5 Year Frontier

The future of the construction industry, more specifically how money flows within construction. In it we cover topics such financial automation from the CFO office right down to the job site, the move from a backwards looking workflow to a real-time and predictive one, as well as the industry tailwinds accelerating overall technology adoption of a $15T segment of the global economy. Bassem Hamdy is founder and CEO of Briq, a next generation financial platform to make construction projects more profitable. Briq, a 150 person tech company out of Santa Barbara, commands a significant share of US construction firms as its customers and now has expanded internationally. The industry uses Briq to gain visibility over the flow of money on a project in order to make better planning decisions and predict profits more confidently. Bassem is a rare breed, he’s been in construction software for over two decades, before it was cool and before there was even an industry around it. First seeing the introduction of resource planning software at CMIC (which now handles over $100B in construction revenue each year) to then being EVP of Enterprise Strategy at Procore (a now public company) helping construction transition to the cloud. Today we get to talk about what the next evolution is. He’s also one of the very few that can speak construction as authentically as he speaks technology. Subscribe for the latest episodes. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fritz Lanman, CEO of Mindbody, discusses the evolution of software ecosystems, predicting customer behavior, embedded finance, and the global appetite for fitness in the industry. He explores the growth and vision of MindBody, partnerships between vertical SaaS and FinTech, potential collaborations with fitness influencers, and the global adoption of health and wellness practices.

The future of sustainable cities and real estate. In it we cover topics including the most impactful projects of the Empire State’s $300M retrofit, new innovations in sustainability for buildings old and new, the importance of economic incentives and the incoming regulation putting pressure on the real estate industry globally. Anthony Malkin is CEO of Empire State Reality Trust, Inc (NYSE:ESRT), a leading real estate investment trust which owns and operates office and retail properties throughout New York — most notable being the Empire State Building coined ‘The Worlds Most Famous Building’. Tony has transformed the 100 year old Empire State building into a shining example of energy efficiency and modernization, open sourcing their work to the world and advancing the cause of green buildings in partnership with others such as the Clinton Climate Initiative. Tony has led the development of standards for building energy efficiency and, amongst his many positions, is a member of the Board of Governors of the Real Estate Board of New York and member of Partnership for NYC’s Innovation. Tony is an intellectually forward and bold thinker, deep in innovation through personal investments in VC and the technology industry. A man of action, mission-driven by our green city future yet equipped with the business mind to make it economically viable and practical to achieve. Sign up for new podcasts. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of the mental and cognitive health. Unpacking the groundbreaking innovation of using just our voice to identify and address cognitive issues. We cover the cost and scalability benefits of this approach, how it could identify complex conditions such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons, the role of Apple and Google, as well as the hurdles to mass adoption. Grace Chang is founder and CEO of Kintsugi. A Berkeley based technology company on a mission to scale access to mental healthcare by pioneering voice biomarker technology. With just 20 seconds of free form speech Kintsugi can pick up on depression and anxiety with over 80% clinical accuracy — and it works across multiple languages. Named by Forbes as Top 50 Ai Company, it has received almost $30M in funding from the National Science Foundation and tier 1 VCs including Insight Partners. Grace is an engineer and product developer by background, having worked as a technology leader at multiple startups that leveraged data in novel ways —including at security firm UnifyID, which would authenticate a users identity by monitoring their behavior. Sign up for new podcasts. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of money and finance. We cover topics including AI’s role in hyper personalized finance, new products as a result of increased access to user data through Open Banking, what die hard developers are building during the crypto winter, and the intersection of gaming and economics.Fred Schebesta, founder and Chairman of Finder, a comparison website helping consumers find the right financial products for them, from credit cards to home loads to health insurance. Started in Australia, Finder has expanded to the US, UK and beyond 10M users. Evolving to offer consumers a centralized place to manage all their finances. All this was achieved by Fred and his team without raising any outside capital, running a profitable business from day one. That was until Finders $30M 'seed’ round at half a billion dollar valuation more than a dozen years later! Fred is a prolific builder of technology, living at the far flung corners of the internet, and leading Finders innovation efforts. He has founded and invested in multiple projects in and around the financial world from exchanges to crypto to gaming. A best selling Amazon author and original thinker.Subscribe for more episodes and email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of the $600B customer service industry. We cover topics such as Ai’s role in multiplying human output in the workplace, the evolution to predictive and hyper personalized service, as well as running a $B startup in the Ai boom. Gustavo Sapoznik is Founder and CEO of ASAPP, a NY Based technology company he started in 2014 to use software and Ai to dramatically improve the customer service experience. ASAPP calls JetBlue, Dish and Sprint amongst its many customers. I’m really excited to have Gustavo on the show today as he’s built up one of the most sophisticated technical organizations and talent pools in the Ai industry. ASAPP was last valued at $1.6B and has raised hundreds of millions of VC capital from the likes of Emergence, Fidelity, March, and industry giants John Chambers and John Doerr. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of drones and the autonomous logistics. We cover topics including teleporting life saving medicine, installing buildings with drone portals, challenging the centralized power of eCommerce platforms and what our world will look like when drone delivery goes mainstream. Keller Rinaudo Cliffton is co-founder and CEO of Zipline, a drone company that operates the world’s largest automated on-demand delivery service. A global leader, they are active in seven countries including the US, Japan and across Africa, where it has had huge humanitarian impact. Zipline has completed 10x the number of autonomous miles of the rest of the industry combined! Almost every minute Zipline makes a delivery ranging from vaccines (over 13M delivered), blood, and increasingly common goods. With over 1,000 employees Zipline is backed by leading investors including Sequoia, A16Z and Google. Keller is a software engineer, Harvard grad and professional rock climber. Email me on danieldarling@focal.vc  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jonathan Neman, CEO of Sweetgreen, discusses the future of healthy eating, including robotic restaurants, vertical farming, and drone delivery. They also talk about building a restaurant OS, scaling healthy eating, and integrating technology and human interaction for a better dining experience.

Launching a brand new podcast series! Fast forward 5 years to view the future of an industry through the eyes of its most innovative entrepreneurs and CEOs. Subscribe to receive the first episodes just around the corner!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.