As hardware startup investors, we spend a good part of our lives looking at hardware projects and predicting winners and losers. Naturally, we’d like to see more entrepreneurs in the “winners” pile. So for anyone working on a hardware product, here’s our best advice on what types of projects are worth attempting in 2018 and what types you’d be better off avoiding — if you’re hoping to get funded, that is. Read more>>
Starting a new business involves a host of challenges, and chief among them is knowing what to spend your money on—and how much to spend. You have to consider salaries, marketing budget, office size, technology services, and on and on. These spending choices require tradeoffs, so entrepreneurs must first develop a strategy for allocating limited resources across a wide range of available options. Too often, assumptions about the potential market and its clients can cloud our judgement about expenses. Let’s examine two cases, one a former colleague and the other a close friend. Read more>>
BOSTON—“The American Angel,” a new comprehensive national study released yesterday, provides a detailed picture of angel investors–who they are, where they live, and how they make investment decisions. Andy Wu, assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, said they are excited to share the findings of this first large-scale survey of its kind in this country, shedding light on the identity of the ‘American Angel,’ and how that is rapidly changing. Read more>>
Tech company Hanson Robotics is using SingularityNet, a token-based marketplace, to help fund the development of advanced artificial intelligence. This kind of crowdfunding campaign is known as an initial coin offering (ICO). A video promoting the ICO sale features Sophia explaining SingularityNet’s marketplace. An ICO is a virtual coin or token that is sold to investors in an effort to raise capital for a new company. Depending on the terms of the ICO, the token sold to an investor can represent either an investment security, or a form of currency within a company’s application. And while it might sound a little too futuristic, ICOs are a key tool for launching a business or entrepreneurial effort. Read more>>
Amid record amounts of capital raised by VCs worldwide, and a sharp rise in the number of private “unicorns” valued at $1 billion-plus, there has been a quiet, barely noticed implosion in early-stage VC activity worldwide. Since 2014, the number of VC rounds in technology companies worldwide has nearly halved, from 19,000 to 10,000, according to PitchBook. During that time, the drop in VC funding amount has been nowhere near as dramatic, highlighting that VCs are concentrating investment into fewer later-stage companies. Read more>>
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Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google — the aptly named FANG companies — are coming under increased scrutiny for their total market dominance. In their respective but more frequently overlapping areas of focus, these giants have collected enough information to hold an alarming amount of global influence. Chief among that, and perhaps most concerning, is the amount of data collected on us, the everyday users. Well past their inflection points, and with every single usage, these companies are woven deeper into the fabric of our lives. Some might even say more emphatically that they have becomeour everyday lives. Read more>>
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