TechNexus Venture Collaborative, helping leading corporations and ambitious entrepreneurs work together to create new business models, new revenue streams, new products, and markets.
Hi there,
Season's Greetings! Welcome to December's Update: a monthly newsfeed curated with news & insights for entrepreneurs, investors, corporate change-makers, and curious innovators.
We have a select team of venture investors, led by Cristin Pacifico, focused across the emergent electrification supply chain—from core battery tech, component parts, and charging infrastructure. Plus, we've recently welcomed three electrification startups to the portfolio, Natrion, H3X, and Amp Up.
The monthly Women in Tech Breakfast series is back! This year we’re partnering with General Assembly and GET Cities Chicago to host these inspiring and uplifting events in Chicago at our home base, TeamWorking. Everyone is welcome. We hope to see you at the next one on January 19.
"When corporations cling to a growth narrative whose subtle underpinnings are an assumption that iterative improvements on current products will suffice, they miss the biggest opportunity: aggressively seeking to replace their most successful products with ones that will make today's products obsolete...before an ambitious upstart does so. What's even better in our book? Corporations that ally with ventures, getting on the same side of the table, to build that disruptive future together."
"As big tech platforms like Apple and Google pivot to enhance consumer privacy protection, and consumers resultantly adopt measures to protect their personal data, behavioral marketing for many companies, large and small, is at a crossroads. Companies and brands are taking action by developing new products & services to engage with their end customers throughout the entire customer lifecycle (in turn, making consumer engagement less beholden to traditional digital ad sales/targeting). This systemic shift may prove especially key for the companies that haven't historically owned the direct relationship and ongoing touchpoint with their end customer."
We're thrilled to share some recent successes from our incredible portfolio.
Easol raises $25M for its experiences and event marketing, booking, and payments platform. Tiger Global led the round and now joins previous investors, including TechNexus, Notion Capital, Foundation Capital, Y Combinator, and FMZ Ventures. (TechCrunch)
Mixhalo, the developer of low-latency audio over-wifi transmission for live events, raises a $24M Series B led by Fortress Investment. The new influx of funds will go to team expansion to address the increasing interest from the market and to further innovate on the audio technology and product. (TechCrunch)
AdWeek honors for Meet Cute and Pushkin Industries. Naomi Shah, founder and CEO of Meet Cute, is recognized as Podcast Executive of the Year. While Pushkin wins across multiple categories, including Network of the Year, Editor of the Year, Podcast of the Year, and more. (Adweek)
Plus, Apple Podcasts names Pushkin's Slight Change of Plans best show of the year. (Apple)
Congratulations Perch co-founders Jordan Lucier, Nate Rodman, Jacob Rothman, and Naomi Shah, founder of Meet Cute, for being named to 2021's Forbes 30 Under 30.
With its innovative SIM cards, Chicago-based Hologram can equip pretty much any device to connect reliably to the internet; a reason why Inc. names Hologram a "Best in Business" honoree. (Inc.)
And another Best in Biz! Sonoro, a global media company developing audio-first content in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, was also named to Inc.'s "Best in Business 2021" list of the most inspiring companies of the year. (Inc.)
A Q&A with Clubhouse founder Paul Davison on hypergrowth and becoming a "real company," post-pandemic. (CNBC)
TechNexus news
A roundup of what's happening at TechNexus Venture Collaborative.
A few of us will be out in Vegas at CES in a couple of weeks. If you'd like to set up some time to connect with us, we'd love to hear what you are working on. Please reach out to Maddy Rutter to coordinate. Email her directly or hit reply.
And finally, we had too much fun in last week's all hands! What better way to know what our 100+ venture portfolio is up to than to gamify it, sprinkle in some fierce competitive edge, and play a riveting round of Portfolio Jeopardy.
That's it for December's update. Have a Happy Holiday season and ring in the New Year with inspiration and enthusiasm. We welcome 2022 with open arms and some new, exciting content. We'd love for you to share this with anyone you think might find it useful or interesting and encourage them to sign up.
