Founder Collective

🚀 Clair powers Gusto's new on-demand pay solution! 🚀 I am thrilled to announce a groundbreaking partnership with Gusto, a leader in payroll serving over 300,000 businesses nationwide, who successfully embedded Clair's on-demand pay solution directly into their Gusto Wallet application. As Clair grew over the years, it became clear that payroll and workforce management platforms are evolving into trusted workforce super apps, the perfect platforms to offer America's workforce better financial services. Although employees do trust their managers for everything pay & healthcare, by 2027 no employee will need to bother their bosses or HR for things like short term liquidity needs. Workforce apps that are intuitive enough to be self-served will offer consumer fintech products. No new app required - it'll be right there. Our vision is that the well-designed products will be the instigators of the next wave of innovation in financial services for the 100M+ people in the US workforce needing these products. Our vision is to support them on that journey. Thus, we are stepping away from mandating users to go to the Clair app or use the Clair card as default. Instead, we’re placing a significant bet on our incredible partners, like Gusto. Today, we’re proud to share that the latest batch of employees successfully accessed funds in under 39 seconds without leaving the Gusto Wallet app. Many of the users have left other direct-to-consumer liquidity products they typically use to upgrade to this integrated solution. This seamless, co-branded experience, was crafted in collaboration with Gusto’s thoughtful team led by Dan, Jeff, Dave, Kamilah and Joseph. On this journey it became clear to us that many workforce apps who have been looking at shipping employee financial products would do so, should they find the right fintech partner and Bank to work with, especially as compliance continues to be paramount to the long term success of these programs. I want to take a minute to thank Brett, Anthony, Christopher, and Lucas from Pathward, a national bank, who innovated with us to get to this point. A huge thank you to the leadership of everyone at Gusto, the Clair team and our Board for their unwavering support. It feels like Day 1. Let’s go! cc: Alex, Kareem, Aditi, Belen, Michael, Erich, Wesley, Micah, Amanda, Hunter, Erik, Trever, Aaron, Oliver, Mark, Sean, Joel, Pranam, Damian, Nick, Rosalie, Charlotte, and Olivia

Founder Collective is hiring! We're looking for an investor passionate about tech and startups to join our team in SoHo. We're seeking a curious and entrepreneurial investor to help find and support the next generation of incredible founders! #venturecapital #vcjobs #NYCTech

Exciting times for the #robotics industry! 🚀 Robotics Invest 2024 brought founders, investors, and thought leaders together to discuss emerging trends, assess global market conditions, and explore the hype versus reality of humanoid robots. Despite challenges, significant breakthroughs are on the horizon. Read my latest Forbes column to learn more about how the future of robotics is shaping up and why this is a pivotal moment for the industry. #Robotics #Investment #Innovation #TechRevolution Cybernetix Ventures Fady Saad J.P. Morgan Massachusetts Technology Collaborative Silicon Valley Bank Mark Martin Andrea L. Thomaz Eric Paley Diligent Robotics Founder Collective Jason Vancura

Semper Paratus! The U.S. Coast Guard has awarded Shield AI a $198.1 Million contract for V-BAT ISR services. "We’re excited to support the U.S. Coast Guard with their ISR operations. V-BAT’s selection by the U.S. Coast Guard is indicative of a broader market movement where increasingly customers are recognizing they can accomplish the vast majority of their mission sets with affordable drones rather than exquisite, expensive crewed or uncrewed aircraft.”  -Brandon Tseng Read more:  https://lnkd.in/eHuRWXw7 The greatest victory requires no war. #VBAT #MaritimeSecurity #Aviation #CoastGuard #VTOL #GreatestVictory

It's not the end of software...but it's definitely the end of the MVP. There’s a lot of bad startup advice from the past decade that people still take as gospel, but let’s put this one to rest right now. Don’t launch early. Reid Hoffman’s remark that you should launch so early that you’re “embarrassed” by your product may have made sense in 2009, but it’s wrong now. Why? Three reasons: (1) First impressions matter. How many people used Apple Maps once back in 2012 and then never opened it again? (2) Software ate the world. There’s just way more competition now. You’re likely replacing an existing piece of software. Even “spreadsheet”-based solutions aren’t half bad. I’ve seen my fair share of Airtable, Sheets and Notion-based workflows, and they’re damn impressive, even if they aren’t technically “software.” The bar is way higher now and you need to exceed it from day one. (3) AI makes this even more true. LLMs are driving the cost of code down to (near) zero. What happens when the cost of something goes down? We’re going to make way more of it. There’s going to be software everywhere, in everything. But my guess is that most of it will be kind of terrible. It’s one thing to write code, it’s another to craft an excellent piece of software. Well-designed, thoughtfully crafted software that expertly solves a real problem? That’s what will be at a premium moving forward. I’m not saying you should build your product alone in the garage for years. By all means, talk to customers. Get feedback. Build something people want! But don’t expect to win with something that’s just good. Because that’s not good enough anymore.