Tech Between The Coasts 028 | Wednesday, November 13, 2019
“Hypothetical Illustration of EBITDA,”Google may have your health records, trends in female-led entrepreneurship, an edtech unicorn, immigration tech
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TL;DR
What We’re Thinking: Industry 4.0 teaser
What We’re Reading: “Hypothetical Illustration of EBITDA,” power in AI, the sexist Apple Card, Google might have your health records, trends in female-led entrepreneurship
Deals & More: an edtech unicorn, chickpea pasta, next-gen lawncare, retail returns, immigration tech
What We’re Thinking
Hi folks! No column today, unfortunately; things have been very busy on our end this week. Ron and I just arrived in Indianapolis for Gener8tor’s OnRamp Manufacturing Conference, where we’re eager to meet with large corporations, young startups, and investors working in and around the Industry 4.0 space. More to come next week on topics like:
- Can Manufacturing Be the Base for Venture in the Midwest?
- Robotics Meets AI: What it Means for Industry 4.0
- What’s so Hard about Hardware?
What We’re Reading
I…don’t even know where to start when it comes to this Softbank deck that made the rounds towards the end of last week, but I’m already planning my “Hypothetical Illustration of EBITDA” costume for Halloween next year.
This week, VentureBeat published a “special issue” centered around the “power in AI.” It includes a number of articles examining recent developments in AI from both a high level and a very detailed perspective. Some highlights include the deepfake arms race, implications in patent law, and the dichotomy of AI as a tool vs. a weapon.
The creator of Ruby on Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson, recently tweeted about his and his wife Jamie’s illuminating experience of applying for the newly released Apple Card. Though the couple shares assets and files joint tax returns, and though Jamie has a higher credit score than he does, he received a credit limit 20x (!!!) higher than hers. It’s a dramatic but alarming example of algorithmic bias.
In the latest instance of big tech wading into healthcare, the Wall Street Journal reports that St. Louis-based healthcare giant Ascension is caught up in a very questionable engagement with Google to share non-deidentified healthcare information on millions of patients without consent.
PitchBook and All Raise have published a special report on recent trends among female-led VCs and female-managed startups. It features a number of interesting takeaways, including that female-led companies tend to exit (successfully) a full year earlier than male-led companies.
Deals
Denver-based Guild Education — an education benefits platform targeted at Fortune 1000 enterprises — raised $157M led by General Catalyst at a reported $1B post-money valuation; other investors included Emerson Collective, Iconiq Capital, Lead Edge, Workday Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Next Play Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, Felicis Ventures, Bessemer Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Harrison Metal.
Durham, NC-based Spreedly — a digital payments optimization software platform — raised $75M led by Spectrum Equity.
Chicago-based Apervita — a value-based healthcare collaboration platform — raised $22M from investors including Optum Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Baird Capital, Math Ventures and Levy Family Partners.
Detroit-based Banza — a chickpea-based pasta brand — raised $20M from investors including Enlightened Hospitality Investments and Prelude Growth Partners.
Chicago-based Threekit — a 3D rendering platform targeted at consumer brands and retailers — raised $20M led by Shasta Ventures; other investors included Salesforce Ventures and Godard Abel.
Austin-based LawnStarter — a marketplace for on-demand lawn care and maintenance — raised $10.5M led by Edison Partners; other investors included Lerer Hippeau, Bull Creek Capital and Binary Capital.
Columbus-based Loop — a platform for online retail returns — raised $10M led by FirstMark Capital; other investors included Lerer Hippeau and Ridge Ventures.
Dallas-based Access Physicians — an acute subspecialty telemedicine platform — raised $9.3M led by Health Enterprise Partners.
Atlanta-based Total Server Solutions — an enterprise cloud and edge managed service provider — raised $8M led by Layer 7 Capital.
Salt Lake City-based SimpleCitizen — a digital immigration and visa platform — raised $5.8M led by Kickstart Seed Fund; other investors included Pelion Ventures, Peterson Venture Partners, TSVC, Y Combinator, AppleTree Capital, Kima Ventures, Comcast Ventures, and Investo.
Austin-based OneModel — a predictive analytics platform for HR — raised $1.3M led by Geekdom Fund.
Funds
Chicago-based Starting Line VC — an early stage consumer-focused VC fund — closed its first fund at $17M.
Exits & Acquisitions
No notable #BetweenTheCoasts exits or acquisitions this week. If I missed something, let me know and I’ll include it in next week’s newsletter.
Events
FreightWaves Live, a conference bringing together freight logistics and supply chain experts, investors, startups, and legacy players, will be held in Chicago from November 12–13.
The OnRamp Manufacturing Conference, which “brings together the manufacturing industry’s leading corporations, investors and startups,” will be held in Indianapolis on November 14.
Global Entrepreneurship Week is next week, November 18–24. Nearly every community with an active startup scene has programming planned — check what’s going on in your community!
