Rami Akeela

On what makes me a good advisor:

I%27ve spent 20+ years taking hard technical problems, from FPGA-accelerated cryptography to confidential AI infrastructure, out of the research phase and into real products with real enterprise partners. I%27ve done this four times as a founder, including navigating the specific failure points most technical founders hit: securing the right technology partners (Intel, AMD Xilinx), knowing when a research breakthrough is actually ready for a market, and translating deep technical work into something a non-technical buyer can trust and adopt. I%27m not an advisor who read about this, I%27m currently living it, building Nera Systems while personally closing enterprise deals in regulated industries that are exactly this hard.

On what kind of companies benefit most:

Early-stage companies (seed to Series A) building AI products for regulated industries, financial services, insurance, healthcare, where a real architectural decision about data privacy or security determines whether the product is adoptable at all, not just technically impressive. Also a strong fit for deep-tech or cryptography-adjacent startups facing the specific challenge of turning genuine research into a product and go-to-market strategy, since that%27s the transition I%27ve made repeatedly, not theoretically.