We sat down with Lesya Hendrix, Founder and CEO of Spacer Robotics, to reflect on building physical AI systems, navigating the realities of deep tech startups, and bringing robotics into industries that have historically been slow to change.
Before founding Spacer Robotics, Lesya spent more than a decade working across hardware engineering, manufacturing scale-up, and autonomous systems at Tesla and Nuro. Her experience spanned programs from Giga Texas to autonomous fleet operations, placing her inside some of the most operationally complex environments in modern engineering. Across those years, she developed a deep understanding of how advanced technologies move from prototype to deployment — and how difficult it can be to bring automation into real-world physical environments.
That experience ultimately shaped the foundation for Spacer Robotics, an early-stage construction robotics company building fully autonomous robots for foundation work on commercial jobsites. The company focuses on one of the largest and least automated industries in the world, applying robotics and AI to environments that are physically demanding, operationally fragmented, and historically underserved by modern software and automation systems.
To bring a more personal perspective to her journey, we invited Lesya to share a few reflections on entrepreneurship, engineering, and building in industries undergoing major technological change.
Reflections From the Journey
The messy part of building a startup is… As a founder, you are responsible for 1000 things at once.
One early mistake I’m glad I made was… Not raising too early.
What people assume is easy, but isn’t, is… Hiring people with a great cultural fit.
A belief about startups I’ve changed my mind on is… That VCs need to fundraise the same as founders - I empathize now.
What keeps me going on harder days is… The fact that I know that our technology is needed on construction sites.
If I started again, I would… Still make mistakes, it's okay.
The question I’m asking myself most right now is… How to ease the integration of robots into existing construction workflows.
The reality of fundraising in the age of AI is… That hardware is suddenly the new moat. A SaaS business can be disrupted overnight by a competitor's new AI feature release or by a teenager from a hackathon, but a hardware product not so much. Robotics will rise to the occasion.
Continue the Conversation: Fundraising in Times of AI
Meet Lesya Hendrix at our upcoming Female Founder Roundtable on “Fundraising in Times of AI” on May 21 at Moon Creative Lab in Palo Alto. She’ll share how fundraising works in practice, common early mistakes, and how to build momentum when things feel uncertain.
🔐 Limited capacity — secure your spot early here.