Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast

Heavy Hitters episode 43 is live now with NEA Venture Partner, Jeff Immelt. As a GE Ventures alumni, this one is extra special to me. Jeff discusses how an interest in company creation led him into venture capital as his next chapter after GE, where his role as a Venture Partner fits into NEA’s fund strategy, how he transitioned his skillset from running one of the world’s largest and most prestigious corporations into the venture capital asset class, why he outlined in his new book “Hot Seat” that the most crucial component of leadership for a founder is a willingness to make decisions, where he thinks the Indsutry4.0 adoption cycle is at today and the challenges ahead to overcoming slow adoption (hint: get the money to the floor!), and finally we run through a “What’s Hot and What’s Hype” section.

Mike discusses what the trends and indicators were all the way back in 2017 that led Plug and Play to launch their supply chain focused program, how they leverage their extensive corporate network to build out a win/win/win model to drive value to startups, corporate partners, and Plug and Play, what the specific events and engagement tactics his team leverages to facilitate deep relationships between startups and corporate partners, and from the supply chain program’s global footprint (Silicon Valley, Toronto, Bentonville, Savannah, Antwerp, and Hamburg) Mike shares his outlook on global supply chain trends unfolding right now.

Steve explains what is meant by In-Q-Tel’s platform slogan to “combine the security savvy of government with the can-do curiosity of Silicon Valley”, why their efforts building a bridge between private sector innovation and federal government agencies is so important to us all from both an economic and a security perspective, how digital industrial innovations specifically are legitimate matters of national security for the US government to stay on top of (hint: a lot of offline infrastructure assets are being brought online faster than ever), and how In-Q-Tel tangibly works with its portfolio company to drive value back to a startup leveraging the breadth and reach of the federal government at their side (over a 50% hit-rate on commercial engagement introductions!).

We discuss the ‘6Ts’ framework Aaron developed to evaluate industrial automation innovation, how he analyzes the total market opportunity for robotic applications that are blazing new trails, the capitalization strategy he leverages for businesses that have both s/w and h/w components (bits meet atoms!), what role blitzscaling has to play in these industrial categories where bits meet atoms, and finally, we discuss the underlying macro factors and tailwinds that are at play globally leading to what Aaron coins “The Golden Age of Automation”.

Sunil outlines how he got the conviction to leave a premier VC platform to launch Ubiquity Ventures, breaks down his thesis and definition of investing in “Software beyond the screen”, shares how he defines Deep Tech (and what its not!), details how he got comfortable investing ahead of the curve in Deep Tech categories that often don’t have clear exit potential paths/comparables at the outset, and finally, Sunil provides a critique of why Elon Musk’s comment of “Space is hard” is not only wrong but counterproductive to the ecosystem.

Heavy Hitters episode 37 is live now thanks to BuiltWorlds allowing the release of their 2021 US Summit panel discussion “Tech Strategy: Build vs. Buy”. Listen in on the discussion I hosted with a diverse group of Builtworld experts including Stacy Scopano at JE Dunn, Meg Baldini at Procore, Vivin Hegde at Hilti, and Dave Burns at McCarthy. We cover a lot of ground including evaluating frameworks to decide on “Build vs. Buy (or Partner!)”, how subsequent implementation considerations weigh heavily into those decisions, what tech trends are currently prominent to this discussion, and how the current capital market environment is driving various incentive structures (rationale & irrational) into the equation.

Tim shares his own driver for jumping into the digital industrial investment ecosystem, what he defines as the ‘pre-covid and post-covid’ macro factors that outlined the time was now to focus on these industrial markets in order to both drive alpha for the fund and align to OpenView’s mission to “improve people’s working lives”, why he thinks specialization and having a prepared mind are critical to moving fast within industrial automation applications, how OpenView applies their Product-Led Growth (PLG) model into blue collar industries, and aligned to deploying resources such as PLG, how their platform leverages an impressive 6:1 OpenView employee headcount-to-portfolio company ratio to drive value for their portfolio.

We walk through how Brentt found himself carving out a thematic focus on the Builtworld ecosystem within Greycroft, how he defines the Builtworld ecosystem start-to-finish, why the time was now to begin investing behind that thesis to drive alpha for their fund, why its critical to be thematically and sector-focused in order to compete within the venture asset class today, how Greycroft leverages their value-add platform of resources to support founders scaling in these sectors, share Builtworlds themes of “What’s Hot and What’s Hype”, and how he evaluates exit potential within the emerging Builtworld ecosystem.

Cutler shares why a world-recognized, 60-year old general contractor decided in 2018 to launch a dedicated innovation division, Dysruptek, what his latest industry pulse on the state of construction tech today is, what some of the unique challenges that come with deploying innovation within a construction environment, how he leverages Dysruptek’s corporate venture capital platform to drive sector-focused value both to startups and to Haskell, and we wrap up discussing construction tech trends “What’s Hot and What’s Hype”.

Chris walks us through the history that led to Fontinalis Partners launching one of the very first thematic VC funds specifically targeted on mobility and “Reinventing the way people and goods move”, how the broader mobility ecosystem has evolved over the past 12 years since launching the fund and what that has meant to Fontinalis’s thematic strategy, why sector-focus and thematic specialization in venture capital is important to compete in the current VC asset class, why the automotive industry specifically is somewhat unrecognizable from the decades past, and finally his thoughts on “What’s Hot and What’s Hype” within the mobility ecosystem right now.