This virtual roundtable is for enterprise execs/teams, ideally, in 1) apparel 2) retail or 3) parcel carrier industries. The final date will be determined based on the selected group's availability.

This intimate virtual roundtable is for a tailored group of fewer than 10 enterprise teams who would be interested in learning more about how the above-mentioned industries are leveraging robotic systems for warehouse logistics and supply chain automation. We'll cover offered solutions for order picking (kitting & fulfillment), sortation, singulation, parcel induction, and mixed case palletization and depalletization.

We'll hear about use cases in these areas from a leading team in this space, Dexterity, and a special guest. You'll have a chance to ask Dexterity questions about the market, the nitty-gritty on use cases, and their offering in general. You'll get a chance to connect with the other enterprise leaders on the call as well. 

Contact support@bricleir.com or apply on this page when logged into Bricleir to receive an invite to this event. Know someone who should attend? Tag them in the comments or make a private note for your Bricleir team.

Fintech used to be a term isolated to the board rooms of Fortune 500 companies and Wall Street, but no longer. With the advent of new players on the scene like startups, online investment communities, and institutions, Capitalism in the 21st century is beginning to take on a different shape. On September 28th, OneValley is hosting a virtual pitch in partnership with Figure highlighting eight up-and-coming startups that have found new ways to empower individuals’ financial wellbeing and democratize access to markets worldwide. Selected companies will pitch their startups to 3 partner-level VCs, with the winner receiving $2,000 cash and a free annual Passport / PEP membership! We have a Fireside chat with Asiff Hirji, President of Figure, who will discuss a bit about Figure's success in the Fintech Community and the future of blockchain in our economy!

Speaker: Asiff Hirji, President of FigureAsiff is the President of Figure Technologies, Inc. Prior to Figure, Asiff served as President and COO of Coinbase where he grew the company to over $1 billion in revenue and achieved an $8 billion valuation. Asiff was an Operating Partner with Andreessen Horowitz and previously served as President and COO of TD Ameritrade, growing that business 6x into the nation’s largest online broker. Asiff has also held senior leadership roles with TPG Capital, Saxo Bank, HP, and Bain Capital and has served on a number of public and private boards including Citrix and Advent Software. Asiff is a member of the investment committee for Figure Asset Management.

Pitching Startups:
Benefi -  Benefi is a fintech and lending platform that drives financial inclusion for 30% of the population in North America that are classified as an “Invisible Credit Group (A $6T business globally).
IntelliBonds - Intellibonds end-to-end platform uses AI to automate fixed income investment analysis, decision making and portfolio management.
EnrichVideo - Finance is complex and boring! EnrichVideo makes it simple and interesting with personalized and interactive videos. We work with top banks & WM firms in Asia to help them engage with their valuable clients.
Wipei - Wipei is the first Buy Now Pay Later solution for cross-border purchases in LATAM.
SolidBlock - SolidBlock transforms illiquid assets into tradable financial products, which are easy to buy and sell, collateralize for securing loans, and combine into structured products
Physis Investment - Physis leverages data to help investors track, measure and understand the impact of their portfolio.
Kiddie Kredit - Kiddie Kredit is a mobile chore tracking app that teaches kids about credit

We'll be hosting a virtual roundtable for 5-10 enterprise innovation leaders/teams who are interested in learning more about dexterous robotic systems for logistics and supply chains. 

Learn what is happening in the market, hear from an expert solution provider on creative applications, and chat confidentially with a small group of your peers. 

Interested in attending? Apply privately now on this page or email support@bricleir.com with your interest. Know an enterprise team who would be interested? Tag them below. We'll be selecting participants in the coming weeks. 

Speaker: Ashley Flucas, General Partner at Flucas Ventures

Ashley Flucas is the founder and general partner of Flucas Ventures. Based in West Palm Beach, Florida, the syndicate of around 2,000 angel investors has invested in more than 200 startups. Flucas also serves as a partner at Jupiter, a Florida-based real estate finance fund with $3 billion in assets under management. Flucas is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School, and she is also in the ownership group of Nassau Coliseum in New York. 

Join us ONLINE for the global edition of The Marketplace Conference featuring keynote sessions and panel discussions on all things marketplaces: product, growth hacking, fundraising - you name it! You'll also have the opportunity to network with fellow entrepreneurs, operators and top VCs. People in functional roles who should participate include founders, CEOs, product professionals, marketers, growth hackers, operations executives, and investors.

ABOUT THE ONLINE EVENT:

The Marketplace Conference Online will take place on either Talque or Hopin. All Eventbrite ticket holders will receive an email 1-2 weeks prior to the event with your personalized link to create your profile on the selected host platform. Please fill out your profile before the conference to start meeting and connecting with like-minded marketplace aficionados.

We are excited to be featuring 2 Stages with talks starting at 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET on each day. You will be able to see the full schedule on our website soon. You can find an overview of our past speakers by visiting the past events on our website.

We are excited to be able to offer some exciting networking opportunities as part of the Marketplace Conference! You can expect a great range of engagement opportunities, including intelligent match-making capabilities, 1:1 video calls and chats, and the ability to apply to 1:1 office hours with VCs! Make sure that upon registration on the platform, your profile is as complete as possible and desired.

QUESTIONS? Email us at info@marketplaceconf.com.

Hear from Bricleir experts on the importance of building a startup support ecosystem and the future of funding, managing, and exiting.

This pandemic has been a blessing and a curse for startups. It has been well-documented that startups born outside of the vicinity of investment and innovation hubs are at a severe disadvantage of obtaining seed investment to get off the ground and also having access to subsequent investment to grow and scale.

That being said, startups are learning that regardless of where they’re coming from (e.g. universities, Silicon Valley, international accelerators) they can significantly increase their chances of success by partnering with the right supporters.

These startup supporters, e.g. investors and service providers, are learning to adapt how to help their portfolio of startups in this new era. The ability to hold board meetings or feedback sessions via Zoom is just the tip of the iceberg. Supporters that get involved early during the startup’s formation process are better suited to help with each new growth stage and eventually the exit process.

In this session, we will hear the lived experiences of three leaders supporting startups through the pandemic and gain insight into how they see their role evolving in the future.

In this roundtable, we will cover:

Speakers:

Mark Leahy, Partner at Fenwick & West
Mark works closely with a broad range of companies focused on everything from software and communications to online media. He counsels privately held startups and publicly traded companies on the legal issues they face.

Tim Connors, Founder at PivotNorth Capital
Tim Connors recently made his Midas List debut with the help of his investments in a pair of newly minted unicorns: drone delivery service Zipline and fintech startup Chime, the latter of which he exited via secondary at a 5x return for his fund at PivotNorth Capital, which he founded. Connors, who holds a Master's degree from Stanford and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, had another marquee win with data analytics startup Looker, which was acquired by Google for $2.6 billion. The common denominator, he says: "Great technical founders and very hard computer science under the hood."

Dave Kalez, Managing Partner at Convenio Advisors
Dave is a trusted strategic advisor to emerging growth technology and non-technology companies, executives, entrepreneurs and investors. He works with dynamic growth-oriented companies who seeking to develop and implement organic and inorganic growth initiatives, and he adds value as an individual with extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions and strategic planning.

Covid has sped up the pace of innovation over the past months creating new opportunities for innovators and researchers across the globe and within the walls of academia to pursue. What does this mean for investors, entrepreneurs and the world of life sciences -- and most importantly, the users and recipients of these new technologies.

We’re taking a deeper look at some of the technologies coming out of major universities in the Health Tech space. At this virtual event, we’ll be hearing from Notre Dame, Indiana University, Purdue University, and Pontificia Universidad of Javeriana. They’ll each highlight a couple of their technologies and share how those technologies can most benefit from the support of others in the Bricleir community and beyond. 

Attendees will receive links to all of the technologies post-event with the ways they can partner or support.

This pandemic has been a blessing and a curse for business, and has been well-documented, has disproportionately negatively impacted women in the workforce.

It has exposed how fragile our general workforce contract is, in terms of supporting working families, and has specifically exposed the disproportionate burden placed on working women. It is no longer possible to ignore the reality that when push comes to shove, the burden of family care and school-aged children primarily falls on working women.

Due to the pandemic, many have exited the workforce. Others find themselves scrambling to figure out how to regain momentum from a career and leadership perspective.

The slow but real progress in advancement to leadership roles and exposure to upper tiers of management may have been interrupted. But has there also been a shift to flattening organizations in ways that perhaps minimized race and gender impacts? Or is this wishful thinking mythology?

In this virtual session, we will hear the lived experiences of three leaders through the pandemic, and gain insight from their work leading organizations through this crisis.

They will address such topics as:

-Lessons learned in shifting to remote work over the past 14 months: the good, the bad, the ugly

-Of the changes experienced that seem positive, will they persist, or will they regress to the “mean” or the old ways of doing things?

-Of the negative/challenging conditions and changes: will these resolve on their own, or do they represent newly-exposed challenges that need to be given fresh attention and priority? Or are they age-old issues that only through the pandemic have become impossible to ignore? And what of that?

We look forward to hearing the exchange of personal stories, insights, and lessons learned!

Diane is Mozilla’s Senior Manager, Internal Communications and Employer Branding. She previously helped run Mozilla’s WebFWD startup program and has helped startup founders from the WXR Accelerator and Women Who Tech.

Jane is obsessed with accelerating change at scale through conscious leadership. Her passion, expertise and two decades of experience are anchored at the intersection of technology and human potential. At her core, she empowers individuals and communities to solve the world's largest most persistent and perennial problems.

Today, Jane is the CEO and Co-Founder of be radical, whose purpose helps individuals and organizations build a radically different and positive future. be radical works with people who want to have a massive impact at scale, and who build things that matter.

Some of Jane’s past work includes senior leadership roles at global brands such as eBay, Sotheby's and Mozilla reaching hundreds of millions of users through all stages of growth. She has founded and run large international teams, expanded organizations globally, built products, ran marketing departments and grown large scale open source communities. Jane is also a successful serial entrepreneur and certified CPCC ACC executive coach, and leadership expert.

Jane is the President and Founder of The Coaching Fellowship, a 501c3 non-profit which nurtures and brings together some of the world’s most extraordinary emerging young women leaders in social change. We believe through the combination of leadership development and fellowship; young women leaders will at a crucial point in their career manifest the change they want to be, and see in the world – faster and at an exponentially greater scale.

Jane serves as an advisory board member to social impact organizations, and as a mentor at The Unreasonable Group, Unreasonable at Sea, Semester at Sea, Astia, and many other places.

Martina is the Co-founder and Managing Partner at the WXR Fund, an early-stage venture fund investing in women-led spatial computing (AR/VR/AI) companies. Prior to launching the fund, WXR hosted an accelerator from which 26 companies have graduated.

Before shifting her full time focus to investing, Martina was an entrepreneur who founded her first company, Zealyst, in 2010. Zealyst was a corporate gaming platform that strategically helped employees to build their professional network and in turn collected data for their employer on culture, morale, and engagement. After 6 years of building Zealyst, Martina founded a virtual reality company called ConveneVR that was focused on pushing the boundaries of social VR. She was inspired to transition into the VR industry after recognizing the unique opportunity the creation of a new computing platform provided for women and underrepresented minorities.

Martina is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and an advisor to the Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking at the Foster School of Business. From 2013-2017, she served as the board president of Seattle Women in Tech before transitioning the nonprofit to a for-profit company that is scaling the model globally. In 2018, Martina won a Lumiere Award for Distinguished Leadership from the Advanced Imaging Society. She received a BA in English with a minor in Chemistry from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.

With uplifted mask mandates and rising vaccination rates, executives must decide whether to continue remote work, return to the office, or establish a new hybrid workplace. 

In this Innovator Series, we’re talking to Larissa Maranhão, GM at Brex, and Chris Waldron, CEO of Satellite, to hear why they've decided to stay remote permanently — and how remote work is helping startups and enterprises achieve record-breaking growth. 

Join our conversation for key insights on ways remote-first companies can create productive online cultures, overcome virtual-only challenges, and ultimately ensure long-term success.

A study by Morgan Stanley estimates that VC’s are missing out on nearly a trillion dollars by not investing in diverse founders. Across industries, female entrepreneurs continue to face challenges in obtaining funding and getting the necessary training and support required for successful entrepreneurship. Globally the VC landscape saw only $38.9 billion invested (roughly 14% of venture deals) in companies with a female founder.

Advancing Women in Tech (AWIT) empowers high potential female product and tech leaders through professional education and executive mentorship. In partnership with leading venture capital firm Decibel Partners, AWIT is thrilled to host its Female Founder Office Hours with Dan Nguyen-Huu, Partner at Decibel.

Female founders attending will get their questions on fundraising, hiring, scaling, and building answered.

Dan Nguyen's spaces of investment are Cloud computing, DevOps, CyberSecurity, Data Infrastructure, AI/ML applications, open-source.

Retailers are looking to adapt not just how they manufacture and how they distribute, but with the materials that they use. What interesting materials are being used today that retailers should be mindful of? We'd love to make the connection between these solutions and the retailers in our network. 

Join Female Founders Fund for a virtual panel discussion on Tuesday, March 16th with industry experts Kellyn Grantham, Senior Director of Corporate Development & Enterprise Partnerships at Target, and Betsy Bluestone, Global Director of Discovery & Scouting at P&G Ventures, to hear about the exciting spaces and categories large consumer goods companies are tracking - ranging from sustainability and skincare🧴, to sleep and sexual health. 💙

 
Kellyn has spent the last 8 years at Target focused on acquisitions, investments, and partnerships, including deals like DermStore, Cooking.com, and BaubleBar. Betsy has spent the last 20+ years at P&G Ventures focusing on partnerships, acquisitions, and innovation in categories like luxury and mass beauty, health care, feminine care and household needs. 💸

100% of the donation price for your ticket will go to Girls Who Code, a national non-profit that was founded with a single mission: to close the gender gap in technology. 👩‍💻

The investment focus? Science-backed consumer health start-ups with realistic $bn company outlook. Join deals or co-lead!

Key Terms:

Fund size: €50m Early Stage
Stage: Seed + Series A (Europe); Series A (USA)
Geography: Europe + selectively outside of Europe
Fund Life: 4 years after the first closing or earlier depending on investment pace / 10 y. life + 2 x 1 y. extensions
Management fee: 2% management fee (net) p.a. during investment period, -10% yearly reduction afterward
Carried interest/preferred return to LPs: 20%/ 1.25x of drawn down capital (catch-up logic for carried interest)
Additional LP collaboration: Co-investment + Insight sharing + Co-marketing opportunities

Want to learn more? Let us know by applying privately on this page simply to indicate interest or email ireland@bricleir.com for details and an intro to the LP. 

You're competing against the biggest players in the industry. It’s a noisy market. A challenging year may have created, or exposed, gaps in your strategy to scale. From finding PMF, to securing access to capital, scaling and motivating your team and reducing customer churn: now’s the time to regain control of your growth. 

AT SAASTOCK REMOTE, YOU WILL:

https://www.saastock.com/remote/agenda/

The Montgomery Summit gathers entrepreneurs, investors, and leading executives to discover the most important innovations in business and technology. Building on a seventeen-year legacy, The Montgomery Summit is the top professional destination for entrepreneurs, growth company executives, global investment professionals, and corporate development executives. 

Register for the Full Access pass (plenary sessions, company presentations, 1:1 meeting & invitation only roundtables) for The Montgomery Summit 2021 by entering your contact information in the link attached below, then click Next to continue.

Register for the Plenary Sessions only (keynotes, fireside chats & plenary panels) at no cost here.

**Registering with a YPO sponsor code? Click here. 

THE LEADING ONLINE TECH FESTIVAL FOR EMERGING MARKETS

Step started out as a series of workshops and small gatherings, and over 9 years has grown to become the largest tech festival in Dubai. Step Anywhere brings together a global audience of startups, investors, digital enthusiasts, brands, and more over 3 days online. Step Anywhere’s first edition in 2020 featured 6 tracks of live talks and panels, workshops, various startup programming, exhibition and showcasing opportunities, and live entertainment.

In case you missed it in our newsletter, answer a couple of questions here to let us know what features are most capturing your attention and what you're looking for more of this year.

(Newsletter can be found here for reference)

Proven talent and learning network looking to raise their Series A. They've already raised a significant amount of money in pre-seed/seed from top investors. Impressive user growth and engagement with their virtual fellowships. 

Interested in learning more? Apply to this request and we'll connect you if there's a match! 

*CVCs welcome.

A Global 2000 Retailer in the network is looking for an alternative global service desk solution – one with global experience, an innovative and cost-effective offering, along with a proven track record working with Global 2000 / Fortune 500 clients. We're open to later-stage startups or larger vendors. 

Needs:

Customer service scenario:

Comment below with suggestions or apply with your solution and our point of contact will be in touch. 

Questions answered by a group of Midwest VCs:

1. What were some wins for you and/or the ecosystem in 2020?
2. What were some lows for you and/or the ecosystem in 2020?
3. Which COVID trends do you think are temporary?
4. Which macro tailwinds do you think are here to stay?
5. How did you adapt or change your investing style in 2020?
6. What trends or industry-specific developments are you following?
7. What are you excited about for 2021?
8. Any predictions for 2021?

Read more here. 

Do you have thoughts on the above? Comment below. 

"The mental models that have made Silicon Valley an outlier include: 

Non-zero-sum thinking: The belief that someone else’s gain is not your loss, and can actually be good for you. There’s more than enough for everyone. We’ll make more together. This encourages collaboration and network connectedness. 

Anybody can be anything: Formal credentials and other status markers matter less in Silicon Valley. That’s not to say that they don’t matter. Of course, they do, it’s human nature. But in Silicon Valley, more than anywhere else, a person’s future potential isn’t judged completely on their past. This lessens the impact of preferential attachment and encourages interaction between nodes without undue friction from perceived status differences or past failures.

Habitual speed: In “Always be Moving”, I wrote that the #1 advantage of startups and entrepreneurs is speed, so they must embrace what we call the “shrew mentality.” This restless mentality of always moving and making speed a habit is a mental model that defines the Silicon Valley network in general. When most of the nodes in your network are constantly moving and building something new, you unconsciously want to match their pace.

Thinking Big: Thinking big is one of those things that sounds easy in theory, but hard in practice. Networks set the bar for success based on what the nodes in that network have previously achieved. In Silicon Valley, your next-door neighbor may have built a product with 100 million users, anchoring your expectations for what success looks like higher than they would be in a different network. 

Impact as the status marker: The way people signal status in SV is by “impact.” When people in Silicon Valley make a lot of money, in the past, they preferred to spend it on building the next new thing instead of buying flashy stuff. Status comes from the acclaim and friendships you build with other people who matter. Bling oriented money culture is anti-Silicon Valley. It’s anti-what works. Money is only a byproduct of obsessive focus and impact. 

Paying it forward: One of the most striking network protocols in Silicon Valley is the idea that you should pay it forward. That helping someone you may have just met by pushing information and resources to them will come back around one day, in an almost karmic sense.

Sharing information: This norm of transparency of information stems from a belief that the idea is not the value point, competing on the execution of the idea is what matters. The free flow of information and resources between nodes with weak ties leads to higher interconnectedness in the network and higher utilization of each link in the network. More potential connections materialize into actual connections unconstrained by tit-for-tat thinking, creating a more powerful network effect.

If you’re not weird, you’re weird: My Partner, Morgan Beller says this. Silicon Valley has created a norm of thinking outside the box. My co- founder Stan Chudnovsky and I always had the mental model while building companies that if everyone else was doing things one way, that’s a clear sign we should *not* do it that way. The mental model is to purposefully do things differently. If you do end up doing something like everyone else, it’s because you tried other options and arrived there from first principles.

Drinking the kool-aid: The norm of drinking our own kool-aid is a good thing for an innovation network. Getting swept away with enthusiasm for a new idea and doing something “stupid” is a core operating principle for people in a high-performing innovative network. It’s why someone would give Jack Dorsey a few million dollars to have people share 140 characters on what they ate for lunch, or someone would quit a high paying job to join an 8 person company with a silly name like Twitter. It’s why Jim Bryer at Accel in Palo Alto would give a young Zuck millions of dollars for a college networking site with only a few thousand users when three firms in Boston had already passed on investing.

The Concept of the Founder As a Hero: The way a network defines a hero or example of iconic success tends to produce more people trying to fulfill that role, and calls out to the people who it speaks to. In Silicon Valley, there’s a cultural perception that Founders are heroes. 

This is not a comprehensive list, but it’s a good start. All these network protocols add up to a culture with a distinctive network flavor."

From Where To Build Your Startup by James Currier, NFX General Partner 

Direct download attached. 

Market Cap of Tech in U.S. by City from NFX

"Among tech ecosystems, Silicon Valley remains an outlier. It is home to far more than its fair share of startups that have reached billion-dollar-plus valuations, relative to its population.

To show this empirically, we used the total value of tech companies founded and headquartered in various cities across the US as a proxy for the productivity of the local tech ecosystem. Specifically, we compiled the most up-to-date data on tech companies across the US worth $1B+ and where they were headquartered."

Access data here.

Thanks  NFX !

We have partnered with a newer podcast focused on sitting down with founders or investors who can share their story of building a product that customers can't live without, or explain how/here to find & close investors.

The weekly podcast with fresh takes from venture-backed startup founders and investors who are building great products. Check sizes or the current round of funding must be Seed or Series A.

The podcast's pledge? They'll never interview: 1.) A unicorn "startup" 2.) A VC with an office on Sand Hill Road

Interested? Apply to this request and we'll put you in touch with the host. Or you can comment about someone below who might be interested and we'll follow up. 

Startup investment activity spiked in Q3’20 as funding reached an all-time high: Deals increased 20%, from 344 in Q2’20 to 414 in Q3’20, and dollar funding doubled quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) to $6.6B. Companies developing alternative proteins, at-home fitness solutions, and gaming platforms drove most of the investment activity.

Half of consumer products deals were US-based: Despite many notable deals across regions such as Europe and Asia-Pacific (APAC), the US held the lead in deal activity.

Dollar funding is still projected to hit a new record by the end of the year: Funding to consumer products companies is on pace to reach nearly $18B by the end of December.

A diverse range of companies became unicorns and closed mega-rounds in Q3’20: Companies ranging from Zwift, in the fitness category, to Gymshark, in the apparel space, attracted significant investment.

Gaming represented most of the major exit activity: Four out of the 5 top exits in Q3’20 were from the gaming category. Most notable among these exits was Unity, which went public at a $13.7B valuation.

Big tech rolled out new consumer products in Q3’20: While Microsoft and Amazon rolled out new generations of their gaming and smart home products, respectively, Apple made noise with the launch of Apple Fitness+.

Quarterly funding to food and beverage companies hit an all-time high: The food and beverage category raised more than $1.4B, with alternative proteins companies — including plant-based meat brands and lab-grown meat companies — driving most of the investment activity.

Beauty and personal care funding recovered since hitting a low early in the pandemic: While most deals are still early stage, expansion-stage rounds increased QoQ. Men’s grooming continued to attract investor attention and sustainability came into greater focus.

Household essentials & pet companies saw the highest number of quarterly deals ever: Companies focusing on sustainable materials, reusable packaging, and premium pet food drove most of the notable deal activity in this category.

The at-home fitness boom has yet to slow down: Investors looked to further fuel the growth of companies developing at home fitness solutions through later-stage expansion deals.

Mid- to late-stage deals in the consumer electronics category gained share QoQ: Overall funding in this category increased in each quarter in 2020, driven by later-stage rounds. Companies developing consumer health devices, smart home products, and home sanitization solutions attracted more investor interest.

Gaming and e-sports companies raised a record-setting $2.6B in Q3’20: This sector saw robust investment activity across major categories including streaming platforms, gaming engines, and mobile game developers.

Funding to apparel and accessories companies spiked in Q3’20 to $684M: Athleisure brands experienced Covid-19 tailwinds with most employees still working from home and more consumers turning toward at-home fitness solutions. Early-stage home goods companies garnered greater investor attention: Companies offering products tailored toward home improvement have gained more momentum as the pandemic continues.

For the full report, see attached.