Meet our Perception and AI Lead: Theo
- Antoine Welter
- May 5
- 2 min read
Before joining Circu Li-ion, Theo was at the forefront of applied AI and robotics, driving innovation across startups and R&D teams in both industrial and academic contexts. At Arrival, he led robotics research with a focus on Computer Vision and Reinforcement Learning for assembly, visual SLAM, and automated CAD processing, contributing to publications at top-tier venues like ICRA.
His work has consistently bridged cutting-edge AI and practical deployment, from developing deep learning-based visual odometry at Samsung AI Center to building HD mapping systems at Lvl5.ai, later acquired by DoorDash. As a founder and technical leader, Theo also explored the potential of large language models in industrial automation and co-founded ventures tackling challenges in smart manufacturing. With a strong foundation in computer vision, self-driving technologies, and intelligent automation, his work continues to push the boundaries of what AI can achieve in the real world.
What’s your role at Circu Li-ion?
Theo: I am leading the Perception & AI team, enabling the robots to see the parts and reason about the disassembly process. Compared to one of my previous jobs, where I built Computer Vision methods for the assembly of electric vehicles (at Arrival), now I do the same. Still, for disassembly, which is also much more fun! Fundamentally, the disassembly process is also much more challenging in terms of the variability that we have to deal with - the batteries have very different shapes and looks. We need to make our system work with all of them reliably, even if they are damaged, defective, or just dirty and rusty.
We get to own the perception stack end-to-end, sourcing the best suppliers for the sensors and designing the process of the data acquisition, as well as designing and implementing the algorithms and training our models. We are also quite proud of our data collection and labeling pipelines that allow us to have a dataset of images and 3D data about end-of-life batteries that, to the best of our knowledge, is unmatched in the industry.
What motivated you to join Circu Li-ion?
Theo: First of all, the mission is just 10 out of 10 - automating the "3D" - Dull, Dangerous and Dirty, at the same time helping to solve the climate change at scale - and all of that with smart Robots! I started working with CLI as a consultant first, but after one month I was convinced that this team is committed like no other, and the founders really know their business.
Compared to many other hardware startups that I know, Circu Li-ion operates in a much leaner way, meaning that we will not close as soon as there is a next financial downturn. And as mentioned above, solving Perception is crucial to make the product work - and I love hard challenges that unlock the real impact.
Cheers for sharing, Theo. Let's boost some battery value!
You’d like to join the revolut-ion as well?
Find more information and open positions here.
