All in Disruptive Technology
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Richmond-based venture capital firm NRV has made investments in two companies — a Norfolk-based startup that makes software for industrial robotics, and a Nashville-based company that specializes in making nutritional frozen foods.
Life Pulse Health
Ario Technologies Inc., a software-as-service company that delivers augmented reality (AR) technology to the industrial workforce enabling immediate and easy access to communal knowledge, announced today that the company is offering Ario Connect, a video calling application employing AR, for free throughout Q2 for 90 days. On March 31, 2020, the complimentary application first launched to existing customers in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) spread and temporary, global migration to remote work.
Forbes
Rent The Runway, the designer women’s fashion rental service, is private and doesn’t publish earnings but it would be surprising if it was profitable. It is valued at a cool $1 billion.
Stitch Fix, the online personal styling service, makes money but its earnings are erratic. It is valued at $2 billion, over 50 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).
Farfetch, the luxury fashion boutique marketplace, has never made a profit and every year it loses more money than the year before. It is valued at nearly $4 billion.
How do these new fashion companies convince investors to buy in at these values?
Venture Beat
During CES 2019, Verizon announced the Built on 5G Challenge, a nationwide search for solid 5G innovations that could be commercialized using its low latency, high bandwidth millimeter wave 5G network. Today, the carrier announced three winners across the fields of AR, VR, and artificial intelligence, earning $1 million, $500,000, and $250,000 prizes, plus special 5G lab access to develop their projects.
Harvard Business Review
Last year, when SAP spent $8 billion to acquire the online research firm Qualtrics, a price that was roughly 14 times the company’s projected 2019 sales, SAP’s CEO defended the deal by citing a statistic. Companies that create a new category typically capture 76% of the total category market capitalization, he said. Since Qualtrics created the category in which it played, the CEO said, this deal would payoff despite the steep premium.
Bloomberg
"Its partnership with British tech wizard Ocado will bring much-needed expertise to its online efforts."
NFX
"Market networks will produce a new class of unicorn companies and impact how millions of service professionals will work and earn their living."
Crowdfund Insider
"WealthForge reports these investments have helped fund more than 300 private offerings hosted on their platform, with an average offering size of $17 million."
Huffington Post
“Like Pryze is disrupting crowdfunding and sweepstakes, Moonlighting is disrupting recruiting. These two companies are good examples of how even the most mature markets are facing new disruptive competitors.”
InvestmentNews
"Now, rather than wait months to get a life insurance policy, some companies can issue fully underwritten policies — that is, those taking full medical history into account — within one to two weeks"
Entrepreneur
"Venture capital (VC) firms are often regarded as the holy grail of startup financiers. But what do venture capitalists want? For entrepreneurs in search of funding, this is the perennial question."
E Campus News
“A new report predicts that artificial intelligence (AI) in the U.S. education sector will grow 47.5 percent through 2021.”
Hackernoon
"A Day 1 city, much like a startup, doesn’t have to know all the answers in order to be successful. Sometimes it just has to decide and commit."
TechCrunch
"Innovation is a hot topic, and it can be confusing for large corporations. With terms like incubator, accelerator and corporate venturing frequently mentioned, but rarely defined, the menu of innovation options can be overwhelming."
Business Insider
"Every day, write down a few frustrations. And then at the end of the week, you'll have maybe 10 problems. By the end of the month, maybe you have 40 to 50 problems. And then you can spend time thinking about: Is there a viable business in solving any of these everyday frustrations?"
"As a percentage of the overall grocery retail market, Amazon’s $350m in Q1 grocery sales (annualized – that’s $1.4bn) is pretty small fry. But its mouthwatering 30% year-on year-growth suggests that CPG manufacturers that don’t have a clear strategy for how to engage with Amazon now risk missing out on big opportunities further down the road, says e-commerce data firm One Click Retail."
"The Goodwater Index helps entrepreneurs understand the overall health of the venture capital funding environment for consumer tech. The monthly score (41.9 in March 2017) is a simple assessment of fundraising prospects for consumer tech companies, offering perspective on how much the market has improved or worsened over the last few months or years."
Hackernoon
The list includes: System-Scale Tech, Future Work, Branded Cities and Digital Countries, Grid Defection as a Service, Nootropics, Connected Beauty.
Evatran
Now drivers of all "Big 3" EVs: Model S, Volt and Leaf, can upgrade to plugless charging through Evatran.