Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast

Follow Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast
Share on
Copy link to clipboard

The podcast where heavy industrial industries meet the venture capital ecosystem. Interviewing thought-leading investors and founders to better understand the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for digital industrial innovation.

Ty Findley


    • May 19, 2025 LATEST EPISODE
    • monthly NEW EPISODES
    • 35m AVG DURATION
    • 107 EPISODES


    Search for episodes from Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast with a specific topic:

    Latest episodes from Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast

    106. Troy Ryley, Echo Global Logistics - The Road Ahead for US/Mexico Cross-Border

    Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2025 38:39


    Troy narrates through his three decades of US/Mexico cross-border experience that led him to now standing up yet another cross-border operation, Echo Mexico, shares his outlook where he believes US trade with Mexico is headed coming out of the tariff negotiations, details what the opportunities and challenges are for anyone considering expanding freight services into cross-border applications, and finally outlines how a pioneering firm like Echo balances building technology into its solutions and ensuring that the human element critical to logistics isn't lost as its employees provide great customer service. 

    105. Ian Kinne, Hillwood - Building a "Mobility Innovation Zone"

    Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2025 45:27


    Ian shares the back story on how the 27,000-acre, master-planned development by Hillwood turned into Alliance, TX (a global logistics hub that has generated more than 66,000 jobs and an estimated $130B in regional economic impact!), why the Mobility Innovation Zone (MIZ) was stood up within Alliance to connect, “people, places, and ideas that push innovation forward in surface and air mobility”, how the MIZ has driven outsized impact into advancing autonomous vehicle innovation and testing through a dual focus on both public and private collaboration, and finally a mobility trends outlook from his exposure both at the MIZ and his collaboration with the Perot Jain VC team.  

    104. Dave Anderson, Supply Chain Ventures - Where Supply Chain VC Began

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 31, 2025 43:37


    Dave shares his 20+ year journey launching and scaling Supply Chain Ventures where supply chain VC all began, details a historical look back on major supply chain events and innovation inflection points that have shaped where we are at today (hint: supply chain is an incredibly enduring investment sector), outlines what he thinks is investable vs. not in this latest wave of AI applied to supply chain use cases, and finally shares how Supply Chain Ventures dual VC and PE mandate both gives the firm a unique capital markets aperture and gives their founders a proven M&A roadmap to learn from.

    103. All-In Supply Chain Innovation 4.0

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2025 47:52


    The band is back together after the 2025 supply chain conference blitz and we cover how we tactically approach conference season, where the macro supply chain winds are blowing this year (tariffs, DOGE, regulatory changes, etc.), what role the latest AI into supply chain push is playing (tip: watch out for 'Annual Curiosity Revenue'), and how we think VC specilization has played out after crossing the 5th year anniversary since we all wrote some research on the topic.

    102. Dave Katzman, PTC - Onshape to PTC, a Manuf. Innovation Journey

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2025 32:52


    Dave shares his story of building up the Go-to-Market (GTM) engine at Onshape before it was acquired by PTC in 2019, what functional and leadership lessons he learned within that Onshape experience (venture-backed) that has translated to PTC (premier incumbent), how his team at the Velocity Group operates within the broader PTC organization, what lessons he has learned when it comes to recruiting and composing a high functioning GTM team, and finally a “What's Hot and What's Hype” overview for manufacturing innovation in 2025.   

    101. Kristina Nilsson, J.P. Morgan - Applied Technology in 2025

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2025 33:53


    Kristina outlines what macro trends she sees ahead in 2025 from both the public and private markets and zooms in how those trends will play into her Applied Technology focus areas, shares the evolution she has witnessed within the industrial innovation ecosystem over the past two decades (both investors and innovators), details why she believes recent advances in AI have the potential to reenergize productivity gains in industrial settings that have stagnated over the last decade, and finally gives advice on how and when innovators should think about forming relationships with banking partners (hint: play the long game).  

    100. Peter J. Holt - Ironspring Ventures 5 Year Lookback + Lookahead

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2025 51:11


    On the turn of Ironspring Ventures 5 year anniversary (!), Peter shares the story of the Holt family background and his own journey to now leading HOLT Group, details the various industrial businesses and associated sectors that HOLT Group operates within (hint: “Dynamic” is a core value), outlines how those efforts are clearly complementary to the genesis and ongoing efforts at Ironspring Ventures, reflects on his takeaways from the last 5 years of building Ironspring Ventures and what's ahead the next 5+ years, shares his outlook on the expanding role of family offices with long-standing industrial roots actively investing into the venture capital asset class to accelerate industrial innovation, and finishes with a twist on “What's Hot and What's Hype” from both an operator and a VC lens.

    99. Josh Kanner - The Impact of AI in Construction

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 23, 2024 36:19


    Josh shares a then and now look back on his 20-year journey building multiple Builtworld startups and what key evolution points he has seen in the ecosystem, details how Oracle Construction and Engineering is leveraging AI to help customers and their skilled workforce do their jobs better and more safely, outlines how responsibly applying AI in construction can advance the entire industry, and walks us through what his key lessons learned are from his three M&A transactions in the Builtworld to-date (tactical and strategic).

    98. Nick Kim - SoCal's Industrial Innovation Resurgence

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2024 38:38


    Nick walks us through how he and Upfront went about furthering development of their national infrastructure and hard tech focus areas, shares his outlook on the LA and SoCal industrial resurgence that is underway, discusses the rich SoCal industrial history underpinning this resurgence (“primes” and associated talent have been there for decades!), and details why the human element involved in industrial sectors is only going to be strengthened by the adoption of industrial automation (not replaced).    

    97. Sivan Zamir - Building a More Water-Secure World

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2024 32:45


    Sivan details both why Xylem set up a corporate innovation and venture capital team in 2021 and how those efforts move the needle for a $8B revenue F500 water-focused corporation that spans 150 countries and 23,000 employees, dives into how integral water and water technology are for the current Ai frenzy and data center boom to actually achieve the potential everyone is hoping for, outlines some of the water improvement efforts that will be required in order for international supply chain reshuffling to occur where water access might prove challenging (ie. Nuevo Leon), and finally we discuss how everything Xylem innovates on is inherently sustainable and what that means to her. 

    96. Craig Fuller - RIP Great Freight Recession

    Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2024 55:04


    Craig shares his story from growing up in the freight industry to what led him to found Freightwaves, takes us behind the scenes of his industry statements/predictions both entering (2022) and exiting (2024) the current freight recession and what the blow back was from being out ahead on market moving data like that, channels his inner Sec. of the Department of Transportation on what his vision would be and what he would do his first 90 days, and finally a “What's Hot and What's Hype” session from his recent Freightwaves F3 conference and awards context.

    95. Dave Yuan - Dominating Control Points in VaaS

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2024 38:30


    Dave shares why he took on the challenge of building Tidemark after over 20 years in the venture asset class (and garnering Midas List recognition), how Tidemark takes on a product ethos in building its Vertical SaaS (VaaS) value-add capabilities such as content and community events among other efforts, VaaS learnings from recent research they've done on “Control Points” and a benchmarking study on Vertical and SMB SaaS trends, how the Tidemark thesis and lessons learned apply to digital industrial end markets, and finally where Ai is headed for VaaS now that the “Ai meteor” has landed. 

    94. Usman Shuja - Ai in AEC

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2024 37:36


    Usman shares how Ai is entering the AEC ecosystem faster than ever and how Bluebeam has developed a 4-part Ai framework to guide the company's approach, details why careful attention to the ethical considerations of Ai's deployment within the AEC environment is key to long term success, describes some of his lessons learned on what is takes to scale commercial adoption in industrial innovation from his over a decade of experience across various industrial verticals, and finally a “What's Hot and What's Hype” section where he sees the Builtworld headed. 

    93. Zach Fredericks - Road Ahead for Supply Chain

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2024 37:36


    Zach dives into the Primary thesis on supply chain innovation bringing better interoperability, decreasing operational complexity, and better financial infrastructure into this sector, shares his outlook on how Ai will impact logistics operations, explains his reasoning for business model evolution to “sell work not SaaS”, and where he sees the future headed for this sector after nearly a 10-year wave of VC behind it.

    92. Elisabeth Reynolds - The USA Manufacturing Agenda

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 12, 2024 39:31


    Liz walks us through the USA manufacturing agenda detailing where we're at given past and present efforts, shares how government funding and the private capital markets can be better bridged together so that manufacturing and supply chain innovation efforts actually hit scale, discusses both why now is different and why we're seeing more innovation talent and capital flood into manufacturing than ever before, and finally why “digitalizing the middle” is such a critical effort to ensure our USA industrial skilled labor (heroes) isn't left behind the current wave of technology innovation.

    91. Chris Ott, Creative Blue - Strategic Storytelling in Industrial Innovation

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2024 35:37


    Chris shares what strategic storytelling is and the difference between a story and a strategic story, why this is all very important for industrial innovators to get right, how founders can get started to sell their vision more effectively (thematically and tactically) by building their personal brand which in-turn bolsters the company brand, and finally a “What's Hot and What's Hype” section when it comes to which tactical media tools and channels are most effective in 2024.  

    90. Zeeza Cole, BCV - Industrial Renaissance

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2024 31:08


    Zeeza details how 20 years of investing in the physical world led BCV to launch their Industrial Renaissance practice, what are the unique confluence of events in 2024 that have combined to usher in “a new era in industrials”, what 3 key lessons learned stick out that BCV will be leaning into in the next decade of investing, how BCV's broader Bain Capital family enables the BCV platform to drive differentiated value and networks for the portfolio, and finally a “What's Hot and What's Hype” overview.  

    89. Jack Garza, SVB - The State of Hardware-as-a-Service

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2024 27:43


    Jack outlines how Silicon Valley Bank defines Hardware-as-a-Service and why SVB produces research on this business model, shares what the key lessons learned were and the macro trends identified in this 2nd edition of this research report, details how Hardware-as-a-Service investing stacks up against the broader VC deals and dollars dropoff (hint: VCs at the steed stage have increased investment over the last 2 years!), and finally shares “Metrics that Matter” that SVB identified as critical to building a successful and healthy business in this ecosystem.  

    88. Addis Goldman & Brady Helwig, Special Competitive Studies Project - National Action Plan for Advanced Manufacturing

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 21, 2024 38:12


    Addis and Brady share why the Special Competitive Studies Project was formed and how the organization's research efforts culminate in Action Plans like the latest one just released on US Advanced Manufacturing, outline the geopolitical backdrop currently at play between the US and China when it comes to keeping the US long-term competitive in domestic manufacturing capabilities, detail the advanced manufacturing technologies the research identified as the highest impact opportunities ahead and the associated action plans to accelerate those technologies adoption (hint: the human element is still as critical as ever),  and finally discuss the dynamics and ideas behind trying to fund all of this innovation and aligned action plans. 

    87. Jonathan Campbell, Campbell Companies - Moving the Dirt World Forward

    Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2024 39:58


    Jonathan details how he balances long-standing incumbent stability while also staying agile/open to new innovative ideas and engaging external innovators, why direct investing in the venture asset class was a strategy chosen to further innovation efforts, what you have to do as an operator to attract, develop, and retain “Dirt World” talent that can sustain a strong culture within an organization (with an NBA-inspired twist!), and finally how family offices with legacy roots in industrial markets are playing a bigger role than ever both in engaging and investing into the venture ecosystem. 

    86. Sarah Liu, Fifth Wall - Building a Built World Network Effect

    Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2024 28:04


    Sarah shares the story how Fifth Wall has scaled its sector-focused approach from launch in 2016 to today now managing >$3B AUM across several different product offerings, describes how the fund leverages its >110 owner and operator LPs from the real estate industry to add value to Fifth Wall's stakeholders and ‘manufacture alpha' in their returns, details how to balance the varying incentive alignment between both corporate strategic LPs and financial LPs, and finally we chat on her current outlook how Ai will make an impact on the Built World.    

    85. Reilly Brennan, Trucks Venture Capital - Transportation Innovation Rolls On

    Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2024 31:47


    Reilly details a sector-specific then-and-now look back from his more than two decades of transportation experience, shares how the venture asset class has shifted in light of the momentum in this sector and what this has meant for sector-focused VC firms, outlines why building ecosystem and collaboration across startups, investors, universities, regulators, etc. is needed for the next decade of transportation innovation to thrive, and finally shares lessons learned from investing in transportation business models that may combine both hardware and software components.  

    84. Jason Pritzker, Fifty Three Stations - Bridging Legacy Industry and Venture Capital

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 29, 2024 40:11


    Jason shares the origin story behind The Pritzker Organization (60 years of company-building expertise and over 200 transactions across industries representing ~$30B in equity value) and how those roots supported the launch of Fifty Three Stations $190M debut venture fund, details how the firm leverages its differentiated commercial ecosystem to drive portfolio company value-add in a repeatable manner at scale, and outlines what it will take to drive more established family office networks to setup venture investing capabilities that can further bridge legacy, established industries with the accelerating technology innovation ecosystem.  

    83. Leo Polovets, Susa + Humba Ventures - Intersection of Deep Tech & American Dynamism

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2024 30:34


    Leo shares the origin story of why storied VC firm Susa Ventures decided to launch new fund, Humba Ventures, to invest at the intersection of deep tech and American Dynamism, details what differences are required to evaluate companies with that level of focus on deep tech, defends Humba's thesis that deep tech is the best place to invest and build right now by dispelling 4 key misconceptions of this category, and brings us home sharing a “What's Hot and What's Hype” outlook.  

    82. Paul Kwan, General Catalyst - The Case for Global Resilience

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 1, 2024 34:12


    Paul shares the why behind a storied venture firm like General Catalyst launching a focus on Global Resilience as one of the firm's 4 key focus areas, how the firm leverages its firm-wide global and multi-stage breadth of mandate to truly get creative in solution formation, describes a sub-segment of their thesis defined around Industrial Resilience “aligning physical systems and digital breakthroughs”, and given the nuance involved with industrial innovation, what the company signals and founder indicators are that get their team excited.  

    81. All-In Supply Chain Innovation 2.0

    Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2024 43:49


    The besties get the fleet back together to discuss how the 2024 supply chain conference blitz kicked off, what's the insiders' outlook on VC funding supply chain tech despite the macro pullback in deals & dollars, where the freight market cycle sits currently (hint: still as cyclical as ever), and finally where the crystal ball outlooks are for the remainder of 2024.

    80. Anna Farberov, PepsiCo Labs - CPG Innovation Meets Digital Industrial

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2024 31:39


    Anna explains the origin story of why PepsiCo decided to launch Labs and how those efforts for a global CPG company tie into the digital industrial ecosystem, details how the Labs team programmatically both identifies and collaborates with startups to drive a win/win for Pepsi business units and the startups (hint: Labs acts a single point of contact accelerator within the 340k employee organization), and finally details why the Labs team is specifically scouting for manufacturing operations innovation in 2024. 

    79. Maggie Kenefake, Iron Prairie Ventures - Industrial Tech in America's Heartland

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2024 30:38


    Maggie shares the origin story of why she launched an industrial tech venture firm in America's heartland, details how she builds a competitive advantage leveraging a six-state Midwest region of industrial stakeholders to drive value for her portfolio, explains why sector-focused emerging managers play a critical role behind this industrial tech thesis, and shares some tactical lessons learned on how she activates networks within her region of stakeholders across founders, investors, industrial operators, civic leaders, and non-profits.  

    78. Matt Trotter, Stifel Venture Bank - Venturing into 2024

    Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2024 43:43


    Matt outlines why Stifel (~$7B market cap + 8,000 employees) expanded its venture banking group in 2023 to further support the innovation economy, dusts off his crystal ball to describe where the venture market is headed in 2024 and how that macro outlook will play into the digital industrial sectors, shares a ‘then & now' look on how the digital industrial ecosystem has evolved over the last decade (hint: founders, funders, exits, etc. have all ramped!), and finally defines some hard-earned lessons learned as to what is required in these sectors from a capitalization strategy and building businesses efficiently.  

    77. Chris Stern, Trimble Ventures - Connect & Scale

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2023 45:02


    Chris describes both the why behind Trimble standing up a corporate venture capital (CVC) strategy and what he means by Trimble Ventures being an “and” within the company's innovation efforts, details how the CVC platform aims to accelerate growth and drive value for its portfolio companies (hint: aligns to corporate objectives to Connect & Scale), and a 2024 look-ahead crystal ball session of “What's Hot and What's Hype?”.  

    76. Vijen Patel, The 81 Collection - Innovating Un-sexy Industries

    Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2023 34:48


    Vijen details both what he defines as un-sexy industries and why he cares about driving innovation into the 81% of the US GDP underserved by VC, outlines how he activates a differentiated network of founders who've built in un-sexy industries to drive value for his firm, describes the founders fund ethos he instills into his VC firm by leveraging his own prior experience as a founder, and finally shares some 2024 look-ahead thoughts on trends he is most interested in for un-sexy industries.  

    75. Emily Fritze, The Westly Group - Growth Environment for Industrial, Energy, Buildings, and Mobility Innovation

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2023 31:14


    Emily shares a macro outlook on the growth stage ecosystem aligned to sectors in industrial tech, mobility, buildings, and energy, discusses lessons learned investing in these sectors for both software and hardware-enabled software (“bits meet atoms”) business models, and outlines how The Westly Group approaches climate tech investing as its evolved over the last couple of decades.     

    74. Marianne Wu, Congruent Ventures - Industrial Tech is Climate Tech

    Play Episode Listen Later Oct 9, 2023 36:18


    Marianne outlines what Climate Tech means to Congruent, shares how her unique industrial innovation background has shaped her own outlook on this topic (hint: all industrial tech companies are climate tech companies), gives us an outlook on how far along we are in the digital industrial adoption curve and what she sees ahead, describes how both hardware (atoms) and software (bits) innovation will play key roles in industrial settings, and finally a “What's Hot and What's Hype” section.    

    73. Ryan Kelly, AMT - The Next Decade in Manufacturing

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2023 46:28


    Ryan shares how a 120 year old manufacturing trade association remains out in front driving technology innovation forward in the industry and why AMT launched a Tech Lab in Silicon Valley to support that, discusses what “The State of US Manuf.” currently is, defines how the industry has more of an adoption hurdle than we do an innovation hurdle, outlines how the accelerated US reshoring manufacturing efforts will be closely linked with associated nearshoring efforts in LATAM, and what efforts are underway to build up ecosystem and the associated talent base required for the next decade in manufacturing.

    72. Scott Wolfe, Levelset - The State of Builtworld Innovation

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2023 38:00


    Scott shares why he decided to transition into advising and angel investing in builtworld startups after selling his company to Procore in 2021, details the value he hopes to bring from an operator-to-operator perspective (hint: 3 horizons of vision setting), advises what he thinks the state of ConTech currently is now vs. what has been maturing over the last decade, and describes what it takes to scale the go-to-market engine of a startup when selling into the nuances of the construction market. 

    71. Tom Chi, At One Ventures - Accelerating a Net Positive Industrial Economy

    Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2023 34:23


    Tom shares how a coral reef led to the genesis of At One Ventures launch, defines what “Net Positive” investing means within the current climate tech landscape, outlines At One's physics fundamentals approach (matter, time, energy, and space) to screening deep tech innovation that in-turn has the potential to upend the unit economics of established industries, and describes why he is more focused on the aforementioned unit economic analysis ahead of traditional founder archetype and team dynamics heuristics when making investment decisions.

    70. Nate Williams, UNION Labs - Deeptech, Where What is Meets What Could Be

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2023 35:57


    Nate defines how he thinks about “deeptech”, outlines what the current state of venture investing is in the category (tip: deeptech does not have to be capital intensive!), shares how their firm gets comfortable investing ahead of the curve in deeptech categories that may not currently have mature exit environments and/or comps to benchmark, and wraps up discussing the importance of building ecosystem around this category and how even emerging managers can effectively build community. 

    69. Brian Laung Aoaeh, REFASHIOND Ventures - Refashioning a More Sustainable Supply Chain

    Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2023 41:02


    Brian shares the REFASHIOND thesis behind the need to refashion the global supply chain, why he believes that “supply chain innovation is the foundation on which all sustainability initiatives must rest”, details how the current venture activity level in supply chain isn't representative of the sector's accelerated operational need for innovation, and finally outlines six rules their team defines for investing in early-stage supply chain technology.  

    68. Rick Zullo, Equal Ventures - Having a Prepared Mind

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2023 45:19


    Rick discusses the advantages of having a prepared mind in the 5 key sectors Equal Ventures focuses on, shares a review and look-ahead for the supply chain sector, defines what “Climate Tech” is and how it squarely aligns to the digital industrial ecosystem, and outlines what an Emerging Manager is and how critical it is for an Emerging Manager to have a real, unique competitive advantage in order to stand out in today's VC landscape.  

    prepared vc equal ventures climatetech rick zullo equal ventures
    67. Esteban Reyes, Zenda Capital - Redefining Underserved Industries in the US and LATAM

    Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2023 37:45


    Esteban shares how he defines “underserved” economic sectors, why he created the fund to back those founders who are redefining those overlooked industries, what specifically he is looking to evaluate at the earliest stages of investment, what the unique aspects of investing in underserved LATAM sectors are, and he shares his current outlook on what it takes to be an emerging manager in today's competitive VC landscape.

    66. Alex Moazed, Applico - The Rise of the Distributor

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2023 39:27


    Alex breaks down the definition of a B2B distributor and the critical role they play in the industrial supply chain ($8T in spend flows through them!), outlines why he believes in working with distributors directly to support their digital journeys as opposed to innovating around them, discusses his playbook “The S Curve of B2B Unbundling” on how to drive tech innovation into the distributor ecosystem, and shares some tips on how distributor innovation business models have matured over the last decade.    

    65. Sujeet Chand, Rockwell Automation - Industrial Automation and Controls, Powering Society

    Play Episode Listen Later Jun 20, 2023 40:08


    Sujeet details the history behind industrial automation software and hardware (hint: PLCs have been around since 1969!), how he defines “3 levels” within the industrial automation s/w stack that are driving convergence between OT and IT environments, what it takes to build a scalable and repeatable go-to-market engine when selling industrial automation innovation, and finally a macro zoom-out as to where he sees US domestic manufacturing capabilities headed to become more intelligent, hyper-connected, and highly automated. 

    64. Kaushal Diwan, DPR - Evaluating and Investing in Construction Innovation

    Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2023 34:03


    Kaushal shares the context of ‘why' one of the world's premier general contractors has taken innovation so seriously since its founding, how that innovation focus led to standing up their corporate venture capital efforts at WND Ventures, how DPR has defined a highly structured process for engaging external innovation start-to-finish (key: align internal and external incentive alignment early), and “What's Hot and What's Hype” currently in the builtworld ecosystem. 

    63. Ben Fife, GS Growth - What's Happening in Growth Stage for Industrial Innovation?

    Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2023 35:31


    Ben shares an outlook on what's going on in the growth stage ecosystem given the current market reset (spoiler: lots of capital still to deploy and they remain active), dives into how that reset is impacting the industrial innovation sector now and going forward, what he is evaluating growth stage companies on, and how his team at GS Growth harnesses the vast, global resources of Goldman Sachs to add value back into the companies they invest behind. 

    62. Karen Kerr, Exposition Ventures - The Infrastructure of Doing Business

    Play Episode Listen Later May 8, 2023 36:24


    Karen explains how the Chicago Columbian Exposition spurred on the 2nd industrial revolution and inspired the launch of her firm, why there has been such an explosion of venture capital interest and investment in digital industrial innovation over the last decade, what will be required of both the public and private US ecosystems to accelerate the current manufacturing revitalization underway, and finally a chat on “What's Hot and What's Hype” for digital industrial innovation. 

    61. Dennis Muilenburg, New Vista Capital - A Matter of National Security

    Play Episode Listen Later May 1, 2023 32:18


    Dennis shares how a lifetime dedicated to aerospace innovation led him to co-founding New Vista Capital as his next chapter after Boeing, what the transferable lessons learned are that bridge from running one of the world's largest industrial companies to early-stage innovation, what he sees as accelerating market trends behind the firm's aerospace and national security thematic focus areas, and why maintaining US competitiveness in manufacturing is currently one of the greatest challenges and opportunities facing the US in the decades ahead (a matter of national security). 

    60. Jim Adler, Toyota Ventures - Discovering What's Next For Toyota

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2023 39:52


    Jim shares the origin story of Toyota Ventures and how the firm leverages its $500M AUM to discover what's next for Toyota, how having a broad investment thesis beyond just core automotive and mobility helps avoid the innovators dilemma, what he is looking for in robotic-enabled innovation and the associated challenges and opportunities that come with those business models, and how having a dedicated Climate Fund is supporting Toyota's goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.   

    59. Sam Smith-Eppsteiner, Innovation Endeavors - The Super Evolution is Here

    Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2023 36:58


    Sam shares how the convergence of data, compute, and advanced engineering is leading to their thesis of “The Super Evolution”, how that thesis is intersecting and driving impact into industrial sectors, what the 4 key trends are that she is seeing develop behind tailwinds in industrials, and why she thinks of climate tech as a “persistent, horizontal underlying trend in nearly every space we touch”. 

    58. Katie Rae, The Engine - Tough Tech To Make a Positive Impact on the World

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2023 28:43


    Katie shares The Engine's definition of and approach to Tough Tech investing, her thoughts on why the Tough Tech category has shown fundraising resilience during a challenging time for the broader venture market, details how the firm drives value to their portfolio via both public and private sector partnership networks (stat: for every $1 raised from The Engine, raised another $1.22 from the public sector), and how The Engine has chosen tools and frameworks that enable the firm to quantify and deliver on its deep commitment to having a positive impact on the world.

    57. Steve Sloane, Menlo Ventures - "Cambrian Moment" in the Global Supply Chain

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2023 29:26


    Steve shares why a storied Silicon Valley firm chose to form a pod of focused supply chain expertise, digs in on Menlo's recent research that arrived at three fundamental themes shaping the global supply chain, offers his perspective on hot spots for supply chain innovation across the globe including why he is especially bullish on opportunities in the LatAm region, and wraps up with the four key trends they are closely monitoring going into 2023 (hint, re/near-shoring pairs nicely with his LatAm interest!).

    56. Manifest Conference 2023 - All-In Supply Chain Innovation

    Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2023 33:16


    Hot off a trip to Vegas for the 2023 Manifest supply chain innovation conference, the four besties Chris Stallman of Fontinalis Partners, Julian Counihan of Schematic Ventures, Santosh Sankar of Dynamo Ventures, and host Ty Findley of Ironspring Ventures go off script digging in on a macro market pulse where we are now in the latest freight market cycle, a then & now reflection on what supply chain innovation has occurred over the last decade that led us to today, and finally a 2023 crystal ball session about where both innovation and deal-making trends are headed in this sector. I might even ask them what they would do first if they were made Department of Transportation Secretary for a day...

    Claim Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast

    In order to claim this podcast we'll send an email to with a verification link. Simply click the link and you will be able to edit tags, request a refresh, and other features to take control of your podcast page!

    Claim Cancel