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The next wave of supply-chain innovation will be driven by startups that help incumbents win

TechCrunch

Steve Sloane is a partner at Menlo Ventures where he invests in inflection-stage companies. For years, the prevailing narrative for innovation in supply chain has focused on the disruptors: Upstarts that enter the industry with new technologies and business models to displace incumbents. The recurring second wave of innovation.

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CoreWeave, a GPU-focused cloud compute provider, lands $221M investment

TechCrunch

Magnetar contributed $111 million, with the remainder of the investment being split between Nvidia, Friedman and Gross. An Nvidia spokesperson said that the investment represents a “deepening” of its partnership with CoreWeave. Initially, CoreWeave was focused exclusively on cryptocurrency applications. billion and $26.28

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Every time OpenAI cuts a check for training data, an unlaunched competitive startup dies. Without a ‘safe harbor,’ AI will be ruled by incumbents.

Hunter Walk

Right now I’m comfortable betting on innovation from small teams in the ‘approach,’ but if experimentation is gated by nine figures worth of licensing deals, we are doing a disservice to innovation. In the last year we’ve seen billions of dollars invested in AI companies.

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The Future of Corporate Venture Capital

500

Conventional wisdom dictated that incumbents should focus their innovation efforts on R&D and growing their cash cows while investing in a few startups. But the rate of change has accelerated and with it, the balance of internal versus external investment. Since 2010, we’ve.

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The Market Diversifies: International Innovation Captures Larger Share Of Startup Funding Applications

Gust

In Q3 the global startup ecosystem continued to thrive, with 25% growth over the same quarter last year and up 18% from last quarter, as the innovation economy expands around the world. The post The Market Diversifies: International Innovation Captures Larger Share Of Startup Funding Applications appeared first on The Gust Blog.

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Sequoia Heritage, Stripe and others invest $200M in African fintech Wave at $1.7B valuation

TechCrunch

The investment is the largest-ever Series A round for the region, and it values Wave at $1.7 Four big-name backers jointly led the round — Sequoia Heritage, a private investment fund and a subsidiary of Sequoia; Founders Fund; payments upstart Stripe; and Ribbit Capital. . ” Going up against incumbents.

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Lowercarbon Capital and Gradient Ventures Invest $9M in Quilt for Advanced Residential Heat Pump System

American Entrepreneurship

“However, most heat pump systems today are more difficult to use than their more mature fossil incumbents. Lambert served as Director at Google’s Area 120, where he led the division’s sustainability investments. We’re developing heat pumps that are better than any HVAC system of any kind.

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