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The Days Of Innovation are here, thanks to TechCrunch Early-Stage and BNT/Prepare 4 VC's premier support of the conference with several special side events. Friends... I'm going to share a two-part story with you -- and one that represents a new era for Boston New Technology, Dropbox DocSend, and the startup community. The first -- the development of a great partnership with Shruti Singapur, which stretches back a very long time thanks to Jason Kraus. The second, the simultaneous development of a brand new kind of free resource for entrepreneurs by BNT spearheaded by Marsh Sutherland and Rhoda Serafim called Precision Pitch Practice. The result: As Precision Pitch Practice, which has been entirely virtual, grew and evolved -- I introduced the concept to Shruti and she loved it. Why Precision Pitch Practice Matters: The consistency of a once-weekly gathering of bright minds in a safe space, where entrepreneurs can freely practice and improve their presentation skills. Unburdened and fluff-free, Precision Pitch Practice has produced real results and now it's coming to life in-person thanks to our friends at Venture Lane | Startup Hub (h/t Kristina Gomez and team) next Wednesday starting at 5PM EST. That's not all however. This completely free-event also features a comprehensive pitch analysis session offered by Justin Izzo and a BNT Startup Showcase with four female founders building amazing solutions. Are you hungry? You're in the startup industry so the default answer is yes. We've intentionally selected BoardsbyMo and WhoozCooking as our food sponsors - two amazing business leaders whose good intentions enrich their offerings. Is this event for you? Whether you want to attend to watch and connect with others... Practice your pitch/get your deck analyzed... Take part in the showcase as an expert panelist... All you have to do is register. https://lnkd.in/e--GNwyQ #Founders #PrecisionPitchPractice #EarlyStage #TSEarlyStage #bostonstartups

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Hiring alert! One of our newest MKT1 portfolio companies is hiring a founding marketer. nodaFi is vertical SaaS that understands a wedge-in strategy. The team is scrappy and values marketing--and really understands their ICP - facilities managers. If you're based in the Bay Area and interested in helping bring a tech-first approach to an industry that operates with pen & paper, take a look. The founders are awesome (cc Jacob Pandl & Michael Loyda) JD link in the comments.

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A terrific conversation between our own Bill Cilluffo and Alexandra Piedrahita about the venture-backed fintech ecosystem in the UK, France and Germany, trends that we're seeing in B2B business models, and how QED thinks about building relationships with founders that are built to last. Listen to it on your afternoon commute or during your next workout and let me know what you think about Europe's fintech outlook. https://lnkd.in/dqiY37KR

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Thrilled to finally reveal the launch of FlexAI, led by the incredible Brijesh Tripathi and Dali Kilani, which just raised a $30M seed round to make AI compute infrastructure more efficient and accessible to everyone. Our investment thesis: 1. Strong macro-tailwinds - Compute for AI is a mature market with sustainable demand growth from new models over the next years - But the compute demand is already exceeding data center capacities and supply of GPUs, creating a supply constraint for Nvidia’s top units - AI model development is attracting large amounts of funding, much of which will be dedicated to computation and costs/performance will matter more and more. 2. The need for a European AI infrastructure - Compute power is high on the geopolitical agenda. Who will control AI will control the world. - European AI model companies rely today on US-based hardware and US-based cloud providers to build "European" AI models - If Data sovereignty and security matter, then there is an urgent need for a European AI compute platform 3. An exceptionally skilled team to build this European AI compute platform - Brijesh has built customized systems and hardware for AI use cases at NVIDIA and Apple before, and designed + scaled compute systems for autonomous driving at Tesla and Zoox, as well as with the Intel super-compute platform - Dali has a demonstrated track record of executing and delivering both hardware and software projects, and leading engineering teams (this is the second time we back him, not a coincidence!) - both have known each other for a long time and worked together at NVIDIA. have built GPUs themselves and were there when Apple and Tesla decided their launch their own chips for the exact same reasons (cost and performance trade-off + reduce dependency on third party suppliers). - They have already demonstrated the strength of their network by signing key partnerships even before product launch and have assembled Tier 1 advisors around FlexAI. Thrilled to be partnering with Alpha Intelligence Capital, Heartcore Capital , Elaia , Frst and Motier Ventures to build the AI compute infrastructure the world needs, made in Paris (with love). https://lnkd.in/e3aXXZSB cc Partech

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Matthew Garrepy and I had an amazing chat about the future of Content Management Systems. Great news: We didn't really lose our heads! In this interview, we talked about the future of Headless, how the Editing Experience is getting much better, and how AI will change the way companies create and manage content.

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The form of the state you live in, is as important as the form of the market, and the form of the commons. What has the ordo-communal state form in store for us ? My latest substack intervention comes with a bonus four-minute video, summarizing this complex matter: https://lnkd.in/gQWUUDjG

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$52m B round to help SMB to track and reduce its carbon footprint 🚀 This month I hosted Alexis Normand, CEO at Greenly | Certified B Corp, to discuss how he is scaling such a wonderful vision: democratizing the access to carbon accounting and management. I was impressed by how Alexis and his team are keeping their GTM motion efficient when a lot of SaaS companies are struggling with customer acquisition while respecting a healthy CAC/LTV ratio. (Hint: inbound and content are playing a big role!) Plus - how he raised such an impressive B round in a more conservative Venture Capital and SaaS markets. Tune in for more insights! 👇 #SaaS #leadership #scaleup #gotomarket 

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Thrilled to share the achievement of one of my investments: Atomontage Inc., a revolutionary deep-tech company developing groundbreaking 🤯 Atomontage's Virtual Matter technology that represents a paradigm shift in 3D content streaming and collaboration, allowing for entirely new ways to stream and interact that can be used for example in social gaming experiences as described in the article bellow 🎮 . And guess what? It’s not just for gamers. Atomontage’s technology allows completely different user experiences of everything from architectural walkthroughs to medical simulations or any other applications where real-time 3D interaction is of utmost importance. You can guess the type of classified applications 😀. 👩‍⚕️Their technology is the future for 3D real-time interaction and let's see if my bullish assumption on Atomontage's potential to disrupt the industry will materialize. 🚀 #venturecapital #startupinvestor #deeptech #gaming #3Dcontent https://lnkd.in/ePAFtT7x

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This news article shared by my good friend and fellow MIT alum reminded me of the "dot-com boom" days in 1996-2000. Dot-coms, Exchanges, search engines came up all over the place in the SF bay area with crazy and skyrocketing valuations. A founder friend was offered a cheque to launch something during those heydays. I see a similar pattern in the AI space now. I have coined a term for this - AI + Inflation (in valuation) = Ainflation!! #AI #TechNews #Startup #Innovation https://lnkd.in/gQm-MKSc

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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 experiencing a massive platform shift to LLMs. Lightspeed's Michael Mignano and I discussed what this shift means for Grammarly, what the industry needs to do to ensure #genAI adoption and value creation, and where I predict true efficiency gains through AI will come from. Hint: it’s not about creating more content. Thanks for having me on, Michael! https://lnkd.in/gpruc99i

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20 Lessons From 20 Different Paths to Product-Market Fit — Advice for Founders, From Founders

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Generative AI and competitive advantage https://buff.ly/4aZ6WVM by @sanguit competitive advantage beyond the hype: 🤖to leverage Generative AI 🤖to create new sources of intelligence advantage 🤖that help strengthen their position 🤖and commoditize partners’ positions #rafAIgual

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If you’re in LA next week and interested in discussing how to create leverage and scale oneself as a founder (via automation, no-code, AI, and BPO/outsourcing), come hang out with us IRL! As a bootstrapped solo founder, I would have been dead in the water without these tools… Yet I am still only scratching the surface of what’s possible. For a very different perspective, we’ll also have the CEO of one of the largest outsourcing companies, Enshored, tell us How It’s Done.

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Launched 47 years ago, Voyager 1 is flying on an outbound trajectory 24 billion kilometers (22 light-hours) from Earth. It was designed to work for 5 years. "Voyager's ground team discovered a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the on-board computer (FDS) memory stopped working, probably due to either a cosmic ray hit or a failure of aging hardware. That took out a section of memory. What they have to do is relocate that code into a different portion of the memory, and then make sure that anything that uses those codes, those subroutines, know to go to the new location of memory, for access and to run it. Only about 3 percent of the FDS memory was corrupted by the bad chip, so engineers needed to transplant that code into another part of the memory bank. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety. So the Voyager team divided the code into sections for storage in different places in the FDS." https://lnkd.in/g8w6wCvZ

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Space tech-focused investment firm Seraphim Space Space launched its second VC fund, SSV II, to back early-stage startups in the global space tech market. The fund aims to build a portfolio of 30 startups, investing in seed and Series A stages. The latest fund's target size is larger than its predecessor's, which closed at £70M ($90M) in 2017. The fund's investment themes include AI applications for space data, in-orbit computing, space-enabled communications, and microgravity for science. Eutelsat is one of the limited partners that contributed to the latest fund. Seraphim Space aims to stand out with its track record, having returned three times the original investment from its first fund. The first fund's returns were driven by five exits, including Siemens' acquisition of UltraSOC and four IPOs of Arqit, AST SpaceMobile, Nightingale, and Spire Global. The British firm listed its growth fund Seraphim Space Investment Trust (SSIT) on the London Stock Exchange in July 2021, getting about £250M (~$300M) in gross proceeds. The fund's market cap touched an all-time low of £130M ($162M) in July 2023. The market for space tech is expected to grow significantly, with the World Economic Forum and McKinsey estimating it could be worth $1.8R by 2035.

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Last month, Uncork Capital celebrated its 20th anniversary with a jubilant gathering attended by 420 guests, marking two decades of success in the venture capital realm. Over the years, the firm, alongside industry peers like First Round Capital and Felicis, has witnessed remarkable growth, now managing billions of dollars in assets. This expansion reflects the flourishing landscape of venture capital, with the industry experiencing exponential growth in investment. Moreover, positive shifts in VC norms, such as the evolving attitudes towards board seats, underscore a commitment to providing tailored support to startups, enhancing their growth prospects. Amidst discussions surrounding sectors like AI, optimism prevails, emphasizing a steadfast dedication to investing in innovative ventures with lasting impact. Read More Here: https://lnkd.in/efN6-Spd Branded Hospitality Ventures Jeff Clavier Susan Liu Ashley Cravens Tripp Jones Sarah Du Andy McLoughlin Amy Saper #innovation #technology #management #venturecapital #startup

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We've mapped the 250 most relevant early-stage startups within the European data ecosystem! 🚀 Our coverage spans categories like Data Collection, Storage, Integration, Security & Privacy, and Platform. Discover how these startups are leveraging AI 🧠, the most active sectors 👩‍💻👨‍💻, and key funding trends 🏦. Don't miss the simple table listing all the companies! 😀 #AI #Europeanstartups #MMCresearch #vcfunding Advika Jalan

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