Name: Jerry Jilek, IXSAR Capital
Uploaded: 2026-07-13T19:00:00.000Z
Duration: 11 min 1 s

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More from theCUBE + NYSE Wired: ACTAI Maui 2026

Jerry Jilek

Manager, Strategic Partnerships

IXSAR Capital

play_circle_outline IXSAR-Backed Autzu Unveils Autonomous Gigahub for Agnostic AV Servicing, Maintenance, Cleaning, and Sensor Calibration

play_circle_outline Vertical integration challenge for OEMs; gigahubs offer outsourced centralized services.

play_circle_outline Robotics and autonomous systems in hubs enabling minimal human intervention.

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09:46

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Jerry Jilek, IXSAR Capital

Jerry Jilek

Manager, Strategic Partnerships IXSAR Capital

John Furrier

>> Hello, I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. We're here in Maui, kicking off day 3 of the ACTAI Global. This is theCUBE special coverage, NYSE Wired. It's an open community. We've gathered innovators together, open up the content to the public. Of course, this is a home game for theCUBE and NYSE Wired second annual. Brian Baumann's been here three years, two for theCUBE. Jerry's here, got some action startup. A lot of innovation happening here, but the main thing is that brilliant people come together across all walks of life in tech, science, athletics, everything comes together. Jerry, great to see you. Thanks for coming on.

Jerry Jilek

>> Yeah, thank you for having me.

John Furrier

>> So talk about what you're working on.

Jerry Jilek

>> So yeah, I guess just to give a brief background, I'm part of IXSAR Capital. It's a VC focused on physical AI, so anything focused on robotics, autonomous systems, space tech. But what I'd like to focus on actually today is one of the portfolio companies. It's called Autzu and it's ... How to put this? Exclusive news. Actually, I want to mention it here first.

John Furrier

>> Great.

Jerry Jilek

>> They're building the first agnostic autonomous gigahub, which is focused on servicing autonomous vehicles around the world. And it's being launched in San Francisco first as the hub and then looking to scale all around the world, partnering with all kinds of OEMs.

John Furrier

>> So explain the ... First of all, thanks for the news. Great scoop here. Talk about the demand, because if you've been in San Francisco in the past couple years, you know there's Waymos everywhere. They're even in Palo Alto now. And so there's a lot of drones, a lot of activity, a lot of complex stuff. You get a fender bender in a Tesla, you're looking at a data center upgrade basically. I mean, this is the kind of tech involved, right? It's complicated. Is that the idea is to make it a service piece? Is it a factory? Explain what the gigahub is.

Jerry Jilek

>> Yeah, definitely. So the main issue right now that autonomous vehicle manufacturers are facing is that they have to scale and vertically integrate. Right? And that's very difficult to do and costly, especially when you need to focus on safety and security of the vehicles. So what we're building and taking away from them is a hub where their cars can go and be ready for deployment, be it maintenance, servicing, cleaning, sensor calibration. That's very important for autonomous vehicles, right? If there's anything a little bit off on the sensor, the car perceives it in a different location, hence an accident could happen. So we're building these gigahubs, as we call them, to make sure that the autonomous vehicles are already-

John Furrier

>> Because it's more volume on the road. So I mean, what's the current situation? Each manufacturer has to have them serviced. They phone home and say, "I'm coming in." What does the current service model look like?

Jerry Jilek

>> It really depends on which company we're talking about, but some are trying to vertically integrate, some are outsourcing each individual roles or jobs that need to be done, but obviously, they're trying to keep as much of the technical capabilities in-house. But to give you an example of what we're looking to do and the whole vertical integration I was talking about is if you look at the vehicle OEMs like Toyota or Mercedes, you don't have any Toyota gas stations or Mercedes gas stations because it just doesn't make sense and it's very restrictive. Right? So the gigahub is meant to be agnostic and brand agnostic and service all kinds of vehicles so they don't have to focus on that.

John Furrier

>> What's it been like to put this together? I imagine obviously there's a lot of moving parts. Brand agnostics, that's one. The physical AI piece, like I was joking on the beginning, it's like a data center upgrade. I watched the Mercedes prototype with NVIDIA. The trunk is essentially retrofitted for an AI factory basically. I mean, each of these cars is a rolling data center when you think about the petabytes coming in and the software has to be tuned in. So it's not just physical. How does this come together?

Jerry Jilek

>> Yeah, yeah. And as you touched upon, cars or autonomous cars aren't really cars anymore. They're robots with wheels on them. So there's a lot that goes into the physical aspect and the software. And I believe an autonomous car today collects around four to five terabytes of data that needs to be offloaded. So that's definitely a part of it, data management, the software aspect of it, and the physical maintenance of these hubs.

John Furrier

>> Yeah. I can imagine how complicated it is. How does that work for the cars? Is it orchestrated by you guys? You guys monitoring the vehicles? Do they have an interface that says, "Hey, I need repair?" Do they just come home? They're self-driving so they can autonomously just check in. Or I'm imagining, my brain's going out of the left field here, but how does it work? I mean, how does the car know? Is it managed through a single pane of glass?

Jerry Jilek

>> There's sensors. The car has its own brain, and our hubs will have their own brain, and they'll be connected. So they'll be able to communicate together, and if there's any sort of sensor fault or even a possibility of an issue, the car will just be scheduled to go back into the hub and have the issue sorted and ready to deploy again.

John Furrier

>> That's awesome. Now, do you interface with the brands? Say you got Tesla, you got Travis doing something with Uber, that former Uber CEO's got some things going on. Everyone's getting into the autonomous robotaxi market, and now, Tesla is self-driving. I drove Daniel's Cybertruck. Oh, actually, I didn't drive. Nico was actually in the cockpit, but he didn't drive either. It was self-driving. And there's a lot going on in the car. So they must have their own kind of ... I won't say proprietary, but they must have their own systems. So how does that work? Do you guys have to get trained up and get built out in terms of certified by the brands? How does that work?

Jerry Jilek

>> Yeah, there are going to be a lot of partnerships that need to happen and grow together. So there is a lot of integration between each company, individual company. But in general, it's still pretty nascent, the autonomous vehicle industry. So I think it'll grow and standardize much more as we go-

John Furrier

>> All right. So how's this going to work? Give us a taste of the rollout, status. Obviously, the news is out there. Is it up and running in a prototype mode? What's the-

Jerry Jilek

>> So it's being developed, the technology, the licensing. The company is coming into its Series B round. So that'll really help it grow and scale this .

John Furrier

>> Is there any secret sauce that you guys have inside these hubs? What's the tech? Reveal a little. You don't have to give away anything.

Jerry Jilek

>> There's going to be a lot of robotics and autonomous systems working together. So there will be, in the vision, minimal human intervention. It'll all be seamless.

John Furrier

>> So you're going to start in San Francisco, and then any ideas on which cities are going to have the priority? Is it by population of available autonomous vehicles? And is there a state legislative, like regulatory issues?

Jerry Jilek

>> There are definitely going to be necessary partnerships with states, with cities, because as you can imagine, there's going to be a lot of energy demand, for example, and a lot of real estate demand to service all of this. So partnerships with cities I think are going to be essential to grow this. But in terms of prioritization, obviously starting with San Francisco expanding into the markets with where the autonomous vehicles are already deployed quite a bit, such as LA, Phoenix, but the vision is to scale globally because autonomous vehicles are going to be everywhere very, very quickly, so from London, Paris to Dubai to Singapore.

John Furrier

>> That's awesome. Before I get into some of the Maui kitesurfing chat, I want to give you an opportunity to put a plugin for hiring. I imagine the skills looking for is not your classic software engineers. A lot of mechanical engineering involved, you mentioned vertically integrated. What kind of persons and people are you looking for to hire? If someone is watching, I mean, this is a hot space. I mean, autonomous cars is probably one of the most satisfying jobs because you got robotics, you got software. Self-driving is just phenomenal. I mean, pretty much people love this area. I mean, what's the makeup of the kind of folks you're looking for?

Jerry Jilek

>> Yeah, yeah. Definitely very motivated, driven, visionary, engineering, mechanical backgrounds. That's very important for the company, I believe, to help build and scale this vision. And obviously a very strong executive team to take it global.

John Furrier

>> Yeah. If you're watching, if you're taking apart the drone at home, you rebuilt it, then you're probably a good candidate. All right. Let's talk about the ACTAI Global and the kiting scene here. Obviously, there's great culture of people coming together. What's your take so far on the weekend? A little rain, but the wind's phenomenal.

Jerry Jilek

>> Yeah, yeah. So this is my fourth ACTAI actually, and the community is great, amazing, very supportive, and ACTAI always manages to gather some amazing people together. And in terms of Maui, it's beautiful here. The kiting is amazing. Wind has been very good to us. The whole event has been amazing so far.

John Furrier

>> Yeah, it's phenomenal. I'm going to participate in the Floatopia this year. Last year, I didn't. I was on the beach trying to learn. But great to have you on. Thanks for coming. I appreciate sharing the news. Awesome area. We'll keep track. Thanks for coming on.

Jerry Jilek

>> Great.

John Furrier

>> Appreciate it.

Jerry Jilek

>> Thank you very much.

John Furrier

>> I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. We're here at the NYSE Wired program and the open community part of the ACTAI and many other communities of innovators, builders, operators, investors, all technology is the market, we're doing our best to bring it to you. Thanks for watching.

Jerry Jilek, IXSAR Capital

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

>> Yeah, thank you for having me.

John Furrier

>> So talk about what you're working on.

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

>> Great.

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

>> All right. So how's this going to work? Give us a taste of the rollout, status. Obviously, the news is out there. Is it up and running in a prototype mode? What's the-

Jerry Jilek

>> So it's being developed, the technology, the licensing. The company is coming into its Series B round. So that'll really help it grow and scale this .

John Furrier

>> Is there any secret sauce that you guys have inside these hubs? What's the tech? Reveal a little. You don't have to give away anything.

Jerry Jilek

>> There's going to be a lot of robotics and autonomous systems working together. So there will be, in the vision, minimal human intervention. It'll all be seamless.

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

John Furrier

Jerry Jilek

>> Great.

John Furrier

>> Appreciate it.

Jerry Jilek

>> Thank you very much.

John Furrier