All posts tagged: startups

Harwell Campus launches QuBIC programme to support quantum startups

Harwell Campus launches QuBIC programme to support quantum startups

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] A new business incubation programme has launched at Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire, designed to help quantum technology startups succeed in global markets. The Quantum Business Incubation Centre (QuBIC) is supported by the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) and operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Three early-stage companies spearheading new technologies have already joined the programme. The first is Applied Quantum Computing, which is developing ways to make healthcare smarter. It aims to save the NHS money by using a mix of classical and quantum computing to develop solutions to complex problems, such as optimising patient allocation on theatre operating lists. Secondly, Finchetto is developing a pioneering optical network switch to enable faster, more sustainable computation. This world-first technology could boost performance across various sectors, such as data centres, HPC, AI and telecommunications networks. And finally, OpenQuantum is looking to democratise access to quantum computing for the global community of scientists, software engineers and developers. It provides a complete open-source blueprint for a low-cost hardware and software platform used to control and manipulate ultracold atoms. The …

NBA champion Kyle Kuzma looks to bring his team mentality to Scrum Ventures

NBA champion Kyle Kuzma looks to bring his team mentality to Scrum Ventures

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Kyle Kuzma is a lot of things. He’s a forward for the Washington Wizards NBA team and a 2020 NBA champion. He’s also a style icon — depending on who you ask — and an angel investor. Now he’s an adviser at a venture fund too. “I’m part of a new generation of the NBA,” Kuzma told TechCrunch in a phone interview. “For me, I’ve always been a hustler and somebody that is very interested in business and doing things just to set up my family’s generational wealth. I think getting into venture is only going to take that to a different stratosphere.” Kuzma, 28, joined early-stage-focused Scrum Ventures in March as an adviser to help with the firm’s sports and entertainment fund, which is targeting $120 million. The partnership started in January when Kuzma’s agent, Austin Eastman, was connected to Scrum managing director and partner Michael Proman. Kuzma said he was impressed with Scrum’s team. Proman said the positive sentiment was mutual. “The thing about Kyle is, I personally didn’t really even understand …

Exclusive – Microsoft hit with Spanish startups’ complaint about cloud practices

Exclusive – Microsoft hit with Spanish startups’ complaint about cloud practices

Published by Sam

[ad_1] BRUSSELS : Microsoft was hit with a Spanish startup group’s complaint about its cloud practices to the Spanish antitrust regulator on Tuesday, the latest grievance over its fast-growing cloud computing services and which followed a trade group’s EU complaint. The U.S. tech giant ranks second in the cloud computing sector, behind market leader Amazon but is expected to close the gap rapidly as a clutch of generative AI features powered by OpenAI’s technology attract business users. The Spanish Startup Association, which represents more than 700 startups in Spain, cited a number of allegedly anti-competitive practices by Microsoft in recent years. “Microsoft has not only taken advantage of the dominant position in the markets of Operating Systems (Windows) and traditional productivity software (Microsoft Office, Windows Server, SQL Server) to force the use of its Azure cloud, but they have also imposed artificial barriers that limit the ability of startups to compete fairly and competitively,” the complaint seen by Reuters said. “These practices include barriers to data portability or contractual conditions that restrict competition in software …

Oxfordshire’s Bridgehead marks 15 years supporting startups and scaleups

Oxfordshire’s Bridgehead marks 15 years supporting startups and scaleups

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Bridgehead International Agency is celebrating 15 years in business. Headquartered in Wantage, Oxfordshire, the agency helps startups and scaleups break into new markets in the UK, Europe, North America and Australasia. Having led commercial teams at major blue-chip companies – Cisco, Lego, and the BBC – CEO Paul McIntosh founded The Mustard Concept, now Bridgehead, in 2009. Starting out with just a desk, phone and laptop, Paul was able to sign his first client within 90 days. He and the team have since facilitated the market entry of more than 80 businesses, crafting bespoke go-to-market strategies for their customers. Paul said: “We have ambitious plans to expand our footprint with additional offices in the US and a further four across Europe and Australia. “Additionally, we’re gearing up to launch a revolutionary software as a service (SaaS)/AI platform. “This cutting-edge tool will streamline the market entry process, enabling startups and scale-ups to swiftly validate their concepts.” [ad_2] Source link

Sequoia’s Jess Lee explains how early-stage startups can identify product-market fit

Sequoia’s Jess Lee explains how early-stage startups can identify product-market fit

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Founders at the early stages of building their startups may have already created a strong solution, identified a gap in the market, or may simply have an inescapable and driving motivation to build their own business. Ideally, they have a good combination of all three. But do they have product-market fit? And what actually is product-market fit, anyway? The investors at Sequoia, one of the world’s biggest venture capital firms, have come up with a very handy framework to answer those two questions. It distills the landscape into three archetypes. “Hair on Fire” roughly means that your startup addresses an urgent problem. A security startup, for example, might fit here, especially if it can win initial business on the back of parachuting in to fix a breach or other problem already in progress. Or, think of the wave of companies that offered services to businesses and users when they were suddenly sheltering in place and working from home during the peak of Covid-19. “Hard Fact” translates as a startup that solves an existing problem …

Human composting and timber marketplaces: talking “industrial” VC with investor Dayna Grayson

Human composting and timber marketplaces: talking “industrial” VC with investor Dayna Grayson

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] While the venture world is abuzz over generative AI, Dayna Grayson, a longtime venture capitalist who five years ago co-founded her own firm, Construct Capital, has been focused on comparatively boring software that can transform industrial sectors. Her mission doesn’t exclude AI, but it also doesn’t depend on it. Construct recently led a seed-stage round, for example, for TimberEye, a startup developing vertical workflow software and a data layer that it says can more accurately count and measure logs and, if all goes as planned, help the startup achieve its goal of becoming the marketplace for buying timber. How big could that market be, you might be wondering? According to one estimate, the global forest products industry hit $647 billion in 2021. Another Construct deal that sounds less sexy than, say, large language models, is Earth, a startup that’s centered around human composting, turning bodies into “nutrient-rich” soil over a 45-day period. Yes, ick. But also: it’s a smart market to chase. Cremation today accounts for 60% of the market and could account for …

Amae Health is building an in-person approach to mental healthcare in an increasingly digital space

Amae Health is building an in-person approach to mental healthcare in an increasingly digital space

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] When Sonia García and Stas Sokolin decided to launch Amae Health to solve the broken care system for people with severe mental illness, they were already intimately familiar with the industry’s issues. “I started thinking about this problem a very long time ago,” said Sokolin, Amae’s CEO. “I grew up with a sister who had bipolar disorder for many, many years, and as a family we always struggled to find her care. It seemed like everything was so piecemeal, and it broke our family apart.” Garcia had her own experiences with the mental healthcare system, too. She lost her father to suicide when she was 16 years old, and then she and her family spent years as caregivers for her brother with schizoaffective and bipolar disorder. Sokolin and García were introduced by mutual friends at Stanford because they were both passionate about this area. The pair knew the system could be better. They launched Amae Health in 2022 to be a new approach to helping patients with severe mental illness. Amae brings resources — …

Musk is raising B for AI startup. Also, is TikTok dodging Apple’s commissions?

Musk is raising $6B for AI startup. Also, is TikTok dodging Apple’s commissions?

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje’s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Musk’s 10-month-old baby, xAI, is closing in on a whoppin’ $6 billion funding round. The social network X, née Twitter — also part of Elon’s tech family — is already a shareholder. The deal was initially supposed to raise just $3 billion, but then everybody wanted in and the price tag bumped. Investors include Musk’s BFFs from Sequoia Capital, Future Ventures and some other chums who may also be joining this AI party — it’s all very Mean Girls “You can’t sit with us” at this point. The thing that really frustrates me, though, is how smug Musk probably is about all of this. It’s fine, I’m just bitter that none of my startups ever raised $6 million — never mind three orders of magnitude more. Sure, it may be on the eve of getting banished from the U.S. altogether (although, I hasten to add, …

Despite recent successes, IPO market still won’t fully open until 2025

Despite recent successes, IPO market still won’t fully open until 2025

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] This year already proved that startups are willing to go public in a less-than-ideal market — and get rewarded for it, too. But bankers, lawyers and investors said the recent IPO successes aren’t enough to foster more than a dozen tech IPOs this year. “I don’t think we will have the floodgates open like I might have thought,” Greg Martin, co-founder and managing director at Rainmaker Securities, told TechCrunch. “The trickle was delayed; I thought it would happen sooner in Q1. Because of that, I think the floodgates can’t open til 2025, but we could have a healthy flow of 10 to 15 companies for the year.” Jeremy Glaser, a lawyer and co-chair of Mintz’s venture capital and emerging companies practice, said that despite how the recent IPOs have performed thus far, people need more data than just a few weeks, or a month, of trading to feel confident. Looking at how Klaviyo and Instacart are performing today shows why people remain cautious. Klaviyo is currently trading at a $5.94 billion market cap, down …

Adam Neumann’s Bid to Buy WeWork Failed. Will He Now Try to Compete With It?

Adam Neumann’s Bid to Buy WeWork Failed. Will He Now Try to Compete With It?

Published by skeptic

[ad_1] Adam Neumann’s bid to buy back WeWork essentially ended this week. A bankruptcy court on Monday approved a deal that gets WeWork out of debt. It could conclude its restructuring and leave bankruptcy by late May following a vote on the deal, thanks to $450 million in financing provided largely by WeWork creditor and real estate technology provider Yardi Systems. That deal would eliminate $4 billion in debt and also shut the door on Neumann. He’s been persistent in his efforts to buy the company he cofounded but was later forced out of by investors, offering more than $500 million and following up with promises to beat any other offer by 10 percent. A spokesperson for Neumann did not provide comment about whether he will continue to pursue a purchase of WeWork, or what this meant for the future of Flow, Neumann’s new company that aims to transform the residential rental experience. “After misleading the court for weeks, WeWork finally admitted it is trying to sell the company to a group led by Yardi …