of investments, there's often people that really truly understand that industry and have great ideas on how to make it better, but up until now didn't have an opportunity to actually build software.
Founders that maybe typically wouldn't have thought about starting a software company and now, because of how the world has changed, are in a position to do so.
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