Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast

Gina leads the DHL Americas Innovation Center, a 28,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility in Chicago where customers, partners, academia, and thought leaders can experience the next generation of logistics in an interactive showroom environment. From her vantage point helping create the logistics of tomorrow, we discuss what logistics innovation is hot and what is hype, why DHL’s recent sustainability pledge to be emissions free by 2050 is a critical initiative, how to deploy and actually scale innovation within challenging real-world logistics environments, and why we should all be preparing to advance the topic of the future of work within these supply chain environments.

Supply chain tech startups raked in $7.7 billion in venture funding in Q1 2021, an increase of 90.6% over last quarter and a staggering 355.1% year over year (Pitchbook), and transportation & logistics subsegments were a major part of that activity. Mike & I discuss the innovation journey Ryder took to launching Ryder Ventures, what trends and technologies his team are focused on, how he defines and approaches last mile innovation to meet ever-increasing customer experience requirements, and where he sees the broader transportation and logistics ecosystem headed to further engage in the startup ecosystem.

Guy’s unique background, blended between deep tech and capital markets, guides us through a fun discussion on the topic of “Deep Tech”. We define what “Deep Tech” is, outline why we’re already living in a ‘Present Future’ surrounded by these technologies, evaluate how the future of work will be impacted by these innovations, and then bring it all back to how the capital markets are exploding with funding growth in this category to meet the opportunity ahead.

Family office direct investing into the private markets, and the venture capital asset class specifically, is at an all-time high. Cindy joins us to outline how the Perot Jain office leverages its extensive industrial operator network and physical infrastructure footprint to gather market intelligence on real-world pain points to invest behind, how their broader platform leverages all of its resources to drive tangible value back to startups targeted at those pain points (hint: they’ve actually developed a master-planned smart city, Alliance, Texas, that also serves as a supply chain & mobility testbed for startups), and finally why she feels family office direct investing is here to stay.

Ram has deep experience on both sides of the tech startup and incumbent table, and he brings that experience to help drive SAP’s current SAP.iO corporate innovation platform efforts. We discuss why when SAP kicked off SAP.io in 2016 it all started and ended with thinking about how to drive value to their customers, how SAP.iO has become a gold standard in corporate innovation via activating multiple levers internally and externally (internal corporate venture investing through SAP.iO Fund, SAP.iO Foundries accelerators, SAP.iO Venture Studio efforts, and external venture investment partnership with Sapphire Partners), how his team is leveraging a confluence of innovation trends (open source, API, Ai/ML, platformization) to both support customers on their digitization journeys and drive strategic value and interesting insights back to SAP across different industries and lines of business, and why its critical to take an open ecosystem and platform approach where curated partnerships can flourish with integrations connecting customers and startups.

Julian was ahead of the curve in identifying the e-comm wave that is now transforming our industrial supply chain, and he founded Schematic Ventures to go all-in on that shift to better compete in a venture capital asset class that is only getting more and more competitive. We talk about his transition from being a generalist into a very focused specialist investor, how sector specialization compounds learnings and benefits to his network and within the portfolio, why he is adapting his fund construction strategy to adapt to the emerging pre-seed category and ballooning seed-stage round sizes, why VC specialization benefits decrease as you enter later stage growth investing, and how investors in this sector must take both a grounded exit outlook and an optimistic outlook as to where new addressable markets may form over time. Finally, he even throws in some tactical advice on fundraising for founders in these sectors.

Dynamo was one of the very first sector-focused VC funds that lasered in on supply chain. Santosh outlines how they leverage that sector focus to add value in 3 distinct areas at the pre-seed and seed stage when founders truly need a trusted partner (not just capital), how having a focused 'prepared mind' provides him an advantage in helping founders navigate these complex industrial supply chain settings, and why fund size drives fund construction strategy in a VC asset class that is blurring the lines of how a ‘seed’ round is defined today. We wrap the episode outlining why early-stage VC is still all about carefully evaluating the human element behind the team.

There has never been a more critical and more opportune time than right now to revitalize the US manufacturing base, and as the Global Head of Manufacturing for McKinsey, Enno has one the most unique vantage points in the world on this topic. We discuss how the US excels at manuf. tech innovation but has work to do in adopting and scaling those technologies domestically, why it’s critical to both bring new talent into and build a more inclusive manufacturing workforce, why McKinsey and the World Economic Forum created the ‘Global Lighthouse Network’ to highlight the best digital manuf. efforts in the world, and having looked across over 10M factories, which innovation trends are making an impact (spoiler: it's not about a specific technology, it's about systems change). Finally, we both align on the analogy that we’re only in the “1stinning” of Industry4.0 adoption!

As the cloud infrastructure heavyweight within industrials, Microsoft is now throwing its resources behind startups through its Microsoft for Startups platform to accelerate vertical growth for both sides. Having sold his last IoT software company into Microsoft in 2016, and now leading Microsoft for Startups focus on industry verticals, Tom brings us a very unique perspective as to how the times have changed for what startups do and don't need to build themselves. We cover a range of topics including where Microsoft wants to start and stop when partnering with a startup, how their platform can help a startup accelerate the path from ideation to MVP to product/market fit as an enterprise-ready solution, what drives a 'build vs. buy vs. partner' decision, and finally, which trends Tom sees emerging in 2021 (hint, Microsoft Teams now has ~115M daily active users). Summary pro tip for startups, don't recreate the tech platform wheel! 

Industy4.0 will not succeed without a vibrant and diverse community of both private and public support. As P33’s resident Industry4.0 and Ventures expert, Brandi helps lead P33’s mission to turbocharge Chicago’s tech ecosystem stimulating growth and providing inclusive opportunity to all through orchestrating the various voices of the business, startup, non-profit, and government communities. She discusses why building up an inclusive Industry4.0 ecosystem is so important to both P33’s focus on Chicago’s future and the US economy more broadly, how their “Company Connect” effort supports growing tech companies with structured introductions and engagements into industrial incumbents, and finally, how P33 is playing a powerful role to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion are brought to the forefront to further a more inclusive future in tech.