Eclipse's Lior Susan on $12.5B AUM and the Bet on Physical Industries

Molly O'Shea (0:00)

You want to back start-ups that make actual physical stuff. The firm is at 12.5 billion AUM, which might be changed already. I'm not sure.

Lior Susan (0:09)

I hope it's changed. To the upside, we just named two IPOs, both Cerebras that we did, and SpaceX, both in physical industries, that are doing extremely well. What you cannot fight against is 85% of the world GDP, roughly 100 trillion, is in the physical world.

Molly O'Shea (0:23)

You're an experienced banana farmer.

Lior Susan (0:25)

That's probably my number one achievement in life.

Molly O'Shea (0:28)

What were the biggest lessons that you learned banana farming?

Lior Susan (0:31)

Shit, it's hot in summer, but it's also the first time I was just like, I need to build physical thing. This is like my thing. Clips out to the 90 companies total, 30 of them we build it. Yeah, there's some amazing companies like Bright Machines, Bedrock, and Mitra, and a bunch that we didn't announce yet. We never thought maybe ourself as a venture capital. We call it operators with capital because we are operators.

Molly O'Shea (1:02)

All right. Lior, welcome to Sourcery.

Lior Susan (1:04)

Thank you. Great to be here.

Molly O'Shea (1:06)

So Eclipse is on a run. Cerebras had a huge IPO.

Lior Susan (1:11)

Yeah.

Molly O'Shea (1:11)

The firm is at 12.5 billion AUM, which might be changed already. I'm not sure.

Lior Susan (1:17)

Yeah. I hope it's changed to the upside.

Molly O'Shea (1:21)

So for people who don't know Eclipse, can you give a little bit of the background? Yeah.

Lior Susan (1:26)

I think that the short story, we started the firm 11 years ago.

I know that we are counting as a venture capital for our limited partners. We never thought maybe ourself as a venture capital. We call it operators with capital because we are operators with capital.

We all left industries in order to go and build a firm that allow us to build companies in the industries that we are passionate about, and that's physical industries. Yeah, you're right. Maybe in the first eight years, manufacturing and space and semiconductors and defense and mining was very much in the corner when software was doing really well and enterprise softwares and cryptos and consumer and fintech. It definitely changed in the last two years. Yeah, it's just I couldn't be more excited about just the opportunities that there is right now in the world to build and it feels like the best founders wants to build them. It feels like the world needs more of them and yeah, we just named two IPOs, both Cerebras that we did and SpaceX, both in physical industries that are doing extremely well. So, exciting times.

Molly O'Shea (2:33)

Really exciting. We just had Andrew on and that was a really fun interview.

Lior Susan (2:37)

Yeah, he's funny.

Molly O'Shea (2:38)

He's great.

Lior Susan (2:39)

He's funny. He's really funny.

Molly O'Shea (2:41)

He did name, at the end, when I asked who inspires you, who are those kinds of people for you and he specifically called out Pierre, your partner. Can you tell more about Pierre? I know we were talking about this off camera, but this story is insane.

Lior Susan (2:57)

Yeah, story is pretty crazy. We were like this odd couple in the first seven years of Eclipse. But yeah, I left when I was living flex and I was thinking to start a vehicle that will allow me to build and invest in companies in the physical world. I got introduced into Pierre. And this is early 2015 I'm 31 years old and Pierre is 85 years old. And we are having a meeting and like always, I'm not doing my homework and I don't know who is the guy. So this older-ish person stepping into the room, wearing a suit, full cologne, and he's like, okay young man, what does he want to talk about? And I'm like, I don't know, I got introduced but I'm thinking to start a film or a vehicle that will allow me to build companies in the hardware space and in a very Pierre fashion. After 10 minutes, he interrupts me and says, okay young man, we're going to start a film together. And I'm like, sir, I actually A, didn't finish high school, B, never invest dollar in my life. I'm a builder. I know how to build. I'm excited to build companies in the sectors and say, hey, I will teach you everything you need to know about that industry and like four months later, Eclipse born.

So we, yeah, Pierre is a special man. And as I told you off camera, I'm taking him for a dinner tomorrow for his 96th birthday.