iot Archives – The Syndicate

Smart Cities that Function Like Startups and Ayesha Khanna

May 4, 2020 by Regine

Dr. Ayesha Khanna is Co-Founder and CEO of ADDO AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm and incubator that was named one of 4 top AI companies in Asia. She has been a strategic advisor on artificial intelligence, smart cities, and fintech to leading corporations and governments and serves on the Board of Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), the Singapore government’s agency that develops its world-class technology sector to drive the country’s digital economy and power its Smart Nation vision. Her clients have included SMRT, Singapore’s largest public transport company; Singtel, Singapore’s largest telco; SOMPO, Japan’s largest insurance firm; Habib Bank, Pakistan’s largest bank; and Smart Dubai, the government agency tasked to transform Dubai into a leading smart city. Prior to founding ADDO AI, Ayesha spent more than a decade on Wall Street developing large scale trading, risk management, and data analytics systems and was the co-founder of the Hybrid Reality Institute, a research advisory group established to analyze the social and economic impact of accelerating technologies. Ayesha is the co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization. She has been published or quoted in most major publications and presented at major financial, technology and other industry conferences, provided high-level government briefings, chaired symposiums such as AI Asia and spoken at TEDx events. Ayesha is also the Founder of 21C GIRLS, a charity that delivers free coding and artificial intelligence classes to girls in Singapore, a Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and on the Board of Advisors for Humanity+ and directed the Future Cities Group at the London School of Economics, and has been a Faculty Advisor at Singularity University.

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Building a Successful Corporate Venture Fund with Venu Pemmaraju of Wipro Ventures

April 1, 2019 by Matt

Venu Pemmaraju is Managing Partner at Wipro Ventures, a $100M fund out of Wipro Ltd. focused on early to mid-stage startups investments that leverage their Global 1000 clients to help startups grow and acquire enterprise-level customers. He also serves as a board observer for Avaamo, CloudGenix, Emailage, and ImanisData and prior to this was an Investment Director at Intel Capital.

Listen and Learn:

What it is like building a successful corporate venture arm
What Venu learned living through two boom and bust cycles
Why cybersecurity is always a safe bet for investments
How startups should think about corporate VCs
Are headed for another crash
Why automation is a great trend to ride
Why so many more enterprises are starting investment arms

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The Future of the Internet and Governments with Clay Collins of the Flippening Podcast

October 22, 2018 by Regine

Clay Collins (@claycollins) is one of the top internet marketers in the world. After leaving home at age 15 to start his first software company, Clay has gone on to co-found Leadpages which raised $38M and was later acquired for a sizable exit.

In addition, Clay has presented on some of the largest internet marketing conferences and stages in the world and was recently featured in the documentary “Add To Cart” which follows the history of internet marketing pioneers such as Christian Lander (Stuff White People Like), Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV), Andy Jenkins (Kajabi), Tucker Max, and Frank Kern.

More recently Clay has been focusing extensively on the blockchain & cryptocurrency space where he is the co-founder of Nomics, which produces a free crypto market data API for enterprise level crypto investors and runs Flippening, a top 3 crypto podcast.

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Building and Funding over 100 IoT Startups and the Future of Transportation and Driverless Cars with Kyle Ellicot of ReadWrite Labs

September 3, 2018 by Matt

Kyle Ellicott is the Founder and Chief Labs Officer of ReadWrite / ReadWrite Labs (formerly known as Wearable IoT World, Inc.), a San Francisco-based Media and Ventures company dedicated to creating the social fabric for businesses around Wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. The company is focused on connecting technological experts, thought-leaders, corporate/startup executives, and investors as they build these emerging technologies through fostering dynamic relationships between brands, businesses, and bright minds.

And in an exciting twist, Kyle will be joining The Syndicate as a Managing Partner to help our grow our accredited investor syndicate, bringing his powerful network and deal flow to our group of angel investors. I am super excited to have Kyle on the team as I’ve been a bit busy and unable to focus on our investors as I feel I should and look forward to the professionalization and growth of our syndicate.

NOTE: If you are an accredited investor and interested in high growth investment opportunities, I recommend applying to join our investment group.

Listen and Learn:

How IoT is shaping up to evolve society
Why China will dominate transportation and driverless vehicles industry
Lessons learned from investing in over 100 IoT startups
Mistakes Kyle made as an angel investor
How to think about scooter, bike and ridesharing companies
The reason the US is lagging in certain industries
How Kyle sees blockchains role in society
Implications of IoT growth in our daily lives
Why investing globally is a really good idea as an investor
How Kyle builds up better and better deal flow
Why Kyle will be joining The Syndicate to help bolster our investment group
Continue Reading …

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How Qualcomm Ventures Drives Returns by Investing Across Geographies and What the Future Holds with Varun Jain

April 30, 2018 by Matt

Varun Jain currently leads Qualcomm Ventures’ global early-stage fund, focused on Seed and Series A opportunities. This fund has scaled to $100M+ AUM and 75+ global investments, which include winners such as Cruise Automation (acquired by GM), 99 (acquired by Didi) and Zoom. He also serves the global lead for the fund’s investments in the automotive sector. In 2017 and 2018, Varun was recognized as one among the top 20 Rising Stars in the corporate venture industry by Global Corporate Venturing.

Qualcomm Ventures is one of the leading corporate venture funds in the world with 200+ active investments and numerous exits, including 8 billion dollar plus outcomes in last 7 years.

Listen and Learn:

The challenges of being a corporate VC (and the benefits)
How autonomous vehicles and transport changes will affect everyday life
Why Varun is big on IoT but not industrial
The unconventional way Varun invested in a unicorn
How Varun views crypto
Why AI is overhyped and drones are coming back in style
Why North America is still the best location for startup investing
How investing differs across regions and how to make it work
Continue Reading …

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Jeff Clavier on Why Brand Matters in VC and the Best Startup Investments Break Your Investing Rules

March 30, 2018 by Matt

Jeff Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of Uncork Capital (formerly SoftTech VC), one of the original seed VC firms in Silicon Valley, having closed 200+ investments since 2004. An early angel investor in Web 2.0, Jeff and his team have backed successful startups like Mint (Intuit), Kongregate (GameStop), Brightroll (Yahoo), LiveRamp (Acxiom), Milo (eBay), Wildfire (Google), Bleacher Report (Turner), Gnip (Twitter), Fitbit (NYSE:FIT), Eventbrite, Sendgrid, Poshmark, Hired, Postmates, Shippo, Front and Molekule. The portfolio has also seen acquisitions by Groupon, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo and AOL. The firm is currently investing out of its $100M Fund V, making on average 15 seed commitments of $1M per year in mobile/cloud saas, consumer services, connected devices, marketplaces and “frontier tech” (AI, AR/VR, autonomous vehicles, digital manufacturing and material science, space tech).

Listen and Learn:

Why brand is incredibly important in venture capital
The importance of networking and diversity in investing
Why Jeff’s investment thesis had changed over the years
The reason Uncork only invests in businesses that matter
Why Jeff thinks blockchain is a just hype and manipulated markets
How to think about investing in frontier tech
What most people don’t know about venture
How Jeff efficiently manages his time
Why the best investments break your rule book

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Why Mobile and IoT are the Future and How Canada is Leading the Way with Alex Baker of Relay Ventures

March 19, 2018 by Matt

Alex is a Partner at Relay Ventures, an early stage venture fund exclusively focused on mobile computing. Alex oversees direct investments in a broad range of mobile applications and services companies. Alex is an active board member and observer in supporting Bionym, Influitive, ClearFit, TouchBistro, Kira and teaBOT. Alex overseas the Fund’s affiliate program investments that include Highline and Next36, and Alex is an advisor to DMZ (Ryerson).

Alex is a frequent speaker and panelist at corporate and venture capital events, including CIX, CTIA Wireless, IDCEE (Ukraine) and Mobile Monday.

Listen and Learn:

The art of taking advantage of unexpected opportunities
Why Canada’s startup ecosystem has been changing so drastically
Alex’s thoughts on mobile and where we are in the adoption curve
Why IoT is an interesting industry for both B2B and B2C
How Toronto compares to other tech hubs in terms of talent
The challenges with investing in multiple business models
How governments can help rather than hurt innovation
Why Canada’s immigration policy is attracting a ton of talent to the country
How much US investors are investing in Canadian startups
Why cryptocurrencies are very overrated

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Industrial IoT is Eating the World of Boring but Incredibly Lucrative Businesses with Scott MacDonald of McRock Capital

March 12, 2018 by Matt

Scott MacDonald is the co-founder of McRock Capital, a Toronto based VC firm focused on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). He is also the Director and Chairman of numerous high-growth public and private companies.

Listen and Learn:

The reason Scott only invests in IoT with recurring revenue
What investors and entrepreneurs need to know about Canadian ecosystem
How IoT startups can use software and data to differentiate
Why early stage IoT investing is a loser’s game
How to evaluate enterprise level IoT deals
The reason so much money is pouring into Canadian startups

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Interfaces, Understanding Paradigm Shifts and the Product in Consumer Tech Investing with Matt Hartman of Betaworks

March 9, 2018 by Matt

Matt Hartman is a partner at NYC based Betaworks, an early stage accelerator/venture studio with a killer track record. Matt leads the Seed Investments team and helps the company decide which bets to make. Prior to Betaworks, Matt was serial entrepreneur and worked on a variety of early stage startups.

Listen and Learn:

The evolution of user interfaces
Which companies and startups are in the best position for a paradigm shift
How voice computing will change the world
Why Betaworks runs a VC + venture studio investment model
How to avoid investor distraction
The importance of a developer centric investment model
Problems and potential solutions to advertising based business models
Why Matt is bullish and wary of blockchain
The and practical application of product centered design

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China is Challenging the Status Quo and Taking Over the Startup Scene – Here is How Hardware Plays Out and Changes the World with Ben Joffe of the HAX Accelerator

February 19, 2018 by Matt

Benjamin Joffe is a Partner at HAX, the #1 global investor in early stage hardware startups with over 200 investments. Prior to HAX he worked mostly across Asia for the past 18 years (China, Japan, Korea) in various high-tech industries: aerospace, telecom, Internet, mobile, gaming. and ran his own cross-border research & advisory firm.