Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast

Leo shares the origin story of why storied VC firm Susa Ventures decided to launch new fund, Humba Ventures, to invest at the intersection of deep tech and American Dynamism, details what differences are required to evaluate companies with that level of focus on deep tech, defends Humba’s thesis that deep tech is the best place to invest and build right now by dispelling 4 key misconceptions of this category, and brings us home sharing a “What’s Hot and What’s Hype” outlook.  

Paul shares the why behind a storied venture firm like General Catalyst launching a focus on Global Resilience as one of the firm’s 4 key focus areas, how the firm leverages its firm-wide global and multi-stage breadth of mandate to truly get creative in solution formation, describes a sub-segment of their thesis defined around Industrial Resilience “aligning physical systems and digital breakthroughs”, and given the nuance involved with industrial innovation, what the company signals and founder indicators are that get their team excited.  

Industry experts discuss the upbeat atmosphere at supply chain conferences, funding challenges in venture capital, the need for innovation in the industry, global supply chain dynamics, diversity in tech stacks, and the evolution of venture investing.

Anna explains the origin story of why PepsiCo decided to launch Labs and how those efforts for a global CPG company tie into the digital industrial ecosystem, details how the Labs team programmatically both identifies and collaborates with startups to drive a win/win for Pepsi business units and the startups (hint: Labs acts a single point of contact accelerator within the 340k employee organization), and finally details why the Labs team is specifically scouting for manufacturing operations innovation in 2024. 

Maggie shares the origin story of why she launched an industrial tech venture firm in America’s heartland, details how she builds a competitive advantage leveraging a six-state Midwest region of industrial stakeholders to drive value for her portfolio, explains why sector-focused emerging managers play a critical role behind this industrial tech thesis, and shares some tactical lessons learned on how she activates networks within her region of stakeholders across founders, investors, industrial operators, civic leaders, and non-profits.  

Matt outlines why Stifel (~$7B market cap + 8,000 employees) expanded its venture banking group in 2023 to further support the innovation economy, dusts off his crystal ball to describe where the venture market is headed in 2024 and how that macro outlook will play into the digital industrial sectors, shares a ‘then & now’ look on how the digital industrial ecosystem has evolved over the last decade (hint: founders, funders, exits, etc. have all ramped!), and finally defines some hard-earned lessons learned as to what is required in these sectors from a capitalization strategy and building businesses efficiently.  

Chris describes both the why behind Trimble standing up a corporate venture capital (CVC) strategy and what he means by Trimble Ventures being an “and” within the company’s innovation efforts, details how the CVC platform aims to accelerate growth and drive value for its portfolio companies (hint: aligns to corporate objectives to Connect & Scale), and a 2024 look-ahead crystal ball session of “What’s Hot and What’s Hype?”.  

Vijen details both what he defines as un-sexy industries and why he cares about driving innovation into the 81% of the US GDP underserved by VC, outlines how he activates a differentiated network of founders who’ve built in un-sexy industries to drive value for his firm, describes the founders fund ethos he instills into his VC firm by leveraging his own prior experience as a founder, and finally shares some 2024 look-ahead thoughts on trends he is most interested in for un-sexy industries.  

Explore growth stage ecosystem for industrial, energy, buildings, and mobility innovation. Learn about lessons from investing in software and hardware-enabled software. Understand The Westly Group's approach to climate tech investing. Discover trends in growth stage venture capital investments and focus on digitization, sustainability, and mobility.

Marianne outlines what Climate Tech means to Congruent, shares how her unique industrial innovation background has shaped her own outlook on this topic (hint: all industrial tech companies are climate tech companies), gives us an outlook on how far along we are in the digital industrial adoption curve and what she sees ahead, describes how both hardware (atoms) and software (bits) innovation will play key roles in industrial settings, and finally a “What’s Hot and What’s Hype” section.