One Minute Markets
Every month we review hundreds of pitch decks from founders building the future. Although we only end up investing in a handful each year, the themes give insight into where founders are spending their time. This is a great way to understand what’s coming next.
In this post — which I hope to make a regular feature — I take a look at some of the most interesting areas we have reviewed in the past few months. I’ll do my best to break each market down in a minute.
If you are building a company in these markets, or simply open to a discussion, I’d love to hear from you.
Neuromorphic Computing
Market
Artificial intelligence is everywhere. The smart home market is expected to reach $135Bn by 2035, and self-driving cars (still) feel just around the corner. With the AI-ing of everything, traditional computing systems may struggle to keep up with increasing processing requirements.
The academic community has looked to quantum computing as the answer. However, real world application of quantum is likely to be 10+ years away and our thirst for AI needs better processors now.
Step in, neuromorphic computing. This technology is both hardware and software, and is built upon the spiking neural networks of the human brain — an incredibly efficient information processor.
For context, Alpha Go, Google’s AI which beat the world Go champion, reportedly used 50,000x more energy than its human opponent.
By modelling hardware on spiking neural networks, neuromorphic computing promises to:
- Improve energy efficiency by multiple orders of magnitude
- Perform truly complex & adaptive AI analytics at the edge
Intel have recently released their second version of a neuromorphic chip — Loihi 2. However, traditional software is not compatible with neuromorphic hardware. The community is still working on creating new software frameworks to leverage this technology and commercialisation has not yet been realised.
Opportunity
The global market size for neuromorphic computing in 2020 was $0.26Bn and is estimated to grow to $8.58Bn by 2030. That’s a CAGR of 79%. This is an entirely new category which promises to shake up AI applications at the edge.
EV Battery Recycling
Market
We will soon be inundated with used EV batteries. There are 10million electric cars on roads today, which will increase to 145 million by 2030.
But what happens to EV batteries when they reach end of life?
EV batteries are made up of several hundred individual lithium-ion cells, all of which need dismantling prior to recycling. They contain hazardous materials, and have the tendency to explode if disassembled incorrectly. Estimates from the University of Birmingham suggest that as little as 5% of lithium-ion battery components are recycled, despite being highly valuable and recyclable.
As a result, companies are beginning to offer EV recycling, including Veolia — a large UK based Waste Management firm and Redwood Materials (founded by ex-Tesla CTO). However, these technologies still require manual dismantling which is labour intensive and costly.
Opportunity
Used batteries are coming at a scale we are unable to deal with. Companies which can leverage technology to automate disassembly, improve recyclability or re-usability of lithium batteries will be in high demand.
Video Repurposing for Creators
Market
Globally, there are 50million self-described creators making the creator economy the fastest growing small business segment in the USA. One third of children between the ages 8–12 want to be a vlogger when they grow up.
This boom has been accompanied with an increase in content sharing platforms. YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram & Facebook all contain valuable fanbases, yet have radically different requirements. Creating & editing videos specifically for each platform is extremely time consuming — many creators simply don’t bother.
Companies like the $2Bn JellySmack currently solve this problem for ~550 of the top creators — taking long form videos and optimising for underused social media channels. Other (top 1%) creators might use agencies who manually repurpose content. That leaves the long-tail of industry who are facing the question: to edit or ignore?
Fully automating editing software would allow:
- Access to millions of underserved creators who currently can’t/won’t edit videos
- Creators to open up new revenue streams and reach a wider audience
- Vloggers to focus on what they do best: creating quality content
Opportunity
There are significant technical challenges faced with the complete automation of video editing. Not least, prioritising the video segments which are most/least valuable. Cracking this technology would likely open a blue ocean market opportunity for the creator use case.
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