🌌Deepfakes, Zero Emissions, Alpaca
Sonar, Lidar, stuff to put on your radar, Q&A with Michael Massad
It’s Friday. Here are things to look out for this week—
In 2020, it’s easier (and safer) to meet people online, halfway around the world, than it is to meet someone in your own backyard. Pandemic-induced physical isolation has yielded some of the most intuitive online solutions to maintaining social interaction. Lunchclub’s 1:1 ai-powered networking has intro’d me to everyone from students to founders to a ballet dancer turned quant trader. Voice communities (Chalk, Clubhouse) are popping up, and though online spaces for having meetings (CozyRoom, Gather, Here, etc.) are becoming more normal as work and school heat up for the fall, there’s no universal platform (aside from maybe Zoom). Biggest realization of 2020? People are down to clown. Online.
Sonar is a beautifully chaotic, casual spatial audio platform, bringing the serendipity back to online conversations. In the app, users are dots that can move around, use different emojis to make (mostly meme-based) sounds, pick up droppables, create private rooms, or even sit idly and work while listening to a Joe Rogan podcast with other dots. It’s a pretty easy way to meet some new people without needing to hop into a zoom call or turn on your video. Eventually, the space will look like a virtual world, with cities, private buildings, etc.
The team hangs out and around pretty often, and constantly adds new features.
Sonar is currently in TestFlight, reach out if you want more info :)
Outliers w/ Michael Massad
Michael is an investor at Elsewhere Partners, a venture firm focused on growth-stage software companies outside traditional venture capital hubs. Previously, he invested in commercial real estate in major cities within Texas.
What did your career path look like previous to VC?
I spent four years in real estate private equity before going back to get my MBA at the University of Texas. I really enjoyed my time in real estate – specifically building projects that would positively impact communities. While in business school, I quickly discovered another passion – building companies. In Austin, it was hard to resist the lure of the technology industry. It has such a rich startup ecosystem, and I was lucky enough to land an unpaid internship with Elsewhere Partners to explore the industry from the buy side perspective. Starting a career in VC is often being in the right place at the right time. Never stop networking and try to add value however you can.
How do you think remote work will affect startup ecosystems outside of the traditional tech hubs like Silicon Valley?
We absolutely believe that remote work will benefit “Elsewhere geographies” long-term. We were already seeing this trend unfold when we invested in ActivTrak, a remote workforce analytics platform, 18 months ago. If anything, COVID has continued to accelerate the belief that employees (especially in the technology industry) can be productive in a remote setting. There are certainly obstacles to overcome – how to hire and onboard remotely, how to maintain company culture, etc., but given how remote work opens up access to talent globally and provides additional flexibility to employees, I don’t think we’ll ever go back to 100% office-based work.
What are some technologies and trends that you are the most excited about?
In addition to technologies that support and enable remote work, we are excited about process automation (sometimes referred to as robotic process automation, or products that allow humans to be more efficient in their day-to-day jobs as companies prioritize productivity and look to cut costs broadly), cybersecurity / compliance (very resilient to a recession, cyberattacks have only gotten worse post-COVID, and compliance will continue to evolve in its complexity driving companies to seek out software tools to ensure they are in-line), and product enablement (any technology that supports product-led-growth, whether its onboarding software, user analytics, knowledge base platforms, billing platforms, etc.)
How do you get yourself on the cap table?
There has certainly been a huge influx in VC firms and funds. “All money is green” as we like to say. We differentiate in two ways. First, we provide flexibility on check size and exit strategy (unlike larger funds that need to write a $10M+ check in order to have a real impact on their fund, we deliberately are staying smaller to allow us to right-size the amount of capital for founders, this also allows us to align around a much more realistic exit goal, say $100M, instead of playing for a traditional VC billion-dollar outcome). Second, we have an unparalleled group of operating advisors who provide sector and functional expertise post-investment. These are seasoned software veterans who have had major successes as CEOs, CTOs, CMOs, etc. They’ll sit on boards on our behalf, join as full-time executives or part-time advisors.
What piece of advice would you give to founders in the software space?
My advice for future founders would be to embrace the remote workforce movement, prioritize capital efficiency early on, and resist the urge to take on VC funding early (easier said than done I know). But this will enable a huge amount of optionality longer-term and an ability to generate a meaningful return sooner. And lastly, obsess about your customers and product-market fit. What problem are you solving? Is it a nice to have or a need to have? Engage, learn, evolve. The future of software and technology is bright and the pie is most certainly growing for all stakeholders.
Trends & Startups We’re Watching
Lidar is finally becoming a real business—a critical building block for autonomous vehicles, intelligent automation, and sweeping robots
Apple hits back at Epic Games as their public feud heats up—a paragon of the increased antitrust backlash since the recent Congressional testimonies
SewerAI ($2M, Seed) 🚽 - ai and computer vision to analyze and inspect sewer systems and detect pipeline defects
Point Pickup ($15.8M, Series A) 🚚 - delivery platform offering simplified middle and last-mile delivery services
Alpaca ($18.7M, Series A) 🦙 - fintech enablement API offering visual trading data and executing trading algorithms using artificial intelligence
Our Light Bulbs 💡
-Uber has committed to zero (global) emissions by 2040 + launched Uber Green in the US and Canada
-State of the Cloud 2020 w/ Byron Deeter and Elliott Robinson of Bessemer
-GPT-3 wrote an article for the guardian and it’s terrifying
-China is trying to control TikTok’s proprietary algorithm
-David Beckham is taking esports public with Guild’s IPO
Thing of the week
Ahead of the US presidential election in November, audio and video augmentation technology is making headlines again (and getting a hell of a lot better).
Since January, deepfake content has more than doubled and deepfakes are getting so good that it takes machine learning researchers to spot the inconsistency in a subject’s heartbeat. Following the alleged election tampering in 2016, officials remain wary of new attacks and cyber warfare.
Why does it matter so much though? Well, back in 2018, the Gabonese president gave a poorly-recorded and ill-received speech that led to a failed coup attempt. Some suspected the speech was tampered with and they no longer trusted their government to protect them. Be careful about what media you consume and how you consume it.
Side note: One of my favorite companies in the space (and featured 7/31 😉) is Descript—with their transcription, overdub, video/audio editing, they’re the gold standard in audio tech. Take notes Siri.
Watch this video below for a crazy application of deepfakes. For more on all this, check out the 20,000 Hz podcast on audio deepfakes.
Also, a goat headbutted a cop and ate all her paperwork in Georgia. Nice.
That’s it for this week :)
If you missed the last newsletter, find it here! 📰
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