Justin W.

✨ Breaking: Halogen Ventures Announces New Fund.- Halogen Ventures Halogen Ventures focuses on early-stage consumer technology startups with at least one woman on the founding team. The fund announced a $10 million investment to support female founders in Alabama. https://halogenvc.com/ Please share to let other #Founders know For the ❤️ of Startups #Fusion42 #Startups #Venturecapital

8

Rock Health has unveiled insights from a recent survey focusing on U.S. adults managing their weight. The industry has witnessed substantial advancements in the last 5 years, with the emergence of GLP-1's new opportunities have surfaced for brands and companies to offer enhanced support services and products to consumers. What is an innovative product or service you have seen that is providing value to consumers on their weight management journey? #Healthcare #WeightManagement #Healthandwellness

9

In 2024, 736 AgTech startups raised a total of $5.7B. There were 37 AgTech exits last year, 36 M&A transactions and one IPO. This is up 32% from 2023. See all the data in my latest CropLife.com article.

113

8 Comments

A prospective $3.1 billion U.S. IPO in a market with very few listed early childhood education firms. This rare public listing highlights the growing global trend of scaling early childhood education companies, as private equity and large operators seek consolidation for operational efficiencies. With increased focus on education investments, this IPO could pave the way for more large-scale moves in the sector. #Education #EarlyYears #Earlychildhoodeducation #Childcare #Nurseries #Preschools #Edtech #K12Education #PrivateEquity #VentureCapital #ImpactInvesting https://lnkd.in/dTu3DyPS

4

CRISPR, and other biotechnological tools, are integral components of climate adaptation technology (CAT), enabling farmers to address challenges posed by climate change. These advancements facilitate the development of crop varieties that are more resilient to water scarcity, extreme heat, pests, and diseases. By enhancing crop resilience, CRISPR technology supports sustainable agricultural practices and contributes to global food security in the face of environmental stressors.

2

Bullish on this. CRISPR technology is poised to play a crucial role in equipping farmers with the tools necessary to manage climate-change-induced risks, including water, extreme temps, pests, and invasives.

1

An interesting article this week in FoodDive on 'citrus greening'. The article (link below) highlights how Florida’s citrus industry is leveraging biotechnology, such as gene editing, to combat challenges from climate change and citrus greening disease. Tools like CRISPR are creating disease-resistant, climate-resilient citrus trees, showcasing biotechnology as a vital climate adaptation technology (CAT). These innovations help farmers adapt to climate-change-induced pest & invasive risks. This reflects a broader agricultural trend where biotech, including drought-resistant crops and heat-tolerant livestock, is critical for maintaining productivity in our new climate reality. #biotech #climateadaptation Article here https://lnkd.in/eHiqeyea

2

AI and Med Tech in Focus   AI System Developed to Identify Pathology in Tissues Engineers at Washington State University have developed an AI tool that uses images of human and animal tissue to detect abnormalities faster and more accurately than people. The AI algorithm was trained using images from past studies that involved kidney, testes, ovarian, prostate, breast and lymph node abnormalities. The new model detected disease in minutes—current processes take humans several hours and require specialized teams to check each other’s work. It was also found to be more accurate, sometimes detecting instances that humans had missed. The engineers designed the system to handle the processing load of the high-resolution gigapixel images by breaking them down into smaller tiles but still retaining the overall context of the tissue sample—akin to the zoom feature on a microscope or phone camera. Aside from getting diagnostic results more accurately and quickly, the new system also shows promise in epigenetics (the study of molecular processes that change gene behavior without changing underlying DNA). Epigenetic researchers can perform analyses and get results that used to take a year or more in just a couple of weeks. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

1

This week Mikal Ventures brings you a 4-week breakdown of the US capital market with an emphasis on the Mikal verticals. Over the 4-week period ending April 15, just over 900 new companies were added, with 94,109 companies included in the US Health Tech, Med Tech, Fin Tech, AI Tech, and Ed Tech verticals. AI Tech again saw the greatest percentage of growth in new companies and transactions, weighing in at over double the vertical averages for the period. The US Fin Tech vertical again led the way in SEC Filings and news articles. Mikal Ventures publishes these stats on a rolling 4-week basis to provide a perspective on how the verticals and new startups move through time. We hope you find them informative and thought-provoking. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

3

3 Comments

The Middleby Corporation has acquired JC Ford, a leading manufacturer of tortilla and chip production equipment, based in Columbia, Tennessee. JC Ford, founded in 1945, generates $70 million in annual revenue and specializes in automated solutions. The acquisition strengthens Middleby's position in the fast-growing snack food market, aligning with its Food Processing Group’s strategy. Middleby CEO Timothy FitzGerald highlighted the synergies and growth opportunities this acquisition offers, as JC Ford’s innovative solutions have become industry standards with a strong customer base and recurring revenue. Read More Here: https://lnkd.in/ebxE8zTA PerishableNews.com Branded Hospitality Ventures Hospitality Hangout Podcast #production #hospitality #automation #marketing Steve Spittle Scott Heim Timothy FitzGerald Sarah Tresser Jaime Nau Darcy Bretz Krishna R. Valerie Hanson, CFSP Shawn M. Lange

11

3 Comments

I recently saw this metric from Carta’s 1Q24 VC Fund Report, which is very concerning. DPI... is nowhere to be found in earlier vintages that probably should start showing DPI. Funding early-stage projects is great, but ultimately, these venture dollars need to exit their investments and pay back their limited partners. That’s where the metric Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI) comes in. While managing a fund, we get interim measures during the life of the fund (e.g. IRR, MOIC), but ultimately, “you can’t eat IRR.” If you want to build a lasting venture capital organization, you need to start showing DPI for your fund. Keep in mind that this is traditional VC data from Carta, and is not strictly crypto venture. Crypto venture tends to get liquidity earlier (tokens) and things tend to go parabolic sooner (faster, more unicorns) - but I’d wager that the data here is somewhat similar for Crypto VCs… Not as much DPI as there should be from these earlier vintages. Read the full article, as well as a recap of all the crypto fundraising rounds for August, here: https://lnkd.in/g3eVJ-iF

25

2 Comments

Exciting news! We just sent out the inaugural newsletter for Future Frontier Capital, our pre-seed venture fund backing frontier tech startups. As I hit "send," I realized how launching FFC parallels the path of the founders we support. Starting FFC has required the same passion, perseverance, and self-belief that drive entrepreneurs. Just like a startup, getting a VC fund off the ground demands relentless hustle—building the brand, perfecting the pitch, and networking tirelessly. There are constant challenges that test your resolve and endless hours of unglamorous work behind the scenes. And perhaps most daunting - the self-doubt, wondering if you're crazy for attempting something so bold. Pushing through that negative self-talk requires unshakable faith in your mission. Raising this VC fund reminds me of starting our IP strategy and patent analytics firm two decades ago. It’s a powerful reminder of the perseverance, creativity, and resilience needed to turn an ambitious idea into reality. This experience makes us more empathetic partners, ready to support the founders we back. Our work is just beginning, and this inaugural newsletter underscores our commitment to supporting frontier tech startups every step of the way. #startups #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers #Entrepreneurship #InnovationMindSet

21

2 Comments

Another HUGE opportunity to meet a new set of #investors https://lnkd.in/esJYQW4J I hope you are reading Hypepotamus to find what is happening in the South's innovation ecosystem

7

1 Comment

Happy to jump back into another episode of the Innovation Wave podcast. On this episode, Bob McGriff and I discuss the current state of the life sciences ecosystem through the halfway point of 2024. We offer thoughts and analysis of what to expect for the remainder of the year. It's still a case of survive to '25'. #LifeSciences #Innovation #Healthcare #VentureCapital

24

4 Comments

This week Mikal Ventures brings you a 4-week breakdown of the US capital market with an emphasis on the Mikal verticals. Over the 4-week period ending June 10, just over 590 new companies were added, resulting in 95,661 companies included in the US Health Tech, Med Tech, Fin Tech, AI Tech, and Ed Tech verticals. AI Tech maintained its most active status, seeing the greatest percentage of growth in both new companies and transactions. The US Fin Tech vertical led the way in SEC Filings and news articles. Mikal Ventures publishes these stats to provide a perspective on how the verticals and new startups move through time. We hope you find them informative and thought-provoking. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

4

If you missed SEED CRUST: State of the Seed Venture Market event last week, you can download the report and watch the recording. Here's what I expect to see in the coming year as it relates to Seed *phase* venture capital: 🐖 The "pig in the pipe" (the exit backlog) will clear this year, which is great for late stage, but it won't be felt at Seed until next year. 🔁 Which means more of the same this year for Seed: more shut downs 😢, more extension rounds 🌉, more pressure on founders to stretch their existing capital 💸. It also means the bifurcation at Seed will continue through this year. 💫 3-Round Seed is the new normal. Pre-Seed, Seed, Seed 2, call it what you will, Series A isn't coming back down to $20-30m valuations. Mind your dilution to make that work. 📈 Seed 2 valuations will continue to go up over the next year, covering territory in the $20-30m post range that used to be a small Series A. 📉 But there will be less capital available in the Seed phase than in the last three years, and less of that will be deployed into first checks. How did we end up here? Here's the full story: https://lnkd.in/gwuGVSii What do you think? What would you add to this? Check out the recording to hear the full presentation and get Peter Walker's take on it, too. (Thanks for coming Peter!) #venturecapital #vc #fundraising #seed #startups

59

11 Comments

🔥 Thrilled to see Hydrolix crushing it with a $35M Series B! 🔥 Data is the new oil, but too much gets discarded due to prohibitive storage costs. Hydrolix cracks this with its streaming #datalake platform that leverages object storage, decoupled compute, indexing, & compression. As Marty Kagan puts it: 'We’re cheaper than cold storage and faster than hot storage' Hydrolix’s streaming data lake platform is a game-changer for #AI, #observability, & #security workloads. 💥 Real-time query performance at terabyte scale 💰75%+ savings on log mgmt & 4x more data retained  ☁️ Stateless & containerized for seamless scaling with Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3, Google Cloud GCS, Microsoft Azure Blob 💡 Had the early conviction (first investor) that data is key to unlocking AI & enterprise workloads. It's proving right. Huge thanks to Marty Kagan Hasan Alayli for letting me early on their journey to build an impessive company 🙏 Super pumped to have awesome Aaron Perman at S3 Ventures leading this round along with other strong existing investors - Nava Ventures (Manish Patel) Wing Venture Capital (Peter Wagner) Oregon Venture Fund (Matt Compton Scott Grout) and others 💪 Onwards! 🚀🚀🚀 #cloud #data #ai #ml #llm #largelanguagemodels #analytics #security #loganalytics #datalake #datawarehouse https://lnkd.in/g5i6afP5

42

7 Comments

Some VC investors believe that brick and mortar - referring to a physical presence of some kind - should be avoided at all costs. Yet, the track record of clinic and hybrid care businesses in health care indicates otherwise. ==> One Medical (sold for $3.9 billion to Amazon), Oak Street (bought by CVS for $10.6 billion), Lifestance (IPO at $7.5 billion market cap), and PE-backed Premise Health (acquired by OMERS Private Equity for $1.1 billion) If a clinic is indicated as the optimal way to deliver care for that patient population, there are creative ways to build and operate them. Full article below with advice and strategies on how to build and operate hybrid clinics from my teammate Anarghya Vardhana from Maveron, Amir Dan Rubin from OneMedical Group, Steven Eidelman from Modern Animal and more!

13

1 Comment