Brian P. McGlynn

Whatever happened to VC-backed IPOs? Looks like the volumes are at all time low, according to Eric Newcomer, and the M&A activity isn't enough to cover the delta. Back in the "olden days" going public was the highest badge of honour! If we are in a trend where the C-suite is comfortable with being liquid but wants none of the accountability of being public, I sense our industry is ripe for some regulatory improvements. How about SaaS leadership ISO ? 😂 Anyway, what am I missing? #saas #vc

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Come join the Future of Frontier Technologies AI & blockchain event panel in Santa Monica! ✨ We are hosting an event on Friday, May 3rd during @Farcaster's FarCon weekend. Which will bring many blockchain experts & builders to LA! Emerging LA is collaborating with Lightspeed's Faction VC as a co-host, with Partner Timothy K. moderating a panel. The panel will discuss the questions that you are probably wondering about these technologies: • How can AI and blockchain work together? • How will these frontier technologies impact industries today? • What are the real-world use cases that these technologies solve? • What are the current dynamics between innovation and regulation? ​One on hand, AI offers the promise of abundance, democratizing content creation but will open the door to (deep)fakes and mistrust. On the other hand, ​Blockchain offers digital scarcity, authentication, and trust in a world inundated with digital replicas. --- The audience will be filled with founders, technical builders, investors, and industry executives in sectors that are most relevant to these trends: Gaming, media, content, finance, social. The early bird ticket sold out quickly last week and the general admission tickets expire on Wednesday, so don't miss out and grab yours soon! Partners for this event include Sunset Ventures and AI LA as well as others in town: • LA schools & clubs: Wharton Club of Southern California, Wharton Digital Assets Club, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Blockchain , and Blockchain at USC • CPG startups & Brands: Studio TBD, doorsa, Red Bull --- PROMO CODE DISCOUNTS! If you are a student or alum from Penn/Wharton, Harvard, USC, reach out and ask for code!! 😉 See you on Friday! (Link to event in comments) #ai #blockchain #farcon #web3 #LA

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For most “AI investing” it’s important to remember that AI is an enabling technology, not an industry segment itself. The underlying business fundamentals (industry, business model, unit economics, etc) of any startup are what drive enterprise value, and as a VC it's important to remain disciplined on the fundamentals when approaching deal making that involves any disruptive technology, like AI. Some of our thinking at 186 Ventures surrounding what we are seeing related to AI related deal making is highlighted in this PitchBook piece. Thanks for taking the time to chat Jacob Robbins!

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🚀 The technology gold rush is over, and a new era of leaner startups has begun. LLMs are disrupting how startups leverage the capital markets, allowing founders to do more with less. DK Burnaby, HCS, GPHR and I are watching this happen in real time and have some thoughts about how this impacts back office organizations. ✨ Key highlights include: * How AI is dropping the costs of starting and running a business * The end of endless VC rounds and the rise of revenue-driven scaling * The evolving role of mid-stage financing and its implications for startups and VCs * The impact this is all having on the lean startup's strategy on Ops and Finance * Strategies like outsourcing, near/off-shore hiring, and fractional senior level talent to maximize efficiency and minimize costs Read the first article in a new series from myself & DK, and learn how you can apply these strategies to your own company. Check it out --> https://lnkd.in/gCurY_ui #fractionalCFO #FractionalExecutives #LeanStartups #Outsourcing

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Yesterday I joined the AI Powering the New Energy Era summit, which was dedicated to exploring the impact of artificial intelligence on the energy sector. It was a true honor to share the stage with industry veterans Edwina Kelly of CPP Investments | Investissements RPC, Raymond Wood of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Emily Sanford Fisher of Edison Electric Institute, on a panel hosted by Brian Boland of BrightNight. How is AI impacting the energy space? There are two major trends emerging: 1. The use of AI is very energy intensive, creating an unexpected surge in power demand, just at the time when we need to decrease emissions from electric power, and when power demand is also growing from sources like electric vehicles. 2. Technology enabled by AI can also help make the electric power system far more efficient, and help manage the transition to a grid dominated by renewables and other zero-emissions sources. The first trend represents a big challenge, and the second represents a big opportunity. As the panel went on, it became clear that large institutions in the energy sector have a real interest in the new innovation that we support at MUUS Climate Partners. If that innovation can scale, it could provide solutions to some of the greatest challenges in energy today, such as growing power demand from data centers, and the expanding share of intermittent renewable generation. We talked about companies such as Harvest, 3E Nano Inc, and BrightNight. The talk can be viewed here: https://lnkd.in/eEa8ERxa

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We're thrilled to have Patrick Halina, Engineering Manager at Pinterest, join us at the 8th Annual Toronto Machine Learning Society (TMLS) Summit! Since the early days of the internet, website scraping has been a common technique for building datasets. However, the advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) has significantly changed it. Patrick's talk will delve into Pinterest's learnings from applying cutting-edge LLMs to webpage comprehension and information extraction. He'll share insights from processing over 1 billion web pages daily, including: ✅ An overview of the latest systems for webpage data extraction ✅ Pinterest's experience testing various approaches, from GPT and open-source LLMs to simpler models ✅ Research findings on their internal web extraction method See his full abstract here: https://lnkd.in/gDCHCUha #TMLS2024 #MachineLearning #LLMs #WebScraping #DataExtraction

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How to invest in a Venture Fund? Calling all Limited Partners (LPs) and Family Offices! 📢 Are you looking to dive deeper into the world of venture capital? Want to understand how to invest in venture funds? This is a fantastic opportunity for you! We are excited to invite you to Venture Summit: Toronto Collision, where industry leaders and experts will share insights & strategies in venture capital investing. Event Highlights: 🔹 Engaging Panels: Gain practical knowledge on structuring investments, managing portfolios, and navigating the VC landscape. 🔹 Networking Opportunities: Connect with like-minded investors, LPs, family offices, and founders to build valuable relationships. 🔹 Meet Fund Managers Starting their next Fund: meet emerging managers and learn about their experience, thesis, strategy, expertise and passion for venture investing. 🔹 Startup Spotlight: Listen to shortlisted startup pitches & and connect with founders throughout the event. Date: Thursday, June 20th Register: https://lnkd.in/garRw37p Message me for a free investor ticket if you are interested in attending (limited quantity)! Don’t miss out on this exclusive chance to enhance your investment strategy and expand your network. #VentureSummit #TorontoCollision #VentureCapital #Investing #LPs #FamilyOffices #Networking #Innovation #InvestmentStrategy #VC #startups #fundraising #deals #founders #investors #limitedpartners #innovation #diversification

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Traditional fast food stocks had a promising performance in Q1, with several companies exceeding expectations and demonstrating resilience in the market. Despite challenges regarding perceptions of healthiness, these chains showcased their strengths in delivering convenience and quality offerings to consumers. Restaurant Brands International reported impressive revenue growth, outperforming analysts' expectations and showcasing its strong market position. El Pollo Loco, Inc. had an exceptional quarter, surpassing expectations across multiple metrics and experiencing a significant increase in its stock price. These positive results underscore the robustness of these fast food brands and their ability to adapt to evolving consumer preferences. Read More Here: https://lnkd.in/eGxVFsEC Branded Hospitality Ventures #innovation #venturecapital #hospitality #marketing #startup Jourdan Daleo José Cil Chris Brigleb Duncan Fulton Nick Boyle Josh Kobza Maria Hollandsworth Liz Williams Brian Carmichall Samuel Nicholas Borgese Ira Fils

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Recently I interviewed Nathaniel Simard, founder & CEO of Tracel Technologies and inventor of the burn ML framework: Jan: Nathaniel, we're excited to have you as our guest today! To kick off our conversation, could you please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background and what got you into ML? Nathaniel: Sure, I'm the creator of Burn, a deep learning framework written in Rust, and the founder of Tracel AI. I started coding in the first year of university, where I was studying mechanical engineering, but I quickly switched to software engineering after, since I instantly fell in love with programming. Then I explored different facets of the field from backend to frontend development, and I decided to start my career as a consultant focused on software quality. After some time, I wanted to go deeper into AI, since I was always interested in the process of learning, so I enrolled for a master's degree at MILA. J: According to Github you started to work on burn in summer 2022. Since then has already earned over 7000 stars on GH. What was your initial motivation to develop a new ML framework? N: I always had a side project going on, for fun mostly and to learn new things. I wanted to explore asynchronous and sparse neural network architectures, where each sub-network can learn and interact with other sub-networks asynchronously and independently. I wasn't able to actually create something useful because I needed fine control over the gradients and the concurrency primitives, which is not easily done with Python and PyTorch. At the same time, I was working on machine translation models at my current job, and it was quite painful to put models into production. I decided to switch my side project to a new deep learning framework, with more flexibility regarding gradients and concurrency primitives as well as being more reliable and easier to deploy on any system. J: Amazing to see that this was born out of a side project! I feel the struggle with concurrency in Python and this is something where Rust really shines. What are some of the other key features that makes burn special? N: I think there are two things that really set Burn apart. First, almost all neural network structures are generic over the backend. The goal is that you can ship your model with almost no dependency, and anybody can run it on their hardware with the most appropriate backend, even embedded devices without an operating system. Second, Burn really tries to push the boundaries of what is possible in terms of performance and flexibility. It offers a fully eager API, but also operation fusion and other optimizations that are normally only found in static graph frameworks. The objective is that you don't have to choose between portability, flexibility, and performance; you can have it all! To read the rest of the interview with Nathaniel's plans for burn & trends in AI here: https://lnkd.in/dKv9ztMm #ml #ai

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If you are a #Canadian #startup frustrated by the lack of #investment opportunities and wondering if #SiliconValley is worth the trip ... I wanted to share a few notable comments from #startups that recently participated in our CELS - Canadian Entrepreneurs in Life Science Showcase. To the companies that participated, I won't drop the F bomb and risk being banned from LinkedIn 😆 but feel free to chime in and share, in your own words, why you think your peers need to take a leap ✈️ and visit #SiliconValley. It's really close to 🇨🇦 but in so many ways, a 🌏 apart. ✍️ "A lot of the people we met with will be relevant in the future. CELS made the introduction. We now have to build the relationship." 💰 "Everyone we met with had a friend or a contact that is relevant to us, even if they were not in our space, so basically everyone we met with was relevant!!" 🚀 "The biggest take away was the different mentality. Risk taking is seen positively here! Innovation is seen as a value driver. Investors want to see the BIG idea!" 🎙 "The Showcase format allowed us to have meaningful conversations. There was lots of time for real networking. Everyone asked, 'what is your ask?'. That was so refreshing!" ⏰ "It's just more sophisticated here. Time to market is faster in the US. We didn't have to spend our time explaining the tech and it felt like conversations got progressively better". So the next opportunity to leverage Connection Silicon Valley to build your network here is May 14th to 16th - open to #FemaleFounders. Don't let fear stop you. If you are looking for global capital, #SiliconValley is where you need to be to build the right connections. Register here - https://bit.ly/48SDuzF Or DM me to chat!

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Check out this epic interview.

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The AI hype bubble is almost over. When investors refused to fund new AI startups because they know they’re going to fail, then the AI hype bubble is starting to fail. Even the most clueless, Investors now know that this is a bubble waiting to burst like the metaverse bubble and the dotcom bubble. And nobody wants to be left, holding the back on this bubble. The era of free money iis over with interest rates sky high. When big tech companies are losing money on AI and the bigger AI startups are demonstrating that they are all dead and struggling to even have revenue, then no one is interested in funding, smaller AI startups that they don’t believe will be profitable anytime soon. People aren’t waiting for an AI unicorn to break out. They are waiting for Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and similar to start buying distressed AI startups. Collapsing companies and minimal paths to profitability doesn’t help a space that was already overhyped. Don’t forget in all this mess that the unfortunate reality is that engagement and retention don’t match installs and downloads. What I mean by this is the most basic of mobile tracking were ignored. You don’t judge success in the mobile market based on downloads or installs, but rather based on retention and engagement. What this means is, it’s not actually impressive for OpenAI to get to 100 million users quickly if 2% of them retain. The question is not how many people signed up for a free account. The question is how many monthly active users and daily active users do AI startups like OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Stability, and others have. And how many are paying customers? And what we are finding is that retention is in low single digits. The reality is that AI startups are getting users the way that mobile free to play did. And they haven’t found a way to actually make money on that. Don’t ask an AI startup how many users signed up. Ask them how many DAUs and MAUs they have. Ask them what their ARPDAU is. What you will find is that every number is low. AI startups have no idea how to do monetization, and they don’t have regular active users in any volume. What this points to is that they’re all going to fold or get bought.

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Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez says that #1 blocker for Enterprise GenAI use cases is data privacy and #2 blocker is the cost (implies ROI). He also explained what Canadian AI startup, Cohere does and how they make money. A must watch for anyone who is interested in Enterprise GenAI use cases. He also said that GenAI fear mongering is cheap ways to get attention (I am paraphrasing, he didn’t use the word cheap). Quite a bit commentary on Google Cloud AI developments as well. Other mentions Oracle and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aidan comes across as a mature tech leader for his young age. He sounds more realistic and less me too, in GenAI hyped era. Aidan was talking to CNBC’s Steve Kovach. https://lnkd.in/g36SFYfn ____________________ Last month, Cohere has raised $450 million in funding from returning investors such as Nvidia and Salesforce Ventures, as well as new investors including Cisco and Canadian pension fund PSP Investments cc David Vellante David Linthicum John Furrier Ron Miller Shelly DeMotte Kramer Robert Hof

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There exists a balance between deriving value from personal data and respecting privacy. I am personally quite passionate about the implications for this balance. UWaterloo Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute is leading understanding that balance and the technologies and solutions to achieve even greater privacy while still deriving value from data. Check out this article on Florian Kerschbaum whose research is key to this balance by Regina Ashna Singh.

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Collision Conf is one of the biggest tech+AI events in North America and I am looking forward to learning more in this exploding space. If anyone is heading that way, feel free to ping and we can connect! #AI #generativeAI #digitaltransformation

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Must see presentation - some key insights for founders and ecosystems players delivered with the signature style of Brice Scheschuk, CPA, CA. Thanks for sharing!

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New week, new CVC! Huge congrats to Eric Truebenbach for launching Teradyne Robotics Ventures, and a big kudos to my colleagues Patrick FitzGerald and Danny Boisson for being part of the journey. It's so encouraging to see more and more investors understand the importance of hardtech and robotics, and it's not every day that a new CVC launches and shows their commitment by making an investment in the first two weeks! As always, for my VC friends, if you have portfolio companies in the robotics space looking to bring on strategic capital from one of the world's giants in automation, let us know! If you are a passionate entrepreneur working on hardware or software solutions within robotics, please reach out! We'd love to talk to you. #venturecapital #startups #robotics #hardware #corporate #cvc #corporateventurecapital

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Check this article out. It showcases why we at Society Five.0 are working with businesses on their technology journey. Generative AI has great potential for Canadian businesses, but a new report from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce shows few are adopting it. Only 9% of firms use generative tools, while 73% haven’t considered it. Larger and newer companies are more likely to experiment with the technology, but widespread adoption may not happen until 2030, putting Canada behind other economies. Many firms cite a lack of skilled workers and capital as barriers. Miki Reeder Laura Bodtker Michelle S. Olivia Grace Jacobs James Freeman, P.Eng. MBA FRCGS Adin Nand, P.Eng. Luticia L. Miller Niki Kearl Brett Colvin Justin Hantos Shannon Pestun Lynette Tremblay Adam Burley Sandeep Parmar, MBA Cameron Christensen Oba Harding Derek Armstrong Lora Bucsis

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Last week I had the privilege of presenting on #AI to the Canadian management team at a leading global pharmaceutical organization (>60 professionals, spanning all disciplines including R&D, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality & Corporate Functions). We had a packed agenda, including: - What is AI (beyond GPT) - the Pace of Change - the Future of Work - how successful organizations deploy AI (pragmatic, focused, progressive) - how AI is being applied in pharmaceuticals and manufacturing What a great group of people. And I'm excited for them as they continue to progress in their AI journey. Key Take-Away: I think their approach was spot-on: carve out agenda time in existing leadership meetings to talk about AI, collectively learn about it, and build a common foundation to work from (education and awareness). The reality is that organizations, and individuals, are at their own pace in terms of understanding AI and how it can be applied to improve business (and careers). It's still early days for the technology. In fact, 75% of adults have not yet tried #ChatGPT. We're busy people! At a minimum, agenda items like this create a baseline of understanding, and encourage the "curiosity and conversations" about AI that need to happen broadly across organizations. So if you're an agenda planner for something like this, bake it in :) ************************************************************** If a presentation like this is of interest to you, reach out. We'd be happy to help. At CATO AI, and through our partnership with transform360, we help organizations prepare for and adopt AI to improve their business. - Education & Awareness - AI Strategy and Roadmap - Business Case - AI Proof of Concept Design/Build - Workflow Automation - AI Project Management - AI Advisory Services - Design/Build/GTM Collaborations #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AIAdoption #AIEducation #AIAwareness #Curiosity #Conversations

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