Mike Fraietta

Insightful look into bioplatform strategy, and what it takes to raise a Series A from my partner, Omri Amirav-Drory: https://lnkd.in/dFv7GbF6

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📈 Curious about the startup scene in Massachusetts? Explore our detailed funding list featuring startup names, HQ locations, and investor info. Perfect for investors and entrepreneurs alike! Check it out: https://lnkd.in/dAp3xj-Q #startup #startups #venturecapital #funding #vc #managementconsulting

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Wonderful article about Emily Knight and the whole The Engine Accelerator team on the amazing work their doing changing the world with #ToughTech!

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Check out my recent post on why President Trump is the forcing function for us to solve the “Missing Middle” and catch the industrial Tsunami of onshoring coming to the US!

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5 hours long Lex and Dario Amodei, the co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, a company behind Claude 3 Haiku, Claude 3 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Opus LLMs, speak about how AI is shaping the future and how it could impact the way we live and work. They discuss how far AI can go. Amodei thinks AI can match human intelligence and even surpass it in areas like biology, where complexity overwhelms humans. But in other areas, like speech recognition or conflict resolution, AI might hit limits close to ours. One of the challenges is the fact of running out of quality data and the cost of scaling compute power. Enjoy the entire talk! https://lnkd.in/dRhpafzU

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What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

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"I have literally no idea what I'm getting myself into..." 🤣 Mina A. , Leonel Lacayo, and Monica Vespe Lincoln show #founders how to step out of their comfort zone by being our first Product-Market-Fit Hot Seat Guests! Since the algorithm pranked me last time by hiding my first comment from everyone, I'm just gonna disregard "best practices" and stick the link right smack in this post -- to access the rest of the banter and insights from our PMF workshop, grab the video here: https://lnkd.in/gXPr3Vr7 (and if you really want to stick it to the LinkedIn algorithm and show 'em who's boss, like comment and share this to drive up views despite our violating the thou-art-forbidden-to-put-links-in-your-posts rule!)

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Sweetndata, a South Korean AI-based fandom content startup, secured CNTTech funding to enhance AI fan cards, advance global expansion, and broaden its platform to diverse markets.

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Interesting piece from Marc Andreessen on how startups are not getting the regulatory support they need to sustain America's technological leadership. "Regulatory agencies have been green lit to use brute force investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to hobble new industries, such as Blockchain. Regulatory agencies are being green lit in real time to do the same to Artificial Intelligence." While many investors themselves (both in the US and Europe) are worried how AI will change our lives, our jobs and social interactions, the top VC opinion leader thinks regulation is already too restrictive. #techstartups #techleadership #strategicgrowth

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It seems inevitable that as the underlying foundation models become more powerful, the LLM players will seek to justify the enormous investment that has gone into training their models by moving "up the stack", and evolve from an API or chat interface, to async agents. Regardless of whether the foundation model companies end up directly competing with you in your vertical, I believe as a B2B AI startup, you NEED to go through the thought experiment: how do I future proof my company as the underlying models progress? More here: https://lnkd.in/gkdhmVer

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Last week, I had the pleasure of moderating a discussion on navigating FOAK in climate tech at the Greentown Labs Summit in Boston (which had >600 people!!). Here’s a quick rundown of what was shared by Katherine St. James of Spring Lane Capital, Paris Smalls, PhD of Eden GeoPower, and Hannah Friedman of Planeteer Capital: 🌱 What is the definition of FOAK? We discussed how the term can be controversial - it's almost too general because it doesn't identify what kind of "First" FOAK refers to - first team project? First geography? First of a technology in a sector? First time for the integration of a system? It's also too specific because it has the word "first" in it, which can be anathema to later stage / project finance investors. 💰 Partnerships for Funding FOAK Projects We discussed how important it is to build a blended capital stack & use off-balance sheet capital for a project so you're not using the most expensive equity dollars to fund an infrastructure project with low-ish IRR. We also talked through being creative about using corporate partners to provide in-kind services or ink some agreement (at least an LOI) to attract this funding. 🏛 Role of Government We talked about how government capital is seen by investors & how it can be catalytic for FOAK. Government capital can provide validation that a startup has passed a rigorous diligence process by a third party - and incentives like grants or credits can help improve returns for the first project- but it's important to be doing this in conjunction with getting customer validation and to be able to present line of sight to competitive economics without concessionary capital. 👥 Advice for FOAK startups The panelists offered some very specific pieces of advice for startups going through FOAK: how to get creative with things like revenue sharing agreements or convertible notes, getting smart with project development early on (like with DeveloperU), being careful about using FOAK too liberally with certain investor groups, getting the right commercialization / FOAK talent in and around you early Huge thanks to the panelists and the team at Greentown Labs (Jill Kirkpatrick, Julia Travaglini, Aisling Carlson, etc you rocked it!!) for hosting this discussion on bridging the FOAK gap. Also immensely enjoyed the rest of the agenda. Check out the full recap & videos here: https://lnkd.in/d9ApYe9Y #ClimateTech #FOAK #ClimateFinance #ProjectDevelopment #GreenTech #CleanEnergy

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Brilliant venture studio manifesto. The work comes in generating real traction. “We don't fund entrepreneurs-in-residence with a deck and a check. We think product-market fit is a hard problem and we don't think it can be industrialized or handed off - but it is possible to solve repeatedly. We get in the guts and build the thing from day zero. Most of the work of a scientist isn't generating hypotheses, it's running experiments to get the data. That's what we do. Once we've created real traction, we partner with best-in-class operators to create a second founding moment to scale the company. That's because the skills at each stage of a startup are different, even if vesting schedules pretend they're the same. We aim for unreasonable speed with each portfolio company while making decisions at Boulton & Watt like we're going to be in business for decades. We go long: building networks of talented people we someday hope to work with, waiting patiently for businesses to compound, and preferring to make the pie bigger for everyone instead of owning all of a small pie of our own.” Boulton & Watt

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The latest data from Crunchbase is a bit of an eyebrow raiser. It’s hypetown on #AI, yet healthcare and biotech emerged as frontrunners in Q1 2024 (24% of the total $66B), emphasizing a shift to sectors that directly impact human health and well-being. #BioTech notables are Mirador Therapeutics (medicine development for immune deficiencies), Diagonal Therapeutics (antibody therapies), and Alterome Therapeutics, Inc Therapeutics (treating oncological diseases). #Healthtech

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Big fan of this direction from Day One Ventures and Masha Bucher. One might wonder why it would be bad for the divide between society and technology to grow. There are many arguments to make, but I'd like to suggest one from a purely practical standpoint, one that should appeal even to people who believe technology primarily drives the future. Artists often play the role of integrators/synthesizers/sense-makers of what can be a confusing pull into the future (whether driven by technology, ideology, or otherwise) based on society's current conceptual frameworks. Keeping the divide small means a larger portion of the society has updated their concepts to align with the best models we have of the world. A larger portion of society with updated concepts means we have more people better equipped to tackle the challenges of the future. With that in mind, I'd expect a need to increase investment in artists broadly speaking as we increase investments in technology in order for technology to actually progress in solving important challenges as quickly as possible. Looking forward to seeing what comes next Jenny Chao! #art #artists #ai

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Cambridge Future Tech builds DeepTech ventures and last week we hit another milestone; we're co-founding our 15th venture 🤘 It's awesome building new ventures from the ground up. It's why we started CFT in the first place. It always feels great to be at the start of the build phase, helping founders articulate a new venture’s tech and potential, building a strong narrative. We’re collaborating closely with founders to transform groundbreaking ideas into companies. 🚀🚀🚀 More to come on this. I'm hyped to share what we're building 🤘 #venturebuilder #deeptech #startups #cambridge

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🧩 One thing we've noticed with #VentureIQ technology is how well it can distill and communicate complex technical material 🧩 Whether it's a #deeptech venture, a novel #AI application, or even a patent submission, we can quickly distill the business and strategic implications for investors...and sometimes even the founders/PIs themselves! 🤯 Based on our work so far, the tech can handle a wide array of research areas and technological sectors -- anything from blockchain algorithms to vaccine development. It handles the nuance of the field, the specific terminology, and extracts the key concepts which matter for venture-building. 🤓 To demonstrate, I took a patent I helped write with Eric Laber on reinforcement learning. I ran it through #Ventureiq to build a commercial assessment (key differentiators, target markets). Then for fun I had #NotebookLM make a podcast out of it. I've uploaded the result it here (DM me if you'd like the actual report): https://lnkd.in/eiTejsny This is more than just automation or streamlining operations - it's about unlocking clarity and insight when it was previously unattainable, and the ability to do it over and over again no matter the sector or vertical. Interested in more info? DM me so we can chat.

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The 3 Archetypes of Creativity 🎨 "The Dreamer, the Doer, and the Incrementalist" This framework has guided my thinking on team composition for a decade. It comes from Scott Belsky's book: "Making Ideas Happen" Here's how it works: 1️⃣ The Dreamer: Visionary architects 2️⃣ The Doer: Master builders 3️⃣ The Incrementalist: The best of both worlds When these archetypes collaborate, expect fireworks! 🎆 The Dream Team: Dreamer + Doer The Dynamic Duo: Incrementalist + Doer/Dreamer Understanding these types is crucial for capitalizing on strengths and mitigating weaknesses. It empowers teams to work in harmony, maximizing efficiency and impact. Are you a Dreamer, Doer, or Incrementalist? Let me know below! #BrainDumps | BrainDump #12

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🚨 Breaking! 8090 Industries portfolio company Exowatt led by industrialist Hannan P. launches P3, fundamentally unleashing a new dawn for the energy industry! ☀️ Catch the story from Michelle Ma at Bloomberg below: https://lnkd.in/gkfHENST ⚡ Setting the stage: The power requirements to scale AI are astronomical. Within a decade AI will require 650TWh of new power generation – more than the electricity demand of South Korea. In the U.S. alone, data centers will require the equivalent amount of electricity to power 40 million households by 2030. Exowatt P3s can generate electricity at scale at just a $0.04 LCOE and with entirely baseload renewable tech. That’s lower than the cost of most fossil fuels and doesn’t account for subsidies. We have already amassed a 1.2 GW backlog, worth $Billions from the mega tech hyperscalers, energy and data center companies. 💡 How does it work? The system works by capturing the sun’s energy in the form of heat, storing it in a heat battery and converting it to electricity via a heat engine even when the sun is no longer out. This changes the economics of solar by solving a problem called the “Duck Curve” where all conventional solar producers are forced to sell their power at the same time while at maximum output, driving the electricity cost sometimes to zero or negative intraday and leaving no supply at night. Data centers need to operate 24/7 and typically have 60% of their OPEX from energy costs, so an inexpensive and ever available alternative is very important to them. Data centers are straining to bring capacity online and without solutions like Exowatt, are being forced to turn to fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. Keep a close eye on this one, we have no doubt Hannan P. Jack Abraham and the Exowatt team will be pushing forward an exciting, abundant and carbon-free powered future!⚡️ cc Kerem Ozmen Wes Mendenhall Filip Vurdelja Haluk Sabanci Dincer Grant Brown Charles Oppenheimer Ishan Meswani Garuth A. Andrew Irwin

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Everyone loves the 'picks and shovels' thesis—but the real untapped goldmine? Vertical agents and applications. 💡 As the underlying foundation models continue to advance, there won't be much space to build unicorn businesses that sit between the models on one hand and agentic applications on the other. (Don’t be surprised if GPT-5 is natively agentic in its architecture and capabilities.) The real opportunity lies in massive end markets ripe for "agentization": industries centered on structured, repeatable activities. Industries • Data Management • Customer Support • E-commerce Operations • Finance and Accounting • Marketing • Human Resources • Healthcare Administration • Supply Chain and Logistics • IT and Software Support • Legal and Compliance Digital Jobs • Virtual Assistants • Content Moderation • Market Research • Quality Assurance • Online Tutoring • Social Media Management • Transcription Services • Digital Advertising • Graphic Design • Software Development Support At Mucker Capital, we've built over a hundred companies in vertical SaaS. We see vertical agents as it's next generation.

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