Podcasts about ge ventures

My guest this week is Dara Treseder, the Chief Marketing Officer at Autodesk, a leading technology and software company that is transforming how the world is designed and made.She oversees global marketing, brand, communications, demand generation, e-commerce, and education business teams.As a veteran CMO, Dara has held key leadership roles, including Global Head of Marketing, Communications, and Membership at Peloton, CMO of Carbon, and CMO of GE Business Innovations and GE Ventures.Earlier in her career, she led marketing growth efforts at Apple and Goldman Sachs.She has been recognized by Forbes as the world's most influential CMO—let me say that again—recognized by Forbes as the world's most influential CMO. She was also the first Black person to be inducted into the Forbes CMO Hall of Fame.Beyond her professional achievements, Dara is a champion of public health, women's issues, and diversity and belonging.If that wasn't enough, she also serves on the boards of the Public Health Institute and Robin Hood.Finally, Dara graduated from Harvard with highest honors and holds an MBA from Stanford University. 

Jessica Owens and Iana Dimkova are co-founders of Initiate Ventures—a female-led venture capital firm and studio that launched recently with a $45 million debut fund.Initiate Ventures is shaking up the traditional venture capital model by blending investments in healthcare, life sciences, and technology with a company creation platform. The company is tackling some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare, and their innovative approach offers fresh insights into what it takes to scale transformative startups.Owens was the co-founder of GRAIL (acquired by Illumina for $8bn) and was a partner at Kleiner Perkins, where she helped shape some of the most successful health tech startups. Dimkova is a former healthcare technology investor at GE Ventures, who also scaled a company that raised more than $700m and built one of the largest radiation therapy networks in the US.Their approach is reflected in their dual model: funding existing companies while also co-creating ventures alongside founders in their startup studio. They helped launch groundbreaking companies like Macro Trials, a precision clinical research platform, and Persana, a leader in oncology diagnostics.This week on the podcast, we have a conversation with one of the co-founders of the company, Jessica Owens.00:40-05:19: About Initiate Ventures05:19-08:33: What sets Initiate Ventures apart from other venture funds?08:33-10:59: Revitalizing healthcare10:59-13:46: Determining realistic company visions13:46-15:15: Initiate Ventures and Initiate Studios15:15-19:50: Working with companies19:50-21:36: Working with new companies21:36-23:00: Evaluating potential success23:00-24:40: How hands on is Initiate Ventures?24:40-28:24: Is there a change in what attracts capital?28:24-30:02: Infectious disease – a neglected area30:02-33:08: How important are ESG considerations?33:08-35:42: Trends for 202535:42-36:42: Goals for 2025Interested in being a sponsor of an episode of our podcast? Discover how you can get involved here! Stay updated by subscribing to our newsletter

Welcome back to StartUp Health NOW! We think it's fair to say that when people think of StartUp Health, they think about entrepreneurs and founders. Over the last 12 or 13 years we've supported more than 500 health tech startups and nearly 1000 founders, many of whom have been featured on this show. Perhaps less well known is what happens behind the scenes at StartUp Health. In this episode we pull back that curtain a little bit, particularly as it pertains to our Health Moonshot Impact Board. We've got this advisory team of about 17 amazing individuals across multiple disciplines. These are people like Dr. Toby Cosgrove, former head of the Cleveland Clinic; Chuck Henderson, the CEO of the American Diabetes Association; and Sue Siegel, former head of GE Ventures – just to name three. You can see the whole Health Moonshot Impact Board here on our website. Recently, we brought together our Health Moonshot Impact Board in real life at the Lake Nona Impact Forum in Florida. Not only did the team get to learn from luminaries like Jeff Bezos, David Feinberg, and Peter Lee, but they got to go deeper on ideas with one another. In the spirit of encouraging a more radically collaborative impact board, we decided to flip the script a bit and have members of our board interview one another for this podcast. The hope was that this would lead to some unexpected lines of questioning and some uniquely candid moments. The first conversation in this series is between Esther Dyson, legendary angel investor and founder of Wellville, and Roger Jansen, PhD, the Chief Innovation & Digital Health Officer at Michigan State University Health Care. The conversation was just as wide-ranging and unstructured as we hoped it would be, and it touched on some incredibly powerful topics. We hope you enjoy. Innovating in Alzheimer's disease? Learn how you can join our new Alzheimer's Moonshot. Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? Learn how you can get one of the last spots in our T1D Moonshot. Want more content like this? Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox. Innovators: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot Funders: Become a Health Moonshot Champion

"In times of hesitancy in the market, leaders lean in, they assert themselves, they flex and they find an opportunity” - Dr Oliver Keown, managing director of Intuitive Ventures.In this episode, Dr. Oliver Keown discusses his career journey from a doctor in the UK's National Health Service, to a venture capitalist as Managing Director at Institutive venture fund. Dr Keown highlights how clinicians have important roles to contribute to this space through our training and experiences. He explores the industry of private equity in healthcare and explains the types of attributes that make a successful partner. Dr Keown put forward suggestions for how policymakers can shape the innovation and venture market that could improve its focus on equity.Follow Dr Oliver Keown* Twitter/X* LinkedInAbout the guest:In 2021, Oliver was recognized as a Top 50 Emerging Leader in corporate venture capital and in 2022, selected as #39 on the Global Corporate Venturing Power List of the 100 most influential investors in the industry. Before coming to Intuitive Ventures, Oliver was a healthcare investor with GE Ventures, driving international startup deal flow and supporting numerous portfolio companies operationally and at the board level. Prior to that, he advised an array of UK, US and global healthcare innovation projects across technology, government, commercial, and academic fields.Additional resources mentioned in the podcast:* Intuitive VenturesContact information: If you have any feedback, questions or if you'd like to get in touch, reach out at jono@clinicalchangemakers.comIntro and Out Music Attribution: Music by AudioCoffee from Pixabay This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.clinicalchangemakers.com

Since 2020, Charles "Chuck" Henderson has led the American Diabetes Association (ADA) as CEO. In 2023, he joined StartUp Health's Health Moonshot Impact Board, a unique, multi-disciplinary group of stakeholders passionate about advancing health innovation. On the Health Moonshot Impact Board, Henderson joins top thought leaders like Dr. Toby Cosgrove (former CEO, Cleveland Clinic) and Sue Siegel (former CEO, GE Ventures). In this StartUp Health NOW episode, StartUp Health's Logan Plaster sat down with Henderson to learn about his priorities in leading the ADA and why it was important to him to join StartUp Health's moonshot community. Innovators: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot Funders: Become a Health Moonshot Champion Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox. Looking to break down health barriers? If you're an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot. Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you're an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

In this episode you will learn:[00:01:15] Purpose of Due Diligence: Caroline on the importance of due diligence for informed investment decisions and responsible investing[00:03:00] Team Evaluation: Starting with the founding team's compatibility, execution ability, and responsiveness[00:06:00] Advisor Relevance: Listing advisors who genuinely contribute value[00:07:53] Confidence vs. Arrogance: Balancing self-confidence and avoiding arrogance for founders[00:09:44] Team's Ability to Execute: Examining past experiences, references, and operational skills[00:11:26] Team Dynamics and Skills: Assessing teamwork and complementary skills[00:13:45] Motivation: Evaluating the team's motivation, especially in the early stages[00:15:00] Ownership Percentage: Considering founder ownership's impact[00:15:44] Online Background Checks: Basic online checks for red flags[00:18:09] Professionalism and Responsiveness: Indications of founders' business approach[00:20:00] Evaluating the Product: Understanding development, data, pricing, and product demos[00:23:00] Competitive Differentiation: Assessing primary differentiators[00:25:07] Finding Competitors: Methods for identifying competitors[00:30:34] Market Sizing Strategies: Caroline's bottom-up approach to market sizing[00:33:00] Market Size Threshold: Seeking markets greater than a billion dollars[00:34:40] Timing Matters: Consideration of market growth timing[00:35:24] Sales and Marketing Due Diligence: Early-stage focus on founder's vision and go-to-market strategy[00:38:00] Red Flags in Sales and Marketing: Warning signs like high churn rates and unclear strategies[00:40:38] Financial Due Diligence: Critical financial aspects, including balance sheets and revenue growth[00:44:49] Financial Projections: Looking for realistic financial projections[00:45:54] Exit Analysis: Assessing potential returns for fulfilling responsibilities to LPs[00:49:33] Assessing Milestones: Founders' realistic funding goals[00:51:26] References: Importance of talking to various references[00:55:21] Timing of Due Diligence: The duration and starting point for due diligence[00:58:00] Compromising on Due Diligence: Avoid rushing due diligence[01:00:13] Challenges with Pre-Seed Due Diligence: Dealing with limited data[01:02:27] Using Diligence Reports Internally: The role of diligence reports in the process[01:04:36] Transparency with Founders: Benefits of sharing the diligence process with foundersAboutCaroline is a Partner at VITALIZE Venture Capital, a seed stage venture fund that invests in the future of work. As Partner, Caroline spends her time sourcing and evaluating potential investments, managing the firm's diligence process, and supporting portfolio companies.Prior to joining VITALIZE in 2018, Caroline worked for GE Ventures in San Francisco where she helped incubate and operate a startup in the drone space. Before transitioning into venture capital, Caroline worked in corporate finance for various GE businesses in Chicago, Atlanta, London, and San Francisco.Caroline received a BBA with honors in math and psychology from Boston College and a Masters of Science in Management from the University of Notre Dame, where she was valedictorian of her class.

How does a venture firm approach investments in deep technology? Seth Winterroth is Partner at Eclipse Ventures, a VC firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build companies that redefine physical industries. Seth has nine years of experience in venture capital, serving as Associate at GE Ventures before he joined the team at Eclipse.  On this episode of Boost VC, Seth joins us to explore how Eclipse thinks about investing in emerging technologies, explaining how the team engages with customers and leverages internal expertise to identify high-magnitude market opportunities.  Seth shares his interest in robotics, discussing why the acquisition of Kiva Systems sparked his interest in this particular deep tech field and how he identified the opportunity to invest in 6 River Systems—the first deal he led at Eclipse.  Listen in for Seth's advice to young VCs on cultivating patience and responding to chaos with calm, engaging with founders in a way that's rational and devoid of fear. Topics Covered The thesis at Eclipse VenturesSmall teams of engineers solving hard development problemsIndustries that operate in physical world (80% of global GDP) How Seth thinks about investing in emerging technologyStart with markets, customer pain pointsFind specialist to develop n-of-1 solutionAdd traditional engineers with experience scaling technology What gets Seth excited about roboticsKiva Systems acquisition by Amazon sparked interestSaw market trends driving adoption of autonomous systems The success of Seth's first investment at Eclipse, 6 River SystemsRobotics company in supply chain logisticsAcquired for $500M by Shopify in 2019 How Seth identified the opportunity to invest in 6 River SystemsIdeal team profile and product differentiationGap in market to replace Kiva Systems Eclipse's institutional process of thesis developmentEngage with customers, purchasing decision-makersInternal engineering expertise to identify gaps Eclipse's internal venture equity programCases where did research but didn't find right opportunity Engineer storm vs. wait for lightning to strike What Eclipse does to win dealsBuild relationships with foundersProvide evidence of value-added capital The part of a deal Seth is most excited aboutFind high-magnitude market opportunity to match worldviewGo to partners with conviction and say THIS ONE What Seth would tell his 25-year-old selfBe patient, don't rush to have track record in ventureRespond to chaos with calm, be rational and devoid of fear What differentiates Eclipse from other venture firmsTackle category of economy traditional VCs shy away fromDeep involvement with companies to improve odds Seth's biggest accomplishments before age 20Live on own and travel worldSpend meaningful time with and learn from grandfather Connect with Seth Winterroth Eclipse Ventures https://eclipse.vc/Eclipse on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/eclipse-vc/Eclipse on Twitter https://twitter.com/eclipseventures Seth on Twitter https://twitter.com/SethwinterrothSeth on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethwinterroth/ Resources Kiva Systems Acquisition https://techcrunch.com/2012/03/19/amazon-acquires-online-fulfillment-company-kiva-systems-for-775-million-in-cash/Willow Garage https://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-back-at-willow-garage-2016-2DARPA Grand Challenge https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/-grand-challenge-for-autonomous-vehicles6 River Systems https://6river.com/Bright Machines https://www.brightmachines.com/BrightInsight https://brightinsight.com/Foxglove Studio https://foxglove.dev/Kevin Kelly's Blog ‘You Are Not Late' https://medium.com/message/you-are-not-late-b3d76f963142Richard Hamming's Talk ‘You and Your Research' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSwTeam of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin https://www.amazon.com/Team-Rivals-Political-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0743270754Lincoln https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/ Connect with Boost VC Boost VC Website https://www.boost.vc/Boost VC on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/boostvc/Boost VC on Twitter https://twitter.com/BoostVCBoost VC on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/boost_vc/

Dara Treseder is the Chief Marketing Officer of Autodesk. The company's tagline is “Make Anything,” and their software has made a significant impact on a number of industries, such as architecture, construction, media, entertainment, and manufacturing. Based in San Francisco, the company's revenue is north of $5 billion and growing.As the leader of worldwide marketing, brand, communications, demand generation, and education business teams at Autodesk, Dara sets the strategy and goals for building the brand and marketing the product portfolio. Dara is a veteran in the industry, with previous experience as CMO at Peloton, Carbon, and GE Business Innovations & GE Ventures, and having led marketing and growth efforts at Apple and Goldman Sachs. In fact, last year, Forbes Magazine named her the #1 Most Influential CMO.In this episode, Dara shares insights on being a people-first leader and the importance of serving your team. She and Jim discuss what drew her to Autodesk, lessons she learned from her parents that she continues to carry with her, and the essential capabilities that marketers must possess to be successful.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Discover how Jack Chang (Founder and Managing Director of DGP) helps CEO's acquire and sell businesses, why at age 12 he learned the importance of knowing who to ask for help, and when he realized he had a leadership blind spot (15 minute podcast). CEO BLINDSPOTS® PODCAST GUEST: Jack Chang. He is the Founder and Managing Director of DGP Capital, a company that combines industry-focused expertise and over $7 Billion in transaction experience to provide growth-stage companies with tailored investment banking services. Jack has executed over $4 billion in transactions within the energy and industrial sectors, including M&A, Initial Public Offerings, and Private Placements. He holds Series 79, 63 and 82 licenses*. Prior to DGP, Jack was a Director within GE Venture's Oil and Gas Investment team. While at GE Ventures, he focused on technology-enabled midstream, downstream and process industry investments. Prior to GE Ventures, Jack was an Associate Director within UBS' Global Natural Resources Investment Banking group. While at UBS, he executed transactions for upstream, midstream, downstream and oil-field service companies. Before joining UBS, Jack was a member of Tyco International's corporate strategy and business development team. Jack earned his BS in Electrical Engineering and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. For more information about Jack and DGP Capital; https://www.dgpcapital.com/ CEO Blindspots® Podcast Host: Birgit Kamps. Birgit Kamps is a board member, conflict-resolution advisor, and founder of two companies which includes being a former CEO of an Inc. 500 fastest growing private company and a best company to work for in Texas. In addition, Birgit was speaking 5 languages by the age of 10, and lived in 5 countries with her Dutch parents, prior to becoming an American citizen. This laid the foundation for her ability to quickly understand a company's culture, read people, and identify leadership blind spots. Birgit is also the founder and host of the CEO Blindspots® Podcast. With an audience in 11+ countries and recognition by Spotify for its "biggest listener growth in the USA by 733%", the podcast has become a valuable resource for leaders looking to improve their management skills; https://ceoblindspots.com/podcast/

In this week's StartUp Health NOW episode, we continue a series we've been running where we sit down with members of StartUp Health's Impact Board to learn a bit about their stories and why they're so passionate about this health moonshot model of supporting founders at scale. Today we're talking to the venerable Sue Siegel, former Chief Innovation Officer at GE and CEO at GE Ventures and at Healthymagination, an initiative GE launched in order to invest billions of dollars into helping deliver better healthcare to more people at a lower cost. Now, Siegel is leveraging all of that experience to help StartUp Health scale our mission of inspiring, educating, and investing in a global army of Health Transformers. In our interview, we get to hear Siegel's wisdom about what it's really going to take to move the needle on health. She also shares why she's so passionate about professional mentorship and gives a few rules for the road for would-be mentors. As you'll hear in the interview, in addition to be a wealth of knowledge, Siegel brings an enormous level of empathy and humility to her work. We were inspired talking to her and are excited to share the conversation here. Join us at the StartUp Health Festival @ HLTH, Nov 13-16, 2022, in Las Vegas, to learn more and get involved with our health moonshots. Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox. Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you're an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot. Looking to break down health barriers? If you're an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot.

Do you believe that venture can be used as a global catalyst for change? We do. We've seen it time and time again with How Women Invest. Cheryl Beninga, our guest this week, believes that we can each make our mark on the work by investing in women-owned companies. This week's episode 27 of How Women Inspire Podcast is about using venture as a global catalyst for change! In this episode of How Women Inspire Podcast, Julie Castro Abrams and Cheryl Beninga share the importance of owning your power as a woman in male-dominated spaces. They also chat about how venture capitalism can be an intentional vehicle for change in our world. Cheryl has 20+ years of investment experience working with leading technology investors, including Intel Capital and GE Ventures, on all stages of technology investing. She has been responsible for billions of dollars in venture investing, with over $50M in early-stage technology investments yielding over $2B in value. Cheryl is experienced at the board and operations level at all venture stages, from Seed round to IPO, and has experience in M&A transactions.She is Co-Founder of FourthWave, a non-profit accelerator program for female-led, high-potential technology companies providing business mentorship, personal potential coaching, and access to capital. FourthWave cohort members have raised over $25M in capital, participated in Y Combinator, and earned national growth recognition from INC., TechCrunch, and others.Some of the talking points Julie and Cheryl Beninga go over in this episode include:Power in having support when you are juggling so many endeavors.Learning by doing and taking risks.Investing in positive impact technology so we can make the world a better place for future generations.  Women try to hide their intuition and fit in within male-dominated spaces. That's a disservice to ourselves and those around us.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me!  And don't forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH CHERYL BENINGA:LinkedInTwitterFourthWaveWai Mohala VenturesCONNECT WITH JULIE CASTRO ABRAMS:LinkedIn - JulieHow Women LeadHow Women InvestHow Women GiveInstagram - HWLLinkedIn - HWLFacebook - HWL

In August of 2017, High Alpha welcomed Lisa Coca, as our featured guest at our August Speaker Series. At the time of the interview, Lisa was the Managing Director of Corporate Venture Investments and Commercial Development at GE Ventures. In addition to her role as Managing Director at GE Ventures, Lisa was also the architect of GE Ventures' EDGE program which leverages the global scale, expertise and resources of GE to provide start-up partners with programs and tools to help them grow and scale their enterprise. Prior to joining GE Ventures, her professional career spanned a number of other disciplines including finance, sales & marketing, strategy, and business development at major financial institutions such as GE Capital, Bankers Trust, and Deutsche Bank. Lisa is now a Partner at Toyota Ventures, where she serves as the lead for the Climate Fund. In this role, she invests in the best entrepreneurs developing technologies and solutions focused on fighting climate change. In this episode, we revisit Lisa's Speaker Series where you'll learn: Key learnings from her experiences in venture capital The risks and rewards she has encountered throughout her career GE Ventures industrial journey

PODCAST GUEST BIO: Led by CEO and Managing Partner Ricardo Angel, Piva Capital is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. They invest in specialty chemicals, new materials, energy, mobility, industrials, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, robotics, automation, supply chain, logistics, electrification, and automation. Ricardo Angel leverages over 25 years of experience investing in the industrial and energy sectors to find and back visionary entrepreneurs, solving the world's greatest challenges through breakthrough technologies and innovative business models. Before starting Piva in 2019, Ricardo was a founding Managing Director of GE Ventures. He led origination and investments and served on dozens of company Boards, providing leadership and guidance to management teams to drive operational and financial value. He also led Energy Technology Ventures (ETV), a $300 million joint venture formed by GE, NRG Energy, and ConocoPhillips. Previously, Ricardo worked at Chevron's Venture Capital group, in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, and as a consultant at the CNA Corporation. ------- QUESTIONS THAT WE COVERED: Business What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition? Give us some examples of recent investments that you're excited about. Outside of your current business, what other 1-2 climate or sustainability sectors seem like promising areas in which to start a business? What might those solutions look like? Personal Tell us about 1-2 tips you'd give your “younger” self in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact. What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks? What recommendations do you have for our audience — books, podcasts, quotes, tools? What's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you — outside of your own family? ------- PODCAST HOST: Entrepreneurs for Impact is the only private mastermind community for growth-stage CEOs and investors fighting climate change. We're on a mission to help climate leaders supercharge their impacts, share best practices, expand their networks, and reach their full potential. Our invite-only cohorts of 12 executives catalyze personal development and business growth via monthly meetings, annual retreats, a member-only Climate Investor Database, and 1:1 coaching and strategy calls. Today's highly curated Mastermind members represent over $4B in market cap or assets under management, and are influencing corporate priorities and infrastructure much bigger than that. Peer groups are led by Dr. Chris Wedding who brings $1B+ of investment experience, 60,000+ professional students taught, 25 years of meditation, an obsession with constant improvement, and far too many mistakes to keep to himself. Website: www.entrepreneursforimpact.com Membership benefits: https://bit.ly/3l12Gyg Sample Mastermind members: https://bit.ly/3ipSehS Request more information on membership: https://bit.ly/3mj48eM --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/entrepreneurs-for-impact/message

Heavy Hitters episode 43 is live now with NEA Venture Partner, Jeff Immelt. As a GE Ventures alumni, this one is extra special to me. Jeff discusses how an interest in company creation led him into venture capital as his next chapter after GE, where his role as a Venture Partner fits into NEA's fund strategy, how he transitioned his skillset from running one of the world's largest and most prestigious corporations into the venture capital asset class, why he outlined in his new book “Hot Seat” that the most crucial component of leadership for a founder is a willingness to make decisions, where he thinks the Indsutry4.0 adoption cycle is at today and the challenges ahead to overcoming slow adoption (hint: get the money to the floor!), and finally we run through a “What's Hot and What's Hype” section.

On this StartUp Health Fireside Chat, held in front of a live audience of StartUp Health founders, we hear from Jessica Zeaske, partner at Echo Health Ventures. Prior to Echo, Jessica served as Director of Healthcare Investments at GE Ventures. She brings together a unique blend of public health, software development, and business experience, and she leverages that as an investor and on the many boards she sits on. --- Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

Caroline Casson is a Partner at Vitalize Venture Capital, where she spends her time sourcing potential investments, assisting portfolio companies, and managing the due diligence process for Vitalize. She also writes founder spotlights on her blog. Prior to joining Vitalize in 2018, Caroline worked for GE Ventures in San Francisco where she helped incubate and operate a startup in the drone space. Before transitioning into venture capital, Caroline worked in corporate finance for various GE businesses in Chicago, Atlanta, London, and San Francisco. Caroline received a BBA with honors in math and psychology from Boston College and a Master of Science in Management from the University of Notre Dame, where she was valedictorian of her class. Caroline is originally from Madison, Wisconsin and enjoys going home to spend time with her family whenever she can. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she loves to bike, hike, sail, and play golf with her husband, Tom, and their dog, Sailor. Follow Caroline on Twitter: https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_ Follow Caroline on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/venturecaroline/ Topics Covered by Caroline Casson in this Episode How Caroline got her start in VC Caroline's experience at GE Ventures and how she ended up at Vitalize Doing a cross-country bike ride with Bike & Build Caroline's process for due diligence on a company The importance of excellent founding teams in early stage ventures How they filter through companies and decide which to invest in Where Caroline chooses to invest personally as an angel investor What makes a rock star founder Justin and Caroline's perspective on Vitalize's angel investor community What has helped Caroline learn and grow as an investor How she has developed her pattern recognition Caroline's advice for founders and how to execute a successful cold outreach Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Amy DuRoss, CEO and Co-founder of Vineti, a committed patient advocate, is blazing a trail to orchestrate the supply chain to democratize treatments focused on personalized medicines. This is not her first moon shot to give power to patients. Before co-founding Vineti, Amy focused on healthcare new business creation for GE Ventures/ healthymagination. Prior to GE, Amy was Chief Business Officer at Navigenics, a genomics company sold to Life Technologies in 2012. She was co-founder and Executive Director of Proposition 71, California's $3B stem cell research initiative passed in 2004, as well as Chief of Staff at the resulting state grant oversight agency. Amy holds an MBA and MA/BA from Stanford University. She was named a 2016 Health Innovator Fellow by the Aspen Institute. Connect with Amy DuRoss:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-duross-695b743/ Connect with Robby Allen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbyallen Connect with Poya Osgouei: https://www.linkedin.com/in/poyaosgouei/                                    This week's episode was supported by Oracle NetSuite (sign up for a personalized product tour at www.netsuite.com/scale), Indeed (get a $75 credit for your job post at www.indeed.com/scale) and Bambee (Get your HR Audit for free at Bambee.com/uncharted or Bambee.com/scale) --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/uncharted1/support

Brian Case is the Chief Digital Officer at GE Renewable Energy. In his field, the COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on the importance of switching over to digitization. He is our guest this week on the podcast and chatted with Patrick and Shelli about his approach to leadership. Tune in to the episode to learn more about the importance of a company's motivation to adopt digital, how repeatability of a problem leads to product advancement, and how to train the ideal team player. (01:04) - Driving the energy transition (02:50) - Building escape velocity (04:55) - Navigating customer needs (06:43) - Accelerated digital transformation (07:46) - Repeatability of the problem (09:42) - Culture of customer obsession (13:06) - The customer of my customer is my customer (14:12) - Internal vs. external metrics (16:06) - Lessons from West Point (19:32) - Veteran talent (22:31) -https://www.amazon.com/Ideal-Team-Player-Recognize-Cultivate/dp/1119209595/ ( The Ideal Team Player) (23:05) -https://www.amazon.com/Team-Teams-Rules-Engagement-Complex/dp/1591847486/ ( Team of Teams) (23:24) -https://www.amazon.com/DevOps-Handbook-World-Class-Reliability-Organizations/dp/1942788002 ( The DevOps Handbook) (23:29) -https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Technology-Organizations/dp/1942788339/ ( Accelerate) (24:01) - Talent development (26:27) - Professional support As CDO, Digital Services, Brian leads product strategy, development, and delivery of the digital product portfolio for GE Renewable Energy Digital Services. Brian's team is focused on transforming the renewable energy industry by delivering innovative digital solutions that help GE's customer's increase revenue, reduce cost, and reduce financial risk across their wind, solar, and hydro assets.  Over the last 13 years, Brian has held multiple roles across GE Renewable Energy, Current powered by GE, GE Ventures, and GE Power. Prior to joining GE Renewable Energy, Brian led the incubation of a distributed energy resource platform as Executive Director, New Energy Platform in GE Ventures. His efforts resulted in the launch of Current, powered by GE, a newly created business focused on leading in the distributed energy transition by deploying and integrating commercial and industrial energy resources with the grid. Brian also led the America's Project Development team within the GE Power business responsible for customer partnering and energy project development & investment initiatives with a specific focus on combined cycle, wind, and utilityscale solar development assets.  Brian joined GE in 2006 through the Junior Officer Leadership Program, a two-year, cross functional, business rotational program designed for transitioning military officers. Prior to joining GE, Brian served six years as an armor officer in the United States Army's 3rd Infantry Division. Brian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the United States Military Academy and was awarded a Bronze Star with Valor device for service in Iraq. He continues to invest in the development and support of military veterans by leading the GE Renewable Energy Veterans Network. If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/innovation-and-the-digital-enterprise/id1451753709?mt=2 (Apple Podcasts), https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2lubm92YXRpb24tYW5kLXRoZS1kaWdpdGFsLWVudGVycHJpc2U%3D (Google Podcasts), https://open.spotify.com/show/3fOSh73F3sjyK7TIMFSOc1?si=uRAeLNvjQjmbnFjzWIvMlg (Spotify) or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/innovation-and-the-digital-enterprise/id1451753709?mt=2 (Apple Podcasts). It really helps others find the show. https://www.dante32.com/ (Podcast episode production by Dante32.)

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of chatting with Seth Winterroth, Partner at Eclipse VC. Seth and I met just over a year ago now when he came to WashU and Anton Salem and I tracked him down to get drinks after the career fair. Ever since that day his story and words of wisdom have stuck with me and I hope they do the same for you in this interview. Seth Winterroth attended Claremont McKenna, and after a year of traveling post-grad got started at GE, then GE Ventures, and later Eclipse, where he has made various deals in hardware and robotics. In this episode, we chat about: -Seth's fascinating story -Pursuing your passions -How to optimize time with mentors -Importance of mental health

Matt Bressler is a Principal at TDF Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with offices in Washington DC and Silicon Valley. They focus on startups that serve enterprise markets within infrastructure, software, and services. They invest from a $150M permanent pool of capital which gives them a long-term horizon to work with startups with big ideas. They also believe in technology's power to improve lives and support development initiatives through the TDF Foundation which operates in parallel to their venture activity. Before TDF Ventures, Matt worked with GE Ventures supporting investments and strategy in intelligent environments. He also served as the Director of Investments for the Wharton Social Venture Fund and as an Associate for FOUNDER.org. Matt graduated with a BA in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University and he later earned his MBA with honors from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In this episode… Early-stage investing is a high-risk, high-reward venture. And early-stage venture capital firms typically invest in companies that are promising and are capable of delivering innovative products that have the potential of disrupting an industry. Venture firms are meticulous in picking a company that has a great team with a valuable idea that has a product-market fit. But at what point do early-stage investors decide to veer from that path and take things to the next level?  The next level for venture firms means that they have come up with an idea and what they need to do is to find leaders who can get behind it and turn the idea into a product. Matt Bressler and his team at TDF Ventures not only invest in innovative companies, they’re also ready to push the envelope further and find people who are capable of taking things up a notch. Did that, and their Principal was on hand to share what they learned. Even more, he talks about the innovative companies they invested in and why, their big misses, and so much more.  On this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with TDF Ventures’ Principal, Matt Bressler, to talk about early-stage investing and how investors can take it to the next level. They’ll be discussing what makes the early-stage startup investment an exciting space for investors, what TDF Ventures looks for in a company before deciding to invest, early signs of a business that’ll succeed, some stand out companies they’ve invested in, and more. Stay tuned.

Karen Kerr has a long track record in Venture Capital and manufacturing. For over 2 decades, she has been developing technology-based businesses, serving as Executive Managing Director at GE Ventures, as well as the Senior Director of New Ventures and Alliances at USC's Stevens Center for Innovation (just to name a few). Today, she's the Managing Director at Exposition Ventures in Chicago, IL. In this episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, we discuss Karen’s exciting career in venture capital, how she got started and what she has planned for the future. We also take an in depth look into where manufacturing fits into venture capital, as well as which companies are leading the way with innovative technologies. We round off our talk with what Karen prioritizes when looking for new companies to invest in. In this episode, find out: We start by discussing Karen’s background and how she first got into venture capital What type of firms Karen’s worked with in the past Karen discusses her projects with Exposition Ventures We talk about what venture capital looks at when considering new businesses How GE Ventures has changed over the years Karen discusses how far into Industry 4.0 we really are Karen talks us through her interest in manufacturing and technology Interesting companies that are harnessing Industry 4.0 We wrap up our conversation by talking about Karen’s love of baseball and single malt scotch. http://manufacturinghappyhour.com/iTunes (Enjoying the show? Please leave us a review here.) Even one sentence helps. It’s feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going! Tweetable Quotes: “The entrepreneur is the most critical thing, and her ability to build a high-functioning team.” – Karen Kerr “It’s really how you manage people in teams…that’s what makes for a successful business.” – Karen Kerr “Companies that can address challenges that apply to different industries…that’s what I look for” – Karen Kerr Links & mentions: http://www.expositionventures.com/ (Exposition Ventures), Venture Capital advisory services https://mhubchicago.com/ (mHUB), an innovation center which removes barriers for hardtech entrepreneurs and manufacturers https://pitchbook.com/ (Pitchbook), a financial data and software company to help venture capitalists discover new opportunities https://www.bruichladdich.com/ (Bruichladdich Distillery), a single malt distillery on the Isle of Islay in Scotland http://springbank.scot/whisky/springbank/21-years/ (Springbank 21), Karen Kerr’s favorite single malt Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com/ (http://manufacturinghappyhour.com) for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

This week Harry catches up with Christine Lemke from Evidation Health, a startup in San Mateo, CA, that helps drug developers and other organizations analyze the effectiveness of smart devices and wearables in new types of therapies. Lemke is Evidation's co-CEO.Our Fitbits and Apple Watches are with us so much of the time that the data they collect can go way beyond telling us whether we’ve completed our 10,000 steps for the day. They can also help doctors diagnose cardiovascular problems, and even provide early signs of cognitive changes like the onset of dementia. But the data comes in so many forms from so many sources that it’s a real chore to set up population-wide studies and keep the incoming data organized and anonymized. That’s Evidation's specialty.The company came together in its current form when a company Lemke helped to start, The Activity Exchange, merged with another company called Evidation. (Harry helped to incubate Evidation at GE Ventures with colleagues Rowan Chapman and Deborah Kilpatrick.) In its early years, Evidation focused simply on helping other companies prove that real-life data from consumer wearables was reliable enough to be useful in health decisions. But nowadays Evidation works mostly with Big Tech and Big Pharma companies like Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and Apple  to test specific ideas, like whether data from people’s smart watches and smart phones can help predict cardiovascular disease or cognitive decline early enough to help slow or reverse the conditions with new drugs.In July 2020 Evidation raised $45 million in Series D funding to expand its so-called Achievement platform, which includes a network of nearly 4 million people who’ve agreed to share at-home sensor data and other health records. In September Lemke became co-CEO alongside Deb Kilpatrick. Before joining Evidation, she was co-founder and COO of Sense Networks, a machine learning platform for mobile activity data. And before that she worked at Microsoft, helping to manage the Xbox hardware engineering group.You can find more details about this episode, as well as the entire run of MoneyBall Medicine's 50+ episodes, at https://glorikian.com/moneyball-medicine-podcast/Please rate and review MoneyBall Medicine on Apple Podcasts! Here's how to do that from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:• Launch the “Podcasts” app on your device. If you can’t find this app, swipe all the way to the left on your home screen until you’re on the Search page. Tap the search field at the top and type in “Podcasts.” Apple’s Podcasts app should show up in the search results.• Tap the Podcasts app icon, and after it opens, tap the Search field at the top, or the little magnifying glass icon in the lower right corner.• Type MoneyBall Medicine into the search field and press the Search button.• In the search results, click on the MoneyBall Medicine logo.• On the next page, scroll down until you see the Ratings & Reviews section. Below that, you’ll see five purple stars.• Tap the stars to rate the show.• Scroll down a little farther. You’ll see a purple link saying “Write a Review.”• On the next screen, you’ll see the stars again. You can tap them to leave a rating if you haven’t already.• In the Title field, type a summary for your review.• In the Review field, type your review.• When you’re finished, click Send.• That’s it, you’re done. Thanks!

This is from our program of venture discussions. Future events can be found at Eventbrite Aimava. In Part 2 of this session we gain great insights to the approach GE Ventures has made to the exiting the portfolio of 120 ventures. GE Ventures then gives us the approach and key lessons as they have been a leading Corporate Venture Capital organisation that started in 2013 and had built a portfolio of more than 100 investments in ventures in the energy, health and digital themes. More recently, GE has refocused its business and has been actively winding down its venture portfolio. In the discussion we covered why and how GE started and grew its venturing, what changed strategically, lessons learnt and now the experience of coming out of venturing. David Mayhew is Chief Investment Officer of GE Ventures and has been responsible for portfolio management, capital allocation and investment oversight for GE Ventures. For more details on how we can help your Strategic Innovation, Corporate Venturing and creating a successful portfolio contact us at Aimava.com Eventbrite Aimava https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/aimava-global-advisory-firm-11938296163

This is from our program of venture discussions. Future events can be found at Eventbrite Aimava. In Part 1 of this session we gain an overview of the successful 5Ps for venturing - Purpose, Process, People, Partners and Performance. GE Ventures then gives us the approach and key lessonsas they have been a leading Corporate Venture Capital organisation that started in 2013 and had built a portfolio of more than 100 investments in ventures in the energy, health and digital themes. More recently, GE has refocused its business and has been actively winding down its venture portfolio. In the discussion we covered why and how GE started and grew its venturing, what changed strategically, lessons learnt and now the experience of coming out of venturing. David Mayhew is Chief Investment Officer of GE Ventures and has been responsible for portfolio management, capital allocation and investment oversight for GE Ventures. For more details on how we can help your Strategic Innovation, Corporate Venturing and creating a successful portfolio contact us at Aimava.com Eventbrite Aimava https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/aimava-global-advisory-firm-11938296163

Who is Mike Dolbec? Well, Mike has had a tremendously distinguished career across both institutional and corporate VC, including stints at Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, 3Com, and Orange. From 2012, he is the executive managing director of GE Ventures. He's been on the boards of a bunch of deep tech companies as well! He's currently a science and innovation council member for BHP, one of the world's biggest mining companies. And now you have the chance to join Mike and Rachel as they try to get to the bottom of why corporate innovation is hard.

It’s been more than two years since Dara Treseder, now SVP, Head of Global Marketing and Communications for Peloton, first appeared on CMO Moves. Back then, she was the CMO of GE Ventures and she brought us an incredibly powerful episode packed with career tips called “Managing Your Personal Brand Like a Start-Up”. Clearly, Dara follows her own advice, having transitioned from GE Ventures to CMO of Carbon to her now new role at Peloton and still juggling flawlessly career, family and personal development. Tune in to hear all about Peloton’s new campaign released today around the power of community, how she’s found harmony and balance, and her model for success “Dare to Be Great!”

Today we kick off a new, special miniseries on strategy. We’ll unpack the different aspects of business strategy that a startup needs to develop, discuss how strategy evolves through time as a start-up goes to market and starts to grow, and talk about how strategy for a startup differs from strategy for a large corporation.We wanted to go well beyond our own strategy experience and expertise, and bring you a wide range of different viewpoints and fields of expertise. So we have assembled an incredibly diverse set of guests for this series.They include Sue Siegel, former Chief Innovation Officer at GE as well as the CEO of GE Ventures; Ron Carucci, a top strategy consultant, Harvard Business Review contributor, and TED speaker; and Guy Levy-Yurista, Chief Strategy Officer for tech startup Sisense. And, today's guest, who is just waaay too cool for us, Elma Beganovich. A crucial aspect of a start-up strategy lies in identifying your target customer base, understanding it and knowing how to reach it. So we were delighted when Elma accepted our invitation. Elma is the Co-founder and COO of Amra & Elma, a digital marketing agency she co-founded with her sister. Elma and Amra are two influencers with an impressive stack of academic credentials (a JD and LLM, in Elma’s case), and have worked with several top large companies as well as start-ups. We discuss influencer marketing, how to successfully develop brand recognition and how to build an effective PR strategy. We also delve into the challenges and changes brought about by the pandemic, and how companies can best adapt.The broad range of perspectives we bring you in these four conversations will show you what YOU need to develop a successful strategy – and to identify the companies most likely to succeed in this new environment. We’ve learned a lot in these four episodes, and hope you’ll enjoy them too! Thanks for being curious!

On this episode: Conor and Alex interview Caroline Yeager, a Senior Associate at Vitalize Venture Group, and discuss the fundamentals of venture capital, how to break into VC, and the role of an entry-level analyst. Drawing from her experience sourcing potential investments and managing the due diligence process at Vitalize Venture Group and GE Ventures, Caroline provides her perspective on what makes a successful startup and touches upon the differences between corporate and traditional VC.

Lisa Alderson is the co-founder and CEO of Genome Medical which is a telegenomics technology and services company allowing access to genomic-based medicine. The company has raised over $60 million from investors such as Canaan Partners, GE Ventures, Perceptive Advisors, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Techammer, Casdin Capital, Manatt Venture Fund, and Samsung Catalyst Fund to name a few. 

Lisa Alderson is the co-founder and CEO of Genome Medical which is a telegenomics technology and services company allowing access to genomic-based medicine. The company has raised over $60 million from investors such as Canaan Partners, GE Ventures, Perceptive Advisors, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Techammer, Casdin Capital, Manatt Venture Fund, and Samsung Catalyst Fund to name a few. 

In this episode, Hall welcomes back Eric Bielke, Investment Director at GE Ventures. GE Ventures is committed to identifying, scaling and accelerating ideas that will make the world work better. Focused on the areas of software and analytics, advanced manufacturing, energy and healthcare, GE Ventures helps entrepreneurs and start-ups succeed by providing access to GE's technical expertise, capital and opportunities for commercialization through GE's global network of business, customers and partners. Eric is an investment partner with GE Ventures and leads investments at the intersection of digital and physical systems. His technology interests include marketplaces, robotics, computer vision, geospatial intelligence, and the internet of things (IoT). Prior to GE Ventures, Eric was an investor at Next47 focused on cybersecurity and enterprise infrastructure where he was responsible for the firm’s investments in CounterTack, TOA Technologies, Electric Cloud, and PowerIT Solutions. Eric is also a co-founder of SoCore Energy, a software-enabled solar energy developer later acquired by Edison International. Early in his career, Eric worked with McKinsey & Co. as a management consultant. He holds a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Booth School of Business where he was a George Schultz Fellow. Eric updates Hall on what’s happened since his last interview, the sector he is passionate about and why, his best experience with a startup, and he suggests some possible long-term effects COVID will have on startups. You can visit GE Ventures at .  Eric can be contacted via LinkedIn at , via Twitter at , and via email at eric.bielke@ge.com.

Host Ryan Treasure and guest Harry Glorikian provide information about health technology and data during the US pandemic. Harry serves as an influential global business expert and has more than three decades of experience within building successful ventures throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and all around the world. His current position is the General Partner at New Ventures Funds. Before taking his position at New Ventures Funds he was an Entrepreneur-In-Residence to GE Ventures. Some of his successes include co-finding and holding the position as Managing Director and head of consulting services at Scientia Advisors. Mr. Glorikian earned his MBA from Boston University and his bachelor’s in Biology from San Francisco State University.

The Big Ones Marianne Wu, president of GE Ventures, has left the corporate venturing unit as the US-listed industrial conglomerate has agreed to sell 16 healthcare portfolio companies to an affiliate of Leerink Revelation Partners. Over the past few years, China has – partially out of necessity – been responsible for a lot of healthcare … Continue reading "11 November 2019 – Marianne Wu Moves On From GE Ventures"

In this episode, Hall is joined by Eric Bielke with GE Ventures. After working with one of the early firms in Data Science, and a foray as an entrepreneur in the solar energy space, Eric joined the VC space focusing initially on energy investments.   More recently, Eric has been focusing on aerospace and space tech. He talks about some of the latest developments in aerospace, as well as provides advice for investors looking to get into that sector. In addition, Eric provides some advice for aerospace startups, talks about a few that he's worked with, and highlights some of the subsectors he finds particularly promising.

During this episode of “Marketing Today,” host Alan Hart interviews Dara Treseder, Chief Marketing Officer at Carbon. Before Carbon, Treseder was the CMO at GE Ventures, which is GE’s corporate venture capital arm and GE’s business innovations, focused on new business creation and new marketing development and technology licensing. Before GE, Treseder led various marketing efforts at Apple and Goldman Sachs. Today on the show, the discussion with Treseder revolves around her current role at Carbon, her Nigerian roots, as well as insightful lessons and mentors she has had, along with marketing and product developments.  Dara explains what Carbon is, which is the world’s leading digital manufacturing platform, helping companies accelerate product innovation. She talks about the three key things that were critical during her entrance into Carbon: elevating Carbon as a brand, having people understand who Carbon is/what they do/why it matters, help drive growth and make sure the marketing and communication are set up for success. She also shares how Carbon uses technology and innovation to protect football players and how they marketed this idea during a Super Bowl. What made Treseder such an excellent fit for Carbon? She says, “at the core of who I am, I am an analytical thinker. But I am also a true creative. I love marrying art and science. And I think, you know for the future of marketing, that is what it is all about.” Treseder discusses things that Carbon does to impact the marketplace, “it is all about how can you use data and technology to reach people and how can you communicate and connect with people in a way that truly resonates with them.” What does it take to be as innovative as Carbon has consistently? “The only way you can really create these breakthrough products is innovation across those three elements: the software that you use to design, the hardware that you use to make it, and the material from which the product is actually made.” Highlights from this week’s “Marketing Today”: What does Dara miss the most about Nigeria, and what is her favorite food? (01:40) Where did Dara start her career? (04:06) What was her charter as she was coming into Carbon? (06:50) What exactly is Carbon and when was it founded? (07:35) Dara talks about her past start-up and what a ‘fat start-up’ is? (08:37) What drew Dara to Carbon itself? (10:40) How are partnerships driving Carbon’s business? (12:33) How did Dara turn around a Super Bowl in early February so quickly after just joining in December? (15:10) Dara discusses a new Carbon bike saddle that they are crafting. (20:31) Is there an experience in Dara’s life that has defined who she is today? (22:39) What advice would she give to her younger self? (27:00) What fuels Dara Treseder to keep going in his career and life? (27:43) Are there brands that she thinks we should pay attention to? (29:11) Where does Dara see the future of marketing going? (30:32) Resources mentioned: Dara Treseder Pounded Yam Efo Riro Carbon Sue Siegel, Chief Innovation Officer at GE Protect It All campaign – during Super Bowl with Carbon & Riddell Carbon & Specialized first printed lattice bicycle saddle Adidas strategy that emphasizes open source Adidas Parley – products from recycled plastics “Venture Futurists” Mindset Support the show.

Lisa Suennen, Leader, Manatt Digital & Technology Lisa Suennen is the leader of Manatt Digital and Technology and the firm's venture capital / emerging companies practice. With more than 30 years' experience as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, board member and strategic advisor, she has focused broadly on new technologies and how they are transforming businesses. She has spent much of her career helping companies adopt and leverage digital technologies, develop strategies for growth through innovation and investment, and build strong collaborations between established players and entrepreneurs. Lisa heads the firm's digital and technology businesses as well as the firm's venture capital fund. She also works closely with Manatt Health, engaging with payers, health systems and companies to provide strategic advice on innovation, digital strategy and growth. Lisa previously served as managing partner of Venture Valkyrie LLC, an advisory firm focused on helping healthcare organizations adopt venture capital and innovation programs and develop new business creation models and digital health strategies. Lisa spent the past 20 years as a venture capitalist, first as a partner with Psilos Group, then leading the healthcare fund at GE Ventures. Prior to that, she was part of the leadership team that built Merit Behavioral Care, an $800 million behavioral healthcare company, guiding it through its successful IPO and exit. Her earlier career focused on product management and marketing in the technology sector. Lisa currently serves on several private company boards and chairs the advisory board of the NASA-funded Translational Research Institute for Space Health. She is also on the faculty at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and is cofounder of CSweetener, which matches women in and nearing the healthcare C-suite with mentors. Additionally, Lisa writes the Venture Valkyrie blog and hosts the Tech Tonics podcast.  

A fascinating feature for you courtesy of Tony Askew, co-founder and partner of REV Venture Partners, who spoke with Global Corporate Venturing about how the media industry has evolved since the corporate venturing unit was launched in 2000. Insights provided by Askew included how its co-investments with In-Q-Tel have helped the unit, while he also explained the … Continue reading "17 June 2019 – GE Ventures to Sell its Portfolio"

In this episode you meet Venture Capitalist, Karen Kerr. Karen is one of approximately 64 Black female venture capitalists in the United States, WHAT?!?!?! We talk about everything from her decision not to have children, to her role as a leader, and how she thinks we should think about mistakes. Enjoy

Welcome to the inaugural episode! Our first guest is Daniel Hullah. Daniel is a longtime cleantech investor, who has seen it all, yet is still smiling. We had a great convo about some of the history of cleantech investing/innovation, where some of the biggest opportunities are, the role of strategics vs startups in pursuing that innovation, and how it all fits into our broader climate change problem. Tune in, and enjoy! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and provide suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like to see covered on the show. For more information and to sign up for updates on My Climate Journey visit: www.myclimatejourney.co Links for topics discussed in this episode: Blackrock’s Report on climate-related risks in the market: https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/literature/whitepaper/bii-physical-climate-risks-april-2019.pdf

Join us today as we speak with Oliver Keown from GE Ventures about future societal innovations.

Join us today as we speak with Stuart Weitzman from GE Ventures about commercialization best practices for healthcare innovations

Beth Comstock is change maker who has helped people grapple with rapid-fire change and open up their companies to transformation. Before she ever led the reinvention of a team or a business, she learned to rely on her curiosity to provoke change in herself. She infused her life with the habit of discovery, seeking out new ideas, people and places and in turn she built a career path from storyteller to chief marketer to GE Vice Chair. And now author. Beth knows what it is like to work on the front lines of change. In nearly three decades at GE, she led efforts to accelerate new growth and innovation, initiated GE's digital and clean-energy transformation, developed new businesses and increased GE's brand value. She created GE Ventures, oversaw GE Lighting, and was the company's Chief Marketing Officer. As President of Integrated Media at NBC Universal, Beth oversaw ad revenue and the company's digital efforts, including the early development of hulu.com. Earlier in her career, she held a succession of marketing and communications roles at GE, NBC, CBS and Turner Broadcasting/CNN. Beth is a director at Nike, trustee of The National Geographic Society and former board president of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum. She graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in biology. We touched on many a topic in this conversation, including: 1 - How Comstock went about shifting the culture from seeking perfection before releasing anything to the public to one that embraced the minimum viable product 2 - Roadblocks she faced in rolling out the Fastworks program and the leans startup methodology across GE insofar as policy and procedure was concerned and how to overcome this; and 3 - What really happened when she and longtime CEO Jeff Immelt resigned from the company on the back of activist investors pushing for change, and why she thought it happened Topics Discussed: Why change is hard at an organizational and individual level How to get buy-in internally Speaking the same language and translating messages Rolling out the lean startup at GE Why culture and process needs to adapt to support new capabilities Leading indicators versus trailing indicators Roadblocks and lessons learned What really happaned in GE’s executive shake-up Shorttermism and how it can plague innovation at listed companies How a long-term tenure in one organization (27 years in Comstock’s case) doesn’t need to come at the cost of creativity or learning The three buckets of innovation and how GE invested across the three Why marketing is what you do at the beginning, not at the end Why the lean startup can be applied to anything from engine turbines to medical C-arm devices Why short feedback loops are key to learning and moving towards product market fit for new ideas, and how bloated organisational procedures can sabotage this Show Notes: Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Imagine-Forward-Courage-Creativity-Change-ebook/dp/B078LJW4G4 Web: bethcomstock.info Twitter: @bethcomstock --- Patreon: www.patreon.com/thesteveglaveski Employee to Entrepreneur book: www.employeetoentrepreneur.io Listen to Future Squared on Apple Podcasts  goo.gl/sMnEa0 Also available on: Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher and Soundcloud Twitter: www.twitter.com/steveglaveski Instagram: www.instagram.com/@thesteveglaveski Future Squared: www.futuresquared.xyz Steve Glaveski: www.steveglaveski.com Medium: www.medium.com/@steveglaveski NEW Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/futuresquared/ ‍

What is the division of AI tools and the humans who used to do the work? Will AI make them better or will people become less necessary? This and more is discussed in this podcast with Babur Ozden and Silvija Seres.Hear from Babur Ozden, a keynote speaker at the ONS 2018 Conference session Energy (Science Fiction) Reality.Babur Ozden is the Founder & CEO of Maana. Maana Knowledge Platform enables industrial companies to form a layer of digital knowledge over industrial and enterprise data to help employees make better decisions faster.In 2017 the World Economic Forum named Maana a Technology Pioneer. The company’s strategic investors are GE Ventures, Intel Capital, Chevron Technology Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, Shell Technology Ventures, Accenture Ventures, and China International Capital Corp. Babur holds an MBA degree from Rice University and BA degree in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The IoT space consists of billions of devices, touches a variety of vertical markets, and presents an extraordinarily large total addressable market. For innovative entrepreneurs, the key to success today is developing IoT solutions that are highly scalable, repeatable, and reliable. Investors seek entrepreneurs who can create widely consumable enterprise solutions to solve real-world problems; achieve efficiencies with data; make intelligent observations; and match the right solutions to the right customers. Michael Dolbec, senior managing director of venture capital and corporate business development at GE Ventures, talks to Pod2112 about the future of IoT and what makes a digital start-up investment-worthy in today's competitive climate.

In this episode, Steve and Trevor sit down with Lisa Suennen, Senior Managing Director of Healthcare at GE Ventures.

Sam Cates: @SamCates | GE Ventures Show Notes: 02:01 - What Corporate Investing Looks Like 03:48 - Presenting Ideas For Funding 09:01 - Democratizing Venture Capital 10:17 - ICOs and Cryptocurrency 13:53 - Evaluating Companies to Fund 21:09 - Investing in Potential Competitors 24:42 - Looking For Funding as a Company 28:04 - “Mentoring” Ideas/Companies 30:07 - Monitoring/Evaluating Company Metrics 32:47 - Putting Together a Basic Business Plan 36:05 - Making Choices: Investor and Company-wise Resources: Resin.io Series A, B, C Funding Angel Investor Seed Money Initial Coin Offering (ICO) AngelList Crunchbase Fred Wilson's Blog: (AVC.com) Transcript: CHARLES: Hello everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast, Episode 92. My name is Charles Lowell, a developer here at The Frontside and I am your podcast host-in-training kicking it off in 2018. [Inaudible] of our first episode. We've got Elrick also joining us. Hello, Elrick. ERICK: Hey. How you doing, Charles? CHARLES: I'm doing well. I'm doing well. You having a good new year so far? ERICK: Yeah, it's great. There's a snowstorm passing through today. So, I'm going to break in the New Year shoveling. CHARLES: Let us know if we need to parachute in some shovels for you. ERICK: [Laughs] CHARLES: And then with us today, we have Sam Cates on the show who is… a lot of times we have developers on the show. He's actually a venture… what would you describe yourself as? SAM: Yeah, I'd say I'm a venture investor with GE Ventures. So, on the corporate investing side. CHARLES: Okay. Now, I didn't even know that GE actually had a corporate investing side. Is that pretty common for a large company? SAM: You know, it's becoming increasingly common. I think in 2015 there was actually a peak of activity coming from corporate venture capital groups. And I've only seen the number of firms escalate since then. Although the dollars invested stays pretty consistent. But if you look at a lot of big companies, particularly in the common tech world like Cisco, Google, Intel, they have historically had large venture firms inside of themselves. And then GE and a lot of other industrials have since followed suit. We've been at it for about five years and we see it increasingly. CHARLES: And so, have you been with them since the beginning? SAM: Yeah, just about. I've actually been with GE for about nine years now. So, I was on the operating side in a number of the industrial businesses before I joined GE Digital and then GE Ventures. And so, it was just after GE Ventures got kicked off. CHARLES: Oh, that's exciting. So, what is it… now, we actually got connected to you through one of the companies that you actually invested in. It's something that we use and we're very interested in. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what your job looks like on a day-to-day basis and what companies you invest in? SAM: Sure. I really focus a lot of my time on Internet of Things companies. So, that's a really big trend that GE has been a part of and a leader in over the past few years. And so, we spend time investing in companies that are directly working with GE or playing in similar spaces to us. And so, Elrick and I actually met at a hackathon for one of those companies. And I always like to use that as an example because it's a good one, to demonstrate the kinds of investments we make. And that's Resin.io. I know you guys have done an episode or two talking with them. But that for example was a ‘Series A' investment that we made about two years ago. And then company essentially helps developers build connected products. And so, that's something that GE cares a lot about. We had people inside the company who found the product and loved it and that's actually how we met. CHARLES: When you say ‘Series A', can you give a brief overview of what the different stages of funding of a startup might be? SAM: Yeah, yeah, certainly. So, maybe if I take a step back and answer your original question on what I do on a day-to-day basis. A lot of my job is meeting with all kinds of new companies, whether they be early stage, usually things that would be seed funding – and we'll go into what some of those things mean – all the way through the late stage which would be companies that are maybe on the border of going public or are already profitable. And so, if we go into what kinds of investors there are, I think that's probably an interesting subject to talk more about. But they're a whole wide variety. When I said ‘Series A' I just meant a company that was at what we would call the ‘Series A' stage, and the letters act just like you'd expect. So, there's ‘Series A', ‘Series B', ‘Series C', and so on. And they all, they tend to look similar at those stages in terms of sizes and progress. But there is a range, and no two company is the same. ERICK: In today's world, it's very easy for people to create a startup. They can write some code and they can either come up, get a Raspberry Pi or some microcontrollers or whatever it is, and either do an IoT startup or a software startup. Now, when you get to the point where you have an idea and you kick it off initially, how do you go about then saying, “Let me get some funding.” How do you even get funding? SAM: Sure, yeah. And to your point, there's a huge range of technologies that are making it easier to start almost any kind of company. It's a great time to be an entrepreneur, whether it be 3D printing for hardware products, all the technologies that you were mentioning, AWS, all this stuff is contributing to reducing the cost to allow companies or people to create companies. And so, once people have gone out and experimented with some of these things and built what they think is a product the market wants, often if they require more money which may be for acquiring customers through things like Facebook Ads or simply doing further product development to make sure the product is somewhere that more customers could use it, often they can't finance it just through their own revenue. And so, there are typical stages and types of investors that people go approach looking for money. ERICK: Okay. What are those Series? I remember you mentioned something like a ‘Series A' investment. So, initially when you're looking for an investment, is that where you would… category you would be in as a startup looking for investment? They would consider you a ‘Series A' startup? SAM: Well, I want to caveat and just say every company is different. So, I see companies that… ERICK: Gotcha. SAM: Start out at a much later stage because they're able to bootstrap to that point. And bootstrap is the word that I use for a company that funds its own investment. They get paid by customers and they use that money to continue building the product. But if I talk about the range of types of financing a company may go for, I think the way that most people categorize this, first people often raise from friends and family or angels. And so, it's just money to get off the ground and maybe to pay the rent while you're doing some of that experimenting we were talking about. And then commonly after that is a seed round. And a seed round tends to be a little more institutional. So, it's maybe a more formal set of funds who exclusively invest in companies that are often pre-revenue but they have a product, or at least the beginnings of a product. And so, that's a really common category of investors. And then you get to ‘Series A' and the letters can escalate from there to the point where… ERICK: Gotcha. SAM: There can be some later rounds when they'd be ‘Series F' or even beyond, I guess. CHARLES: Right. So now, what are generally the terms on these? So, for my angel investments or my seed investments, I assume what distinguishes these is essentially how much ownership of the company you're getting for how much money. And those kind of, those change as the product solidifies. SAM: Yeah. CHARLES: And the potential becomes more visible. SAM: Yeah, it's a wide… and again, these are all… the venture is a world of ranges. There's a really wide difference between the two ends of any spectrum. So, I'll just talk in generalities though. So, I think the latest report that I've seen at least for an annual basis was PitchBook's 2016 report. And they were laying out some of the medians. So, for seed stage deals I believe it was something like one and a half million dollars raised was the median on a pre-money valuation of six and a half million. And that just means the company is worth, investors say the company is worth six and a half million dollars today. And we're going to give you a million and a half dollars invested at that price. CHARLES: So roughly, a sixth… they would take a sixth of the company then in return? SAM: Yeah. CHARLES: Okay. ERICK: Ah. CHARLES: Okay. ERICK: Okay. CHARLES: I see. That makes sense. So now, back to Elrick's original question. If I'm, I've got my product. Or I've got this idea. I've written some code. I've turned it into a prototype product. Maybe I'm moving through these various stages. What type of VC am I going to be looking for? How do I actually find the right type to be talking to? I guess what types are there even? SAM: Yeah. And one part… we mentioned a lot of the technologies that are making it easier to start companies. One part that also makes it easier is the proliferation of financing options, whether it be even more investors in these traditional structures we talked about like seed and A. And then there are other options that are emerging, things like you see a lot of people raising through what they call Initial Coin Offerings or ICOs. And then there are also things like AngelList which are attempting to democratize the investing process, make it more accessible. So traditionally, a lot of the seed A, B investors, they tend to be network-based, which can be a challenge for a lot of people that are maybe not in Silicon Valley or not a part of that network already. And so, one thing you can do is obviously go search databases that are on the web, things like Crunchbase. It's a free resource. It has a lot of deal history for investments that people have made. And it's a great resource for knowing, “Okay, this investor cares about these things.” And then in addition to that, there are also platforms that people can put their companies on. Like I mentioned, AngelList. And that's somewhere that you can list your company, you can meet investors, and they actually have some backend to actually support the investing process as well. CHARLES: So, there were two acronyms in there, or two specific technologies. [Chuckles] CHARLES: You talked about ICOs which I assumed that you said it was Initial Coin Offering. Not like insane clown offering. [Laughter] CHARLES: Which I would love to see. And then AngelList. So traditionally, these had been very network-based which brings to mind the capitalists of Old England or whatever where there's a bunch of people with cigars in a room and I realize it's not actually like that. What are each of these things? The AngelList and the ICOs? And how do they democratize that process? SAM: It's funny you should mention the old times. I think a good example of that is there are a lot of stories about the founding of General Electric. It's a 126-year-old company and back then it was largely, it was Thomas Edison working with I believe was JP Morgan to get it off the ground. And so, today there's still a bit of the network piece you're mentioning. But I think of AngelList as a place that you can essentially market to investors. If you think about the types of people that are on there, it's people that are looking to invest money in early stages in startups. And I'm not a big user of AngelList because I tend to be investing a little bit later. So, I really recommend anybody who's interested, just go check it out. It's I believe just Angel.co. CHARLES: And what about an ICO? SAM: So, an ICO is a more modern one. And it's kind of fraught with some concerns around regulations and transparency today. But I think since Thanksgiving there's been a massive wave of conversation about cryptocurrencies. And an ICO is essentially a way of creating your own cryptocurrency. The way I always explain to people, I love the analogy that people make around, think of it like I want to go build an amusement park. And in that amusement park, everything, rides, food, everything, is going to be denominated and payable in Sam-bucks. CHARLES: Ah, right. SAM: And… [Chuckles] And so, my options… CHARLES: [Laughs] That makes sense. SAM: Yeah. And my options are I can go to a bank and borrow money, I can go to investors and say, “Hey, give me the 10 million dollars it's going to take to build it,” or I can just go to the people in the place where I'm building it and say, “You want this amusement park to exist? Why don't you pre-buy these Sam-bucks?” And each one is going to cost a dollar today. And we create this universe of Sam-bucks and they're essentially valuable once you can use them in the park. And there are certainly exceptions. There are other versions of cryptocurrencies and other uses for them. But that's a conversation for another day. CHARLES: Ah, mm. SAM: I think that's just a good, easy way to understand it. CHARLES: Oh no, I like that. It's like, well not quite like carnival tickets. But yeah, that's something that everyone's familiar with. Same thing as the Xbox Marketplace. Very similar thing. So, the idea is you would buy a bunch of Sam-bucks… you would get them at pennies on the dollar, so to speak, today. SAM: Yeah, right. By the time it opens, maybe a hotdog would cost just one Sam-buck. CHARLES: Right. SAM: Whereas, when it's coming in, we'd have to spend five dollars to get that one Sam-buck. Right, the idea being those people who got in early will be rewarded. And you can see it's like a further extension of a Kickstarter or something else that you're allowing people to pre-buy into a network. CHARLES: Right. Right, okay. I can see that. ERICK: That's very interesting. [Laughs] CHARLES: And so, it's got a range of options too, because if you're really interested in the services you can go ahead and spend them on the services and get a lot of value that way or you can actually trade for someone who does want the services if you don't. SAM: I think that's exactly right. And it's just, the one that I think I would just caveat is there is a huge amount of concern at the moment, and maybe concern is too strong a word, but uncertainty around one, what are the value of these coins, these tokens? And two, how will governments react to something that looks potentially like a security or a currency? And so, that's something that still is being worked through. And even though they haven't figured that out there's still a massive amount of money being raised through these ICOs. CHARLES: [Laughs] So, it does beg the question. Why is a cryptocurrency necessary? Why not just use Xbox Marketplace points? Why not just say, “Here are Sam-bucks.” SAM: [Chuckles] CHARLES: And there's a row in my database. [Laughter] CHARLES: That's your balance of Sam-bucks. SAM: So, I think we're about to get way beyond the [inaudible] [Laughter] SAM: But I think the argument would be that some of these things are better decentralized. So in my example, you're right. That might just make more sense. But I think there are some examples around cryptocurrencies that are supporting a network of decentralized services where a centralized database historically was inconvenient or didn't provide the amount of transparency that people were looking for. CHARLES: Right, right. SAM: And so, that's a topic for a whole other podcast. CHARLES: Yeah, right. No, it makes sense. SAM: [Laughs] CHARLES: I think it's a matter of scale, right? If you're going to be just buying services but if you're going to have secondary markets where you're trading in this currency, I can see that. So, let's… [Chuckles] We'll reel that back in. SAM: [Chuckles] CHARLES: And ask a question that occurred to me. So now, we talked about your day-to-day. What exactly, when you're looking at a company to basically give money to, what are you looking for? What are the things you're like, “Oh man, I want to throw dollars at this company,” versus, “Mm. I'm going to keep them and give them some feedback and send them on their way.” SAM: There's always a set of factors that we evaluate. And I think the waiting is probably different for different types of investors. And then there's I'd say for me as a corporate VC being a part of GE, there's an extra lens which is, how is this relevant to GE? What does it mean for GE to be an investor? But if I think about just the kind of general industry lines it's: team is a really big one. So, who's building this company? Do I believe in their ability to reach this vision that they're laying out for me? Another one would be technology. What have they actually built? Is that hard to build? Do the things they want to build in the future, will those be hard to build? And do they have the skills and the people to do it? Then their technology, maybe an extension of that would be intellectual property. And besides intellectual property, just defensibility of a business in general. So then, you start thinking about, can somebody else just come along and to the same thing? Because if so, then maybe there's not a strong advantage in what the company has done so far. And then lastly, it's also just traction. How far along are they? How much have they proven the ability to execute on the plan that they're laying out? CHARLES: Right. ERICK: So, you're a corporate investor. So, there's other types of investor like an institutional VC? What are the differences between an institutional VC and a corporate VC and the other types of VC? Potentially what they'd be looking for, in terms of what they wanted best. SAM: Yeah. So, I think generally I categorize investors as institutional or corporate. And corporate [inaudible]… ERICK: Yeah. SAM: Corporate or strategic. And then there are people who exist on a spectrum there. But generally, an institutional means this is a group that is raising money from a set of limited partners who are the people who invest in the fund that are pension funds or wealthy individuals. They're large pools of institutional capital and their pure purpose is to earn return. And they may have a certain focus because they believe in this part of the market, or they like this kind of company or the stage of company. But essentially, their job is to return more money to the limited partners of that fund that were put in. That's their role in the world. And then on the corporate side, if we go the most extreme version of corporate VC, this is a group that is a part of a larger corporate. They're investing that company's money. So, in this case for me it's GE. I'm investing GE's money into these startups. And that means that I only have a single backer being GE. And I also maybe have a different lens, because my purpose is one, to earn financial return. I want to go out and I want to find good companies. I want to earn returns just like the other institutional venture capitalists. But I also have the goal of, and the strategic goal may differ by company, but for me it's about how can I help GE advance? How can I help GE understand a market? And how can GE be helpful to this company in achieving their goals? And so, for each company we use that lens as well, as a corporate. CHARLES: What I'm hearing is that you want to invest… I guess the thing is you can experience return that's not just cash. It's not just dollars. You'll experience return in raising the ocean of the business that GE is in, right? So… SAM: You said it much better than I did. [Laughter] CHARLES: Well, it's all… paraphrasing is actually easy. [Laughter] ERICK: Oh, yeah. SAM: An important skill. CHARLES: That makes a lot of sense. So, the question I have then is, you said you were looking for companies that kind of swim in a specific ocean. And each company is farther along. Are you usually finding this company I want to work with, like you are going out and finding them? Or they're coming to you looking for investment? Or is it really just, depends. SAM: So, we call that part of the process sourcing, sourcing investments. And they come from all over. So for us, there are a few different ways. One is we tend to be thesis-driven. Meaning we go out and we say, the world is changing in this way and therefore we're interested in this kind of company. And so, we'll proactively go out and research. We're also, I mentioned, a little later stage. So, I don't tend to do seed investments. I tend to do ‘Series A' and more often ‘Series B' and later. So, companies that have often already raised a seed round or raised a ‘Series A' round. So, I can actually search databases to say, “Okay, in the last two years who has raised a seed round or ‘Series A' round and these other things I'm looking for whether it be location or tied to investors or other things.” So, that's one way of being proactive is saying I want to go out and look for companies in this space that look like this. And that can be either like I mentioned, desktop research like searching the web, searching databases. Or it can be just going to conferences, right? So, on thing we spend a lot of time on in the IoT world is artificial intelligence and machine learning. It's been a big, big topic over the last year that a lot of people have invested in. So, we may go to different conferences that focus on that topic, meet lots of people that are working on it. Some companies, some individuals that are either investing in or advising their companies. And we'll talk to them. What companies are rising out of that space that we should be looking at? What technologies are changing in that space that we should be thinking about? And just trying to get smarter so that we can make the right investments and help the right companies find their way to work with GE and make our products better and help them advance their own enterprise. CHARLES: Are you investing with a mind that eventually GE might acquire this company and integrate it into GE itself? Or is it really just, “Hey, we're just going to take a part of it. We're going to have maybe a seat on the board to be able to steer a little bit. But we're pretty much going to let it be its own thing with its own autonomy and go where it was and just benefit through those secondary and tertiary effects.” SAM: Yeah, acquisitions from our portfolio by GE happened. But they're certainly not the explicit goal or our focus. I know we've had one, maybe two of our portfolio companies acquired by GE, one that I was directly working with called Bit Stew. So, we made the investment in the company. It was with the goal of using their data management platform for a lot of our applications. And at some point in working with GE and GE Digital, they decided, you know, this would make sense to be a part of GE. That wasn't why we made the investment. But it did end up being acquired by GE. And I know the team is doing really well. And it's been at GE for about a year now. So, it does happen. But when I said one or two, that's versus a portfolio of a hundred plus companies. CHARLES: Right. SAM: Since we started investing. And so, that's not what we're looking to do every time. Much more often it's about again, how does the company make GE more competitive and a better company, a better place to work. And then how do we help them advance their goals? Whether it be bringing them developers, or finding them other routes to market, or just being a customer. CHARLES: Right. SAM: So, that's really how we think about strategic value. There's a lot of different ways to create it. CHARLES: Yeah, I'm curious. Because it seems like also in a lot of these companies you're investing in potential competitors. Extensively you're operating if not in the exact same market, maybe very similar markets. There's a little bit of overlap. And so, you're kind of investing in potential competitors, right? So, where's the balance of here we're funding our competitors versus we're going to move into these markets ourselves. SAM: Yeah, and funding of “competitors” can happen. I think that we talk about that more in theory and say, “Oh sure, we'd be willing to fund a company that's out disrupting the space that we're playing in.” And we do that. It's rare that you see startups that are directly head-on competing with much more established companies like GE or other industrials or even other consumer companies. They don't take these companies head-on because that's not a way that startups have been successful in the past, right? We talk much more about disruption and saying, how is this company doing something that may indirectly compete with GE? So, you think about things like, for anybody that's not familiar with GE… actually, a lot of people associate us with our appliances which we actually don't manufacture anymore. That's [inaudible]. [Chuckles] SAM: We sold that business a few years ago. Almost everything we sell is like big, heavy industrial equipment. So, we sell aircraft engines, locomotives. We sell gas turbines, wind turbines. So, here and there a couple of things that do power generation. One trend that's affecting that industry is distributed generation of energy, energy storage. And those are parts of the market that are a less significant part of GE's business than say, heavy-duty gas turbines that sit in a power plant and generate a massive amount of power. And so, if you look at that and say, “Wow, GE Ventures is out funding storage companies. Does that mean they're funding competitors?” Well, it means that we're funding innovation that may disrupt the future of our business, but that's part of being a VC and that's part of the value that GE Ventures brings to GE. CHARLES: Right. SAM: We're out there looking at markets before they're large enough or in scope for GE. CHARLES: Mmhmm, right. And so, yes you're disrupting the space but then you're going to be a part of that disruption and have strong connections to those markets if you need to actually migrate your business completely over to them. That's kind of what I'm hearing. SAM: Yeah, absolutely. Better to disrupt yourself, right? CHARLES: [Chuckles] SAM: And be a part of the ecosystem in the future because I think the future happens with or without you. And it's really key that we get out in front of it and a part of that, a part of that discussion, a part of that process. CHARLES: And so now, you've been saying that this is, GE, this has been pretty explosive? There's a lot more happening through GE Ventures. There's a lot more happening in other companies globally, having these corporate ventures. Where do you think the balance is going to lie to say, “Hey,” I'm just going to throw out some numbers, just for theory here, it's like, “10% of our business is essentially this distributed network of semi-autonomous or mostly autonomous startups. And then we have our core business.” Does that stabilize at 50/50? Does it stabilize at 75% the other way with GE essentially becoming a capital management company? Or is it somewhere in the middle? SAM: So, GE Ventures will never be a meaningful part of GE's revenue, a meaningful part of its business as a percentage. The overall venture industry is full of funds that are on the order of like, bigger funds are on the order of, in the billions. The single-digit billions. And GE itself is a much, much larger company. Well over a hundred billion dollars in enterprise value. So, I think GE Ventures will always be a small part of the company financially. And the impact will be largely felt through how we help the rest of GE navigate the future. ERICK: You said that sometimes you go and look for companies, startups to invest in or sometimes startups come to you or come to a VC looking for funding. Now, I'm a developer or a startup founder. And I'm going to look for funding. What are some of the mistakes or pitfalls that you see that startup founders or people with an idea fall into when looking for funding that you can help them avoid? SAM: Yeah, and we do see companies that come to us. So, I mentioned a lot about how I go out looking for companies based on a thesis or a set of relevant factors or relevant things for GE. But we do have a number of inbound requests. People know some of the bigger VC brands. They know GE the big company. So, we do get inbound interest and we also get referrals from networks of VCs and some are employees and other things. But for the companies that are seeking us out, the ones that are going out looking for funding, there are some things that are really well-known in Silicon Valley and other places, or you could research online and find, but may not be obvious at first. And so, I think the first one is, who are you talking to? What investors are you seeking out? Depending on what stage you're at, what kind of business you're in, you have to understand what the landscape of potential investors are and which ones might be interested in a company like yours. So, I think there are tons of good mentors that can help people navigate that. Maybe less commonly outside of Silicon Valley, in Boston, New York, in the places where you have traditional venture ecosystems. But you see a ton of resources available online whether it be things like Fred Wilson's blog, AVC.com, or Crunchbase, TechCrunch. You can read and understand and from headlines tell what people care about. And I think that's fundamentally a really important first step. You don't want to waste an hour talking to somebody who will never… this is somebody that invests in really late-stage growth equity companies and I'm coming to them for my first investment. That's not going to work. So, I think finding the right people, step one. I think when you're going through the process of pitching and talking about your business, the pitfalls are all about understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your business and where you are today. And so, for every company, that's different. But I think just being open and honest versus glossing over a lot of the risks, these are all really risky companies. If they were easy, then you'd have a lot more competition. And so… [Laughter] SAM: I think that's one thing that I see, too. You have some company that comes in and say, “Look, here are the parts I've figured out and here are the parts I still have to figure out.” And that's a really good conversation to have. There are other companies where they say, “Look, we've figured the whole thing out. We just want you to give us some money.” And I don't think a lot of investors necessarily buy into that. And certainly, there are investors of every stripe. So, I may be speaking too broadly. But I think that's a really important part of the venture investment process, right? You're looking not just for money but also for counsel and for somebody that you're going to work with over the next, sometimes seven years or longer. CHARLES: Yeah. SAM: [Inaudible] going to be on your board and participating. So, it's a really important part. CHARLES: So, you're looking, you're actually looking not necessarily for all the answers but you're looking for the questions that they're asking, too. SAM: Yeah, absolutely. And demonstrating they understand the ins and outs of the business. And that they have the capacity to carry this onto that next stage and hopefully beyond. CHARLES: Mmhmm. So, now you said something that caught my interest there that you work with some people sometimes seven years. You enter into these long relationships. Do you generally ever do any type of, I want to say almost like… mentoring might be too strong of a word, but in the pre-investment, in other words before you actually invest in a company, do you ever work with them to prepare them for investment to say, “Hey, I think there's potential here. Work on A, B, and C and then let's talk.” And you have this image in your mind. You go, you pitch to an investor, and it's either thumbs up or it's like thumbs down and you never talk to them again. Versus, is there some ground in between where there's a conversation that evolves that eventually ends up in an investment being made? SAM: Absolutely. I think one of the parts of this industry is even when I'm not an investor in a company, I may know a company and say, “It's not a fit for me for GE Ventures but I still think that we can provide help.” It's one of the things I love about tech and about venture in general, is that people are often willing to pitch in, even when they don't have a direct financial incentive. And so, I see that a lot whether it's helping a company where we've met them and we later see an opportunity and say, “Oh, you should go and talk to this company or that company.” And then often, we may see a company that's pitching us ahead of where we would typically invest. Maybe they're looking for a ‘Series A' but given the space that they're in or what we're doing at the moment, it may not be the right time for us. And so, we'll continue to track along and keep up and get updates. Some companies do a really good job of actually providing proactive updates and sending out monthly or quarterly reports to investors they've met with before. I think there's a wide range of ways that founders do this. But it is a really good way to keep people interested in the prize. And then when you come back and say, “Hey, now I'm out raising my ‘Series B',” that's not a surprise. I knew that you were hitting these milestones, that you were doing everything you said you were going to do. And you've demonstrated a level of credibility that really adds to the pitch that you made the first time around. ERLICK: You said something, metrics. So, a venture capitalist, after they make an investment, what are some of the expectations that they may hold this startup that they just invested in… what are those expectations that they may hold them accountable for? Or those metrics that they'll be looking at? SAM: Yeah, so I think some of the really high-level ones that are common across businesses, generally growth is a really big one. So, I almost said revenue. But I wanted to caveat… [Laughter] SAM: And say growth could mean different things. It could mean number of developers. It could mean number of downloads if you're an app. It depends on what the business is. But I think growth is a huge one. Growth is a really important, that top line, that's what's going to drive a lot of the value in the business. And then below that, demonstrating that you can hit the milestones around things like margins. So, how profitable is each unit you're selling? Or how profitable is each customer? And lastly, how are you doing managing your spend? So, that's great that you're earning the right amount of money for each customer, but are you doing it by… do you have a massive number of employees and offices and all the things that are too expensive to allow you to use your money wisely as you reach the next stage? And so, those are the big milestones. It's really just growth, margins, and operating cost or burn rate as we call it. CHARLES: Mmhmm. So, that sounds like a lot of work to actually evaluate these companies. Do you do your due diligence once you've already moved in pretty solidly into the process? SAM: Yeah, these processes can move really fast. And depending on the timing, generally it's, you jump in, you learn as much as you can, as fast as you can, and you make a decision so the company can move on. I'll say there's a lot of work that goes into considering and deciding which companies to spend more time on, both for us and for them. We don't want to waste a company's time evaluating, going through more meetings, if it's not a really strong candidate for us. Because they could be spending that time better with other investors who are a better fit. And I'm not going to pretend to like the evaluation part. I have a lot of respect for the amount of not just work but of a person's energy and really, their life goes into these companies. And so, I think the hard part is building the company. And so, it's hard for me to say that evaluating is a hard part. I'm trying to understand as much as I possibly can in a month or two. I'm not going to know as much about the business as the founder does. And I'll be wrong a lot. I may miss something and not understand, whether it's because I don't see the market but it's there or because I have some underlying assumption about the way things should work that they don't meet. And I think that that's something that investors have to come to grips with. You try and get as smart as you can as fast as you can, but you're not always going to get to the right answer. ERLICK: You said that it was growth, spend, and profits were some of the metrics. That is almost all of the essential components of a business plan. I remember one time, one of our previous conversations, you emphasized how important it was for companies, or even at just a simple startup, to put together a basic business plan. Is that something that you can elaborate on a little? SAM: Yeah. So, most companies show up with a pitch deck. So, they have a set of PowerPoint slides and then they have a set of materials behind that where if you go deeper into an area they may have a white paper about their technology and they may have an Excel financial model that explains why they have these expectations about what growth and margins and all those things will look like. So, there are all of those pieces that come together into a business plan. The business plan could be written or it could be that PowerPoint. But very traditionally, it's a PowerPoint or some kind of presentation that is shared in person. There's usually a version that's sent in advance to confirm that the company and the investors should meet. And then once you clear that bar, there's a deeper presentation that often you'll give to either one or a set or a whole team of investors. And you'll go through and explain why it is you think this is a good investment opportunity for them and why you'd like to work together. And then you have a discussion about whether that's a good fit, about some of the underlying assumptions, and come to either a set of next steps for the diligence or a decision that it's not the right fit, it's not the right time to take the relationship further with more diligence and that kind of stuff. ERLICK: Yeah, because I see… well, I know a few people that have startup ideas and they kind of put the business plan on the back burner and put the actual prototype more at the forefront. They say, “Oh, we can worry about the business plan later.” [Laughs] SAM: [Chuckles] Well, I think… there's something to be said to that. There's something to be said for product and growth winning. So if you… Let's start at the early stages. If you have something that's working and that's really obvious, you may not need a… ERLICK: True. SAM: To go raise money. It all comes down to, do you have enough to get enough investors interested to raise the round that you want to raise? Because you want to have enough investors involved, enough demand, that you can be selective about who you want to work with and on what terms, right? So, what valuation and how much of the company am I giving them, and all of those things. So, if you can do all of those things with nothing but an app and one chart that shows a hockey stick of growth, that's awesome. CHARLES: You're hot. [Laughter] SAM: Often it does require much more and a much longer plan. So, even if you say, “Look, it's growing like crazy,” there's usually some set of questions behind that. So, that's great. Your free app is growing like crazy. How are you going…? [Laughter] SAM: To get paid for that? And you'll talk about that. And you'll say, “Here are the things we're planning on doing,” or here are the assumptions that we're making. And the more original, the more unique the business model is, the more discussion and explanation that may require. And that's where the business plan and a pitch deck come in handy, because it's a really good presentation aide or pre-reading to get to that answer faster. ERLICK: So, this evaluation it seems, is a two-way street. The VCs evaluating the company and also the company or the startup evaluating the VC to know whether it's going to be a good relationship. SAM: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, the best companies have choice. They have a number of investors who are interested in funding them. And certainly, that might be different at different stages or at different times, depending on what's going on in the economy and in tech and in other places. But generally, VC is a very competitive industry. I'm trying to sell my money and services as an investor versus other options that you have. And so, while it's maybe not as competitive as only one of us can buy the company like in an M&A situation. There are often more than one investor. There's still a very intense set of competition around, okay, who's going to be involved in the deal? How much money will they be able to invest? So, that's something that really can come in handy for founders. ERLICK: And what was that you just said there? M&A situation? SAM: Oh, sorry. When a company is being bought. So, when a company is being bought, it can look kind of like a fundraising process, but instead of selling a part of a company, you're selling the whole thing. And so, in that case, obviously it's a competitive situation where there's only one winner. And this is a different process. Often, the rounds that we're a part of, we're not… we're buying a minority stake just like any VC. We may be buying 5% of a company, 10% of a company. And often we're being joined by other venture investors. We really actually commonly partner with the institutional firms and they'll take a board seat. We'll invest alongside them and be an observer on the board and provide counsel. And so, it is a very competitive process. And that, while M&A is a winner-take-all, there is one buyer who is ultimately going to own this company going forward, the investing process for a venture is much more collaborative. But it is still competitive, because there can only be so many investors in one company. CHARLES: And you want to choose the right one on both… the right set. Alright. Well, I think we're running up against time. This has been a fascinating conversation into an aspect of our industry that really is providing the fuel that drives so much of this forward. So, I guess I'll close by asking you, already talked about Resin. We had them on the podcast. We love them. Are there any conferences or products that you're investing in that you feel like our audience might want to know about or anything like that? SAM: Well one, you mentioned Resin. CHARLES: Yeah. SAM: I know you guys have been a good friend to them and Elrick and I met at their hackathon. I would recommend to anybody, go try it out. It's a really cool way to play with hardware products. I am not a developer and I required a lot of help from Elrick at the hackathon. [Laughter] SAM: But at the same time, it is something that almost anybody can pull out of a box and start playing with. So, I think that's a great one. The episode you did on them were fantastic. So, I really enjoyed those ones. I'd say in general, I'm always out looking to meet new companies that are going to benefit from working with GE. I spend a lot of my time not just trying to invest but also trying to find partnerships for companies that we're looking at within GE, either selling to us or working with us. And so, if somebody thinks that there's an opportunity to do that, then I encourage them to reach out. Because I think there's a ton of opportunity. It's a really big company that really has a ton of opportunity for other partners. CHARLES: Alright. If they wanted to reach out, how would they get in touch with you? SAM: Yeah, I think maybe the best way to initially make contact, I tend to be pretty active on Twitter. So, my handle is just @SamCates. S-A-M-C-A-T-E-S. And you can also learn more through our website. If you're curious about some of the businesses I mentioned, so just GEVentures.com. And it's about to go through a whole refresh. So, go check it out. CHARLES: Alright. Well, fantastic. We will definitely look for that. And for everybody else, you can get in touch with us on Twitter at @TheFrontside or send us a line at info@frontside.io. Thank you everybody for listening. Thank so, so much Sam, for being on the podcast. SAM: Yeah, of course. It was a blast. I'm a big podcast fan and I've really enjoyed catching up on your episodes. CHARLES: Ah, and thank you Elrick, always. ERICK: It was great. SAM: Elrick, when you finish building your Raspberry Pi Battleships, I want to play. CHARLES: [Laughs] ERICK: Oh, yes. Yes. It's in the works, man. It's in progress. SAM: Alright, I'm waiting. CHARLES: Alright. Well, take it easy, everybody.

Lisa Suennen is Managing Director at GE Ventures and Managing Partner at Venture Valkyrie. She spends a lot of time evaluating young healthcare companies, as well as tracking trends and evaluating the healthcare industry as a whole. Because of that, Lisa has developed a keen eye for what's real, what's working, and what...might not be living up to the hype. Two of the things that she's poking some holes in are population health and consumer health. Be prepared for the quote, “short term savings and long-term nothing.”

Beth Comstock is the Vice Chair at General Electric, one of the largest companies in the world. At GE, she leads efforts to accelerate new growth. She operates GE Business Innovations, which develops new businesses, markets and service models; drives brand value and partners to enhance GE's inventive culture. This unit includes Current, GE Lighting, GE Ventures & Licensing and GE sales, marketing and communications. In this episode, Beth and I talk about what makes a good leader, how to learn to ask for help, how to embrace feedback, how to build a network – both internally and externally, how she defines success and how she decides to spend her time. Follow Beth on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bethcomstock LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethjcomstock Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethcomstock/ Medium: https://medium.com/@bethcomstock Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethComstock/ –– Special thanks to our patrons on Patreon: Megan Quinn who supports Code2040: http://www.code2040.org Anna Caroline who coaches leaders in Berlin: http://truthcircles.com/ Tim Herbig https://twitter.com/herbigt Johannes Kleske https://johanneskleske.com/ Caoimhe Keogan https://twitter.com/caoimhekeogan Eileen Williams https://www.switchup.de/stromvergleich If you want to help us create The Role Models Podcast in the future, become a patron and chip in $1, $3, $5, or $10 per episode. Read more about the different tiers and rewards on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/rolemodels

Very informative interview with Dovid Mark, Founder of Fundz.co. We learn about how a deadly bout with malaria brought him to becoming a Bal-Teshuva and leaving him a desire to help startups that come from communities that don't have the built in support like we do in the USA and Israel. Fascinating story and you will learn a lot about equity crowdfunding and social responsibility. Name: Dovid Mark Website: http://fundz.co (www.fundz.co) LinkedIn: https://il.linkedin.com/in/dovidmark (Dovid on LinkedIn) Twitter: https://twitter.com/DawdMark (@DawdMark) https://frumentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Dovid-Mark.jpg ()   People, Companies, Products & Books Mentioned in this Podcast http://www.kiva.org/ (Kiva) http://www.wikiwand.com/en/New_Paltz,_New_York (New Paltz, NY) http://ohr.edu/ (Ohr Somayach ) http://aish.com (Aish HaTorah) http://rankabove.com (RankAbove) http://www.fiveblocks.com/ (Five Blocks) http://kickstarter.com (KickStarter) http://indiegogo.com (Indiegogo) http://ourcrowd.com (OurCrowd) https://www.geventures.com/ (GE Ventures) http://microsoft.com (Microsoft) http://www.forbes.com/sites/mraneri/2015/04/16/who-needs-equity-crowdfunding-3-critical-questions-about-title-iii-of-the-jobs-act/ (Article in Forbes on the Title III of the Jobs Act) Impact Investing https://www.linkedin.com/in/obedih (Sean Ndiho Obedih) https://www.linkedin.com/company/fundz (LinkedIn) Book Recommendation: http://amzn.to/1T5kjaT (The Lean StartUp by Eric Ries) ——— https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-frum-entrepreneur/id975678776 (Are you enjoying this podcast? Please take 30 seconds and rate it on iTunes! Every 5 Stars helps us get more noticed!) To learn more about me, please check out http://nachum.co (Nachum.co) Thank you for listening!!