Todd Terrazas

Someone broke down the estimated costs of a $15 Sweetgreen salad. We need these cost graphics for digital health to help future founders. Especially for tech enabled cos, the greatest cost is labor. Much of the "value created" is in curation and matching, which means the gross margins are reliant on labor arbitrage. Pay someone $X, but get paid $X+Y% per visit. The challenge with healthcare is that you often have to pick one of two business models: 1. specialized, low volume, high cost, low gross margin % 2. generalized, high volume, low cost, high gross margin % I'd argue founders should focus on gross dollars over the lifetime of the customer (like Jeff Bezos said) instead of gross margin %'s, but we'll leave that for another time. The challenge is that many tech enabled digital health cos have high cost of goods sold (labor) and moderately high product, design, and engineering budgets. We must build differentiated solutions for patients, clinicians, and clients to be out incumbents, however, we're realizing that companies are ultimately valued on the discounted value of future cash flows. And the high SG&A costs at most organizations might be inbalanced to the unit economics of the business. I'm not sure the math pencils out for everyone unfortunately. But I'm just a guy on the internet, would love to hear the thoughts from those smarter than I (you!). Comment below. --- p.s. I have no idea the accuracy of the graphic and not an investor in Sweetgreen. Cheers. Credit: David Crowther

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I’m seeing more partial “Venture Studios.“ Should they be considered studios or something else? What do I mean? I’m seeing groups that apply some of the core studio elements 1) a repeatable playbook, 2) playing a (late) cofounder role, 3) making a capital or sweat equity investment, and 4) have a degree of decision control over their area. A few examples: A group that builds your sales and support operations groups once you have a product and have raised a Seed round. They support through the next round and fully setup your own sales and support operations teams, playbooks, training, etc. They make a small investment for a preferred stake and earn a common stake through their sweat equity. They own the success of these areas of the company and provide guidance on broader company challenges. A group that offers product management, design, and development from as early as idea stage. They play a core role in customer discovery and own product design and software development. The team they build your product with may fully transition to the company along with a full operations playbook and they help find and train the leaders than will replace them. They make no capital investment, but do not charge for their support, rather earning sweat equity. A group that builds your marketing team, delivering, marketing, branding, PR, and social influence for the company. They own creating the full marketing strategy, devising branding, building influence to drive sales and building a team for the company to continue with post-engagement. They don’t invest money, just provide everything for zero cost. They are not agencies. They don’t follow the direction of the company blindly, having a degree of control over their area of expertise. They own success, lead their areas, and integrate with the full company. In many ways they act like the CxO and team. They could displace the need for a founder. Their equity stakes look more in line with an accelerator and are often structured as fees treated as convertible investment, often with a cap. They are not full studios. They are either designed from the ground up with this singular focus or are a transition from a traditional agency to a full studio model. So the question is: Are they studios? If so, do we call them Venture Developers? Venture Operators? Fractional Studios? Let me know in the comments. I am VERY curious to hear the community’s thoughts on this.

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Movac KiwiNet Deep Tech is difficult because you do not comprehend 95% of the universe using the Standard Model of Particle physics. Either learn that measurement is flawed due to human bias or experience and unbiased state through transcendence experiences corresponding to Christ consciousness. The physics of life is based on LENR and not the Standard Model of Particle physics. Unfortunately, scientific research has been captured by the materialism perspective. This is mutually exclusive to the light observed in consciousness. Physics of life. Deep Tech https://lnkd.in/gKqC3PAR Gateway into the aromatic ring Faraday cage system. Time to see the light 😁.

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An interesting article below, that demonstrates out how San Diego is punching above its weight.  And how Connect's strategy and execution over time, contintues to be central to that success. The article describes the current state of the market in Seattle.  (And i love Seattle.) It's a market that we tend to track with relative to venture fundings.  They used to kick our butts, we outraised them each of the last three years.  This despite the fact they have 3x as many funds there, and 9x the amount of resident capital there. (per pitchbook) Some key takeaways:  * They continue to compare themselves to SIlicon Valley. Instead, we leverage our proximity. *They whine there's not enough local investors (see note above - they have more than us). We bring over 200 VCs to SD annually! * They say founders are not connected with one another. We bring CEOs together regularly, in a variety of ways - private dinners and through our Springboard program. * They say they need to elevate their image on a national & international stage. Why we created and continue to build Five.Ten.Thirty (aka Inno Day).  * And the last paragraph - they need to concentrate on making their region a great place to live. Our mantra: "It's about Better, not Bigger." (See XEO, TL Fund). THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT. WE ARE ON A MISSION TOGETHER!!!  (Comments, whining, suggestions on SD always welcome.) https://lnkd.in/g6Rq_f2Y

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#Longevity Tech is on the rise ✌️ -Endeavor BioMedicines raised $135M at a $795M valuation in April 2024. -Humanaut Health secured an $8.7M Seed round, valued at $52M in May. -Superpower raised $4M, reaching a $24M valuation in May as well. These are just 3 of the 90+ #longevity startups highlighted in Dealroom.co's latest report (Link in the comments). In this newsletter, I dive into the Longevity Technology Market and the emerging trends shaping the future of health! 👉 https://lnkd.in/e3EZrAPH #Longevity #HealthTech #StartupFunding #Innovation

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Two weeks ago I spent 3 days with brilliant human beings discussing the state of AI investment with other angel syndicate leads, angel investors and VCs at Hustle Fund's #camphustle in Los Gatos. It was brilliant. Truly awesome to learn so much from insanely accomplished investors. But was so clear to me again is that the US and the UK are two countries divided by separate languages of ambition. Aspiration and ambition underlined by the cluster effect of successful exits, incredible talent and venture capital driven by operators and founders rather than accountants. But one reason why the US often trumps (pun not intended) the UK is they learn from failure. Run a startup that didn't reach the dizzying heights of venture-scale returns? Learn, reset and go again. What they certainly do not do is look at failure with glee and an "I told you so" attitude. Which is what I sense when I read most of the narrative around the failure of Cazoo. Alex Chesterman swung and missed. The business was flawed, unit economics didn't add up and in reality - there was very little innovation outside the vertical alignment of a well-understood business. But when we look down upon what he tried to do and 💩 💩 it all we're doing is making it harder for someone else to be equally as ambitious. Focus on what went wrong. Focus on the fundamental underlying business models that drive efficient use of capital and the push for profitability. But let's celebrate people shooting their shot and not celebrate the failures.

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Entering the Post-ZIRP, venture-capital-winter years. Thanks TechCrunch for this great summary of the macro economic context of #VC emerging managers.

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Are you struggling to build traction with investors? Could it be that you actually don't fully recognise investors' own needs and objectives? Thank you Yasmin Siraj of BACKED VC for hosting such an insightful discussion with the nextGEN community and addressing so openly some of the most common mistakes you see #founders make. Join the conversation at nextGEN @LifeScience ORG. #biotech #medtech #lifesciences #venturecapital #fundraising

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We are excited to have announced our Series A lead investment in Abett. Founded by Mike Hanlon, the company provides a data layer that enables any self-insured employer in the US to receive a regular and consistent feed of their claims data so they can actually understand healthcare costs, the efficacy of their employee benefits, and how to better serve their employees (to whom they have a fiduciary responsibility). While this sounds like table stakes, it's far from the norm. After payroll, healthcare is the biggest cost consideration for American employers. A majority of Americans receive employer-based health insurance. A majority of those Americans receive insurance from a fully or partially self-funded plan (i.e., the employer is taking risk instead of the insurance company). Abett brings transparency and alignment to a thorny data problem to empower benefits leaders & CFOs. More to come on Acrew Capital's focus on the investing at the intersection of healthcare & data. cc: Mark Kraynak and Kwabena "KB" Nimo for their partnership on this investment.

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I really enjoyed recording this episode of The Digital Industrial Podcast with Ty Findley. We talked about common misconceptions for deep tech, the "Why Now" for the category, and differences between investor diligence for deep tech and traditional tech. https://lnkd.in/eKtwjauu

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I recently sat down with Michael Batko, CEO at Startmate and Founder of Puddle Pod for Episode 11 of Insane Ambition. Startmate has invested in 230+ startups, much of it under Michael's leadership, and now has $3.5b in value across its portfolio companies. In this episode, we discussed: - Michael's journey from consulting, then living in the Amazon rainforest, to leading Australia's biggest startup accelerator - The future of Australia's startup ecosystem - The labour government's very stupid plan to make it harder for people to qualify as sophisticated investors (now thankfully shelved) - Startmate City! Startmate's plan to build Australia's first startup city. Probably the most ambitious idea I've ever heard from a startup accelerator. - The balance between visionary thinking and traditional startup advice (think Elon Musk's plan to colonise Mars, vs Y Combinator's problem/customer obsession) - "The Courage to Be Disliked", and its influence on Michael's approach to life and business. Links in the description below 👇

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🏮 Short-form Narrative Pipelines for Social Platforms, Part 4 🏮 The clip below is an example of an out-of-the-box solution. Notice how all of the camera movements are either pan and scan or zoom, which means there's no virtual camera system here. The character is also using a pre-canned animation from the Mixamo library. We did add some minimal stylization to the scene to give it a more comic book feel but everything here is done straight in engine. The advantage of this workflow is that it's relatively fast and simple. The disadvantage is that you're not capturing/filming a live performance from an actor, which means you can't really create narrative arcs with dialog between characters, etc. However, this is good for things like promotional videos, trailers, content marketing, brand marketing, etc. If all you want is 3D animated content that looks good and can be spun up quickly, this is a totally viable solution. All a team has to do is supply the appropriate assets (avatar, environments, props, etc.) and you're pretty much good-to-go. In Part 5, I'll breakdown what a 3D #VTubing workflow looks like and how it can be used to create short form narrative arcs. If you want to learn more about what an interoperable 3D asset future looks like, check out my 'Interoperable Playbook' on my profile page or download it for free here --> https://lnkd.in/gGHDMZ4p Cheers! 🖖

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118 VCs (one hundred eighteen!) are gathering in San Diego next week - to meet with 30 SD startups. But it's so MUCH bigger than just those 30 co's. It brings VCs back - when they see quality companies. It helps those who are next-in-line and adjacent. It enables us to send deal flow all year 'round. It attracts talent and other companies. It inspires entrepreneurship. Connect is working for SD. Together, we're building the best damn innovation ecosystem on the planet. Year over year. Five.Ten.Thirty.

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According to the latest report from Rock Health, digital health funding in Q1 2024 totaled $2.7B across 133 deals, with an average deal size of $20.6M. It doesn’t break out device-related investments, but most medtech founders I meet these days are being forced to chase tiny rounds made up of endless little checks, consuming valuable energy and slowing their progress. The benign neglect of this next generation of diagnostic and therapeutic devices is counterproductive and surprising. Given the crowded virtual care market, for example, I’d expect more such companies would be exploring medtech partnerships, investments or acquisitions that'd enable them to back integrate into delivering sharper, and more differentiated, care and treatment. This is exactly what Maverix Medical is doing from the other direction: Reshaping the entire spectrum of lung cancer care by integrating more advanced + effective approaches to screening and diagnosis, treatment and therapeutics, and even palliative care…And putting it all to work through an innovative provider network. One notable investor exception is Y Combinator partner Surbhi Sarna who’s been backing great teams like Selera Medical (YC W24) doing foundational work on ambitious medical devices. Without more support from investors like her, we’re going to increasingly find ourselves stuck with the incremental portfolio improvements from the incumbents, and that’s just not nearly enough.

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This doesn’t change without two key steps: 1) Activating more Black Angel investors and LPs. There are thousands of Black individuals and couples who qualify as accredited investors, don’t know it, and have no VC/PE exposure. Also, crowdfunding makes investing accessible to non-accredited investors. Funding Black founders can actually INCREASE the wealth gap depending on how their companies are funded and who gets the majority of the proceeds upon exit. 2) Using social and political power to direct government and philanthropic resources to leverage capital from step 1. All medium to large organizations that claim to be in service of the Black community need to be laser focused on this. The main thing missing here is exceptional leadership with transparent and competent governance infrastructure. Until we do these two things, these stats won’t change. I’m not guessing, I’ve got historical records and basic math on my side.

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Breaking News: VC Investment into Black Founders is Down...Again We've seen the reports earlier in the year, but this report from Carta and Peter Walker adds a little bit to an already longstanding conversation. In reading the full report, I have 3 main takeaways as it relates to the downward trend for Blacks in startups. #1. As Bad As it Looks, It's Even Worse Carta's report only looks at startups on its platform. From that data set, they determined Black founders received just 1% of unpriced venture capital funds. However, in a wider study, Crunchbase reported that just $700m went to Black founders in 2023, down from $4.9b in 2021. That $700m represented just 0.5% of the total $140b that went to all U.S. startups last year. https://lnkd.in/eRDXkM7Q #2. It's Even Bad for Black Startup Employees One of the big things Carta can lend to this conversation that others can't is what it looks like for Black people getting jobs at venture-backed start-ups. Well, as you can imagine, it's not good. In 2021, despite being ~13.5% of the population, Black people were just 2.8% of the new hires to Carta-using startups. But it got even worse in 2023, with just 2.3% of new start-up hires being Black. #3. We're Dropping Out of the Game Perhaps even more scary, and likely a result of these first two takeaways, is that there are fewer Black founders entering the VC game than there were 2 years ago. Black founders represented 3.9% of newly incorporated Carta startups in 2021, but that dropped to just 2.7% in 2022—nearly a third less. That's a big problem. Deterred by a lack of funding when they do start, and getting fewer start-up employment opportunities, Black people are essentially dropping out of participating in VC. Of course, there are many other ways to make money in the world—some with higher expected returns than VC, especially for those privileged to consider VC a plausible choice. However, being left out of markets is not a good thing—especially when it's not really Black talent making that choice for themselves. We know that Tech is going to continue being a driving force in wealth creation, especially with AI sucking up so much of the market. Thus, for any semblance of equal opportunity at wealth creation, Black people have to get a fairer shake at participating in Venture Capital. But the problem is that smart people aren't going to sit around and wait to be treated fairly. On average, they're just going to find a better, more favorable opportunity, even if the ceiling isn't as high. And that's a problem. For both Black people and the rest of the economy. Every quality report out there suggests that the systemic prevention of Black people's full participation in all areas of the economy is costing our nation immensely. And given the crazy times we're in, I'm not sure we can afford to maintain that status quo.

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New space startups are launching left and right, and college students might soon be sending their science projects into orbit! In this clip from Lobster Talks, Daniel Driscoll, co-founder of Elodin (YC W24), dives into the exciting Space Renaissance happening right now. From plummeting launch costs to the rise of space debris cleanup companies, the space industry is booming. But every new space venture faces a critical challenge: building reliable flight software. That's where Elodin comes in. Want to learn more about how Elodin is empowering the next generation of space explorers? Listen to the full episode of Lobster Talks with Daniel Driscoll for a deep dive into: -The factors driving the Space Renaissance -The challenges and opportunities for new space startups -How Elodin's platform is making space exploration more accessible than ever Listen on your fave pod platform or watch now - https://lnkd.in/eHp_WWGc . . . . . #spacerenaissance #newspace #spacetech #spaceexploration #startups #podcast #lobstertalks #elodin #flightsoftware

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