David J. Neff

Fundraising decks are important but only within the context of a well-orchestrated fundraising process. A deck itself is unlikely to directly lead to a term sheet. Rather, it is important to understand how you want to use the deck (or any collateral for that matter) as part of your fundraise process. For example: - Is it to secure the first meeting with a VC? A teaser deck is important. But so is the email snippet and warm referral! - Is it part of a deeper-dive session about your business? Excellent. Is it a deeper dive on product or GTM? And, is the next step a track to a partnership meeting? - Is it a diligence deck? Excellent. Is it more about showcasing the financial plan and key levers? ... what is the ONE thing you want this deck to help you achieve? More tips on fundraising your early-stage round here: https://lnkd.in/gvWYaCwk #startups #venture #fundraising

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From Morningstar Upfront Ventures Provided by PR Newswire May 28, 2024 8:08am Upfront, Maverick Systems, The Studio Home, and Billions Join Equity Angels' First #Proptech CohortUpfront, Maverick Systems, The Studio Home, and Billions Join Equity Angels' First Proptech Cohort PR Newswire BELLEVUE, Wash., May 28, 2024 New accelerator focuses on supporting real estate technology startups with diverse leadership BELLEVUE, Wash., May 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Equity Angels, a social impact organization dedicated to fostering fair access to innovation and opportunity, names the 2024 cohort for its first-ever accelerator program. Upfront provides innovative financial solutions for agents and brokers, The Studio Home leverages Web3 visualization for curated home furnishings, Maverick Systems optimizes big data analytics for agent acquisition and retention, and BILLIONS specializes in streamlining operational solutions for high-performing teams. The founders of these startups include some of the most seasoned and unique tech entrepreneurs in real estate today. One such founder is Diana Zaya of Maverick Systems, whose father was raised in a minimalist "mud hut" in Syria, but with hopes of finding a more fulfilling life. After receiving his degree in engineering, he immigrated to the U.S. to start his family. Raised with this dedication to achievement, Diana has established a performance-based system for recruiting and retaining real estate agents. She is positioned to dramatically improve how the industry optimizes big data analytics to enhance brokerage growth strategies. "With such a diverse and seasoned group of founders, we're all learning so much from one another," remarked Equity Angels Founder Kenya Burrell-VanWormer. "We're honored to work with such inspiring founders and look forward to helping grow their businesses through our accelerator program." Upfront Founder Mukund Venkatakrishnan is a recent Harvard graduate who launched his first tech company at 17 and a real estate brokerage by 20. His co-founder Pierre Calzadilla brings extensive real estate expertise, having built and scaled growth teams at Trulia, RealScout and Local Logic. Together, they are leveraging their combined experience to create innovative solutions that financially empower agents and brokers in the real estate industry. The Studio Home Founder Nicole McGuire's passion for modernizing the homebuilding industry stems from her experience working with her family's 80-year-old construction company. She partners with homebuilders to offer curated furniture collections seamlessly integrating with their home designs. Leveraging Web3, she creates aspirational living experiences that buyers can easily envision, personalize and purchase with just a few mouse clicks. ******** We at The Dandy Horse, Inc. have a #proptech solution that increases the cash flow. #VIDAT it. #CO2 avoidance verifying and secured bicycle parking that impacts LEED V 4.1 U.S. Green Building Council #startup

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Prime Coalition has long taken a different tack to climate finance compared to its for-profit brethren. It makes the usual venture-style investments in startups through Azolla Ventures and also helps philanthropists direct their money to climate-related projects that it deems high impact. Trellis Climate follows the latter model with a focus on middle stages, where capital has grown scarce. #climatetech #climateVC #climatefinance

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio & Health Roundup features key insights from other regions, exciting funding news, major research advancements, and significant developments across the Texas Bio Triangle. 🧬 💡Insights from Other Regions & My 2 Cents Patrick Sisson in Bisnow reported on the Research and Development District in downtown San Diego, a 1.7M sqft multi-use life sciences project. Costing $915M, it has 0 signed tenants just months before opening. Don’t forget that the San Diego region is one of the world’s top Bio & Health clusters. The critical issue: "To this day, much of the life sciences real estate in San Diego tends to be more office park or campus-style sites that aren’t in walkable urban neighborhoods." So, what does this have to do with Austin? You need alignment between location, infrastructure, & sector. I am not convinced that 80%+ of Bio & Health companies work downtown. Keep this in mind when people pitch a downtown Austin Life Science Innovation district. 💰 Funding Workweek, a publishing platform for business professionals, closed a $12.5M Series A.  This is in the Roundup because their vertical, run by Blake Madden, focuses on healthcare. It’s also another case of Austin funding Austin as the round was led by Next Coast Ventures. Congrats Adam Ryan! Koda Health, a digital care coordination company for advance planning, raised its oversubscribed Seed+ round led by Austin’s own Ecliptic Capital. Super pumped for you Tatiana Fofanova, Ph.D.! 🔬 Research & Medical Advancements Eliah Overbey, Professor of BioAstronautics (what a cool era we live in) at Austin’s newest university, the University of Austin, published a series of studies in Nature on what space flight does to humans. Professor Overbey led a multi-institutional research team that obtained 3,000 samples from the SpaceX 2021 Inspiration 4 flight, resulting in a “10-fold increase in publicly available human space cell health data." 🏆 Recognition Christian Keil & Ryan M.’s BuildList, a viral database of critical tech companies, features numerous Austin companies including Paradromics Inc. & Harmonic Bionics, Inc. in Bio & Health. Way to go Matt Angle and Mark Hunter! 🚀 Launches, Expansions, and Milestones Wheel launched Horizon, their new AI virtual care platform with predictive care pathways and configurable, patient-centered care programs. Amazing work Michelle Davey! Keyspan is bringing their affordable biomarker testing and personalized coaching to Austin Simply Fit to enhance their fitness programs. Kudos Nate Taylor! 🏙️ Community Join the BrainCheck-Alzheimer’s Association brain health panel on June 20th, featuring Briaincheck CEO Kim Rodriguez. Link to the event in the comments. I’ll be attending & hope to see you there! 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle Solugen, a synthetic biology unicorn, secured a $214 million loan from the Energy Department to build a Bioforge, marking a significant step for Houston’s industrial bio sector. What’s Next?

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When we launched Scout, we leveraged a third party tool called Partner Fleet. The use case for their product wasn't an economic development and site selection marketplace. But they were amazing partners and we made it work. Since then, Lucas Wiley completely rebuilt our platform. Now, our public (and free) platform (Scout Explore) showcases the best states and cities for business. Employers and Selectors use our site to find: ✅ City/State Economic Overviews ✅ Target Industries ✅ Economic Development Team Contact Info ✅ State and Local Incentive Data ✅ Key Tax Data ✅ Reviews from Local Employers ✅ Industrial Real Estate economic developers use our platform to: 🙌 showcase their community 🙌 use employer reviews to build trust 🙌 list industrial real estate 🙌 attract new biz and retain existing biz So much more coming from Scout. I’ll be sharing the details over the coming weeks. To give you a sneak peak, we’ll have profiles/data for: ⭐️ Industrial Builders ⭐️ Incentives ⭐️ Site Selectors ⭐️ Utility Companies Scout Explore is just one step in the Site Selection and Incentive Discovery Process. But there’s many more pieces to the puzzle. Stay tuned. explore.scoutcities.com

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🚀 Calling all adopters of #proptech and #construction tech: real estate developers, builders, and owner-operators, and more! 🌟 Big News! I’m thrilled to announce our partnership with Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), co-administered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, to accelerate cleantech adoption. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative bringing public and private industry together to drive the digitization and decarbonization of the built environment with a focus on the adoption of startup technologies by end customers. I couldn’t be more excited to collaborate closely with IN² and NREL’s incredible teams to build the industry’s first Adoption Playbook, and the impact this program will have to catalyze more sustainable innovation implementation to our built world. Led by Program Manager Sarah Derdowski, NREL's team is backed by world-class research and a history of running successful incubators. 💡 If you're a forward-thinking organization that is seeking to innovate your real estate footprint, apply today. Adopters can receive up to $250,000 in grant funding to pilot cutting-edge technologies, while startups have the chance to scale and engage with major corporations. This groundbreaking program offers incredible opportunities for both adopters and startups to drive sustainability and innovation—and we're kicking it off this month! 🌍 With our team at Overlay Build, we will design the curriculum in partnership with IN² for corporate adopters through their Adoption Playbook. The playbook will prioritize pain points, identify innovation areas, and form peer groups for implementation strategies. Overlay will also develop due diligence criteria, help to determine the top startups for potential pilots, and form internal innovation working committees that will drive change. Additionally, Overlay will build a change management strategy to ensure practical evaluation and implementation of pilot projects, helping companies with significant real estate ownership reduce construction inefficiencies, costs, and carbon footprints. 🔍This initiative addresses the "missing middle" in technology adoption of built environment solutions—let's bridge that gap together. For more information or to discuss how you can get involved, feel free to reach out to me directly. 👉 Join us in shaping the future of the built environment! Adopters, apply here today: https://lnkd.in/eCRHCXfm #Sustainability #Cleantech #Innovation #BuiltEnvironment #IN2 #OverlayCapital #DigitalTransformation #Decarbonization #ESG #NetZero

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio + Health Roundup highlights significant data trends, my stance on covering funding announcements, new partnerships, and action across the Texas Bio Triangle. 🧬 💰 Funding: The Way I Plan to Cover Funding Announcements You may have seen reports of a local Bio & Health startup’s funding round through an SEC report filing. While some outlets have covered this, my position is not to. I prefer to support our builders directly rather than trolling the filings for scoops. There is plenty of real investigative journalism that our city would be well served by if that is where they focused. Remember I am not a journalist and I am not the media. When the company is ready to announce their round officially, I’ll gladly shout it to the rooftops. 📊 Data Peter Walker at Carta reports that in 2017, Biopharma and Medical Devices captured just under 10% of all VC dollars. By 2023, this figure rose to 17.7%, and in Q1 2024, it reached 24%. The overarching tailwinds favor our sector and region with trends towards Bio & Health and the physical & digital intersection. Energy and hardware, two other sector blossoming in Central Texas, also saw similar share gains. 🤝 M&A and Partnerships Sensi.AI, a 24/7 senior care intelligence agent, is partnering with Caring Senior Service to deploy SensiAI’s platform in Caring’s 50 locations across the US. This partnership allows seniors a better opportunity to age gracefully in their homes. 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle BioMedSA is hosting an event called Women in Bioscience, Thursday June 20th. It’s designed to connect and empower women in the bioscience industry across Central Texas, and features Randi Brosterman Hutchens discussing "Building your Personal Board." Find the link to the event in the comments. Houston-based Lokum, a staffing solution to connect clinicians and clinical staff to health care facilities, has raised a $700K pre-seed round. Congrats Ayoade (Joy) Ademuyewo on the raise. What’s Next? #AustinNext #LifeSciences #Healthcare #Biotechnology

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Drop In Venture Funding To Black-Founded Startups Greatly Outpaces Market Decline Chris MetinkoGené Teare February 27, 2024 Venture funding to Black-founded U.S. startups last year totaled only $705 million — marking the first time since 2016 that the figure failed to even reach $1 billion, Crunchbase data shows. The decline in capital to Black-founded companies greatly outpaces the overall decline in startup funding. While total venture dollars in the U.S. fell 37% last year, funding to Black-founded startups dropped a staggering 71%, according to Crunchbase data. Last year’s total investment in Black-founded startups in the U.S. marks the lowest amount since such startups raised only $582 million in 2016. The drop in total dollars also meant Black-founded startups received their lowest share in the venture market since at least 2016, per Crunchbase. Black-founded startups received less than 0.5% of the $140.4 billion in venture funding all U.S.-based startups received last year. In 2021, Black-founded startups received 1.4% of all U.S. venture funding. In 2022, it was 1.1%.

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Here's a summary of the recent venture capital news: #Getinformed https://lnkd.in/eDThAiDC Founder Collective Spotlight: Amanda Herson from Founder Collective receives recognition. Acquisition: rePurpose Global acquires Bluebird Climate. Climate Tech Investors: Climate50 reveals the leading Climate Tech investors of 2023. Partnership: Greycroft partners with Experiment, a skincare brand poised for growth. Impact Team: Primary Venture's Impact Team is assisting startups. HAX HQ Unveiled: HAX unveils its state-of-the-art headquarters. Funding Journey: Verqor's journey from 0 to $7.5M in funding. Pitch Event: HearstLab announces applications open for Pitch HearstLab U. Social Impact: Flourish Fi is featured in the BerkeleyHaas Social Impact Case Series. Investment Updates: Ariel Investments releases 1Q 2024 Portfolio Manager Letters. Fireside Chat: LTNtech Voices hosts a Fireside Chat @1871. Milestones: Orbit Startups celebrates April milestones. #FounderCollective #VentureSpotlight #Acquisition #ClimateTech #Climate50 #Investors #Partnership #StartupSupport #FundingJourney #StartupSuccess #PitchEvent #Entrepreneurship #InvestmentUpdates #Portfolio #TechCommunity #Startup4 #StartupGrowth Learn more at the venture watch newsletter

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"Developed and piloted in 2019, the CCEI model helps places “grow from within” by leveraging cross-sectoral resources to invest in local assets that generate positive economic and public health outcomes." Ellavoz.com is a #placebased #valuecreation #sharedvalues #taxefficient #impactinvestment advisor which is 1 of the 4 essential pillars of CCEI

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What are the best guidelines for choosing an accelerator for your start up?

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I sat down with Rebecca Lynn, Co-Founder of Canvas Ventures, an early-stage VC fund with almost $900 Million AUM. She's a 25-year fintech veteran and 5x Forbes Midas list honoree. In this Fintech Leaders episode, we discuss: - Data-driven marketing and go-to-market strategies - How startups should think about preparing for M&A opportunities   - What great entrepreneurs have in common - The areas of fintech where AI is making an actual difference   - Challenges of building a VC fund from scratch … and a lot more!

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A good case of glass half full or half empty. The $2tn investment is way short of what is needed to be net zero in coming decades. But, some of the categories like battery storage capacity or solar generation have been growing 100% or more annually for the last 10 year or so. Interesting short read. #Cleanteach #Climatecrisis #Energytransition https://lnkd.in/dAy9P3Jn

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リアルテックホールディングスはUntroDに名称変更します。 この社名変更に込めた意味は、未踏の資本主義の実現です。 従来の資本主義では投資対象とならなかった、だが価値があると我々が信じる（情緒的に価値があると皆さんが感じてはいる）領域にまで資金を呼び込む、その呼び水としての開拓者という決意の表明でもあります。 理想の実現に歩みを止めず、進み続けた���と思います。 Real Tech Holdings Co., Ltd. has relaunched as "UntroD," a company pioneering uncharted territories in capitalism. As of June 3, 2024, Real Tech Holdings Co., Ltd. has changed its name to "UntroD Capital Japan Co., Ltd.". We are also pleased to announce that we have redesigned our website to embody our company mission. UntroD, which means "未踏 untrodden," will continue to be the first to step into uncharted territories of capitalism, where there is a societal need but no established mechanism for capital flow, such as the deep tech domain. By investing and proving economic viability, UntroD will continue to create a flow of capital and human resources. https://untrod.inc/

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Whether I am on a sales call, at a party, or just speaking with friends, explaining the breadth of Viam’s capabilities in words has been difficult. I have, however, found that once I show the platform at work, eyes light up and ideas about the different devices that could benefit from Viam begin flowing. Here are some of my favorite projects to “show off” when I am giving a demo of Viam. What devices in your life would you hack to do the same? https://lnkd.in/eFn6eD52 #software #robotics #opensource

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Working with young builders, I've noticed some interesting trends on fundraising risk aversion. Risk aversion is a really common hurdle for many young / new founders. The fear of fiduciary responsibilities, stringent reporting duties, and dispersed accountability can deter them from seeking early-stage investment. This cautious mindset, while rooted in a desire to safeguard their ventures, can limit their growth potential. It's important to recognize that the RIGHT VC partner works with you, not against you and can significantly mitigate these risks. At Ripple Ventures, we are committed to guiding and supporting you from day zero. We actively invest in young founders, providing more than just capital. We aim to build a collaborative partnership, empowering young builders to focus on what they do best—creating and innovating—while we help navigate the financial and operational challenges. This year, we’re investing in 9 fellow fund checks aimed at underrepresented young builders—students, recent grads, and dropouts. What We’re Looking For: 🔹 $50K-$100K investments for early-stage companies (Canada/US) 🔹 Focus on B2B SaaS + developer tools 🔹 Hands-on support, resources, and access to our expansive network 🔹 Partnerships with service providers, tech stack perks / benefits, etc. 🔹 Commitment to diversity and inclusion, targeting untapped potential of underrepresented student founders Beyond capital, we offer personalized support, resources, and a vast network of mentors and industry leaders ⭐️ If this sounds like you or someone you know, let’s connect! DM me or anyone on the Ripple Team. You can also email me at [naz@rippleventures.com] 💌 #VC #DEI #preseed cc: RippleX Fellowship Matt Cohen Dominic Lau Katie Ko

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Once overlooked but now rapidly gaining traction, GovTech is set for disruption! 🤓💡 I've just published an in-depth overview of the GovTech market. It explores key players, innovative solutions, and market segments that are shaping the future of government operations and public services. 🏛️🚌 From public safety management to civic engagement, procurement, and analytics, the GovTech landscape is brimming with opportunities for both startups and established companies to make a significant impact. 📈💼 https://lnkd.in/gWnn_WMn #GovTech #Innovation #PublicServices #GovernmentOperations #venturecapital #startups

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This is a great article from Kevin Tian, founder of Doppel talking about how the company transitioned from detecting crypto scams to tackling digital threats like deepfakes and impersonations. Doppel uses AI to identify and remove harmful content, aiding in the protection of campaigns and organizations. With today’s environment and rapid growth of AI and deepfakes, Doppel is critical to help maintain election integrity. Tian highlights their effective partnerships with platforms to enforce content takedowns and their high success rate in removing policy-violating material. #cybersecurity #stayvigilant #AIrisk #deepfake #hireVets

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Before going down the pathway of voice cloning, every association community stakeholder should read this article from The Atlantic at the following link: https://lnkd.in/eei7_CFF Here is a critical quote: "Disorientation. That's the main sense of this era-that something is looming just over the horizon, but you can't see it. You can only feel the pit in your stomach. People build because they can. The rest of us are forced to adapt." Adaptation should not imply acquiescence. We have the agency to push back on Silicon Valley's techno-optimistic agenda, and we can defeat disorientation by focusing our collective attention on adopting AI in an ethical, purposeful, and responsible manner. IMPORTANT NOTE: A slightly-different version of this post was first published earlier this month in the Executive Management Professionals Community on ASAE's Collaborate platform. #AI #ASAE #Associations #AssociationBoards #Deepfakes #Disorientation #EthicalPurposefulResponsibleAI #VoiceCloning

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