FOV Ventures
Minus One · 16 Nov 2026 · Helsinki
Physical AI Investor 1:1s

Ten founders.
Ten investors.
One afternoon.

The day before Slush, FOV Ventures puts ten European physical AI and robotics companies in a room with ten investors who actually write cheques in the category. You meet eight of the ten, ten minutes at a time, then dinner. Free to apply. No equity, no fee, no pitch competition.

Apply to join → I'm an investor

Applications close 19 October. Ten companies announced 26 October. Meet investors 16 November.

Lead organiser A European venture fund investing in physical AI, robotics and spatial technologies.
Sourcing partner We're using Specter to find the best founders in physical AI and robotics across Europe.
10
founders in the room
10
investors in the room
8 of 10
investors you meet, back to back
80
meetings in two hours

What it is

Slush week is a numbers game. This is the opposite.

Twelve thousand people, hundreds of investors, and a schedule you build by chasing strangers across a convention centre. Most founders leave with a phone full of contacts and nothing that moved.

So we do the filtering instead. An open call goes out across Europe, we pick ten companies, and we invite ten investors who are genuinely active in physical AI. You tell us who you want to meet. We build the schedule around it.

Then you sit down with eight of the ten, for ten minutes each. A small room on purpose: you meet almost everyone in it, and the two you miss are at dinner. No stage, no demo booth, no judging panel. Just the conversations — and the ones worth continuing carry straight into dinner.

The day · Monday 16 November · Allas Pool, Helsinki

Three rooms, one guest list.

15:00 — THE 1:1s

Eight meetings, ten minutes each

You stay at your table. The investors rotate. Two hours, 80 meetings in the room, a printed card telling you exactly who you're meeting and when.

17:00 — FOUNDER DINNER

Same room, longer conversations

Everyone stays. One table, thirty people, the follow-up to whatever just clicked in the ten minutes before.

19:00 — GP–LP RECEPTION

300 VCs and LPs

Minus One's main event, and you're already in the building. €60bn+ of AUM in the room, on the night before Slush opens.

Who should apply

Early, European, and actually raising.

  • Building in robotics or physical AI — hardware, embodied intelligence, autonomy, or the software layer underneath
  • Inception, pre-seed or seed. Raising now, or opening a round in the next few months
  • Based anywhere in Europe
  • Coming to Slush, or willing to be in Helsinki on 16 November
  • A founder attends in person — not a deck, not a delegate

What it costs

Nothing. No fee, no equity, no strings. FOV runs it because we want to meet the best physical AI companies in Europe before everyone else does — and the honest way to do that is to be useful first.

What we ask

One 30-minute group call in early November — introductions, how the format works, and your investor preferences so we can build the pairings. That's the entire commitment before the day itself.

Key dates

From open call to Helsinki.

For investors

Ten seats on the other side of the table.

If you write cheques into physical AI, this is ten European companies filtered from an open call, in two hours, and you meet eight of them, before anyone else has seen them. You tell us who you want to meet; we build your schedule around it. Then dinner with the same room.

Ten investor seats, allocated by hand. Partner slots for the afternoon are available separately.

Take a seat → Partner with us

Three editions in

Minus One is FOV Ventures' day-before-Slush event, running since 2023. Previous partners include Google, OpenAI, Wilson Sonsini, KPMG, Waselius and Cloudberry.

It sits alongside Vantage Point, our robotics summit, which returns in February 2027.

Our sourcing partner

Sourced with Specter.

Specter is a private-markets intelligence platform used by more than 400 VC, PE and M&A teams. It tracks live signals on millions of private companies and the people building them — new hires, fresh funding, stealth launches, traction.

For the 1:1s, we're using Specter to run the open call: finding the European physical AI and robotics founders worth putting in the room, including the ones who aren't on anyone's list yet.

Try Specter →

Live data on the private markets, so the deals worth seeing reach you first.

55M+
companies
550M+
people
330K+
investors

Ten companies get in. Applications close 19 October.

Apply to join →