Invest in Things That Matter
Please Stop Funding Social Media Apps
Why is so much money going into social media apps and other markets that do not fundamentally benefit society? It seems almost routine now to hear of a new social media app that managed to raise several million just a few days after launching.
Yo Raises $1.5M In Funding At A $10M Valuation, Investors Include Betaworks And Pete Cashmore
We have sunk into a period of innovation where a majority of stakeholders and sources of capital have become increasingly risk averse. This period of stagnation has coincided with the rise of social media as the reigning asset class of the past decade.
This is despite frequent failures in the space with the likes of Xanga, Myspace, Gowalla, Friendster, Diaspora, Digg & Secret just to name a few. Sure there are winners, but even those considered winners like Twitter and Reddit are in trouble if you read the latest headlines
A Rant About Why Twitter’s Past Failures Make It Nearly Unfixable
You would think that investors would start to look elsewhere.
We were promised flying cars and got 140 characters — Peter Thiel
What happened to the days when we viewed startups as a window into the future. We need more Elon Musks and more investors willing to fund Musk level ideas.
The future will be determined by the way we invest in emerging entrepreneurs and what sectors we choose to back, and by proxy what sectors we chose to believe in.
We are on the cusp of technological change that is unprecedented in the history of humanity. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Drones, 3D Printing, Nanotechnology, Low Cost Genetic Sequencing and more are within our grasp. Many of these technologies will very likely reach unprecedented heights and commercial scale within our lifetimes.
Why is this important? All of these technologies have the potential to impact millions if not billions of lives.
Solving Humanities Greatest Challenges:
Furthermore, the science and technology for massive breakthroughs in therapeutics has arrived. It’s true that our core understanding of pharmacology still has a long way to go. However, novel approaches and new insights have allowed for the discovery of new and increasingly novel compounds. Compounds that have shown great promise in animal trials for diseases like Cancer, Alz Heimer’s and Parkinson’s to name a few. It is only a matter of time before these innovations make their way up the FDA regulatory hurdle and through human clinical trials to provide life-saving therapeutics to billions of lives.
However, this will not happen if we fail to support the aforementioned innovations. It will take a mindset change, to move from funding ‘Yo’ to funding ‘Genomics’.
There will undoubtedly be failures as there are with any daring endeavor. Curing Cancer, solving Artificial Intelligence and printing 3D organs are certainly daring. But there is also fortunes to be made and perhaps even more pressing, billions of lives to be changed.
If you are a startup working in one of these groundbreaking sectors we want to meet you. reach out to us at ScienceVest or send me line via twitter.
Similarly if you are an investor interested in getting into science investing do not hesitate to reach out. We aim to educate new investors to the sector on due diligence, deal sourcing, vetting and supporting science focused companies and more. If you want to join a community of small angels interested in high impact science you can send us a note at ImpactScienceAngels or you can browse the most innovative science companies listing on ScienceVest.
