Quick takeaways

• Environment and sustainability is linked to our production of food
• Wealthy countries tend to eat more animal protein — we over consume it
• Animal protein takes an incredible amount of resources to produce
• Food production creates a lot of greenhouse gases — about the same as transportation
• The last decade has seen a lot of money move into FoodTech — we will continue to see more funding as technology improves and the environment moves to the front of the agenda

My first taste of alternative meat was entirely by accident. I went to Harvey’s (a Canadian burger chain) to grab…

The United Nations estimates that the world has a total population of about 7.7 billion; it also projects that the population will increase by 2.2 billion in the next 30 years and that it will hit 9.7 billion by 2050. Needless to say, that’s a lot of people to feed.

Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually 10–25 cm deep, where most of Earth’s biological soil activity occurs. That thin layer of soil is responsible for 95% of food produced for human consumption; it’s a vital ingredient in our production of food.

But just 3 cm of topsoil…

This industry deep dive was co-written by my friend Julia Baird-Oryschak and myself

Key takeaways:

• 🏫 Online school is horrible
• ⛰ The challenges around Edtech are real and include the digital divide and privacy
• 👾 Big trends include MOOCs, AR/VR and gamification
• 🦄 Funding has gone up in recent years; most unicorns are in China
• 💸 2020 saw established Edtech players receive huge amounts of funding as they scaled to meet pandemic demand
• 🎓 The future of learning is still teacher driven

March 16th 2020:

“If you’re a Canadian abroad it’s time to come home”

— Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

…

A look at potential future unicorns in the United Kingdom

Quick Takeaways

• Financial velocity measures how much capital a startup has raised per year since existence; the more capital a startup raises, the faster it can scale
• I use the metric to identify potential unicorns in the UK
• 30 unicorns in the United Kingdom with a financial velocity above 15 are identified

I’ve previously written about potential unicorns in the Nordics. If interested, you can find it here. …

Although the beatdown wasn’t as intense as that suffered by the travel and leisure industry, it’s no secret that the global retail sector also suffered heavily as a result of the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders imposed by Covid-19. This was on top of the disruption that the sector was experiencing on account of Shopify powered stores and Amazon.

If there’s good news for the sector it is that it seems like the end is near (relatively speaking); Moderna has announced that it’s Covid-19 vaccine has an efficacy of 94.5% …

The Building Blocks and the Opportunities to Rebuild and Revamp What Already Exists

Quick takeaways

• Things get old, markets changes and preferences evolve
• Zoom and Tik Tok focused on user experience and simplicity while reimagining what industry veterans were doing
• Both are contrarian — they went against the prevailing wisdom to ultimately build their success
• A lot of the building blocks of the business world today are old, unimaginative and built for another time — they can do for a revamp

We Google but we don’t Bing. We Photoshop but we don’t Gimp. We Uber but we don’t Taxi. We Facetime, we Skype and now we Zoom. …

Quick Takeaways

• Differentiating factor of scooters was their accessibility — which is no longer the case
• Operators have begun to experiment with new business segments and models, but still compete on the same plane
• Opportunity to shift from targeting B2C to B2B to differentiate operator, generates predictable cash flows and ensures stickier customers
• Consumers don’t need convincing; a pull strategy targeting B2B sector will be a lot more efficient in getting increased and lasting usage

I remember taking an electric scooter for the first time. We had just finished playing a game of lazer tag and wanted to grab drinks some 30…

Quick Takeaways

• Financial velocity measures how much capital a startup has raised per year since existence; the more capital a startup raises, the faster it can scale
• I use the metric to identify potential Nordic unicorns
• 29 companies are identified; Sweden is home to most of them

Every year, the Narwhal Projects releases a list of young Canadian companies that have the potential to be globally important on the world stage. Dubbed the Narwhal List, it identifies companies using the Financial Velocity Metric. …