Raja Ghawi is a Partner at Era Ventures, a venture capital firm he joined at inception in 2022 to drive transformational change in our physical world.

Prior to joining Era, Raja worked at Suffolk Construction. While there, he helped to found Suffolk’s venture arm, Suffolk Technologies, which invests in startups in the AEC industry and helps them to scale by leveraging Suffolk’s network and resources. At the end of 2020, he was named Suffolk Tech’s Investment Director. While at Suffolk, he founded and led Boost, Suffolk Technologies’ accelerator program, the leading AEC innovation accelerator, which has since graduated 30 companies.

Before joining Suffolk, Raja worked for McKinsey & Company in Boston and spent meaningful time at QuantumBlack, McKinsey’s AI/ML arm. A native of Syria and a Harvard graduate, Raja currently lives in Brooklyn. He’s an avid reader, a budding cyclist, and a big fan of Brooklyn’s underground art scene.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How Era Ventures invests in innovation in the physical world
• What got Raja really excited about VC
• How he joined Era at inception
• Some of his favorite portfolio companies throughout that time
• Types of industries that he works with in the physical world (real estate, construction, agriculture, energy, manufacturing, etc.)
• Where he sees the physical world going in 2026
• The impact of inflation and labor shortages on these industries
• Spending more time in robotics and physical AI
• The problems that come with go to market - how to prove your products work
• How robots can be used for growth in companies
• What Raja looks for when investing in startups
• The importance of having a trusted community/network who will try your product

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into investing in the physical world!