News: Is overseeing cloud operations the new career path to CEO?

• February 9, 2021
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Amazon, Microsoft and IBM have each elevated people who ran their cloud divisions to the CEO role.

When Amazon announced last week that founder and CEO Jeff Bezos planned to step back from overseeing operations and shift into an executive chairman role, it also revealed that AWS CEO Andy Jassy, head of the company’s profitable cloud division, would replace him.

As Bessemer partner Byron Deeter pointed out on Twitter, Jassy’s promotion was similar to Satya Nadella’s ascent at Microsoft: in 2014, he moved from executive VP in charge of Azure to the chief exec’s office. Similarly, Arvind Krishna, who was promoted to replace Ginni Rometti as IBM CEO last year, also was formerly head of the company’s cloud business.

Could Nadella’s successful rise serve as a blueprint for Amazon as it makes a similar transition? While there are major differences in the missions of these companies, it’s inevitable that we will compare these two executives based on their former jobs. It’s true that they have an awful lot in common, but there are some stark differences, too.

Replacing a legend

For starters, Jassy is taking over for someone who founded one of the world’s biggest corporations. Nadella replaced Steve Ballmer, who had taken over for the company’s face, Bill Gates. Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, says this notable difference could have a huge impact for Jassy with his founder boss still looking over his shoulder.

“There’s a lot of similarity in the two situations, but Satya was a little removed from the founder Gates. Bezos will always hover and be there, whereas Gates (and Ballmer) had retired for good. [ … ] It was clear [they] would not be coming back. [ … ] For Jassy, the owner could [conceivably] come back anytime,” Mueller said.

But Andrew Bartels, an analyst at Forrester Research, says it’s not a coincidence that both leaders were plucked from the cloud divisions of their respective companies, even if it was seven years apart.

“In both cases, these hyperscale business units of Microsoft and Amazon were the fastest-growing and best-performing units of the companies. [ … ] In both cases, cloud infrastructure was seen as a platform on top of which and around which other cloud offerings could be developed,” Bartels said. The companies both believe that the leaders of these two growth engines were best suited to lead the company into the future.

News: Mate Fertility is aiming to create a franchise of fertility clinics open to everyone

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Mate Fertility, the new Los Angeles startup launching today with $2.8 million in financing, has a mission to create a more inclusive network of family planning services for people struggling with the high cost and low availability of fertility clinics around the country. Founded by serial entrepreneur Oliver Bogner and his brother Gabriel, Mate was

Mate Fertility, the new Los Angeles startup launching today with $2.8 million in financing, has a mission to create a more inclusive network of family planning services for people struggling with the high cost and low availability of fertility clinics around the country.

Founded by serial entrepreneur Oliver Bogner and his brother Gabriel, Mate was born from both brothers’ struggles with trying to start a family. For Oliver, that was when he and his partner were looking at IVF as a way to screen for the BRCA1 gene from her embryos after she found out that she was a carrier. Meanwhile, Gabriel, an IVF baby who is a member of the LGBTQ community, felt that the services for family planning weren’t always accepting of the gay community.

“IVF and surrogacy were the only options for me to have kids,” the younger Bogner said. “And the queer community has been locked out of these services. It became my mission to democratize healthcare for my community.”

Once Oliver started doing research into the market and discovered that there were only 460 fertility clinics in the U.S. and that over 80% were concentrated in five major metropolitan areas, he knew there was an opportunity for a new business.

The Bogner brothers enlisted famed reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, who trained under the British doctors that pioneered In Vitro Fertilization, to come on board and together the three men launched Mate Fertility.

The co-founders have enlisted an impressive array of financiers to back their business boasting an investor base that includes Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos; Peter Pham, the co-founder of the LA-based consumer focused company incubator, Science; Patrick Schwarzenegger; Brian Schwartz; the investors behind Roman, Allbirds, and Caspar, Rosecliff Ventures; Pure Imagination Brands; Mana Ventures, and Maschmeyer Group Ventures.

Mate is launching first in Oklahoma City, where two legacy providers are charging anywhere from 10% to 15% above the national average for family planning services. “We’re going in at anywhere from 50% to 60% lower costs than they are,” said Oliver Bogner.

The company said it would offer egg freezing services for as low as $5,000 and IVF for $9,400*, while the national average for IVF cycle costs ranges from $15,000 to $18,000, including medication.

“We’re still making healthy margins that allow us to operate the business. It’s not a matter fo these procedures costing more. These 460 clinics are allowed to radically mark up the process,” said the elder Bogner. “One of these clinics is making approximately 1,000% profit margin on every procedure.”

Given the fact that the company estimates roughly 18% of the U.S. population will face some fertility issue, the need for more clinics — setting aside the lower costs — would be enormous.

“We need 3,000 clinics to properly serve our population, today we have 460. There’s a huge gap in care,” said Bogner. 

The company is working with the architects behind Dry Bar, Heitler Houstoun, to design its clinics in an effort to popularize and destigmatize the services.

“We were really intrigued by Oliver and Gabe. In terms of what the biggest risks are… you’re not playing around. You’re not creating software, you’re creating life,” said Adam Struck, the founder of Mate Fertility’s lead investment firm, Struck Capital. “The ultimate KPI which is success rate for our patients is top tier. There’s a lot that Mate is doing to ensure that some of the best medical personnel in the world are part of the Mate mission.” 

Mate Fertility offers modern EHR platforms, an e-pharmacy, proven protocols, payment assistance and digital patient and provider portals for services that include IVF, genetic screening, egg freezing, surrogacy and LGBTQ family building treatments, the company said.

Its first locations will be clinics in Oklahoma City, Anchorage, Ark., Bakersfield, Calif. Lancaster, Pa., Austin, and Portland.

*An earlier version of this story cited the company’s IVF price as $8,000.

News: ClubLink offers a better Clubhouse link for sharing on social media

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Although the popular audio chat platform Clubhouse today includes a way to share your upcoming hangouts and events across social media, the resulting link that displays is fairly boring. A new link-sharing tool called ClubLink can help. The tool allows hosts to better promote their events by offering a more customized social media preview featuring

Although the popular audio chat platform Clubhouse today includes a way to share your upcoming hangouts and events across social media, the resulting link that displays is fairly boring. A new link-sharing tool called ClubLink can help. The tool allows hosts to better promote their events by offering a more customized social media preview featuring a photo that includes the room name, who’s attending, the date and time (using the host’s time zone), and even profile icons of the hosts themselves.

The tool was built by two Germany-based colleagues, online marketer Jens Polomski and coder and digital marketer, Peter Thaleikis.

Polomski says he came up with the idea last month because he kept seeing Clubhouse links shared on Twitter and thought they just didn’t look that good.

“I noticed many people share — especially on Twitter — because Clubhouse has this built-in sharing feature,” he says. “But the preview image is not well-optimized and lacks any relevant information.”

Polomski reached out to Thaleikis and convinced him to help build a better version.

Their resulting ClubLink tool is simple to use. You just paste in your Clubhouse event link on the ClubLink website, and it automatically generates the ClubLink you can use. It’s a similar process as to how URL shorteners like tinyurl.com work, for example.

In ClubLink’s case, though, it’s doing a bit more than just returning a shorter URL. The tool visits the Clubhouse link provided and takes a screenshot to help create the image — but it’s not scraping data from Clubhouse, Polomski says. The tool also renames the image file it creates to include the host’s name for better discoverability and, perhaps, for better search engine optimization in the future.

In fact, the SEO aspects of the ClubLink URLs were considered when the tool was built, given its creators have digital marketing backgrounds.

“We’re taking care that the technical SEO background from the links are as good as possible — and that’s something Clubhouse, right now, didn’t do,” notes Polomski. However, he notes that it’s too soon to tell how well those efforts have paid off, as the first ClubLink URLs were just launched last week and only a few have been indexed by Google so far.

After you’ve created the link on the ClubLink website, you’re directed to a page where you have the option to immediately share it out to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Being able to publicize your rooms in advance is a important way to build a following on the audio-based social network, so likely many hosts will begin to put this new tool to use in the days ahead.

Here’s one example of a ClubLink in action:

Of course, sharing a link while you’re in a room is useful too — especially if you’ve landed in a great room you think others should know about. Clubhouse, in its most recent update, noted that you’re now able to click the “+” sign while in room to get a link that you can post to social media. Unfortunately, these “room” links don’t work yet in the ClubLink tool, but the team said they’re already discussing a solution for that.

ClubLink is one of now several small tools that’s popped up in recent days to offer expanded functionality and new features for Clubhouse power users.

We’ve also come across the Clubhouse Bio Creator at clubhousebio.xyz, which helps people perfect their profile bio on the desktop then copy it over to Clubhouse on their phone. Other popular tools help users make their profile picture stand out, like Clubhouse Glow, Clubhouse Avatar Maker, and Thriveepic‘s Canva template.

News: Sentropy launches tool for people to protect themselves from social media abuse, starting with Twitter

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Last year, in the midst of a particularly spiky U.S. presidential election campaign, a startup called Sentropy emerged from stealth with an AI-based platform aimed at social media and other companies that corralled people together for online conversation. Sentropy had built a set of algorithms, using natural language processing and machine learning, to help these

This is still a version one though. Right now, you don’t see your full timeline through Protect, so essentially it means that you toggle between Protect and whatever Twitter client you are using. Some might find that onerous, although on the other hand Bala noted that a sign of Sentropy’s success is that people will actually let it work in the background and you won’t feel the need to constantly check in.

Redgrave also noted that the service is still exploring how to add in other features, such as the ability to also filter direct messages.

News: Audi’s new 2022 e-tron GT is a real electric performance sedan, not just another electrified crossover

• February 9, 2021
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Audi revealed Tuesday the 2022 e-tron Quattro GT and its higher-performing sibling the RS e-tron GT — flagships of the German automaker’s growing electric vehicle portfolio and its first departure from the crossovers and SUVs that have so far dominated the lineup. The Audi e-tron GT and RS are the third and fourth all-electric vehicles

Audi revealed Tuesday the 2022 e-tron Quattro GT and its higher-performing sibling the RS e-tron GT — flagships of the German automaker’s growing electric vehicle portfolio and its first departure from the crossovers and SUVs that have so far dominated the lineup.

The Audi e-tron GT and RS are the third and fourth all-electric vehicles in the company’s U.S. portfolio, followed by the e-tron SUV and e-tron Sportback that debuted in 2019. The Audi Q4 e-tron — another SUV — will be the automaker’s fifth electric vehicle. All of these e-tron models are part of Audi’s plan to launch more than 30 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids by 2025.

“This car is a new, very progressive interpretation of the classical GT,” Marc Lichte, head of Audi design, said in Tuesday’s presentation. “That means proportions like a super sports car, and the usability of a real four seater. And that’s something completely new.”

The e-tron GT, which goes into production this spring and will hit the U.S. market this summer, packs in the performance and luxury in its sporty package. The base e-tron GT has two motors that produce the equivalent of 469 horsepower — or 522 hp with “overboost” — and can travel an estimated 238 miles on the 93.4-kilowatt battery. Under the European WLTP standard, the e-tron GT range is 298 miles.

The RS e-tron has the same front motor as the entry-level GT, but has a more powerful rear motor. Together, the motors can produce 590 horsepower and up to 637 horsepower with overboost. As a result, the RS e-tron GT can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.1 seconds and has a 155 mph top track speed, the company said. The RS has an estimated EPA range of 232 miles.

The company has yet to receive an official EPA estimate for either variant.

The vehicles also have an 800-volt electrical architecture — the same that is in the Porsche Taycan. That architecture allows the e-tron GT, like the Taycan, to replenish its battery from 5% to 80% in 22.5 minutes, one of the quickest charging rates in the industry. 

The e-tron GT shares more than just the 800-volt electrical architecture with Porsche. Audi and Porsche, which are both VW Group companies, co-developed the e-tron GT and the Taycan. The two vehicles also have the same chassis and J1 EV battery platform. 

Inside, the e-tron GT comes standard with a 12.3-inch Audi virtual cockpit digital instrument cluster and a central 10.1-inch touchscreen, where drivers can control music, navigation and other controls as well as electric vehicle-specific features such as searching for charging stations. Owners can opt for an upgrade and add a head-up display as well.

The vehicle also comes standard in a leather-free interior featuring recycled materials including an artificial suede called Dinamica, although a Nappa leather option is also available as an upgrade.

All of this performance and luxury comes at a price. The base model of the e-tron GT quattro starts at $99,900, followed by a higher trim level priced at $107,100. The RS e-tron GT starts at $139,900. Those prices push even higher for those that opt for the additional features, notably the company’s Matrix LED headlights, which are only available in Europe.

News: Supersonic jet company Aerion partners with NASA on high-speed point-to-point travel

• February 9, 2021
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Aerion has been working on ushering in a new era of commercial supersonic flight for nearly a decade now, and the company just revealed that it has signed a new partnership with NASA to put that experience to use in the pursuit of supersonic point-to-point travel – the technical name for putting the kind of

Aerion has been working on ushering in a new era of commercial supersonic flight for nearly a decade now, and the company just revealed that it has signed a new partnership with NASA to put that experience to use in the pursuit of supersonic point-to-point travel – the technical name for putting the kind of high-speed flight typically associated with space launches to use in helping people move very quickly from one place on Earth to another.

The new collaboration comes via the Space Act Agreement, which basically allows NASA to enlist the aid of private companies to help it achieve its various goals. NASA has been developing high-Mach, supersonic aircraft technologies for some time now, in particular though its arrangement with Lockheed Martin to build and fly the X-59 QueSST, a demonstrator aircraft that will show how supersonic craft can also operate relatively quietly, with so-called ‘low-boom’ capabilities that avoid the loud sonic booms produced by most supersonic vehicles when they break the sound barrier.

NASA announced a similar partnership under the Space Act Agreement with Virgin Galactic last year, with the goal of helping the agency develop technologies that will assist in the eventual deployment of sustainable supersonic commercial flight. Aerion’s team-up with the agency will focus specifically on studying commercial flight capabilities in speeds ranging between Mach 3 and Mach 5, with a focus on propulsion and thermal management systems, power generation and technologies for use in the passenger and crew cabins.

Aerion’s own high-speed commercial aviation efforts are currently on track to see its AS2 private jet for business customers enter production in 2023, which will set the stage for its AS3 commercial supersonic passenger aircraft to follow after that.

This isn’t Aerion’s first team-up with NASA: The two have collaborated twice previously on similar projects, with the first collaboration begun way back in 2012. Now that Aerion’s closer to actual production, it’s likely that both partners will gain a lot towards their mutual goals of helping the U.S. develop commercially viable and sustainable supersonic passenger flight technologies.

News: Meet the entrepreneurs bringing bitcoin to institutions

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There’s a popular misconception that the cryptocurrency industry is a realm of rogue tech-bro cowboys. But the reality is many of the most ambitious entrepreneurs in fintech are betting big on institutional bitcoin adoption.  Such is the case with Lebanese-American venture capitalist Soona Amhaz of Volt Capital, whom Forbes recently listed as one of the

There’s a popular misconception that the cryptocurrency industry is a realm of rogue tech-bro cowboys. But the reality is many of the most ambitious entrepreneurs in fintech are betting big on institutional bitcoin adoption. 

Such is the case with Lebanese-American venture capitalist Soona Amhaz of Volt Capital, whom Forbes recently listed as one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley. She discovered bitcoin through Reddit, back when she was an engineering student at the University of Michigan. Now her firm has invested in 11 crypto startups and is working alongside institutional players like TD Ameritrade, Cumberland and CMT Digital as part of the Chicago DeFi Alliance (CDA). 

“Where institutions are at now is they’re looking to back quality founders in the space early on. They’re looking to be market makers for a lot of these [crypto] projects, and they’re looking to help with integrations and partnerships between decentralized finance [DeFi] projects and more established financial firms,” Amhaz said. “They see where the puck is going and the smart ones are getting ahead of the curve.” 

When it comes to “DeFi,” Amhaz said the term includes bitcoin and the variety of blockchain-based systems gaining popularity among day traders during the pandemic.

“Specific DeFi projects that are gaining more traction now include automated market makers (AMMs), stablecoins and platforms for decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregation, lending and derivatives,” Amhaz said. “Recent DeFi projects simply offer more avenues to use bitcoin as a productive asset, not just a reserve asset.” 

Until now, most institutions have preferred indirect exposure to cryptocurrency. Goldman Sachs alum Juthica Chou, who co-founded the derivatives exchange LedgerX back in 2013, pioneered the physically settled bitcoin futures that are now mainstay offerings among firms like Bakkt and CME Group. Futures contracts and bitcoin options offer a way for institutions to bet on the price of bitcoin without actually owning bitcoin directly. A cash-settled product means the buyer is paid in dollars, such as getting $10,000 when the option to buy at $10,000 expires, instead of getting paid in bitcoin. Rumor has it the asset management giant BlackRock will soon become the next player offering bitcoin futures products. 

So far, many institutions are willing to forgo some profits in exchange for lower risk. One of the most popular institutional product providers, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), reportedly saw $1.2 billion in fresh investor funds in January 2021. 

“I’m still bullish on options and derivatives,” Chou said, adding there’s enough demand from institutions for trust shares like GBTC, bitcoin options and even prospective exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to all generate substantial wealth in 2021. 

“The environment has way more infrastructure than we had back in 2013,” Chou said. “There’s security infrastructure and best practices for custodians, auditing infrastructure … banking is another great example. Compared to 2013, the difference between where we were and where we are today is night and day.”

With regards to GBTC, in particular, insatiable demand for shares with lower risks than custodying bitcoin leads to sky-high premiums, sometimes up to 100% more expensive than buying cryptocurrency directly. That’s why Valkyrie CEO Leah Wald launched her own Texas-based asset management firm in 2020. According to Crunchbase, she was one of roughly 800 women founders who raised capital last year. 

“It was really difficult to raise during a pandemic… not being able to organically expand my network,” Wald said. “I couldn’t have a meeting with someone even if I wanted to. And so much of seed investing is trusting in the team; trust built through high-quality, in-person conversations.”

Yet by January 2021, her startup had raised an undisclosed seed round from angel investors like Coinbase alum Charlie Lee, then applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to launch a bitcoin ETF. Chou said such a bitcoin ETF would boost the whole ecosystem because it would “open access for people who are already users brokers or securities services.”

Several ETF proposals have been rejected over the years, starting with a proposal by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss in 2013. However, Wald says now she believes there’s never been better timing for an ETF to get approved. Among futures and options, trust shares and ETFs, all these products have different regulatory shapes that allow them to be redeemed faster, or traded in different ways, than the underlying asset, bitcoin, could be at-scale. Generally speaking, institutions seek indirect ways to gain exposure to these nascent, and often lucrative, crypto markets. 

“Bitcoin’s market cap has grown large enough that it may have finally surpassed an important threshold in the minds of the regulators,” Wald said. “I believe the biggest reason the regulators were nervous about approving a bitcoin ETF in 2017 was concerns around custodial solutions and security. And I agree with that. We’re much closer to better security and custody now with institutional-grade options.” 

Wald added that both Valkyrie’s bitcoin trust shares and prospective ETF are structured to reduce volatility and premiums.  

“We wanted to create a more transparent product. I wanted our product to trade closer to the net asset value [NAV],” Wald said. “We’re the only bitcoin trust launching an ETF fund so everyday investors can buy exposure to bitcoin.”  

This propensity among women entrepreneurs using cryptocurrency isn’t restricted to American tech bubbles. According to Toya Zhang, head of marketing at the Hong Kong-based crypto and futures exchange AAX, women make up 25% of her platform’s users and a third of the top users. 

“Our biggest market is in Russia. Other than Russia, our biggest markets are Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia and India,” Zhang said. “Asian women are more often the one to take care of finances. If you look at stock investment user groups in China and Hong Kong, women are more than half of them.”

The highly specialized crypto landscape is quickly gaining diversity, compared to other financial sectors. At India’s Coinswitch.co exchange, women reportedly make up 50% of around 25,000 users, depending on the specific region. Women also make up at least 40% of British cryptocurrency users, according to a survey by the crypto exchange Gemini. 

Across borders, the clear gender disparity may be associated with net worth rather than any lack of interest. In 2018, the World Bank estimated women only held 38% of capital wealth. Plus, Crunchbase tallied just 15,379 companies, less than 20% of startups that raised capital, that had women founders from 2009-2019. 

Beyond startups, there are also several companies like the New York Digital Investments Group (NYDIG), where women executives took the helm in order to innovate on established brokerage models. 

In December 2020, the insurance company Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. purchased $100 million in bitcoin and acquired NYDIG equity, a move that signaled a bullish outlook on institutional demand for bitcoin exposure in 2021. Then, on February 8, 2021, Elon Musk’s publicly traded car company Tesla validated the institutional thesis by buying $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin. 

“In 2021, the greater acceptance of bitcoin by traditional investors and allocators is really exciting,” said NYDIG president Yan Zhao. “We’ll give banks and wealth managers the ability to offer bitcoin products and exposure. We’ll handle the back end.”

Zhao said her bitcoin-focused firm has roughly $4 billion under management, including derivatives, and is currently courting prospective clients like private banks and various asset managers. Her firm is open to exploring ideas like a bitcoin ETF or trust shares, she said, but isn’t interested in Ethereum-based DeFi products. 

“We’ve made a conscious decision to focus on bitcoin,” Zhao said.

Likewise, Chou was skeptical about many of the Ethereum-based DeFi options available today, while remaining cautiously optimistic about the future of DeFi derivative options.

“Crypto-native products are important because that’s how you can really harness the power of not having centralized authorities involved to facilitate the transaction,” Chou said.

In short, now traditional options offer indirect access to cryptocurrency gains. At the same time, cryptocurrency itself is experimentally being used to offer comparable, yet more accessible, financial products. These DeFi products are designed for new functionality, not just price exposure. 

Meanwhile in California, from network scaling crusader Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, to Amhaz at Volt Capital, the next generation of bitcoin whales may look remarkably different from Silicon Valley’s past unicorn-building bros. 

“The face of our industry looks different than how the tech industry looked in the early 90s or how finance has looked since forever,” Amhaz said. “We’re starting at a higher, more informed baseline. So, although there’s still work to be done here, I’m optimistic.”

Disclosure: Together, Leah Wald and Leigh Cuen are volunteer co-founders of the Digital Salon Initiative.

 

News: Decrypted: A hacker attempted to poison Florida town’s water supply

• February 9, 2021
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Oldsmar is a small town in Florida that became the center of the cyber world this week when a hacker broke into its drinking water supply and tried to poison it. It’s the nightmare scenario that the security community has warned for years, one that could kill thousands by targeting the critical infrastructure that we

Oldsmar is a small town in Florida that became the center of the cyber world this week when a hacker broke into its drinking water supply and tried to poison it.

It’s the nightmare scenario that the security community has warned for years, one that could kill thousands by targeting the critical infrastructure that we all rely on. The hacker gained access to a computer at the water facility used for running remote control software TeamViewer, according to Reuters, and jacked up the levels of sodium hydroxide, aka lye, which would have made the water highly toxic to drink.

It’s not known what security was in place to prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to the critical system. Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said in a press conference that there were fail-safes and alarms in place to prevent tainted water from reaching residents, and as a result there was little risk to the population of some 15,000 residents.

But suffice to say, running remote control software in a facility that controls the local water supply is a disaster waiting to happen. These networks are supposed to be isolated from the internet to prevent this exact scenario. But you can look for clues in this Reuters report: The water facility is a public utility owned by the town and has its own internal IT staff.

Gualtieri, in his remarks, said: “The important thing is to put everyone on notice.” He’s not kidding; it’s a similar picture to a lot of small-town America, where much of these facilities are under-resourced and underfunded. Robert Lee, founder and chief executive at industrial security startup Dragos, set the context:

The FBI confirmed it has been called in to investigate. But what’s unlikely to change any time soon is that small towns are underfunded and don’t get the resources that other critical infrastructure gets. In the end, a TeamViewer subscription will be cheaper than a person’s salary, and there is no greater incentive to cut costs than during a pandemic.

On with the rest of Decrypted.

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THE BIG PICTURE

Hackers post stolen health data after hospital ransomware attacks

As COVID-19 vaccines begin to roll out, ransomware actors are hitting back. NBC News this week revealed two hospitals that were hit by data-stealing ransomware. After the hospitals refused to pay the ransom, the hackers started to publish highly sensitive health and medical data stolen from the hospital networks.

News: New York’s David Energy has raised $4.1 million to ‘build the Standard Oil of renewable energy’

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“We intend to build the Standard Oil of renewable energy,” said James McGinniss, the co-founder and chief executive of David Energy, in a statement announcing the company’s new $19 million seed round of debt and equity funding.  McGinniss’ company is aiming to boost renewable energy adoption and slash energy usage in the built environment by

“We intend to build the Standard Oil of renewable energy,” said James McGinniss, the co-founder and chief executive of David Energy, in a statement announcing the company’s new $19 million seed round of debt and equity funding. 

McGinniss’ company is aiming to boost renewable energy adoption and slash energy usage in the built environment by creating a service that operates on both sides of the energy marketplace.

The company combines energy management services for commercial buildings through the software it has developed with the ability to sell energy directly to customers in an effort to reduce the energy consumption and the attendant carbon footprint of the built environment.

The company’s software, Mycor, leverages building demand data and the assets that the building has at its disposal to shift user energy consumption to the times when renewable power is most available, and cheapest. 

It’s a novel approach to an old idea of creating environmental benefits by reducing energy consumption. Using its technology, David Energy tracks both the market price of energy and the energy usage by the buildings it manages. The company sells energy to customers at a fixed price and then uses its windows into energy markets and energy demand to make money off of the difference in power pricing.

That’s why the company needed to raise $15 million in a monthly revolving credit facility from Hartree Partners. So it could pay for the power its customers have bought upfront.

There are a number of tailwinds supporting the growth of a business like David Energy right now. Given the massive amounts of money that are being earmarked for energy conservation and energy efficiency upgrades, companies like David, which promise to manage energy consumption to reduce demand, are going to be huge beneficiaries.

“Looking at the macro shift and the attention being paid to things like battery storage and micro grids we do feel like we’re launching this at the perfect time,” said McGinniss. “We’re offering [customers] market rates and then rebating the savings back to them. They’re getting the software with a market energy supply contract and they are getting the savings back. It’s is bringing that whole bundled package together really brings it all together.”

In addition to the credit facility, the company also raised $4.1 million in venture financing from investors led by Equal Ventures and including Operator Partners, Box Group, Greycroft, Sandeep Jain and Xuan Yong of RigUp, returning angel investor Kiran Bhatraju of Arcadia, and Jason Jacobs’ recently launched My Climate Journey Collective, an early-stage climate tech fund. 

“Renewable energy generators are fundamentally different in their variable, distributed, and digitally-native nature compared to their fossil fuel predecessors while customer loads like heating and driving are shifting to electricity consumption from gas. The sands of market power are shifting and incumbents are poorly-positioned to adapt to evolving customer needs, so there’s a massive opportunity for us to capitalize.” 

Founded by McGinniss, Brian Maxwell and Ahmed Salman, David Energy raised $1.5 million in pre-seed financing back in March 2020.

As the company expands, its relationship with Hartree, an energy and commodities trading desk, will become even more important. As the startup noted, Hartree is the gateway that David needs to transact with energy markets. The trader provides a balance sheet for working capital to purchase energy on behalf of David’s customers.

 

“Renewables are causing fundamental shifts in energy markets, and new models and tools need to emerge,” said Dinkar Bhatia, Co-Head of North American Power at Hartree Partners. “James and the team have identified a significant opportunity in the market and have the right strategy to execute. Hartree is excited to be a commodity partner with David Energy on the launch of the new smart retail platform and is looking forward to helping make DE Supply the premier retailer in the market.”

David now has retail electricity licenses in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts and is looking to expand around the country.

“David energy stands to reinvent the way that hundreds of billions of dollars a year in energy are consumed,” said Equal Ventures investor Rick Zullo. “Business model creativity and finding ways to change user behavior with new models is just as important if not more important than the technology innovation itself.”

Zullo said his firm pitched David Energy on leading the round after years of looking for a commercial renewable energy startup. The core insight was finding a service that could appeal not to the new construction that already is working with top-of-the-line energy management systems, but with the millions of square feet that aren’t adopting the latest and greatest energy management systems.

“Finding something that will go and bring this to the mass market was something we had been on the hunt for really since the inception of Equal Ventures,” said Zullo.

The innovation that made David attractive was the business model. “There is a landscape of hundreds of dead companies,” Zullo said. “What they did was find a way to subsidize the service. They give away at low or no cost and move that in with line items. The partnership with Partree gives them the opportunity to be the cheapest and also the best for you and the highest margin regional energy provider in the market.”

News: Announcing the agenda for TechCrunch Sessions: Justice

• February 9, 2021
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TC Sessions: Justice, our second-ever dedicated event to diversity, equity, inclusion and labor in tech, is coming up on March 3, 2021. This is a virtual one-day conference featuring the brightest innovators, leaders and worker-activists in the industry. We’re pumped to be able to host Backstage Capital founder and Managing Partner Arlan Hamilton, Gig Workers

TC Sessions: Justice, our second-ever dedicated event to diversity, equity, inclusion and labor in tech, is coming up on March 3, 2021. This is a virtual one-day conference featuring the brightest innovators, leaders and worker-activists in the industry.

We’re pumped to be able to host Backstage Capital founder and Managing Partner Arlan Hamilton, Gig Workers Collective’s Vanessa Bain, Alphabet Workers Union Executive Chair Parul Koul, Color of Change President Rashad Robinson, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and others.

In addition to the firesides and panel discussions of the virtual stage, the event will also include networking, startup presentations and the chance to connect with attendees from around the world.

Below, you’ll find the official agenda for TC Sessions: Justice. It’s a packed day already, but we’ve got some extra surprises in store, so keep an eye on the agenda over the coming weeks for more great speakers we’re adding.

If you want to be a part of this event, you can grab a ticket here for just $5.

If you’re interested in a sponsored speaking opportunity to join the stage with these fantastic speakers, contact us here to speak with someone from our sales team!

AGENDA

Wednesday, March 3

State of the Union with Parul Koul (Google), Grace Reckers (Office and Professional Employees International Union), and Clarissa Redwine (NYU)

Labor unions have been fairly uncommon in tech. That’s finally starting to change in recent years, as workers have pushed to organize at some the industry’s biggest companies, from Alphabet to Kickstarter. Parul Koul (Google), Grace Reckers (Office and Professional Employees International Union) and Clarissa Redwine (NYU) will join us to discuss the growing movement.

Finding the Next Unicorn with Arlan Hamilton (Backstage Capital)

Arlan Hamilton, the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, has raised more than $12 million to back 150 companies led by underrepresented founders. In this session, Hamilton will discuss how she vets the biggest opportunities in investment, and how to disrupt in a positive way.

The Path Forward For Essential Tech Workers with Vanessa Bain (Gig Workers’ Collective), Jessica E. Martinez (National Council for Occupational Safety and Health), and Christian Smalls (The Congress of Essential Workers)

Gig workers and warehouse workers have become essential in a pandemic-ravaged economy. In California, a law went into effect earlier this year that makes gig workers independent contractors. Meanwhile, Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama are actively seeking to form a union to ensure better protections at the workplace. You’ll hear from workers and organizers about what’s next for gig workers and tech’s contractor workforce, and what battles lie ahead for these essential workers.

Identifying and Dismantling Tech’s Deep Systems of Bias with Haben Girma (Disability Justice Lawyer), Mutale Nkonde (AI for the People), and Safiya Umoja Noble (UCLA)

Nearly every popular technology or service has within it systems of bias or exclusion, ignored by the privileged but obvious to the groups affected. How should these systems be exposed and documented, and how can we set about eliminating them and preventing more from appearing in the future? AI for the People’s Mutale Nkonde, disability rights lawyer Haben Girma, and author of Algorithms of Oppression Safiya Umoja Noble discuss a more inclusive future.

Founders in Focus with Tracy Chou (Block Party)

We sit down with the founders poised to be the next big disruptors in this industry. Here we chat with Tracy Chou of Block Party, which works to protect people from abuse and harassment online.

The Role of Online Hate and Where Social Media Goes From Here with Naj Austin (Somewhere Good and Ethel’s Club), Jesse Lehrich (Accountable Tech), and Rashad Robinson (Color of Change)

Toxic culture, deadly conspiracies and organized hate have exploded online in recent years. We’ll discuss how much responsibility social networks have in the rise of these phenomena and how to build healthy online communities that make society better, not worse.

Networking Break

With our virtual platform, attendees can network via video chat, giving folks the chance to make meaningful connections. CrunchMatch, our algorithmic matching product, will be available to ensure you’re meeting the right people at the show, as well as random matching for attendees who are feeling more adventurous.

Demystifying First-Check Fundraising with First-Check Investors with Brian Brackeen (Lightship Capital), Astrid Scholz (Zebras Unite), and Sydney Thomas (Precursor Ventures) 

There are so many ways to finance your startup that don’t include Y combinator or a traditional fund. In this stacked panel, founders will hear from a trio of decision-makers about how to leverage unconventional communities and resources to get the first dollars they need to execute.

Meeting of the Minds with Wade Davis (Netflix) and Bo Young Lee (Uber)

Diversity and inclusion as an idea has been on the agenda of tech companies for years now. But the industry still lacks true inclusion, despite best efforts put forth by heads of diversity, equity and inclusion at these companies. We’ll seek to better understand what’s standing in the way of progress and what it’s going to take to achieve real change.

Access All Areas: Designing Accessibility From Day One with Cynthia Bennett (Carnegie Mellon University), Srin Madipalli (former Accomable and Airbnb), and Mara Mills (NYU)

The session will examine the importance of ensuring accessible product design from the beginning. We’ll ask how the social and medical models of disability influence technological evolution. Integrating the expertise of disabled technologists, makers, investors, scientists, software engineers into the DNA of your company from the very beginning is vital to the pursuit of a functioning and equitable society. And could mean you don’t leave money on the table.

Creating New Opportunities For Formerly Incarcerated People with Jason Jones (The Last Mile), Deepti Rohatgi (Slack), and Aly Tamboura (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)

Reentering society after having been incarcerated presents challenges few of us can understand. In this panel, we will examine the role tech can play in ensuring pathways to employment for returned citizens.