Podcasts about Spark Capital

Episode 380 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Eduardo Torrealba, CEO & Co-Founder of Lumafield. As part of my conversation with Eduardo, we talk about the importance of working on hard things. Yes, it's hard to build things that seem impossible at the time but it is that level of difficulty that attracts the top talent across engineering and other functional areas to join the company. And, it is that level of difficulty that once you establish product market fit, it can been highly defensible and really difficult to copy. And, it is that level of difficulty that attracts the best investors to fund a company with the hopes that it can be an industry defining company, especially when there is hardware involved. Take Lumafield, a pioneering developer of accessible X-ray CT technology, recently announced a $35M Series B round of funding led by Spark Capital, along with previous investors Lux Capital, Kleiner Perkins, DCVC, Future Shape and angel investors like Tony Fadell - yes that Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and Founder of Nest. When you have an industry leader like Tony, who after seeing their product & vision and ended up committing to an investment into the company after a 30 minute meeting, you know you are on to something big, as he understood the problem first hand based on his experience. In the video version of our podcast, there is a brief video showing Lumafield's platform in action, as you need to see it to truly appreciate the complexity yet the obvious use case it has when building physical products. In the show notes, I have also included a fun video from Lumafield with Tony where they take a look at the evolution of the iPod by looking at the inside of different generations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC6BQPowf7w In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Eduardo's background story and his initial journey into entrepreneurship with an IoT soil moisture sensor company called Oso Technologies. * Joining Formlabs and what he worked on in the earlier days of the company and what he learned during the company's growth to a billion dollar valuation. * The full story of Lumafield in terms of how the team came together and the problem they are solving. * The fundraising process and the current state of the company, plus future plans ahead. * Lessons learned from building companies and raising capital. * The importance of a strong company pitch. * And so much more Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Phillip McClain is founder of the real estate company the Mensch Group. Through the Mensch Group, McClain spearheads affordable housing developments in North Omaha. The company broke ground on its first project last year: nine single-family homes at 49th and Curtis Streets, an area known as Curtis Corner. McClain sold the houses to families for below market value thanks to assistance from local organizations like Spark Capital and Habitat for Humanity. Tax-increment financing helped cover development costs.North Omaha has seen a surge in development in recent years, with projects like the Highlander complex on 30th Street, the North 24th Street Business Improvement District and the Levi Carter Park sports facility, which just began construction near Eppley Airfield.McClain and Michael Griffin are talking about the need for affordable housing and the Black developers working to make the landscape more equitable. They also get into TIF and its role in development.

Greetings & welcome back to the podcast. This episode we are joined by Mr. Tom MacInnis – CEO of Spark Capital Corp. & Southern Pacific Resources.Mr. MacInnis is also Board Chair of PointBreak Resources, board member of Rok Resources, and sits on the advisory committees for the private equity funds managed by Lex Energy Partners in Regina.Previously, Mr.MacInnis was a Founder & Managing Director of Investment Banking at Tristone Capital, Head of Energy Financial Markets and Energy Investment Banking for National Bank of Canada - working on over 1200 M&A & capital raising transactions representing over $125 Billion in transaction value. Among other things we discussed the Private Energy Markets, the Tristone Capital Days & Canadian M&A in 2025.Enjoy.Thank you to our sponsors.Without their support this episode would not be possible:Connate Water SolutionsATB Capital MarketsEnergy United 360 Engineering & Environmental ConsultingEVA SoftwareBroadbill EnergySupport the show

Building a successful company is rarely a linear journey. For Christine Spang, co-founder and CTO of Nylas, the journey has been marked by significant pivots, bold decisions, and relentless perseverance when scaling the business and raising capital. Nylas has attracted funding from top-tier investors like 8VC, Round13 Capital, Spark Capital, and Formation 8.

Nabeel Hyatt is a General Partner @ Spark Capital, one of the leading firms of the last decade with portfolio companies including Twitter, Anthropic, Coinbase, Affirm, Discord, Deel and more.  In Todays Show with Nabeel Hyatt We Discuss: 1. The Rules of Investing: What have been Nabeel's biggest lessons on price sensitivity? When did he not pay up and with the benefit of hindsight, wish he had of paid up? How important is ownership to Nabeel and Spark? How does Nabeel think about reserve investing and doubling down? Why does Nabeel not engage in secondary markets? How does Nabeel think about when is the right time to sell? Why does Nabeel think the majority of market sizing is total BS? 2. The Venture Landscape: Run by Principles and Broken:  Why does Nabeel believe this generation of AI investing will require a different mindset to the one that made VCs successful over the last decade? Why does Nabeel believe that venture is currently run by principals and associates? Why is that such a problem? Why does Nabeel believe that the majority of venture firms today are dead but do not know it yet? What does Nabeel believe happens to the mega multi-stage firms who have raised billions and billions? 3. How to Win the VC Game in a World of AI: Infrastructure, models, apps: where does Nabeel believe the most value will accrue in the next decade of AI investing? What does Nabeel mean when he says there are three categories of AI apps today? Where does Nabeel believe the most valuable will be built? Does Nabeel believe Deepseek hurt or helped the future for Anthropic? How could Anthropic be a $100BN company from this point? What does no one see about the next 10 years of AI that everyone should see?  

Nabeel Hyatt is looking for the “Japanese toilets” of AI—products that delight users in unexpected ways. As a partner at Spark Capital, that investment philosophy has paid off. Despite making only 1-2 investments a year, he's picked some of the biggest winners in AI so far: Descript, Cruise, and Granola. We spent an hour unpacking:  How much “leash” top products give to AI agents—and why that matters How he spots remarkable AI products Why “sensitivity” is one of the most important traits of top founders The huge opportunities for AI products to help users explore new “possibility spaces” How Nabeel is actually using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and AI code editor Windsurf in his life  If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!  Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It's usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe  Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper  Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:32 Why Nabeel doesn't invest in more than two companies per year: 00:01:50 Why the words you use to describe your business matter: 00:06:49 What a product with soul looks like: 00:13:45 Patterns in the remarkable founders Nabeel has invested in: 00:16:48 How Nabeel evaluates popular coding agents: 00:24:12  AI has broadened the horizons of what Nabeel can do: 00:32:29 How funding models are changing as AI makes it cheaper to build software: 00:36:28 Nabeel's framework for when to trust an LLM: 00:45:43  Guide AI to provide context (and not just quick answers): 00:55:39 Links to resources mentioned in the episode:   Nabeel Hyatt: @nabeel, https://nabeelhyatt.com/  Spark Capital: https://www.sparkcapital.com/  The piece Chris Pedregal wrote for Every: How to Build a Truly Useful AI Product  Chris Pedregal on AI & I:

Episode #364 of The VentureFizz Podcast features John Andrews, Co-Founder & CEO of Cimulate. There is a wave of entrepreneurs who are uniquely qualified to build a pillar tech company in the Boston tech ecosystem while leveraging the platform shift to AI. Not only is John one of them, but he is also an alum of the very successful crew from Endeca. John and his co-founder, Vivek Farias, are tackling the future of eCommerce and as you'll hear, their platform is a perfect use case for Gen AI. Their last company, Celect, was a big data predictive analytics platform for the retail industry which was acquired by Nike. Cimulate recently announced a $28M Series A round of funding led by Spark Capital with participation from their seed stage investors SIERRA Ventures and Pillar VC, with additional participation from LFX Venture Partners and Commerce Ventures. In this podcast, we cover: * A deep dive into the use cases of AI in the retail & eCommerce industry especially around personalization. * John's background story and getting his career started at Deloitte Consulting and getting an MBA from HBS. * How he met Steve Papa, the founder of Endeca, and the full lifecycle of his experience there including the acquisition by Oracle and integration of their tech there. * Connecting with Vivek Farias and Devavrat Shah through Steve Papa and the story of building Celect which was using AI / machine learning back in 2014. * How the acquisition by Nike came together * All the details about Cimulate and how the platform works, plus their growth plans ahead. * Biggest lessons learned as a multi-time CEO. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Glassdoor announced it is introducing “Worklife Pros“, in the form of relevant rich content into its community experience, providing more opportunities for users to engage in real-time conversations with access to both career experts and other like-minded professionals. https://hrtechfeed.com/glassdoor-doubles-down-on-content-experts/ Rival introduced Rival Workflow, a automated platform that empowers businesses to manage the employee experience – from onboarding to offboarding – in one seamless, integrated experience. https://hrtechfeed.com/new-hr-tech-from-rival-successfinder/ SAN FRANCISCO —- Zeal, the modern payroll platform announced the successful close of a $15 million Series B funding round. This latest investment, led by Portage with continued support from existing investors Spark Capital and Commerce Ventures, marks a significant milestone in Zeal's mission to redefine payroll for innovative staffing companies, gig-work platforms, and HR service providers, including industry leaders like Wonolo, Qwick, Lawtrades, Band of Hands, and WorkGenius. https://hrtechfeed.com/zeal-secures-15m-series-b-funding-for-payroll-platform/ Sapia.ai, a leader in AI-driven recruitment, announced the launch of Live Interview™, a tool designed to simplify interview scheduling for hourly hiring. With a focus on ease of use, Live Interview™ makes scheduling as intuitive as booking a restaurant – especially benefiting store managers overseeing hourly workers. https://hrtechfeed.com/sapia-ai-unveils-live-interview-for-high-volume-hiring/ DENVER —- Guild, an education and skilling solution for building talent, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Nomadic Learning, a leading capability academy company. The company also announced the introduction of Guild Talent Advantage, which pairs education and skilling experiences—across multiple learning modalities—with actionable talent insights. In addition, through Guild Talent Advantage, employees receive career resources and coaching to ensure they don't just know more, but they perform better and drive businesses forward. https://hrtechfeed.com/guild-announces-acquisition-of-nomadic/  

This week we chat with Rachael Horwitz!Prior to joining Haun Ventures as the Chief Marketing Officer, Rachael served as an Operating Partner at a16z crypto, where she led marketing and communications.Previously, Rachael served as Vice President of Communications at Coinbase. Rachael has served as Communications Director at Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and as a Marketing & Communications Partner at Spark Capital.Rachael began her career at Greer, Margolis, Mitchell, Burns & Associates, a communications firm that provides political consulting and issues management services.Rachael holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington.Follow Us!Rachael Horwitz: @RachelRadHaun: @HaunVenturesErica Wenger: @erica_wengerDear Twentysomething: @deartwentysomething

The future of home building. In it we cover putting construction in the cloud, home buying simulations, AI co-pilots for builders, onsite computer vision, advances in material science, and the future of new homes. Marc Minor is the CEO of Higharc, a software platform that helps new home builders get to market with unprecedented speed and efficiency. Higharc's mission is to modernize the $100 trillion U.S. residential real estate market and make home ownership more affordable. The platform has been used to design over 4,000 homes and has raised more than $80 million from top built-world investors such as Fifth Wall, Spark Capital, Lux, and a host of strategic partners, including Home Depot. Marc spent his career in the 3D printing and fabrication space, leading the marketing departments at Carbon and Desktop Metal before founding Higharc in 2018. Sign up for new podcasts and our newsletter, and email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Karim Atiyeh is the co-founder and CTO of Ramp, a finance automation platform that helps businesses spend less time and money. Founded in 2019, Ramp powers the fastest-growing corporate card in America and enables billions of dollars of purchases each year on the heels of nearly 10x year-over-year growth. Valued at $8.1 billion two years after launch, Ramp has raised hundreds of millions in equity from backers including Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital, D1 Capital Partners, Spark Capital, Coatue Management, Iconiq, Goldman Sachs, and Stripe. A Lebanese entrepreneur, Karim previously built and sold Y Combinator-backed Paribus to Capital One in 2016. This episode is brought to you with the support of Netsuite, download their guide at netsuite.com/scale --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uncharted1/support

Some big company-driven controversies are at the front of this week's episode. Our hosts, Mike Kaput and Paul Roetzer, discuss Apple's introduction of "Apple Intelligence," a suite of generative AI features integrated into its devices, former OpenAI's superalignment researcher Leopold Aschebrenner claims on the rapid approach of superintelligence and, the backlash surrounding Adobe's updated terms of service. 00:06:02 — Apple's WWDC 00:20:14 — Leopold Aschenbrenner, AGI and Superintelligence 00:38:31 — Adobe's Controversial New Terms of Use 00:42:38 — Microsoft Recall Backlash 00:45:40 — Chris Bach's Generative AI Policy PSA 00:49:05 — Underlord from Descript 00:51:17 — Perplexity Pages 00:55:12 — Spark Capital, Jared Leto Back AI Video Startup Pika 00:56:49 — McDonald's HeyGen Campaign Today's episode is also brought to you by Scaling AI, a groundbreaking original series designed for business leaders who want to thrive in the age of AI, and help drive AI transformation within their organizations. The Scaling AI course series includes 6 hours of content, complete with on-demand courses, video lessons, quizzes, downloadable resources, a final exam, and a professional certificate upon completion. Head to ScalingAI.com to pre-order today! Want to receive our videos faster? SUBSCRIBE to our channel! Visit our website: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com Receive our weekly newsletter: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/newsletter-subscription Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/resources#filter=.webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference: www.MAICON.ai Enroll in AI Academy for Marketers: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/academy/home Join our community: Slack: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/slack-group-form LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mktgai Twitter: https://twitter.com/MktgAi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marketing.ai/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marketingAIinstitute

Basti Lehmann is the co-founder and former CEO of Postmates, the on-demand delivery service that raised over $900M from the likes of Tiger Global, Founders Fund, Spark Capital and Andreesen Horowitz. Following Uber's $2.65BN acquisition in 2020, Basti founded TipTop, a platform for fast tech sales which Marc Andreesen led the $20M seed round for. In Today's Episode with Basti Lehmann We Discuss: From US Immigrant to Billion Dollar Founder How did Basti start his career hacking AT&T? How did early hardships shape Basti's work ethic? What were Basti's biggest challenges building Postmates? Lessons from Raising $900M How did Basti raise $20M from Marc Andreesen? How does Basti select which VCs to work with? Why does Basti think 99% of VCs are sheep? Why does Basti think great VCs add no value? Why does Basti think having to educate investors is a massive red flag? Selling Postmates for $2.65BN Why did Basti sell Postmates to Uber? How did the acquisition happen? Was there anything Basti would have done differently? What does Basti think makes Dara Khosrowshahi a great CEO? What is Basti's biggest advice to founders on acquisitions? Future of AI: Startups or Incumbents? What does Basti think is the biggest challenge of LLMs today? Why does Basti think inference computing will be the future of AI? Why does Basti think incumbents can be replaced? Why does Basti think the biggest companies are being born today?  

Episode 331 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Rob Go, Co-Founder & Partner at NextView Ventures. I've been fortunate to have many people support my journey with building VentureFizz through the years and Rob was one of the earliest. Shortly after I launched the site, he reached out looking to meet up and needless to say, I jumped at the chance. Through the years, Rob has always been incredibly helpful with his feedback on VentureFizz when I needed an outside perspective. I thank him at the beginning of our show, but I did want to note a sincere “thank you” here as well. Rob's also has a podcast that you should check out called The Idea Maze where he asks the question: where do great entrepreneurial ideas really come from? You can find it on all major podcast platforms, plus I have included a link to it in the show notes. NextView Ventures is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that invests in founders who want to redesign the Everyday Economy. The firm's portfolio includes Bobbie, The Browser Company, Devoted Health, WHOOP, Attentive, and more. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The five flavors of AI. * Rob's background story including what he learned from his Dad's entrepreneurial endeavors, getting his career started in management consulting, and then learning product at eBay. * How he landed a VC position at Spark Capital, plus a fun story about his almost investment into Groupon. * What led Rob and his Co-Founders, David Beisel and Lee Hower, down the path of starting a seed stage firm and what the seed investing landscape looked like back then. * What Rob is targeting for investments and the importance of founder-opportunity fit. * What he's learned while running a venture firm. * And so much more. This Week's Sponsor This is exciting… for the “Hey Mom, I made it” category… we are in a book… not any old book… but a book from MIT! Be on the lookout for the new book for entrepreneurs called Startup Tactics. It is available globally starting on April 2nd and it features 15 tactics entrepreneurs need for success. You'll find VentureFizz listed as a “tool of the trade” in the chapter on Hiring for Startups! Amazing!!! Get your copy now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org.

With more than 20 years of experience scaling startups and building technology companies in the digital and mobile ecosystem, Steven Rosenblatt co-founded Oceans, a new kind of venture capital firm, in 2018 where he currently serves as General Partner.Steven has been passionate about building early stage companies and has finally fulfilled his life long goal of starting his own company.  Prior to Oceans, Steven was President of Foursquare. During his six-year tenure at the location intelligence company, he was responsible for transitioning the company from a purely consumer-facing location platform into an enterprise business, building a multi-product strategy and growing revenue by more than 70x. This entailed overseeing all aspects of strategy and implementation of the company's revenue streams along with overseeing its biggest customers. During his time, Foursquare won numerous awards, including being named in CNBC's Disruptor 50 list as one of the most disruptive tech companies in the world, Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 as one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America, and won Ad Age's Best Places to work. Steven worked closely with his investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, DFJ, and Spark Capital, and has spoken at nearly 100 events.Before joining Foursquare, Steven launched iAd, Apple's advertising platform for brands and developers, where he managed sales, agency relations, and the creative and strategy team. Steven led the opening of Apple's New York office and worked closely with leadership teams to build a presence in New York. Prior to this, Steven served as Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales at Quattro Wireless until it was acquired by Apple in January 2010.  He is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. In this episode, Marc Beckman and Steve talk bout venture capital funding. Steven Rosenblatt gives an inside look into Venture Capital Investments. Should you take VC funding? What are VC's looking for? What makes a great founder? What are the opportunities emerging in AI? Learn all that and more in this episode with Steven RosenblattSign up for the Some Future Day Newsletter here: https://marcbeckman.substack.com/Episode Links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenrosenblatt/Oceans:  https://oceans.ventures/To join the conversation follow Marc here:YoutubeLinkedInTwitterInstagramMarc Beckman is a Senior Fellow of Emerging Technologies at NYU, the CEO of DMA United, and is on the New York State Bar Association's Taskforce for Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets.

On this episode of The Distribution, Brandon Sedloff sits down with David Haber, a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he focuses on technology investments in financial services.David was previously a senior executive in Firmwide Strategy at Goldman Sachs where he helped lead partnerships, new ventures and M&A. Before joining the firm, David was the Founder and CEO of Bond Street, which aimed to transform small business lending through technology, data, and design. Bond Street was acquired by Goldman Sachs in October 2017 as part of the firm's digital finance business. Previously, David was a venture investor at Spark Capital and a founding associate of Locus Analytics, a start-up asset management firm.Links:a16z.com Juniper SquareBrandon on LinkedInTopics:(00:00:00) - Intro(00:01:29) - David's background and career(00:12:38) - Moving from entrepreneurship to a large organization(00:17:14) - What was the thinking behind making the jump from Goldman Sachs to a16z?(00:20:52) - The intersection of entrepreneurship and enterprise value company building(00:27:56) - David's experience as a venture investor(00:29:42) - Defining Fintech(00:33:01) - How are you adding value to partners?(00:36:21) - What areas of Fintech are you most excited about?(00:38:56) - Thoughts on generative AI(00:41:47) - How are you gauging risk when underwriting an AI investment?(00:45:20) - Developing an investment thesis(00:47:36) - What are you excited about over the next 12 months?The views expressed here are those of the individual personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any a16z funds. PLEASE SEE MORE HERE: https://a16z.com/disclosures/

This week, Nabeel Hyatt (GP at Spark Capital) joins us to discuss: Our version of a 2023 Wrapped: Tech Edition. Nabeel reflects on what he looks for in founders to bet on. Next, we perform a growth model breakdown on Midjouney's unconventional success. (Starts at 39:12) Finally, we discuss the viral SEO Heist and its implications for Google's future. (Starts at 1:24:50) For a full episode summary, exclusive Youtube clips, and more, please join our newsletter at UnsolicitedFeedback.co!

In today's episode, Kailee Costello hosts David Haber, General Partner at a16z. David focuses on technology investments in financial services.David was previously a senior executive in Firmwide Strategy at Goldman Sachs where he helped lead partnerships, new ventures and M&A. Before joining the firm, David was the Founder and CEO of Bond Street, which aimed to transform small business lending through technology, data, and design. Bond Street was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2017. In this episode you will hear about: - The outlook for fintech: challenges and opportunities - How seeing the world from the perspective of an operator, an entrepreneur, and an investor has shaped David's investing today - David's current investing theses - David's learnings from Bond Street about the importance of “leading with software” - How David's lessons from Bond Street and his time at Goldman Sachs have influenced what he looks for in an investment and a founding team - David's rationale for leaving his VC role at Spark Capital to found a startup - What David liked and disliked about his roles in VC compared to his role as founder and CEO at Bond Street For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Kailee's Twitter: @KaileeCostello_ Kailee's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaileecostello/

Dan Lorenc is the Co-founder and CEO of Chainguard, the best way to secure your open source software. Dan and his co-founders Kim, Matt, and Ville started the company in 2021 after spending a decade working together at Google on all things open source and software security. They've since raised $116 million from investors including Spark (led Series B), Sequoia (led Series A), Amplify (led Seed), The Chainsmoker's Mantis VC, Banana Capital, and dozens of angels in the cyber security and open source communities. — Topics discussed: What is the “software supply chain”? How the SolarWinds breach created the software supply chain security market The history of open source software Why open source software makes software supply chains even less secure The moment Dan and his co-founders decided to start Chainguard Why they started selling consulting services before even building a product The reason their first two products solved completely different problems (top-down and bottoms-up), and why the one that didn't work at first is now their main business Why Chainguard decided to focus on a broad communications and marketing strategy so early on How Dan gets quoted in major media publications as an early stage startup founder Why Chainguard uses memes for marketing Why Dan thinks startups should “make content optimized for the group chat” How they raised their Seed round from Amplify a week after leaving Google Raising a Series A from Sequoia as the market started collapsing in Spring of 2022 Dan's advice for founders on dealing with investor inbound when not fundraising Why he wish he hired sales reps sooner Raising a Series B from Spark Capital to accelerate their enterprise sales process — Referenced: https://www.chainguard.dev https://www.sigstore.dev/ Battling the Trojan Horse in Open Source: https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/dan-lorenc-chainguard-spotlight/ Chainguard Series B Announcement: https://www.chainguard.dev/unchained/series-b-funding Dan's favorite open source project: https://github.com/jqlang/jq Reflections on Trusting Trust: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf — Where to find Dan: Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorenc_dan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc — Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc — Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Otto Birnbaum, General Partner von Revent. Otto bespricht die Finanzierungsrunden von Kota, Galeneo Health und Abridge.EQT Ventures hat eine Seed-Finanzierungsrunde von 5 Millionen Euro für das irische Startup-Unternehmen Kota geleitet, das sich auf Arbeitnehmerversicherungen und Altersvorsorge spezialisiert hat. An der Runde beteiligten sich auch bestehende Investoren wie Northzone und Frontline Ventures sowie weitere Einzelpersonen, darunter Job Van Der Voort, Romain Huet, David Clarke und andere. Kota bietet eine Plattform für Sozialleistungen, die Unternehmen jeder Größe anspricht, und stellt ein eingebettetes Krankenversicherungsprodukt zur Verfügung, das es anderen Plattformen und Entwicklern ermöglicht, Finanzvorsorgeprodukte in ihre Dienste zu integrieren. Das in Madrid ansässige Unternehmen Galeneo Health hat kürzlich eine Finanzierungsrunde in Höhe von 1 Million Euro abgeschlossen, angeführt von der Impact-Management-Gesellschaft Ship2B Ventures über den BSocial Impact Fund. An der Runde beteiligten sich auch andere frühere Partner des Unternehmens. Diese Mittel sollen dazu dienen, den landesweiten Vertrieb zu skalieren, die Technologieplattform zu verbessern und das B2B-Modell für Kliniken und Krankenhäuser zu konsolidieren. Darüber hinaus plant Galeneo die Zusammenarbeit mit dem öffentlichen Sektor und der Pharmaindustrie auszubauen und die Patientenerfahrungen zu verbessern. Das Startup Abridge, das generative KI-Assistenten für das Gesundheitswesen entwickelt, hat in einer Series-A-Finanzierungsrunde unter der Leitung von Spark Capital 30 Millionen US-Dollar erhalten. Abridge ist für seine KI-Plattform bekannt, die Echtzeit-Gespräche zwischen medizinischem Fachpersonal und Patienten transkribiert und in nützliche Notizen umwandelt. Die Investition wird dazu genutzt, die Integration der Abridge-Plattform in das Echtzeit-Dokumentationssystem von Epic und die Expansion zu anderen großen Anbietern im Gesundheitswesen voranzutreiben. 

Roderick de Rode, founder & CEO at Spinn Inc, serial entrepreneur and tech executive. Roderick has scaled $250M+ online and distribution businesses co-founded Limeau (acquired by Heineken) and has acquired financial backing from top VCs like Spark Capital, Amazon's Alexa Fund & Bar9 Ventures.We had a fascinating conversation covering a wide range of topics, including entrepreneurship, coffee rituals, innovation, disruption, sustainability, and the use of IoT (Internet of Things) in the coffee industry.I personally use a SPINN machine at home and it's exceptional! For 20% off, use "Champagne20" at check-out! https://www.spinn.com/___Get your copy of Personal Socrates: Better Questions, Better Life  Connect with Marc >>>  Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter Drop a review and let me know what resonates with you about the show!Thanks as always for listening and have the best day yet!*Behind the Human is proudly recorded in a Canadian made Loop Phone Booth*Special props

Miguel Armaza sits down with Jean-Denis Greze, CTO at Plaid, a data network and one of the foundational fintech companies that works with thousands of firms, including several Fortune 500s and some of largest banks in the world. Founded in 2013 by Zach Perret and William Hockey, Plaid's network covers 12,000+ financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. They've raised over $700 million from Felicis, Homebrew, NEA, Spark Capital, Citi, Goldman, AmEx, Ribbit, and a long list of great investors.We discuss:How Plaid stays at the forefront of security and privacyThriving in a competitive market and how the only way to win is to play a different game than your competitorsThe future of Open Finance in the US and some regulatory predictionsHow AI LLMs are revolutionizing user interfaces… and a lot more!Live Recording Alert! Join us for a live Fintech Leaders recording and Happy Hour with Stuart Sopp, CEO & Co-Founder of Current, a multibillion-dollar fintech built in New York City.  See you at Barclays Rise New York on Monday, October 16 to kick off New York Tech Week. Register here --> https://bit.ly/3sMaIBjWant more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

Alex Finkelstein ist General Partner bei Spark Capital und hat unter anderem Namen wie Twitter (X), Discord, Snap und Slack im Funds-Portfolio. Doch wie investiert ein Fonds wie Spark Capital und insbesondere Alex?ALLES ZU UNICORN BAKERY:https://zez.am/unicornbakeryWas du lernst:Warum ist es manchmal als Gründer:in sinnvoll, nicht alles nur rational zu betrachen?Wie weit geht Alex, um Deals zu gewinnen und bei Gründern investieren zu können??Wie gestaltet Alex seine Arbeits- und Lebensweise, um möglichst viel Erfolg in allen Bereichen zu erreichen?Wie baut man ein erfolgreiches Venture Unternehmen, wenn alle Welt Brand und Reichweite fokussiert?Alex Finkelstein, Spark CapitalLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkelsteinalex/ Spark Capital: https://www.sparkcapital.com/ WHATSAPP NEWSLETTER:1-2x wöchentlich bekommst du eine persönliche Sprachnotiz oder Inhalte von mir, die dich zu einem besseren Gründer machen, melde dich jetzt mit einem Klick an: https://bit.ly/ub-whatsapp-newsletter(00:00:00) Was sollten Newbies, die erst in der Hochzeit der Startupzeit hinzugekommen sind, über den Aufbau von Firmen wissen?(00:04:54) Worauf kommt es für euch bei guten Investments an?(00:09:59) Wie überzeugt ihr Unternehmen (wie bspw. Get Your Guide), die ihr wirklich haben wollt, von einer Zusammenarbeit?(00:15:21) Wie sieht es hinter den Kulissen aus - wie gestaltest du deine Arbeits-/Lebenszeit?(00:18:32) Wie setzt du es um, Executives für die Gründer zu überzeugen, von denen du meinst, dass sie zur Firma passen?(00:20:27) Wie senior/junior sollte man in der Seed Stage einstellen?(00:25:35) Aufbau einer erfolgreichen Venture-Capital Firma: Was braucht es wirklich? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alex Bouaziz is the Co-founder and CEO of Deel, a full stack global HR and payroll platform. But the company didn't start that way, and we'll talk through Alex and his co-founder Shuo's journey from zero to one, starting with a product that helped startups hire international employees. Alex and Shuo launched the company one week before YC Demo day in 2019, and have since scaled to 20,000+ customers and raised over $685 million. They're supported by investors like YC, a16z, Spark Capital, Weekend Fund, Coatue, SV Angel, Soma Capital, Quiet Capital, and angels like Lachy Groom, Nat Friedman, Ryan Petersen, Alexis Ohanian, John Zimmer, Dara Khosrowshahi, Rex Salisbury, Justin Mateen, and more. — In this episode, we discuss: • The initial insight around remote work that started Deel in 2019 • How they initially built the wrong solution • Pivoting one week before YC demo day • Listening to customers to build a better product • Growing 20% every month for a year • Being a default optimist • Dealing with the emotional ups and downs of building a startup • Moving at “Deel Speed”, and how the team operates so fast • Deel's remote-first approach and its “WeWork Squads” • His advice to other leaders building remote teams • Why founders shouldn't share too much information with early investors • How Alex's approach to fundraising changed through his Seed to Series D rounds • Why founders should always be selling their product • How picking board members is a form of marriage, and what founders should prioritize when picking them • Why Deel raised a Series A and B in a three month span despite only burning $300k since closing its Seed round • How deep pocketed investors unlock optionality as a company scales • The benefits to taking on lots of angel investors • How Deel prioritized international expansion as it grew • Deel's new Visa / immigration and HR AI products • Two things Alex would do differently if he could start over • The founders he most looks up to — Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/growing-deel-to-300m-arr-in-four Where to find Alex:Twitter: https://twitter.com/BouazizalexLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbouaziz/ Where to find Turner:Newsletter: https://www.thespl.itTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

Wine: 2014 Chardonnay, Herencia del Valle Elisabeth Rosario is an outsourced communications strategist that works with startups of all sizes and venture capital firms. As an independent contractor since 2016, her clients have included venture firms such as: Lux Capital, Renegade Ventures, Spero Ventures (sole LP is Pierre Omidyar), Equal Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Innovation Endeavours (founding partner Eric Shmidt). Startup clients have included: Sonoro, Koinz, Pattern Brands, Pitch, ServiceTitan, Own It (a book) by Ellevest's Sallie Krawcheck, Emi Couple, Token, Flutterwave, Morty, Looking Glass Factory, Eight Sleep, Dipsea, Loft Orbital, and more. Previously, Elisabeth was the Director of Communications at Spark Capital, an early stage venture capital firm that has backed companies like Twitter, Oculus VR, Slack, Warby Parker and Cruise Automation (acquired by GM). As the firm's first in-house communications hire, she helped startup founders and the firm's investment team to develop and share their points of view with the world. She also helped to lead platform initiatives with the firm's community of entrepreneurs: building infrastructure, resources and programming to empower and connect over 100 portfolio companies. Before that, Elisabeth was a key part of the growth of various PR agencies where she led media relations campaigns for over 100 disruptive entrepreneurs and startups including Rakuten's Buy.com, Trello, ClassPass, HowAboutWe, HelloFresh, Squarespace, Zola and Academy award-winning sci-fi film Ex Machina. In 2015, Adweek named Elisabeth on its 30 Under 30 in the PR Industry list. In 2018, Bustle named her on their list of Must-Follow Latinx. She's a graduate of Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business. Instagram TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's the rundown from this morning:Worries about the Chinese economy dragged down Asian shares this morning; the equity picture was more mixed in Europe and the United States. Meanwhile, why is crypto so slow lately? What happened to price volatility?On the earnings front, we're looking ahead to Monday.com, Getty, Cisco, Bill.com and Palo Alto Networks this week.News that Anthropic is raising another $100 million got us talking about a few other AI rounds that are in the pipeline; the gist is that there is a lot of money flowing around AI startup-land these days.Indian electronics manufacturing is making real strides, Mastercard is buying some African fintech, and the better.com SPAC is a go.It's going to be yet another busy week, so strap in and let's go!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity's Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more!

Een grote tegenhanger van OpenAI, namelijk Anthropic, heeft een nieuwe investering opgehaald, ter waarde van 100 miljoen dollar. Dat geld komt van de grootste telecompartij uit Zuid Korea, SK Telecom. In mei deed SK Telecom al een kleine investering. Daarbij zei het ook dat deze investeerder en Anthropic samen gaan werken aan een nieuw AI-taalmodel én bijbehorend platform (net als GPT en ChatGPT, dus), die internationaal georiënteerd zijn en meerdere talen van de wereld moeten ondersteunen. Afgelopen maand maakte SK Telecom al een afspraak met meerdere andere telecomreuzen, waaronder Deutsche Telekom om vanuit die hoek in te zetten op AI. Anthropic haalde in mei nog 450 miljoen dollar op bij Spark Capital en Google. Vooral die laatste is een belangrijke speler met diverse eigen AI-afdelingen, waarvan DeepMind de bekendste is. Anthropic is vooral bekend van de Claude-taalmodellen, die echter nog niet beschikbaar zijn in de EU. Verder in deze Tech Update: Videobellen moet via X, tot voorkort bekend als Twitter, binnen afzienbare tijd mogelijk worden. Dat heeft CEO Linda Yaccarino bekendgemaakt tijdens een interview met CNBC. Apple komt op enig moment met een Apple Watch X, volgens Bloombergs Apple-kenner Mark Gurman. Die moet dan magnetische polsbandjes ondersteunen en een bloedsuiker-sensor bevatten, maar komt waarschijnlijk pas volgend jaar. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's guest is Yoni Assia, cofounder and CEO of eToro, the world's largest social investment network. Yoni has raised over $412 million with eToro from ION group, SoftBank, Velvet Sea Ventures, Spark Capital and many more. Prior to founding eToro, Yoni was the cofounder of CDRIDE, an on-ride video technology company that was acquired by Kodak in 2006. Yoni was included by Financial News in its prestigious Fintech 40 ranking and by City A.M. as a Fintech 100 top influencer and by Fortune business magazine's 40 Under 40.  In this episode, we discuss how Yoni built his empire, getting dinner with Warren Buffet, how he scaled the world's largest social investment network and much much more.

Dan Porter is the Co-founder and CEO of Overtime, a sports network for the next generation of fans. OT reaches 85 million fans per month and runs a basketball league (Overtime Elite, OTE), a flag football league (OT7), and is launching a boxing league (OTX) the week this episode airs. Dan started Overtime with his co-founder Zack Weiner in 2016, and has since raised over $215 million. OT is supported by investors like the late ex-NBA Commissioner David Stern, Jeff Bezos, Drake, Carmelo Anthony, Trae Young, over 25 other NBA players, Spark Capital, Redpoint, a16z, Greycroft, Afore Capital, and Banana Capital. [Turner Novak and Banana Capital are investors in Overtime]. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: ⁠http://bit.ly/3Qk4RNd In this episode, we discuss: The business of sports Why people love sports The founding story of Overtime How to raise money for a unique idea Overtime's very first product How to bet on technological change The changing professional sports landscape How to launch a sports league Why founders must obsess over their product Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/how-overtime-grew-to-85-million-fans Where to find Dan: Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/tfadp⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/danporter/⁠ Where to find Turner: Newsletter: ⁠https://www.thespl.it⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/TurnerNovak⁠ Where to find The Peel: YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@ThePeelPod⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/ThePeelPod⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@ThePeelPodcast⁠ Read the full transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/how-overtime-grew-to-85-million-fans Production and distribution by: ⁠https://www.supermix.io⁠ For sponsorship inquiries: ⁠https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform⁠

BIO Elisabeth Rosario is an outsourced communications strategist that works with startups of all sizes and venture capital firms. As an independent contractor since 2016, her clients have included venture firms such as: Lux Capital, Renegade Ventures, Spero Ventures (sole LP is Pierre Omidyar), Equal Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Innovation Endeavours (founding partner Eric Shmidt). Startup clients have included: Sonoro, Koinz, Pattern Brands, Pitch, ServiceTitan, Own It (a book) by Ellevest's Sallie Krawcheck, Emi Couple, Token, Flutterwave, Morty, Looking Glass Factory, Eight Sleep, Dipsea, Loft Orbital, and more. Previously, Elisabeth was the Director of Communications at Spark Capital, an early stage venture capital firm that has backed companies like Twitter, Oculus VR, Slack, Warby Parker and Cruise Automation (acquired by GM). As the firm's first in-house communications hire, she helped startup founders and the firm's investment team to develop and share their points of view with the world. She also helped to lead platform initiatives with the firm's community of entrepreneurs: building infrastructure, resources and programming to empower and connect over 100 portfolio companies. Before that, Elisabeth was a key part of the growth of various PR agencies where she led media relations campaigns for over 100 disruptive entrepreneurs and startups including Rakuten's Buy.com, Trello, ClassPass, HowAboutWe, HelloFresh, Squarespace, Zola and Academy award-winning sci-fi film Ex Machina. In 2015, Adweek named Elisabeth on its 30 Under 30 in the PR Industry list. In 2018, Bustle named her on their list of Must-Follow Latinx.  She's a graduate of Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business. Instagram TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are excited to introduce John Melas-Kyriazi, Co-Founder and CEO of Standard Metrics. John began his journey as a physics Ph.D. student at Stanford before embarking on a career as an Investor in 2014 at Spark Capital in Boston. After five years of sourcing and leading 10+ investments, John left to start his own company. Standard Metrics is a portfolio collaboration tool for venture capital firms and startups. During our discussion, John dives into sourcing tactics, contributing as a younger board member, the inception of Standard Metrics, the evolution of the ideal customer profile, and the future of data automation and reporting.Episode Chapters:Path To Studying Physics - 1:22Introduction to StartX - 4:35Starting at Spark Capital in Boston - 7:20Sourcing Tactics - 9:30Transition To Leading Deals - 13:00Adding Value as a Junior Board Member - 14:40Catalyst for Starting Standard Metrics - 16:45Evolution of The Ideal Customer Profile - 23:15Future of LP Reporting - 25:25Competition/Platform Displacement - 28:15Automation of Financial Data - 30:20Leveraging Artificial Intelligence - 32:44Ending Questions - 34:50As always, feel free to contact us at partnerpathpodcast@gmail.com. We would love to hear ideas for content, guests, and overall feedback.

In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Tina Dreimann, Co-Founder von better ventures. Tina bespricht die Finanzierungsrunden von Neko Health, Kinnu und Noriware.Das schwedische HealthTech Neko Health, gegründet 2023 von Hjalmar Nilsonne (Watty-Gründer) und Daniel Ek (Spotify-Gründer), hat in einer Series-A-Finanzierungsrunde 60 Millionen Euro eingesammelt. Neko Health bietet eine Lösung für präventive Gesundheitsversorgung mittels Früherkennungsmethoden an. Das Unternehmen plant, seine Lösung in ganz Europa einzuführen und das Team durch neue Talente zu erweitern. Die Finanzierungsrunde wurde von Lakestar angeführt und umfasst auch Atomico und General Catalyst. Klaus Hommels von Lakestar und Niklas Zennström von Atomico werden dem Vorstand von Neko Health beitreten.Kinnu, ein Londoner EdTech, hat in einer neuen Finanzierungsrunde 6,5 Millionen US-Dollar eingesammelt. Das Unternehmen setzt KI-gesteuerte Lernmethoden ein, um das traditionelle Bildungssystem zu verändern und den Fokus auf die Bedürfnisse des Lernenden zu legen. Die Investitionsrunde wurde von LocalGlobe und Cavalry Ventures angeführt und umfasste Spark Capital, Jigsaw und Angel-Investoren wie Tom Hulme von Google Ventures. Die Gründer Christopher Kahler und Abraham Müller haben bereits ein Unternehmen im Bereich Marktforschung gegründet und verkauft. Die KI-gesteuerte Plattform ermöglicht es den Lernenden, Wissen effektiver zu erwerben und anzuwenden, und fördert interdisziplinäres Lernen. Noriware stellt auf Algen basierendes Verpackungsmaterial her und hat in einer Pre-Seed-Finanzierungsrunde über eine Million Schweizer Franken eingesammelt. Das Material ist natürlichen Ursprungs, vollständig heimkompostierbar und kann mit herkömmlichen Kunststoffmaschinen hergestellt werden. Zu den Investoren gehören Branchenexperten wie Ertan Wittwer, Marcel Kubli und Philip Magoulas. Das Unternehmen plant, die Laborinfrastruktur auszubauen und das Team zu erweitern, um ein umweltfreundliches Verpackungsmaterial auf den Markt zu bringen, das keine Mikroplastikpartikel hinterlässt. Die kommerzielle Nutzung der Verpackungen von Noriware soll ab 2024 beginnen. Noriware wurde 2022 von Jessica Farda und COO Stefan Grieder gegründet. Die Gründung fand in der Schweiz statt.

Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView, one of the leading seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Attentive, Devoted Health, Whoop, and Grove Collaborative. Prior to co-founding NextView, Rob was an investor at Spark Capital and held product and product marketing roles at Ebay. He began his career as a consultant at The Parthenon Group. In Today's Episode with Rob Go We Discuss: 1. Entry into the World of Venture: How a cold call from a VC firm led to Rob entering the world of venture? Why does Rob believe venture is a young person's game? What does Rob know now that he wishes he had known when started in venture? 2. Preparing Docs for a Fundraise: What docs should fund managers have ready before they start the raise? How should they structure their data room? Where do the majority of LPs spend their time, document-wise? What are the single biggest mistakes emerging managers make preparing docs for a raise? 3. Meeting Your First LPs: What is the best way for emerging managers to meet LPs for the first time? Should they send the deck before or after the meeting? What questions should emerging managers ask to qualify LPs in or out of a meeting? What are some clear early signs that a first meeting went well? 4. Closing LPs: The Tips and Tricks: How important is it for a fund to have an anchor? How much of a fund should the anchor be? Are there different qualities of anchor LPs? Should managers ever sell part of their GP or give an LP part of the carry? What can managers do to enforce a sense of urgency to get LPs over the line? What are signs that an LP will not invest in the fund without rejecting you yet? Should emerging managers impose a minimum check size on new LPs?

Crosschq, the Hiring Intelligence platform announced the expansion of Crosschq Insights™ and Crosschq Voice™ along with a new brand identity. Combining these expanded solutions provides talent leaders with a single operating platform from which to manage all aspects of Hiring Intelligence. https://hrtechfeed.com/new-hr-tech-from-crosschq-wolfe-inc/   Ceridian, a prominent player in human capital management (HCM) technology, has unveiled an innovative solution called Dayforce Career Explorer. This AI-powered tool aims to enhance engagement and retention rates by empowering employees to take control of their career journeys. https://hrtechfeed.com/ceridian-launches-ai-driven-dayforce-career-explorer/   Indeed, a leading hiring platform, launched Skill Connect, a new product to help job seekers without college degrees better promote their skills and completed training programs to potential employers. https://hrtechfeed.com/indeed-launches-new-resume-tool-for-those-without-college-degree/ San Francisco based Instawork, the leading platform for connecting businesses with skilled hourly workers, has announced that it has raised $60 million in a Series D funding round led by TCV. The round also included participation from new investors 9Yards Capital and Larry Fitzgerald Jr., as well as existing investors Benchmark, Spark Capital, Craft Ventures, and Greylock. https://hrtechfeed.com/instawork-raises-60m-to-invest-in-artificial-intelligence-for-skilled-hourly-workers/  

Miguel Armaza sits down with Jane Alexander, Chief Marketing Officer at Carta, a platform that helps people and companies manage equity, build businesses, and invest in private companies.Launched in 2012 by Henry Ward, Carta is used by nearly 30,000 companies and over half a million employees to manage cap tables, compensation, and valuations. Carta also works with over 4,500 funds representing over $92B in assets under administration. They have raised over a billion dollars from a very long list of investors, including Union Square Ventures, Tribe Capital, Spark Capital, Silver Lake, Lightspeed, a16z, Insight, and many more.We discuss:The power of content creation and why it's been an incredible source for organic growth at CartaThe role of a CMO at companies and how generative AI tools are transforming the jobNavigating the pressures of a more competitive and challenging business environmentTime management and productivity hacksImportance of customer feedback… lots more!Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 53,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Greetings & welcome back to the rose bros podcast.This episode we are joined by Tom MacInnis – CEO of Spark Capital Corp. & Southern Pacific Resources.Board member of Rok Resources, Chair of Tennis Alberta, and sits on the advisory committees for the private equity funds managed by Lex Energy Partners in Regina.Previously, Founder & Managing Director of Investment Banking, Tristone Capital, followed by Head of Energy Financial Markets and Energy Investment Banking for National Bank of Canada, working on over 1200 M&A & capital raising transactions representing over $125 Billion in transaction value. Among other things we discussed the craft of investment banking, return on capital vs. return of capital & the value of good management.Enjoy.This podcast episode is sponsored by Connate Water Solutions.Do you need cost effective water sourcing options to supply your next drilling or completions program?Connate Water Solutions is a specialized hydrogeology company focused on water well drilling, testing and water management services in Western Canada and Texas.Contact info@connatewater.com or www.connatewater.com for more details.This podcast is sponsored by Headracingcanada.comLooking for high performance ski gear this winter? In partnership with 4x-Olympian Manny-Osborne Paradis, Headracingcanada.com is offering the lowest prices possible through its online storefront, by passing brick and mortar savings to customers. Check out  Headracingcanada.com for more info on high performance gear for the upcoming ski season.      Support the show

In this episode, we speak with Matt Schwartz, Co-Founder and CEO of Afresh. Afresh is on a mission to reduce food waste globally by transforming the fresh food supply chain. The company builds AI-powered solutions that meet fresh food's many challenges to optimize grocery retail forecasting, ordering, and operations. Matt co-founded Afresh in 2016 while pursuing his MBA at Stanford.  He began his career as a consultant with Bain & Company. Afresh has raised approximately $150 million and is backed by Insight Partners, Spark Capital, Walter Robb and other notable investors. I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show. If you like the episode, click to subscribe.

In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Enrico Mellis, Principal bei Lakestar. Enrico spricht über die Finanzierungsrunde von Adept.Das Machine Learning Forschungs- und Produktlabor, Adept, hat in einer Series-B-Finanzierungsrunde, die gemeinsam von General Catalyst und Spark Capital geleitet wurde, 350 Millionen US-Dollar eingesammelt. Zu den weiteren Investoren gehören Nvidia, Atlassian und Workday. Adapt wurde vor weniger als einem Jahr von den ehemaligen Google Mitarbeitern David Luan, Ashish Vaswani und Niki Parmar gegründet. Das Unternehmen will das frische Kapital nutzen, um seinen KI-Assistenten zu entwickeln, der komplexe Benutzeranfragen verstehen und diese in eine Reihe von Software Aktionen umsetzen und ausführen kann.

Alex Bouaziz is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Deel, the all-in-one platform made to simplify all things HR, built for global teams near and far. In the last year alone, Alex has scaled Deel from $57M in ARR to $295M, EBITDA positive since Sept 2022, 85%+ gross margins, and over $5BN paid out to 250,000 people. Alex has raised over $679M with Deel, pricing the company at the last round at $12.1BN. Investors in the company include a16z, Spark Capital, Coatue, and many more. In Today's Episode with Alex Bouaziz We Discuss: 1.) From Student in London to Decacorn Founder: How Alex made his way into the world of startups and how he came up with the idea for Deel? Did Alex always know he would be successful when he was growing up? What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known when he was starting? 2.) The Importance of Execution: How important does Alex think speed of execution is for startups? What can startups do to deliberately increase their speed of execution? How does Alex think about the dilemma of losing quality with speed? What does Alex think you do need to go slow on to ensure it is perfect? How does Alex think about focus and prioritisation today with Deel? 3.) Scaling to $295M in ARR in 3 Years: When did Alex know he had true product-market fit with Deel? How did Alex use a 50-person Whatsapp group to both determine product market fit and to navigate product direction for the company? What was the key to Deel's blitz scaling strategy? What worked? What did not work? How did Alex hire 2,000 people in such a short space of time? What broke first in the organisation? How could they have prevented it? 4.) Secondaries, Angel Investing and Wealth Management: How much did Alex take out in secondaries in the last round of funding? How did Alex determine how much cash to allocate to angel investing? Why does Alex believe most founders make poor angel investments when they have cash? What have been Alex's biggest lessons from investing? How has it changed how he operates? Why should all founders be super transparent in investor updates?

Preamble rant:The recent collapse of FTX, a large crypto exchange, and its associated entities, left many of us disappointed and disgusted with flashbacks to Enron and Lehman Brothers. Nothing is new under the sun. Unfortunately, whenever humans are involved, there is a potential for bad actors to make poor choices that wreak havoc. This has proven true across industries, countries, and time. But regulation and controls can help safeguard the little guy. I expect more regulation, legislation, and guidelines in the months and years to come.Still, I worry that the wrong lessons are being learned. Some folks might see the FTX implosion as vindication that “crypto is bad”. Others might see it as the death knell for crypto and blockchain technology at large. This is a mistake. Technology is neither good nor bad. Humans use technology for good or bad. That's an important distinction. One of my takeaways is to double-down and continue uncovering ways in which crypto and blockchain technologies can solve real-world problems. Let's go!Giant maps and summer road tripsWhen I was a kid, my family would go on road trips every summer. It was a great adventure. From time to time, we would pull over to the side of the road while our parents struggled and fumbled through giant fold-out maps. This was Nigeria in the 1990s. There was no internet. The maps were sometimes outdated. As you can imagine, we got lost a couple times. One day, we narrowly escaped being detained by the military because we inadvertently were driving towards Aso Rock, which was then the presidential palace of Abacha, one of Nigeria's brutal dictators! Yikes!! Today, I can't remember the last time I opened up a giant fold-out map. Thank God for Google Maps! I now use it every day to find the optimal route for my commute. It's been a massive time-saver as I've learned to deal with the joys of New Jersey's clogged up highways. If you are like me, you might not have realized that some companies such as Uber pay Google to embed Maps in their products. Some other companies use Google Maps to optimize the distribution of their products. It's really important for these companies that Google Maps is accurate and frequently updated.As much as I love Google Maps, it's not perfect. Google Map's gapsI am going to highlight two gaps with existing mapping services: (1) Updates and (2) Ownership.1. UpdatesGoogle has done a great job mapping out the world. However, new roads and buildings are constructed every day, new businesses emerge with new signage. Logically, Google Maps prioritizes map updates for high population cities. Thus, Google updates Street View and Satellite pictures of big cities like London at least every year while smaller cities like my ancestral hometown, Ijebu-Ode, might be updated every couple of years. Is there a better solution?2. OwnershipIn 2013, Google acquired Waze for $1B. Waze was a fast-growing Google Maps competitor that utilized an army of volunteers to submit real-time traffic updates and review maps. Over 420,000 people volunteered to edit Waze's maps. Additionally, Waze had ~100 employees at the time of acquisition. But get this: the average Waze employee received $1.2M after the acquisition but the volunteers received nothing. Ouch. Is there a better solution? Introducing HivemapperHivemapper is a decentralized map built by people using dashcams. It solves both of the problems - updates and ownership - outlined above by providing crypto-incentives and technology to anyone interested in participating. Did you know that each photo in Google Maps' Street View was taken by a Google employee in a specialized car with a 3D camera? One can imagine that the cost would be astronomical. Wouldn't it be better if we could crowdsource images from drivers on their daily commute or road trips? Imagine if just 1% of all drivers did this. They would continually map every new highway off ramp, new small business, freshly created pothole, etc. But that's not all. In the future, these drivers could also collect other types of data such as air quality, weather, noise, wireless coverage, and so on. These contributors would be rewarded with HONEY, the native token of Hivemapper. The best part is that it does not require any change in behavior, contributors need only install a dashcam the size of a deck of cards. The Hivemapper Network recently launched on November 3, 2022. There are two dashcam models available priced from $549 (larger design) to $649 (smaller, more compact design shown above). If you order before January 7, 2023, you will be airdropped 500 Honey tokens. Then you will earn more tokens as you drive once the dashcam is activated.Behind HivemapperHivemapper is led by executives at the confluence of tech, logistics and crypto. The team has individuals who built and scaled global maps and geospatial products at Yahoo Maps, Scale AI, and Mapbox. They are mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, logistic experts, artists, and designers working together to create a decentralized mapping network. Hivemapper raised over $18M in its Series A from investors including Spark Capital, Multicoin Capital, Solana Ventures, and Founder Collective. Today, the company has a number of esteemed advisers including the current or former CEOs of Solana, Helium, Masterclass, Zillow, Tinder, and the former head of Apple Maps.ConcernsWhile Hivemapper sounds interesting, it also set-off a number of alarm bells in my head. My concerns are centered around privacy, hacks and the HONEY token.A. PrivacyEvery website you visit and every click that you make on the internet is being monitored. Advertisers take that information to market new products and services to you. Now, imagine if your offline activities were being similarly tracked. Kinda scary, right? But I guess Google Maps is already tracking wherever I go.Hivemapper says it has privacy by design. The dashcams only collect the minimum required information. Furthermore, the company blurs licenses plates and people's faces in the pictures and videos captured. B. HacksEven if Hivemapper does what it says it would do to protect privacy, imagine if a bad actor hacked the dashcams and started collecting unauthorized information. It could be ugly. Hivemapper needs to have in place strong information security protocols to safeguard its contributors and collected data. C. HONEY tokenIf a contributor successfully earned 1,000 HONEY tokens while driving across the country, what can they do with it? Worst case scenario, they might sell it. But what is supporting the underlying value of HONEY? For starters, there is a cap on the total amount of HONEY. Thus, if demand increases over time, the price of the HONEY tokens should rise. I also think Hivemapper could establish partnerships with major brands then enable HONEY holders to trade them in for Uber Eats credit or airline loyalty points. Some others have raised eyebrows about HONEY's tokenomics. About 60% of the total HONEY supply has been pre-allocated to insiders with 20% going to employees, 15% to the company itself and 5% to the affiliated foundation. HONEY's initial allocation of tokens to insiders is unusually high. For context, Ethereum only had 15% allocated to insiders while newer blockchains like Avalanche and Solana had 42% and 48% respectively. But one of the golden rules of tokenomics is to avoid projects with high concentration of token ownership amongst a few owners:Early successesDespite some of these misgivings, Hivemapper has achieved some early wins. During the alpha launch, the Hivemapper Network covered 95% of all roads in Manila, the capital of the Philippines in 6 months. It mapped 110,000 miles of road. Crucially, 75% of the map of Manila was refreshed every month. This is much higher than Google Maps. Additionally, the city of Shreveport, Louisiana has also become a Hivemapper customer. The city paid $7,000 for dashcams to be put in the city's fleet of garbage trucks. Shreveport hopes the frequently updated maps will provide greater visibility into residents' challenges ex potholes etc. Ideal customerI have considered getting a Hivemapper dashcam just to test it out and engage with the network. But I don't think I drive enough to accumulate a significant amount of HONEY tokens. I think the ideal customers might be owners of large fleets of vehicles. For instance, cross-country trucking companies, school buses, taxi companies, and mail delivery services. These large fleets cover a lot of miles on an ongoing basis and could generate a lot of HONEY tokens. Nonetheless, it might still be worthwhile for a regular Joe who moonlights as an Uber driver to try it out. What do you think?I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. Stay grounded and seize the day. All the best,Afolabi This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afolabio.substack.com

Zach begins by discussing his company and founding story before discussing how he has seen his company grow in recent years. He then talks about what is an integrated platform, the challenges he's seen in the industry, and advice for companies looking to adopt IoT. Zach Supalla built an IoT product from scratch and delivered it to thousands of customers in 6 months. Did it again four or five times. Helped enterprise customers like Jacuzzi, Keurig, and Watsco do the same. He built a global team of 100+ and a company serving hundreds of enterprises and thousands of IoT engineers, and raised $80M in venture capital from Spark Capital, Root Ventures, OATV, and others. San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40. IDC listed the particle as a Major Player in Worldwide IoT Platforms. It was one of Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in the Internet of Things in 2015, Business Insider's Enterprise Start-ups to Bet Your Career On in 2017, and Forbes' Top 25 IoT Startups to Watch in 2019.Particle is an all-in-one (hardware+software+connectivity) platform for IoT products and connected devices. Zach and his team help manufacturers bring their physical products online. The main verticals the company operates in include light electric vehicles, smart energy, HVAC, emissions monitoring, and industrial equipment monitoring.

Mo Koyfman is the Founder and General Partner @ Shine Capital, who announced earlier this year Shine II, a $200M early-stage fund, and Shine Opportunities I, a $100M vehicle. Prior to founding Shine, Mo was the Managing Member @ Moko Brands where he made angel investments in Coinbase, Polychain, Harry's to name a few. Before Moko, Mo spent over 7 years as a General Partner @ Spark Capital where he made investments in Plaid, Warby Parker, Skillshare and Hivemapper, to name a few. Finally prior to Spark, Mo spent over 5 years at IAC where he oversaw group of companies that included Connected Ventures, parent of Vimeo, CollegeHumor & BustedTees. In Today's Episode with Mo Koyfman: 1.) From Entrepreneurial Parents to IAC, Spark Capital and Founding Shine: How did Mo make his way into the world of venture having worked with Dara Khros, Barry Diller and Jeremy Liew? What were some of the biggest takeaways from his time with Barry Diller and IAC? How did Mo's time at Spark impact his investing mindset? What did he learn that he took with him to founding Shine? 2.) Investment Firm vs Investment Partnership: What are the biggest differences between investment firms and investment partnerships? What are the biggest risks founders are taking when they take money from investment firms? Mo has very strong beliefs, how does he manage and inspire debates within his firm without shutting down or intimidating younger, less experienced team members? What does Mo mean when he says, "firms are great but partners matter". 3.) How To Win in Venture: Why does Mo always believe that small funds outperform large funds? What have been some of Mo's biggest lessons from Fred Wilson on fund strategy and sizing? How much of an emphasis does Mo place on the importance of ownership? Why does Mo believe the way to win in venture is to be collaborative? Why does Mo believe in the macro conditions we are entering, the landscape is about to become a lot more collaborative? Why does Mo believe any firm that says they will always do their pro rata is lying? 4.) The Lessons: Success and Failure: What are some of Mo's biggest lessons from his biggest wins, like Plaid at seed? That said, why does Mo believe it is so dangerous to try and learn lessons from the wins? What failures have been most impactful to Mo? What did he take away from them? Why does Mo believe that making great burgers is like building great companies? Items Mentioned in Today's Episode: Mo's Favourite Book: Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth

An In-N-Out burger might be the key to lasting, meaningful professional relationships. Popping out of the office to grab a bite to eat was one of the ways Rachael Horwitz bonded with colleagues in her early years at Google, and the relationships formed during these years would lead to incredible career opportunities in her future. Rachael Horwitz is a communications expert, currently serving as the Chief Marketing Officer at Haun Ventures. Previously, Rachael was an Operating Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and she has served on and led communications teams at Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Coinbase during major growth stages for each company. From an early age, Rachael sensed an entrepreneurial spirit in her family. In this episode, she shares how a desire to surround herself with smart, driven young people drew her to Google in the mid-2000s, where she discovered a love of working in an engineering and product-focused culture. Rachael reflects on being a “marathoner” in her professional career, including her journey traversing several high-growth opportunities and the risks she took joining companies in their early stages. Speaking with Eric, Rachael discusses interpersonal communication in the workplace, assuming good intentions, and prioritizing forming strong relationships with peers. She shares her experience earning the role of Vice President of Communications at Coinbase and the major effort (and enthusiasm) she put into her interview process. In transitioning to her most recent role at Haun Ventures, Rachael talks about collaborating with her mentor and friend Katie Haun on the exciting new project.  (1:38) – Who is Rachael Horwitz? (5:26) – The power of California (8:55) – The early years (13:35) – Embracing risk (16:19) – High-growth opportunities (17:51) – Advice for younger Rachael (20:55) – Self-awareness (24:06) – Assuming good intentions (27:58) – From politics to Google (32:55) – Forming the strongest bonds (41:28) – Jazz and karaoke (45:56) – Twitter to Facebook to Spark Capital (47:43) – Joining Coinbase (55:29) – Haun Ventures Eric Satz—entrepreneur, serial investor, lover of hot peppers— is the founder and CEO of Alto. The idea behind Alto was born out of a problem. Eric found a clear need to give people more control over their investments (and investment opportunities) in a simple, streamlined way and created Alto to make these opportunities available to all investors, not just the ultra-wealthy or institutional investors.  If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to The Altogether Show with Eric Satz in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps others find the show. Podcast episode production by Dante32.

Karim Atiyeh is the co-founder and CTO of Ramp, a finance automation platform that helps businesses spend less time and money. Founded in 2019, Ramp powers the fastest-growing corporate card in America and enables billions of dollars of purchases each year on the heels of nearly 10x year-over-year growth. Valued at $8.1 billion two years after launch, Ramp has raised $670 million in equity from backers including Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital, D1 Capital Partners, Spark Capital, Coatue Management, Iconiq, Goldman Sachs, and Stripe. A Lebanese entrepreneur, Karim previously built and sold Y Combinator-backed Paribus to Capital One in 2016. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/uncharted1/support

I was excited to interview Rahul for our podcast since his background before starting Clora is very deep in the life sciences industry as the head of clinical development at several biopharma companies. It was an opportunity to explore this industry, as I haven't interviewed anyone who has the same depth of experience, so we talk about the drug discovery and clinical trials process. It was this industry knowledge that led Rahul down the path of starting Clora to address a critical pain point in the life sciences industry and that is the lack of resources. And, when I say resources… I'm referring to talent and having the right expertise at the right time during the drug discovery process. As you'll hear, it takes over 300 unique skillsets to bring a drug to market. Well, Clora is helping to solve this talent crisis with its intelligent platform that efficiently matches life science companies with flexible, on-demand expertise. The company is venture backed by Spark Capital, Social Capital, Notation Capital, and others. Rahul is also a fellow podcaster, as he is one of the hosts of the Biotech 2050 Podcast, which I would recommend checking out if you are interested in learning more about the biotech and life sciences industry. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * What's the biggest difference between building a tech startup versus a life sciences company. * Rahul's background story and why he pursued a career in the life sciences industry. * His experience leading clinical development across multiple companies. * All the details about Clora in terms of their mission, the details on their platform, and growth plans ahead. * Advice for founders on building a company in the healthtech industry. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

We're psyched to introduce you to Marc McCabe, founder of Nomad Capital and one of the latest and greatest European micro VCs in our opinion. We love Marc and are sure you will too. Marc has done angel investments for more than a decade in consumer tech and has held operating roles at AirBnB and been part of the team at SV Angel as well as a **Sequoia Scout.** He has worked on investments in Stripe, Pinterest, Kaggle, Hipmunk, ElaCarte and many more. Marc has also co-managed a **Y Combinator** focused micro-fund where he invested in 50 companies across 3 funds including **6 Unicorns** and leading their seed investments to be followed by many great funds like **A16Z**, Founder's Fund, Tiger and Spark Capital.With Nomad Capital, Marc focuses on finding SaaS tools built by incredible teams that can help the next generation of companies build better products, faster and more effectively. We hope you will come to love Marc as much as we do. In this episode you'll learn:- What Marc learned at AirBnB and SF Angels and how he applies it in Nomad today - Marc's take on scout models and reflections from having been one for years- All about the thesis behind Nomad Capital and how he as a solo GP executes multiple deals per month- Why Marc doesn't lead rounds with Nomad and what kind of value he as an Operator and hyper connected investor brings to the table

Martin Mao, Co-founder & CEO, Chronosphere Martin is the Co-founder & CEO of Chronosphere, the open source-based observability platform that started with the open source metrics engine M3. M3 has almost a 1K person Slack community and was started at Uber where the Chronosphere team initially worked on it. Chronosphere is a unicorn company and has raised $255M from Greylock, General Atlantic, Lux Capital, Addition, Founders Fund, Spark Capital, and Glynn Capital. In this episode, we discuss open source as an industry shift for observability, the early days of M3 at Uber, the opportunity for Chronosphere as an independent company, the right business model for Chronosphere, and product / team-building advice for other open source founders.

The transitions into different eras of the web can sometimes be hard to miss, but our guest today, renowned VC investor and Operator Mo Koyfman, has seen the signs clearer than others. He helped shape Web 2.0 as an operator and is now working hard shaping Web 3.0 as an investor. Mo and Matt have a fun conversation that dives into his views on the emergence of embedded Fintech and the ways he is looking to invest in the future of Fintech.About Mo Koyfman:Mo Koyfman is a prolific venture capitalist who started his career investing at IAC, working underneath Barry Diller. Mo led IAC’s acquisition of Vimeo, while also acting as COO for a period of time, Mo later moved on to Spark Capital in 2008, where he led investments in companies like Skillshare, Warby Parker, Plaid, and several others.Mo launched his new fund Shine Capital with $125 Million in funding in the Fall of 2020.A message from our sponsor:Now more than ever, entrepreneurs need committed partners to help them navigate the hardest pain points of scaling a technology business. Created by one of Canada’s largest banks, RBCx is re-imagining what it means to create meaningful and impactful technology companies in Canada.RBCx – the tech banking arm of the Royal Bank of Canada - is a full-service platform that accelerates the entrepreneurial journey at every stage of growth – providing access to a complete suite of capital solutions, innovative products and services, and operational expertise to help technology companies scale.Sid Paquette – former Managing Partner at OMERS Ventures, is leading the group and has recruited a bunch of new faces to the bank from the Venture and Tech industry. Tony Barkett and Tyler Kirk – two former Silicon Valley Bank leaders in addition to Nicole Kelly and Anthony Mouchantaf have also joined Sid from OMERS Ventures.RBCx has been incredibly active since their launch in June as an LP, and have already backed some of Canada’s most notable VC funds including Golden, Amplitude, Version One and Lumira Ventures. To learn more about RBCx visit www.rbcx.com or follow them on Twitter or Linkedin.In this episode we discuss:03:12 Mo’s definition of embedded FinTech16:50 How investing about learning and problem solving27:54 Lowering SaaS CAC and increasing LTV through embedded FinTech32:43 Calculations startups should make when deciding to add FinTech and other services38:53 Is the fight for new corporate credit cards a race to the bottom44:36 The future of offerings like compliance and tax services48:24 Shine Capital’s investment thesisFast FavoritesPodcastsJoe RoganNewsletter/BlogAVCTech GadgetHyperVoltNew TrendCryptoBookPortnoy's Complaint by Philip RothFollow Matt Cohen and Tank Talks here!Podcast production support provided by Agentbee.Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

Francis Davidson launched his startup while still in school. That company now has over 1,000 employees and is going public through a SPAC deal. The venture Sonder has acquired funding from top-tier investors like Greenoaks Capital, Sandy Cass, Inovia Capital, and Spark Capital.

Welcome to the 12th episode of The CEO Story Podcast! With weekly podcasts releasing, "The CEO Story" takes a deep dive into the success (and sometimes pitfalls) of being your own boss! We encourage each and every individual to candidly share their stories to help other entrepreneurs understand the highs and lows that come with the journey.As always be sure to check out more of our podcast episodes:Podcast Website - https://ceostory.buzzsprout.comYoutube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCasaMQttGpdFnIMeWXER1SQWebsite - https://www.togethercfo.com/Give us a Like on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TogetherCFO/Like our LinkedIn Page - https://www.linkedin.com/company/together-cfoGive us a Follow on Instagram - @TogethercfoIn this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Charles Huang, Charles is the Founder and CEO of Lynchpin Technologies and Founder and Managing Partner of Lynchpin Capital. Charles has spent his career focused on health care innovation. Previously Charles was a VP at Blackstone in their Global Portfolio Operations group, on the Equity Healthcare team. Before Blackstone, he was a VC at Spark Capital focused on health/technology startups and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Highland Capital Partners.  He also has worked in the Strategic Financial Planning department of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and spent time as a consultant at Towers Perrin.He is an advisor/investor in companies and organizations dedicated to health innovation such as Blueprint Health, Startup Health, TEDMED, and Luminary Labs and an angel investor/advisor to companies such as CredSimple, Artemis Health, Sonavex, Greatist, Health Connections, and Imperative.  He also has co-authored several Harvard Business School cases and notes on health care technology, innovation, and policy.Charles received his BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.Stay up to date with Charles:Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/acharleshuang/Twitter - https://twitter.com/cchLynchpin Capital Website - http://www.lynchpin.io/Scale Health Website - https://www.scalehealth.com/