On the TechTO stage ×1
First seen on the TechTO stage in 2026. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Sina ↗
In their words
Fundraising starts by first selecting who you're actually pitching to, and it's very important that you run it really like a sales process.
There are many VCs that don't even have money. They're just having a conversation with you. And those are very kosher questions to ask.
The way that we managed to really crack the manufacturing space was by going at one plant, creating proof point, taking that reference, going to the next plant, creating proof point.
Around the web ×2
Quick answers
Who is Sina Afrooze?
Co-founder and CEO of Apera AI, the Vancouver robot-vision company. He was a founding engineer at Avigilon, which Motorola Solutions bought for about US$1.2 billion, and later contributed to AWS SageMaker's reinforcement learning service for robotic simulation.
What does Apera AI do?
It sells 4D Vision, software that gives industrial robots the ability to perceive and reason about objects, so manufacturers can automate tasks that conventional 3D machine vision cannot handle.
What did he tell the Together Vancouver stage?
Two things: qualify and disqualify investors the way you would sales prospects, including asking a fund outright how much dry powder it has; and win manufacturing one plant at a time, using two advocating plants as leverage to reach corporate.