Bola Adegbulu

Bola is an Investor-in-Residence at Dynamo Ventures. Prior to joining Dynamo, he was a Principal Investor at AI Fund, a VC firm founded by Andrew Ng.

Previously, Bola served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Cisco and was also a Venture Partner at Ada Ventures. Bola’s journey began as an aerospace engineer at General Electric before transitioning into entrepreneurship in 2016, when he co-founded and exited Predina, an AI startup focused on predicting and preventing car accidents.

Outside of work, Bola is a lifelong Manchester United fan – despite no major success in the last 15 years of supporting the club.

What personal mantra or quote shapes the way you see opportunities and risk?

"I enjoy some of the old and I enjoy the new. And if I can find a balance between it, that's where I find my satisfaction” from the song, The Dreamer has always stuck with me. It captures why I was drawn to Dynamo.

Dynamo sits at the intersection of the industrial economy and cutting-edge AI, exactly where I believe the future is being shaped. From the future of work to global resilience, this convergence matters more than ever.

Which trend or technology currently excites you—even if others might find it odd?

After three years in Silicon Valley, I’ve seen AI mostly applied through software. But in industrial sectors, I believe that the largest venture outcomes come from startups that also innovate either at the hardware layer and/or innovate around business model. I think Samsara is a great example of this.

Right now, I’m excited about AI buyouts. These are startups that acquire traditional businesses and use AI to optimize them. They are hard to pull off and often overlooked by VCs, but the potential is huge. If you’re working in this space, I’d love to hear from you.

If you could only pick one book to live with for the rest of your life, what would it be? Why? 

I’m going to break the rule here and provide two books I cannot live without.
First, it’d be the Bible, especially Proverbs and Psalms. There’s so much timeless wisdom in it that I draw from in both my personal life and professionally.

The other would be The Art Spirit by Robert Henri. I first came across it through a talk Jack Dorsey gave at Y Combinator, where he made a powerful connection between art and entrepreneurship. What we do as VCs and entrepreneurs is about creating something new, something that is enduring and has real impact.