Seven Questions WITH Colleen CutcliffeColleen Cutcliffe is co-founder and CEO of Whole Biome and has led teams in academia, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology for more than 15 years. Before earning her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, Colleen studied biochemistry in a liberal arts program at Wellesley College—which she credits with shaping her view of science as a tool for making a difference in the world. Q1 My husband and girls come first. I grew up with very strong family ties—we were all home for dinner pretty much every night—and keeping that up as a parent came naturally. My husband does shift work as an ER physician, so our time together is limited, and it’s important to me to make it count. With the kids, it’s about anchoring the day. I can’t be there for everything, but I try to sit with them at breakfast and dinner and do the bedtime routine. My team knows that between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., they’re probably not going to hear from me unless something’s on fire. [ Sequoia ] LOOKER JOINS GOOGLE CLOUDLooker is announcing they are joining Google Cloud. During the past seven years, Looker has evolved to become the business intelligence platform for the modern business, that sits atop the next-generation data warehouses like BigQuery, Snowflake and RedShift. Throughout the journey, the long term vision has always remained the same: to become the single data layer across an enterprise. And over the last seven years, Looker has taken the first big steps to seeing it through by working with hundreds of customers to empower them with data. [ TOMASZ TUNGUZ ] Goldman CEO: If Marcus were a Silicon Valley start-up, people would be ‘throwing money at us’Less than three years into its pivot to retail banking for the masses, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon still feels like an underdog. The firm’s Marcus business gathers $1 billion in deposits a month and recently announced its first credit card with Apple, but that progress has yet to be reflected in Goldman’s stock, which trades at a discount compared with rivals. So when J.D. Power presented the firm with an award this week for customer satisfaction in personal loans, topping other big banks and fintech upstarts, Solomon soaked in the moment. [ CNBC ] ‘The Largest Start-Up Ecosystem of the New Berlin’Most people who arrive by plane in Germany’s capital land at Berlin Tegel Airport, an austere, hexagonal airport beloved by locals for its no-frills aesthetic and efficient design. But after decades shuttling air travelers in and out of the city, including more than 22 million in 2018, the airport, once an integral part of the Berlin Airlift, is preparing for its next chapter. Shortly after the new Berlin Brandenburg International Airport opens in the fall of 2020, Tegel will shut down. The nearly two-square-mile airport will become Berlin TXL, a complex that will include much-needed homes, a vast research and industrial campus and a landscaped park, less than five miles from the leafy, canal-lined city center. [ NY Times ] Hey Unicorn Hunters, It's Not About Ideas. Three Key Insights To Find The Perfect Startup Storm.It’s always fascinating to see people in the startup space, both entrepreneurs and investors, talk about unicorns, those startups that quickly rise to a valuation of over $1 billion dollars. Now that’s not $1 billion in revenue but in “perceived” value. Chasing unicorns, whether you are an entrepreneur or an investor can end in disaster. Instead of looking to create startups who are solving real problems in big markets, sometimes investors artificially “fuel up” a startup based on wishful thinking more than common sense. Here are some spectacular unicorn failures. [ Forbes ] As the venture capital game gets bigger, the Midwest keeps missing outThose working to accelerate economic growth in the Heartland must face some stark realities. The Great Lakes region continues to export wealth to coastal economies, even as investment leaders try to equalize growth between the coasts and the Heartland. The region sees only a tiny fraction of venture capital (VC) deals, despite producing one quarter to one third of the nation’s research and development, new patents, and top talent. Great Lakes VC funds are currently seen as too small or too unknown for investors—at a time when VC is funding fewer firms with bigger exits. [ brookings.edu ] Postmates taps longtime Apple engineer to boost autonomous delivery effortsPostmates has hired Apple veteran and author Ken Kocienda as a principal software engineer at Postmates X, the team building the food delivery company’s semi-autonomous sidewalk rover, Serve. Kocienda, author of “Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs,” spent 15 years at Apple focused on human interface design, collaborating with engineers to develop the first iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Kocienda left Apple in 2017 to focus on his book. [ Tech Crunch ] Fiverr Wants to Go Public According to a Post-IPO Valuation of $650 MillionInnovation hub BlueChilli has revealed the 18 founders in 10 startups it has selected for its latest SheStarts accelerator program for women.The women were chosen from 400 applications and 50 startups who took part in a two-week bootcamp. SheStarts3 is a six-month venture building program exploring issues such as sustainable agriculture and mental health. It’s backed by ANZ, MYOB, Google for Startups, Microsoft and LinkedIn. [ Startup Daily ] Data warehouse startup Yellowbrick raises $81 millionData warehouse startup Yellowbrick Data has raised $81 million in a series C round of funding led by DFJ Growth, with participation from Alphabet’s VC arm GV, Menlo Ventures, Third Point Ventures, DFJ Growth, BMW i Ventures, IVP, Next47, and Threshold Ventures. Palo Alto-based Yellowbrick was founded in 2014 but only emerged out of stealth last July, when the startup announced it had raised $44 million. Yellowbrick followed that up with a $48 million series B round in October, and this latest round takes its total raised to around $173 million. [ Venture Beat ] THE FINNIES: Here are the best fintech businesses in AustraliaFintech Australia board members at The Finnies (l-r), Lauren Caplin of Reinventure, Simone Joyce of Paypa Plane, chairman Alan Tsen, GM of Stone & Chalk Melbourne, Carla Harris of Longevity, Melissa Mack of MoneyPlace, GM Rebecca Schot-Guppy, and Tim Dean of Credi.com. Up Bank, AirWallex and Afterpay are among the major winners of the 2019 FinTech Australia Finnie awards, announced in Melbourne last night. Afterpay was named Fintech Organisation of The Year for the third year in a row – the entire history of the awards – while AirWallex scored three awards, including Biggest Raise of The Year for its $141 million March round, which turned the company into Australia’s latest tech unicorn. [ Startup Daily ] Sources: Bird is in talks to acquire scooter startup ScootIf you are among those who thought that the scooter market sounded a little overhyped and overcrowded, we’ve gotten wind of a deal that could point to some impending consolidation. The on-demand scooter business Bird has agreed to acquire Scoot, a smaller two-wheeled mobility startup, sources tell TechCrunch. [ Tech Crunch ] Apple is reportedly looking to buy robotaxi start-up Drive.aiApple is looking to acquire self-driving shuttle service Drive.ai in its latest move into the autonomous vehicle space, The Information reported. Apple has long eyed the automotive space, even bidding to buy Tesla several years ago, according to Roth Capital Partners analyst Craig Irwin. But Apple’s own autonomous vehicle group has recently undergone a large restructuring. CNBC reported in January that Apple dismissed more than 200 employees from the group, known as Project Titan. The move was seen internally as a shake-up under the team’s new leadership, which includes former Tesla engineering vice president Doug Field. [ CNBC ] The Technology 202: Breaking up Big Tech won't actually help start-ups, tech investors and entrepreneurs sayPoliticians such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have made the case that breaking up Big Tech will benefit smaller start-ups. But some of the very venture capitalists and entrepreneurs they say stand to benefit are wary of the antitrust frenzy in Washington. “Anytime someone from Washington claims to be here to help the rest of us, you’re going to find a lot of skepticism from me,” said Bob Ackerman, founder and managing director of the venture capital firm AllegisCyber Capital. Politicians “don’t understand tech, don’t understand the environment and don’t understand the ecosystem,” he added. [ The Washington Post ] Bill Gates and Travis Kalanick invest in A.I. chip start-up using light to move dataMicrosoft co-founder Bill Gates, Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick’s 10100 fund and current Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi have invested in Luminous, a small start-up building an artificial intelligence chip. The investment shows key figures in the technology industry believe there is still an opportunity for a new standard to emerge when it comes to hardware for AI, which can be incorporated into a variety of software applications. In all, the company raised $9 million in this seed round. [ CNBC ] Here Are Beyond Meat’s Biggest — And Happiest — InvestorsBeyond Meat's stock has been soaring since the company went public last month. We look at how much its top investors' shares are worth. Plant-based burger company Beyond Meat went public on May 2 at a price of $25 per share — the top of its expected $23-$25 range. A month later, the company is going strong, with shares trading at upwards of $100. [ CB Insights ] Roland Wieshofer talks to Tobias Jaeger about leveraging CFO skills and expertise in media venturesWe sat down with veteran entertainment CFO Roland Wieshofer, for a double episode special. Roland started his career as supervising accountant and built a deep finance and accounting expertise in film and digital. Roland was instrumental in modelling and building one of the first streaming ventures as well as the financial management of some of the most successful film production companies. Rajat Monga: TensorFlow | Artificial Intelligence (AI) PodcastRajat Monga is an Engineering Director at Google, leading the TensorFlow team. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast at MIT and beyond. Audio podcast version is available on https://lexfridman.com/ai/ Keynote: Bobby Franklin, National Venture Capital Association - Kinetic 2019For every meteoric startup success story, there are dozens of cautionary tales of companies and products that failed so spectacularly they ended up in bankruptcy court. We take a look at what went wrong for 11 startups that filed for Chapter 11. Although many entrepreneurs are keenly aware that the odds are stacked against them, few founders expect to find themselves explaining their actions in bankruptcy court — yet that’s the precise situation the founders of these 11 companies found themselves in when their ventures failed. [ CB Insighta ] Simone Giertz on Her Robots and Returning to Work After Brain SurgerySimone Giertz describes herself as a maker/robotics enthusiast/non-engineer. She’s also known as the Queen of Shitty Robots. She runs a YouTube channel about those robots and is a cohost on Tested with Adam Savage from MythBusters. Facial Recognition Is Already Here: These Are The 30+ US Companies Testing The TechnologyUS corporates are currently using facial recognition for everything from fast food orders to trying on makeup to issuing life insurance policies, and more. Although we most often notice facial recognition when unlocking a smart phone or laptop, it will soon play a major role in everything from travel to shopping and even fast food. [ CB Insights ] Curated by Venture Pulse Team. Find us on : [ Venturepulse.org, CrunchBase, AngelList ] |