Kevin Allen

If you are at this week's MidxMidwest,  join me Thursday morning for a robust conversation with Ilya Tabakh, Black & Veatch, Wesley Peck, Invary, Matt Salefski, Rectangle (IPV Portfolio Company), and Dustin Burns, McCownGordon Construction as dive into the technologies poised to revolutionize our industrial landscape and secure our nation's competitive edge. This discussion unpacks the innovation and technologies reshaping our built environment and driving U.S. reindustrialization efforts critical to enhancing our infrastructure's resilience, sustainability, and efficiency. https://lu.ma/qlaldvtg

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One of the challenges that emerging companies face is how to raise capital to fuel growth. In the early stages, companies may be self-funded or raise capital through friends and family or other angel investors, through business incubators, or through various state programs. In this “seed funding” stage, convertible notes and simple agreements for future equity (SAFEs) are the most common mechanisms used to raise funds. In this article, Allan Cohen, Jason Chimon, and Marissa Espinoza Icochea discuss factors to consider when deciding which form of investment best suits the company’s needs. https://lnkd.in/gJtmnAzD

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Congrats to Christopher Robson, Kurtis Broda and Kristen Cote at Wyvern on bringing on fantastic new investors Guy Filippelli, Dan Madden and Isaac Carp, CFA at Squadra Ventures. I'm a broken record at this point, but we're in the early innings of the Earth Observation market, and as we're seeing with Wyvern there is more demand for hyperspectral data than supply. As we will see in the coming years, there will be all kinds of problems that can be addressed by understanding our world beyond what our eyes can see. https://lnkd.in/gEzTjYks

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Listen to Matthew Chang, PE and Kate McAfoose, P.E. from Chang Robotics discuss the Chang Robotics Fund. After constantly being asked "how can I invest?"... The opportunity is now available. Who is a good investor? "Curious and technical investors. Folks that can appreciate novelty and innovation of what we do. Naturally, we're going to return a high ROI to our investors, but we're more interested in 'good money' from the Right People." - Matt Chang Catch the full episode with Kate, Matt, Eric Ross, RN and Trey Lowell on your favorite Podcast platform. #WTHJH

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Gas microgrids are an important tool in our resilience toolbox. I will do a longer essay on this but in the meantime check out this podcast with Doug Lewin and Enchanted Rock

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Ron Miller from TechCrunch has hit it out of the park in his latest article covering Loft, vCluster, and our $24M Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures. "Investors have traditionally liked startups built on top of popular open source projects because they provide a ready top-of-sales funnel. But such startups must come up with a way to monetize that popularity. Loft Labs has done both." Since we released the open source version of the product, #vCluster, in 2021, it has surpassed 40 million image pulls which suggests that a lot of people are interested in this concept and we released vCluster Pro to monetize the idea in a novel way. Link to the full article in the comment below. #kubernetes #platformengineering #Growth #Innovation #SeriesAFunding #DevPod #gpu #gpus #ai #genai

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💡 Are vertical AI startups the future of industry-specific SaaS? SignalFire's latest blog outlines a compelling case for how AI-enabled vertical SaaS solutions could transform industries, tapping into a $6 trillion market opportunity. By applying seven innovative frameworks, startups can address unique, industry-specific challenges like handling unstructured data, achieving data defensibility, and automating workflows. One standout approach is the “networked SaaS” model, where diverse stakeholders—from end-users to insurers—can connect on a single platform, driving efficiency and deep integration. Curious about these frameworks and examples of companies pioneering this space? Dive into the full article! 📈👇

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Despite all the challenges and difficulties obtaining and enforcing a patent, it is still worth it for an early stage founder to get one. Here are 5 reasons why:

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💼Company: Nika.eco 💰Funding: Undisclosed ⚡Round: Seed Funding 👥Investors: Silverstrand Capital, Ascend Network, DMV Investments, Orvel Ventures, and Timbul Venture Nika.eco has announced the closure of an oversubscribed seed investment round. The firm employs artificial intelligence to construct sophisticated climate models for deciding the issuing of carbon credits. This round was led by Silverstrand Capital. Ascend Network, DMV Investments, Orvel Ventures, and Timbul Ventures were also involved.The funding’s conditions are yet unknown. Johann Wah Lawrence X. Read more - https://lnkd.in/g4ZWbJ6i To share your startup story write us on - [email protected] #ArtificialIntelligence #Nikaeco #FundingNews #MachineLearning #CarbonInsurance

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Interesting piece from Marc Andreessen on how startups are not getting the regulatory support they need to sustain America's technological leadership. "Regulatory agencies have been green lit to use brute force investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to hobble new industries, such as Blockchain. Regulatory agencies are being green lit in real time to do the same to Artificial Intelligence." While many investors themselves (both in the US and Europe) are worried how AI will change our lives, our jobs and social interactions, the top VC opinion leader thinks regulation is already too restrictive. #techstartups #techleadership #strategicgrowth

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🔋 #TodayinVC - All of the biggest deal announcements in venture capital - August 13th, 2024. Sourced from Litquidity's Exec Sum. 💰 Fundraising Announcements: - UptimeAI Inc., an AI-based plant monitoring software, raised a $14M Series A led by WestBridge Capital (PRN)  - Battery performance tech startup Gaussion raised a $12M Series A led by Autotech Ventures (EU)  - Indian EV charging startup Kazam raised an $8M Series A3 led by Vertex Ventures (TC)  - Cross-border payments platform Conduit raised a $6M seed extension from Helios Digital Ventures (TC)  - Ragie.ai, a fully managed RAG-as-a-Service, raised a $5.5M seed round led by Craft Ventures, Saga VC, and more (PRN) Congrats to all - what #startups do you have your eyes on? 👀 Follow Today in VC for daily #venturecapital news! 📆

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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 August 19, about 960 new companies were added, resulting in just under 97,702 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 US Med Tech led in 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.

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Power Grid is a board game that is a great tool for learning more about energy, the grid, and the power of renewable energy. https://lnkd.in/gHvsSPiD #energy #powergrid #gridoptimization

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September is a crazy month for #climatetech #FOAK themed events. Some I'd like to shout out from the first half: ✅ A FOAK-themed dinner Tim Franklin-Hensler, Charlie Nelson, Dev Motiram, and I hosted, sponsored by Jordan Kellerman (Peachtree Group) and Robert Sarfatis (Polsinelli) during the inaugural #HoustonClimateWeek ✅ A FOAK panel at the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship's Energy Tech Venture Forum, also during HCW, moderated by Tim Franklin-Hensler with panelists Charlie Nelson, Laureen Meroueh, PhD, Mac Hatch, and Janice Tran. Topics included adapting rapidly to delays in timing, managing cost runovers, balancing the myriad of KPIs for FOAK, learning to be smarter about how to talk to customers, and how market uncertainty can dramatically affect FOAK projects ✅ A 4-hour "pilotathon" hosted by the Energy Tech Nexus, where different startups got to pitch their pilots. SUCH a good idea, Jason Ethier, Nada Ahmed, Juliana Garaizar, and the rest of the ETN team! ✅ A FOAK panel during Decarb Connect's TechInvest that I got to moderate with panelists Claude Vachet, Jeff Johnson, Francis O'Sullivan, and David Yeh. Topics included using corporate and DOE dollars in FOAK deals, encouraging communication between different investor classes, the 10,000 hours of experience needed to be a good developer, educating companies on project development, and the need for everyone across the climate universe to stretch their roles & take a bit more risk ✅ A generally FOAK-themed set of talks at Decarb TechInvest, expertly curated by Alex Cameron and her team, which included (among others): - a fascinating fireside chat with Rob Day and Matt Lucas moderated by Wim Reyntiens that touched on how critical it is to have accurate cost forecasting, how ROFRs can block additional access to capital, evaluating offtake risk beyond just the ideal, the folly of up rounds for the sake of up rounds, and why one shouldn't obsess over scale up factors and number of operating hours - a talk by Chris Creed that outlined the LPO's strategy around FOAK deployment loans - a FOAK success panel moderated by Kerri Fox that included Leah Ellis, Martin Keighley, and Shreya Dave, which talked about using a carbon price to incentivize corporate action, choosing the right cooperative FOAK partner, creating new offtake agreements in markets that haven't had traditional offtake (like cement<>concrete or CDR), and using job growth to incentivize growth vs. decarbonization. AND ⭐TOMORROW⭐ is the second annual Cleantech Day at Denver Startup Week hosted by Colorado Cleantech. I'm moderating a panel on FOAK successes in Colorado with Eric Davis, Johanna O., Carling Spelhaug, and Kimberly Purdy. Shoutout to Ken Carlson, Laura Hickernell, Joseph P., and Jack Fritzinger for their help & hard work. REGISTER BELOW!!

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DocJuris Closes $3.2M Seed Round. ‍RTP Seed led the raise and was joined by Watertower Ventures, Crossbeam Venture Partners, Seed Round Capital, Remote First Capital, and Buena Vista Angels. This funding will enable us to grow our team and expand our capabilities. The DocJuris platform empowers legal, sales, and procurement teams to negotiate and close contracts with speed and precision. Key DocJuris features include a web-native contract redlining experience that’s powered with co-authoring and internal/external mentions. Coupled with the core editing experience is an extensive suite of negotiation tools ranging from playbooks to historical precedent. https://lnkd.in/eTWZdxwd #LegalTechTalk #LegalTech #Legal #Law #Funding #AI

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The future of Large Vision Models (LVMs) is incredibly bright, with their adoption across various industries heralding a new era of innovation and efficiency. These sophisticated AI systems, capable of analyzing and interpreting vast amounts of visual data, are revolutionizing fields in every industrial sector. With their extensive parameter count, #LVM s can identify intricate patterns in visual data, making them invaluable in automating and enhancing decision-making processes. The adaptability of these models to specific industry needs is particularly noteworthy, as it allows for tailored solutions that drive #progress and #competitive advantage. The training of LVMs involves feeding them a vast array of labeled visual data, allowing them to learn and improve over time. This process, while computationally intensive, results in models that can generalize well to new, unseen data, a critical factor in their widespread applicability. The evolution from Convolutional Neural Networks (#CNN s) to transformer models has marked a significant milestone in the development of LVMs, offering improved performance and versatility. The future of LVMs is not just promising; it's already unfolding before our eyes. Their adoption across industries is not a question of if, but when, and the impact they will have on our world is poised to be as profound as it is pervasive. As we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible with AI, LVMs will undoubtedly play a crucial role in shaping a #future that's more intelligent, connected, and #innovative. CamCom is defining this roadmap of future, thru integration of its LVMs with other AI technologies, such as natural language processing, by creating multimodal systems that understand and interpret the world in a more holistic manner. It is leading the #industrial #AI revolution thru convergence of technologies … unlocking new applications … driving innovation across all sectors. ... read more - https://lnkd.in/gqDu8f3Y

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Riding the Monday tide! So, here is the game, aggressive goals need aggressive steps! Its been a learning advising growth accelerated start-ups. This is a groovy read, although can lawyers convince their clients the importance of this, I would rate at moderately difficult on the difficulty scale! A stable business can any day outweigh accelerated growth business. Speaking of which, stability may not be an issue with India, at least for sometime now. A stable government goes a long way, people have aligned to the ideologies and operate therein - run the familiar terrain! #tech #product #design #designthinking

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If you are a climate tech company and would like to learn more about the fundraise process and how to navigatec this tough market, let's schedule a time to talk! Comment on this thread or send an email to [email protected] and we will DM you back to schedule a quick meetup.

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Want to improve your school's environment while reducing energy costs? Check out our latest blog post, which delves into school energy inefficiencies and highlights how air monitoring and purification solutions can greatly enhance indoor air quality while improving energy efficiency. Did you know? Implementing energy-efficient practices in schools can reduce energy costs by up to 30%, freeing up funds for educational programs and resources! By investing in smart technologies and sustainable solutions, schools can create a healthier environment for students while maximizing their budgets. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ezU35cVE #BackToSchool #HealthyLearning #School #Education #AirQuality #IndoorAirQuality #IAQ #Smartbuildings #HealthandSafety #Government #HVAC #FacilitiesManagement #Architechs

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