Nicolas Metzke's Recent LinkedIn Posts

Lili-o is the 5th company I am starting in France. What is my motivation ? Why take the risk and get out of my comfort zone? Why leave a role I enjoyed for more than 10 years, built a strong network, gained experience, financial stability, made friends… only to jump into a market and technology I knew nothing about? Spoiler: This wasn’t a rational decision. Some gut feeling and the desire to build something meaningful again. This is how the journey toward Lili-o began. Just over a year ago, I joined the #Antler cohort in Munich & Berlin. Ten intense weeks filled with pitches, masterclasses, and founders from all backgrounds. I met great people from the Antler team to founders who are now building strong companies ( #PeecAi #DrzLabz #Scelion and more). I also realized how much experience I had gained over the years of my career in consulting, at Apple, in E-Commerce. Thus, after the program ended, I wasn’t sure whether I should start again or rather join or transform an existing business. I explored Search Funds and while I worked on my investment thesis, it became clear: There aren't buy-in options for topics that passionate me. A cofounder ad on LI caught my attention. I met with Charles-Henri and we iterated for a few weeks on the transformative power of humanoids and settled on a strong conviction: we need to act in Europe. We didn’t end up partnering after all, but the spark was lit. The domain we explored has everything to become my next passion. Attending the #HumanoidSummit in London only reinforced this conviction. Still, I had no cofounder and no experience in the field I wanted to get into. Around that time, the race to build #Unicorns through vibecoding exploded. It wasn’t my space, but it intrigued me. During the #Pioneers program at #StationF, I was surrounded by this energy: speed, traction, “go US first.” I made great connections and friendships, but did not find my peer. I used the time to build a new network and fine-tune my vision. The go-to-market simply wasn’t fully shaped yet. But it was solid enough, though, to set up my profile on the #YC Matching tool. That’s where I met several people, including Ludovic. We met during our summer vacations, quickly aligned on the problem and vision, worked through the cofounder matrix, and decided to move forward. From there, we validated the problem with our ICP. That was the final step that convinced us to build #Lili-o. We're taking embodied AI to the next level and solve real world problems. Our starting point: address the labor shortage in facility management and improve the work conditions and safety, all around cleaning jobs. We have global ambitions, want to drive it from Europe and embark the smartest brains with us. We already started. We’ve decided to share our journey, the wins, the doubts, the lessons. If you want to follow along, join us on our page: Lili-o #Lili-o #founders #AI #robotics #innovation #FranceTech #AI #deeptech #futureofwork #buildinpublic

Back to school 😜 #START Summit is kicking off for Lili-o today with the pitch contest at the amazing University of St Gallen. We’re looking forward to 3 intestring days filled with meetings, side events and our booth where you can see our LTE demonstrated on a real robot. #StGallen #pitching

My key takeaways from London’s Humanoids Summit (May 29–30). I’ll share more soon — feel free to DM me if you want to dive deeper into any topic. - Humanoid robotics is still very much engineering-led, driven by technical teams solving hard product problems. For business folks like me, it’s an incredible learning opportunity — and the market is still in its infancy. - None of the headline-grabbing companies (like Tesla or Figure) were present, and most of the robots on display were prototypes. It really makes you wonder: where is the actual state of the art today - The actual market is still tiny, with clients mostly in academia and research. That said, larger commercial deals (involving thousands of units) are expected later this year. - Most humanoids are still tele-operated. Full autonomy is not feasible yet due to challenges around safety, generalisation, and real-world unpredictability. - Generative AI as the "brain" of a robot and main reason for the growing hype is still early-stage, but robotics AI is advancing fast — DeepMind showed some impressive progress. - Open-source humanoids and OEM models are real and growing. France’s Pollen Robotics and Hugging Face are leading the charge, with systems available under €10K. - Manufacturing and warehousing are the top focus areas. A Fraunhofer study confirmed high demand for material transport, machine tending, and complex object handling — aligned with market observations. Kinsi presented an interesting approach here. - Other verticals are emerging: Andromeda Robotics (Australia) demoed elderly care applications. - Agility Robotics shared how they use live client deployments to evolve thier robot Digit, making it smarter and more versatile. Impressive demo. - Germany’s Neura impressed with their platform vision — Neuraverse — aiming to unify industrial and humanoid robots into one eco-system. Their 4NE-1 humanoid will debut at Automatica (Munich, June 24). - UK-based Humanoid plans to unveil their HMND01 robot later this year. Backed by a strong team, they’re aiming to leverage a second-mover advantage. - Other recurring themes at the event included: standardisation, dexterous hands, data scarcity and AI, VR tele-operation and training, safety frameworks, robots in space, emotional intelligence. I came back energised by two days of deep conversations and meaningful insights for my venture. Humanoids are no longer sci-fi — they’re one of the most exciting frontiers ahead. Huge thanks to Jesica Chavez 🤖🎙️ and Modar Alaoui for an inspiring, perfectly organised event. Already looking forward to the next! Aaron Prather Nikolai Ensslen David Reger Aaron Prather Rob Knight Remi Cadene Nicolas Heess Jarad Cannon Azmat H. Alexander Nase Santiago Ismael Pavon Werner Kraus #HumanoidRobotics #GenerativeAI #DeepTech #IndustrialAutomation #TechInnovation #FutureOfWork #HumanoidSummit #AI

That was the stat I was waiting for to share that I will start again. Stay tuned …

We're less than two weeks away from a significant milestone for Lili-o: our first public demo of the Lili-o Teach Engine (LTE), a core component of our proprietary software stack. Our goal is not only to give robots a brain so that they can finally perform meaningful tasks. We aim to empower everyone to teach any new task to a robot so that it becomes almost a personal device. To accomplish this, we need to make robot teaching as simple as setting an alarm clock. This is challenging, but we have a plan in place. We are still working on it, but things are moving fast and everyone involved is excited about it. The team is 200% focused! For those attending START Summit by START Global , please reach out if you are interested to learn more or to join a demo.

We’ve had an incredible time at START Summit 2026, wrapping up three fantastic days. 🚀 We attended back-to-back meetings with investors, potential clients, students and other robotics enthusiasts. The ecosystem around HSG and ETH in Switzerland is truly remarkable. 🦾 We’ve gathered so much valuable input and ideas for new use cases, which has been incredibly inspiring. While we didn’t have much time to explore the conference itself, it was evident that robotics was a major focus. When we presented our Lili-o robot with its LTE - Lili-o Teach Engine - the foundation of the robots brain, everyone was incredibly positive. We couldn’t have anticipated such a response. We’re grateful to everyone who visited our booth, often multiple times, to try out our one-shot learning approach hands-on. A huge thank you to the START team for organising such a successful event. 🙏 #start26 #robotics #startup #switzerland #ETH #HSG #physicalAI #lili-o

ALDEBARAN Robotics from France turned 20 this month and was once a pioneer in the robotics and humanoid market. Long before the recent AI breakthroughs and current humanoid hype fueled by massive VC investments and viral videos of dancing, running, and fighting robots, Bruno Maisonnier and his team had an ambitious goal and a clear vision: to build an empathetic, small-sized robot for education and healthcare. Despite massive media coverage and some commercial success with their Nao and Pepper robots, ALDEBARAN faced significant challenges (scaling, PMF, focus, financing, ...). Fast forward to 2025 and the company was ultimately liquidated last week, leaving several hundred employees without jobs. The intellectual property and remaining assets have just been acquired by a Chinese company Maxvision Technology Corp.. In 2025 the landscape is dramatically different and the timing could not be better for new humanoid robot companies. I hope that France, Europe, and its investors will now view cognitive robots differently. There’s an urgent need to support European general-purpose robots and to work towards EU sovereignty in what is predicted to become the largest market in the coming decade: cognitive humanoid robots.

Another bold program aiming for global leaders at Station F coming soon #StationF #global #innovation #AI #pioneers #humanoids Maxime Arnulf Roxanne VARZA

"Every company that builds machines will have two factories. There is the machine factory, that builds [...], and there is the AI factory that builds AI for [...]" Jensen Huang so incredibly good in presenting his vision so that everyone gets it. #humanoids #NVIDIA #physicalAI

Hello Munich friends, here is a nice one to join. I wish I could make it. I you decide to go, please let me know. #Munich #Robot #AI #Hackathon

London calling! I'm attending Humanoids Summit London 2025. If you are joining the summit, let's connect via the event's official app or on LinkedIn. If you're not coming but want my take-aways, please DM. I am happy to share. This opportunity is so big that we need everyone engaged. #humanoid #summit #AI

I’ve seen Pioneers from the inside. This is a very interesting opportunity for a young dev / builder talent at the crossroads of AI, startups and early stage VC.

Great seeing BPI France organizing this conference about #humanoids. With Antonin Cobolet Joy Boublil (李悦) Serena Ivaldi Roch Molléro Eric Woo We need to start moving in Europe #humanoids #europe #sovereignty

Booster Robotics makes the humanoid dance. So far the first (and only) live demo on stage #HumanoidSummit #BoosterRobotics

Figure on the fast track? Another video and tech report explaining how they continuously improve performance in package triage tasks with the Helix neural network. Is Figure taking the lead to a scalable use case for humanoids ? Brett Adcock #humanoids #robots #physical #AI #figure

Is this (another) game changer and accelerator for autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots ? Liquid Foundation Models (LFM) offer significant advantages as Aaron Prather pointed out in his insightful article.

I can highly recommend to my start-up friends to join this event. I can make intros to Christoph Klink in case you can't make it. Use this opportunity to meet Antler and get to know their new fund Antler One #Antler #startup #Paris #LoveandTech #unicorns #AntlerOne

E-Commerce and retail are far from being boring as one could see from the recent Google + Shopify universal commerce protocol announcement a few days ago. Below a great summary by the daphni team of what to expect in 2026. If you work on exciting E-Com projects, reach out #e-commerce #daphni #ucp

[FRENCH] A regarder ou écouter absolument si vous êtes intéressés par les humanoïdes. Merci Carlos Diaz et Jérôme Monceaux #humanoid #Aldebaran #Mirokai #Pepper #Nao #EnchantedTools

Hackathon season in Paris. My tech-friends, this is going to be fun.

I get the point why one can get excited about the idea of having humanoids on earth - the brownfield concept and so on. I am excited, too. But that brownfield concept doesn’t apply to mars. So why would you need to send a humanoid to another planet instead of a robot developed for that mission and less unstable than a bipedal robot. That said, I don’t know what the gravity laws are on mars, maybe there is no gravity. Of course it looks cool in this presentation, but is it to offset costs for a robot you’ve already developed and is too dangerous in a mixed environment ? Or to simulate humans in another environment ?

The news is finally out, and my timeline today is almost entirely about #AMILabs, Yann LeCun, and his amazing team. Congrats as well to the VCs and investors backing this bold bet. If it delivers on its ambition, it could reshuffle the cards in AI and significantly strengthen Europe’s position in the race. Although AMI operates globally, it looks like a large share of the funding comes from Europe. I’m particularly happy to see daphni playing a key role again. Great news! Now that I’ve shared my excitement, here’s the real question on my mind. It’s not whether #WorldModels can outperform current #AI approaches. I’m fully convinced they can. In fact, I started my own company based on the same premise. The real question is this: What do you need so much money for at starting a company? I get that it's all about R&D and revenues aren't expected anytime soon, yet still ... $1B! How do you ensure it is spent and invested efficiently when you barely have any structure and processes in place?

E-Commerce space moving fast in early 2026. Shopify and Google leveraging their distribution power to counter OpenAI and Stripe. Who is going to win the Agentic AI E-Commerce race ?

“Aldebaran was an inspirational company, at a time when robotics commercialization was a dream, not a reality… Just like Willow Garage, Aldebaran was a necessary company for the time. They have been a great (slightly crazy) success. No one expects to use a pre-2012 computer or phone today… The only surprise is that NAOs and Peppers were produced without significant change for so long!”

Very smart move by both, #renault and #wandercraft. It’s an important step towards a sovereign value chain in France and Europe in the #humanoid market. Congratulations Matthieu Masselin and team.