From Perth to Silicon Valley: Who really is Lachy Groom?

When a new name emerges in the world of venture capital, it rarely makes a splash with $5.6 billion. That’s exactly what happened on November 21 – Physical Intelligence, an AI robotics company founded by Lachy Groom and a team of scientists from Google and Tesla, raised $600 million in a funding round, reaching a valuation of $5.6 billion. In just seven months since its founding, the company has already completed three funding rounds totaling over a billion dollars – a growth pace that captures the industry’s attention. But before we started talking about robots and AI, Lachy Groom’s story unfolded quite differently.

Australian teenager who learned to code from his grandfather

Born in Perth, Lachy Groom’s story is a narrative many would write as a movie script – too absurd to be true. However, data from sources like “The West Australian” confirm the surreal reality of his childhood.

At age 10, Groom started programming – his grandfather taught him HTML and CSS, and that lesson changed the entire trajectory of his life. But it wasn’t just casual coding fun. Before turning 17, he had already created and sold four companies. PSDtoWP, PAGGStack.com, iPadCaseFinder.com, and Cardnap – each solving a specific business problem. The last one allowed users to search for and resell gift cards, reflecting the growing trend of second-hand platforms.

His father, Geoff Groom, recalled in an interview that Lachy always saw business opportunities where others saw ordinary daily problems. He earned money walking dogs, sold lemonade – every project was a small economics lesson.

But Perth in 2012 was not Silicon Valley. After finishing high school, Groom made a decision that proved to be pivotal: instead of university, instead of staying in Australia, he chose to emigrate to San Francisco. His reasoning was simple and brutal – the startup ecosystem in the US offered something Perth could never provide: valuations ten times higher and access to the real hub of technological innovation.

Seven years in the “Stripe mafia” – from number 30 to growth architect

What awaited Groom in San Francisco was not directly VC investments – at least not at first. Instead, he joined a company that was in the midst of transformation: Stripe, where he became the 30th employee. The number might sound simple, but in reality, it signified something much bigger – practical education in building a product that would make payment processing seamless.

Over seven years (2012–2018), Groom evolved: starting in a growth role, then moving into managing business development and operational teams in Singapore, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. By the end of his tenure, he was responsible for developing the entire line of Stripe’s payment card products.

These seven years gave him something no MBA could fully offer. First – financial independence. Second – hands-on experience in scaling B2B SaaS from early growth to a massive international operation. Third, and perhaps most importantly – entry into the so-called “Stripe circle” – an informal network of employees who later dominated the venture capital segment in Silicon Valley.

Lone hunter – an investment strategy that delivered 185x returns

In 2018, Groom made a choice that could have been risky: he left Stripe and did not join any big fund. Instead, he launched his own operation as Solo Capitalist – a full-time angel investor with an extraordinary style.

While most angel investors diversify risk through large portfolios of (100 companies at $5,000 each), Groom acts like a “sniper” – if a project fascinates him, he can invest between $100,000 and $500,000 and makes decisions in a matter of hours. His investment filter is surprisingly simple: products that people will love for reasons they can explain themselves, and that they won’t be forced to use.

According to Pitchbook analyses, Groom has already made 204 investments and manages a portfolio of 122 companies. His achievements speak for themselves. When he invested in Figma in 2018, the valuation was $94 million. One year later, after an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in 2025, the valuation reached $67.6 billion – 185x return. He entered Notion when its valuation was $800 million, and just two years later, the company reached a valuation of $10 billion. He participated in early funding rounds for Ramp and Lattice.

This investment precision is not luck – it’s a deep understanding of which software changes the way people work.

New goal: “brain” for robots

After years of making money from software, Groom turned his son into the core of the AI era. He began asking himself bigger questions: if the boundary between artificial intelligence and hardware is blurring, where will the next significant leap in technology occur?

The answer came in March 2024, when Groom didn’t stop at being an investor. Instead, he founded Physical Intelligence (Pi) – a company focused on AI for robotics, with a team of scientists from Google DeepMind, Google Brain, and Tesla.

The team includes:

• Karol Hausman – former senior scientist at Google DeepMind
• Chelsea Finn – member of Google Brain
• Adnan Esmail – engineer with four years of experience at Tesla
• Brian Ichter – scientist from Google DeepMind and Brain

The goal sounds like science fiction, but it’s entirely real: to create a universal base model that would serve as the “brain” for robots – devices capable of adaptation and learning, not just machines for repetitive tasks.

Venture capital quickly recognized the potential. In the month of its founding, Physical Intelligence raised $70 million in a seed round led by Thrive Capital. Seven months later – $400 million, with Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) as an investor. And just a week ago – $600 million from CapitalG (the growth fund of Alphabet) at a valuation of $5.6 billion.

This pace had not been seen before in the robotics industry.

Summary: from Perth to the future

Lachy Groom’s story is not about being “someone on the margins” or “someone known in the media.” It’s about an Australian teenager who learned to code at a wooden table in Perth, then built an international business in Silicon Valley, and now architects a future where robots think and learn through artificial intelligence.

From a 10-year-old writing HTML to co-founder of a company worth $5.6 billion – it’s a journey that shows real achievements are always more interesting than rumors or press labels.