Narada’s Post

Let the countdown begin! ⏲️ 🔥 Just 7 days stand between us and the biggest AI Builders event to date. With over 200 registrants (and counting) and 5 inspiring local demos, this is shaping up to be an incredible night. We've already announced Liminal, Lighty AI, and Gravity Foundation. Now it's time to introduce our growth stage speakers... Meet, Magnifi by TIFIN! TIFIN creates companies to improve wealth outcomes. For Denver Startup Week, TIFIN's own, Philips Antoine Gilbert will be demoing Magnifi, their AI for your finance future. In their own words, Magnifi is an AI designed to help you invest — in fact, the world’s first. With Magnifi you can do faster, better research, get help making decisions, plan for a goal, manage your portfolio, and learn while you invest. Magnifi will help you find and buy investments from a marketplace of over 15,000 stocks and funds. And Magnifi can even analyze your existing investments that you hold at other brokerages. Think of Magnifi like a co-pilot for your investing — like Siri or Alexa went to investment school. Register today 👀 https://lnkd.in/g8HrKA2p As always, thank to our partners Matchstick Ventures and Ombud as well as our amazing sponsors, Silicon Valley Bank and Technical Integrity 😤

FINALLYYY!!!! 😌😌😌 Optexity is the first runner up in the Shell AI hackathon and it's a moment filled with both pride and a touch of grief. The event was HUGE. I don’t have an official number but I believe more than a hundred thousand people attended. It was startup central, with hundreds of startups exhibiting, including big names like Glean, Rubrik, and Pixxel. Got to meet new people, and discuss what they are working on, and some ideas were so cool, I briefly considered stealing the idea 😈 (Just kidding...or am I?) Highlight: We met Vikas Bardia, CFA, one of the judges and the founder of Shoffr. His insights, I tell you, are truly mind-blowing. Silver lining? Shell arranged flights for us. So, free trip? I'll take it. All said and done, can't complain too much. New faces, mind-bending ideas, and a runner-up title. Onward and upward, right? Big shoutout to Shell, Suryanarayanan R, Divyanshu Vyas and the entire organizing team for pulling off this amazing event and thanks to Owen O'Connell, Ankit Bansal for sharing the stage with us as award presenters 🙌 #ShellAI #hackathon #OperationsResearch #DecisionScience

SE Ventures at TechCrunch Disrupt! On Wednesday, we hosted the official Founder & Investor Breakfast at #Disrupt2024. We connected with 200+ new founders & investors and heard from 4 incredible founders innovating at the intersection of #AI #Climate and the #BuiltEnvironment: Will Greene of Banyan Infrastructure, Ivan Poupyrev, Dr. of Archetype AI, Sonia Kastner of Pano AI and Michael Bergin of Higharc. Here are a few of the big questions we explored on stage: ◾ What is the real opportunity in #ClimateTech? Is funding slowing down or is now the moment to break in? ◾ The journey from Series A to Series B takes 2.5x longer in 2024 than it did in 2021- what can founders do better to successfully cross this chasm? ◾ What aha moments fundamentally changed the game for our founders? And what nuggets of fundraising & go-to-market advice do they have for all the builders in the room? Keep your eye on our LinkedIn for insights on these topics from our speakers and more photos from the event. Thank you to everyone who joined us! 

🚀 Today's the day! Join us at our event! 🔊 Our CEO, Gabriel Lopez Rodriguez, along with, Kara Peterson, Jeremy Vale, and Sid Desai, will be taking the stage at Workbar Boston (24 School Street, near Boston Common). Curious about integrating AI and spatial computing into your startup journey? Don't miss out on this insightful discussion hosted by OrangeLoops and Startup Boston. Here's what's in store: 🔍 Explore real-world case studies of AI and spatial computing applications in today's market. 🔍 Gain practical advice on incorporating AI and spatial computing into your product roadmap or startup vision. 🔍 Assess the suitability of these technologies for your product, business model, and target audience. 🔍 Discover strategies for leveraging AI and spatial computing to stay ahead of the competition. 🎟️ Still haven't grabbed your ticket? It's not too late! Secure your spot now: https://lnkd.in/esVrjEan

What an amazing experience moderating this chat with Frederick (Freddy) Dopfel, Angad Randhawa, and Ryan Mendoza! It was so great to listen to the optimism that San Francisco thrives on! My biggest takeaways from this session were: 1. Speed of execution - use AI tools and strategic partnerships to execute faster than everyone else. 2. AI is the new tech. Similar to how it was impossible to have a startup without technology in the recent past. It’s now impossible to have a startup without AI. 3. Consumer hardware can be a difficult space to create defensible moats. Patents are just blueprints for companies to copy the idea. 4. Early-stage investing is mostly unaffected by the economic environment, there will always be founders starting new companies and good deals. 5. Insights into LPs and how funds differ in looking at their timeline for returns. 6. Many new applications have opened up in robotics through advancements in edge computing, which have enabled contextual awareness. 7. Persistence is key! Thanks to Founders Village for the opportunity!

It’s good to see Web3 startups winning back VC hearts (for now) and to all the bros who didn’t jump ship fully to AI, we got you. AI and Web3 belong together and I believe funding shouldn't be related to market speculation but the massive potential to disrupt for years to come. Listen to my full episode with Ironhack in the comments below!

🚨📢 Hey VCs, Angel Investors, and Patagonia-vest, cold plunge, and squash aficionados - I've handpicked the AI & Robotics startups that slipped past your analyst and wrapped them up in one neat newsletter. Dive in for the gems you've been missing! Today’s stories: Pretzel & Jupyter Notebooks (we're not talking beers here!), an AI app to read you a story, humanoids & actuators, 30 days sugar-free. Link in the comment cc Prasoon S., Akshay Megharaj, Mark Hammond

The last 3 years have flown by! And we have a new milestone I am super thrilled to announce that Rocketlane has raised $24 million! This milestone brings a mixture of relief and excitement. Relief because only the best of companies have graduated from Series A to Series B. Excitement because it also means we can take long-term bets on our product. We are building some really cool things around AI. LLMs are enabling use cases which weren’t possible before and the product guy in me is excited about all the possibilities! Double down on the all-in-one proposition. We’ll be building a lot more on workflows upstream and downstream of where we are currently. Teams shouldn’t be using multiple tools, manually reconciling data etc. Elevating services delivery experience: you’ll soon see our new customer portal. This is the most excited I have been of any feature we’ve built so far. On a more personal note, milestones like this are also a chance to look back and reflect:  I’m thankful and grateful for the team that has gotten us here, especially the folks who took a bet on us early on. I love how ambitious, hungry and iterative we are The 0-1 journey can often feel hairy and the outcomes out of your control, but the journey ahead feels different. Different on not how difficult it is (it never gets easier) but different in a way it feels like success is constrained by our imagination and ambition. And this is what is truly exciting for me Thank you to the customers and investors who have believed in us. I look forward to scaling more heights with the Rocketlane team!

Had another blast at the AGI House Multi-Agent Hackathon last weekend! I think we had the most diverse team this time haha. Everyone is from around the globe and 5/6 are founders!! Andy Tyler, Andrea Filip TORTELLA, Harshit Kohli, Jiaru Cai, Benny Chen thank you guys for the great hackathon, and good luck with your startups! :) Super inspired by your ideas! Regarding the theme of the hackathon, yeah, AI agents. My take is that we (as an industry) will come back to agents later, after a model capable of better reasoning and planning comes out (human level?). I don't think it will take too long, though 😏. But without better reasoning, agents are on the bench for me. We built an app that helps you learn more about your cold outreach leads called Stalker AI! (Stalking exes is also a use case.)

⭐ Amazing takeaways from the Pathways to Tech event by Headstarter AI ⭐ As a fellow at Headstarter AI, I just saw a recorded panel today with the following panelists: >> Dustin Beadle : ex-Director AMD >> Logan Havern : CEO Datalogz >> Nabeel Alamgir🦄 : CEO Lunchbox >> Shariar Kabir : CEO Ruby Card (YC W23) >> Miguel Acero : CTO Ruby Card (YC W23) The organizers: >> Yasin Ehsan 🚀 : CEO of Headstarter AI >> Faizan Ahmed : Co-Founder & Head of ML of Headstarter AI Each panelist shared their unique life stories, along with some honest, practical advice for us. - Dustin emphasized communication skills. Having worked in this industry all his life, around the globe, he mentions the importance of soft skills like communication and curiosity. He also gives useful tips regarding teamwork. -Logan Havern's story is one of relentless determination. Starting in college, he quickly secured a co-op at JetBlue. Inspired by challenges at JetBlue, he developed a cataloging product. After his initial success, he quit his job, but his supporters backed out. Living off his small savings and continuously pitching his startup, he eventually raised over $12M. - A true hustler, Nabeel shared candid and impactful advice. Observing his parents' hard work, he sought a different path. By integrating tech into his work in the food industry, he founded Lunchbox and raised over $100M Thanks Yasin Ehsan and Faizan Ahmed for organizing such amazing panelists! #HeadstarterAI #SWE #Tech #Perseverance #CommunicationSkills #StartupJourney #Inspiration #Innovation #Leadership #Teamwork