TechNexus is a Venture Collaborative: a unique combination of businesses, corporate joint-ventures, private equity funds under management, and a fast-growing startup investment portfolio.

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Please enjoy TechNexus's monthly newsletter curated by our team of venture analysts and designed to keep you engaged with new perspectives from our growing ecosystem. We’ve incubated hundreds of ventures, spent years fostering collaborations between them and relevant corporations, and we’re now one of the most active venture investors in the country. We’ll share some of the things we’re learning with you each month in this newsletter.

If you’ve got feedback, we’d love to hear it. Please email Madelyn Rutter at madelyn@technexus.com.

Ask any CEO to define an ecosystem, and you’ll get as many different responses.  Some see it as simply a sales channel, while others a marketing tool, a show of industry power & connections, and finally, some might even hark back to their high school biology days. Those who define a venture ecosystem by pitch days, hackathons, or field trips to Silicon Valley will universally attest that they provide little in the way of tangible results for the corporation.

A true Venture Ecosystem is a network of interconnected corporations and startups, engaging as a collaborative community to sustain and grow. If built properly with specific, actionable goals defined, a highly-effective bespoke ecosystem becomes a resounding platform of corporate leadership, producing 5 key results.

Senior Analyst Cristin Pacifico has spent months immersed in the outdoors, regularly engaging with both venture and corporate players on the front lines of many recreational industries that have experienced explosive participation rates due to imposed mitigation efforts and COVID-19 restrictions. From camping to fishing to boating to leisure travel, how might social effects from our ‘new normal’ have lasting impacts into the future?

Contributor Brett Bivens shares stories about the rise (and occasional fall) of companies across all different industries and geographies. Inspired by the great work of people like Polina Marinova, Kevin Gao, and Sriram Krishnan, in this piece, he structures his storytelling around the world’s most interesting companies. First up, Epic Games, Facebook, and LVMH.

Our Portfolio Companies Making Headlines

We've made more than 130 investments in great ventures. Here’s what a few have been up to.

Welcome to the portfolio, Let’s Do This! Let’s Do This is a marketplace to discover and book endurance and outdoor mass participation sporting events. They are on a mission to help more people discover epic experiences than any other community on the planet.  

ShotTracker scores $11M for their sports data platform, led by Evertz Technologies and Verizon Ventures. (CBNC)

Clubhouse, the audio-only app rising in popularity with the masses, after it built its name with tech investors last spring, makes way for influencers by starting to cultivate its own local celebrities. (NYT)

MIXhalo scores a partnership with the Sacramento Kings, who will become the first NBA team to use their technology to power games and live events. (NBA)

Conversational AI’ enterprise tech player, Symbl brings in $4.7M, including investments from TechNexus, Amazon, Jump Capital, and others. (Geekwire)

Tools that make your work life easier anytime, from anywhere? Yes, please!  Fast Company names Yac one of the 15 best productivity apps of 2020. (FC)

The U.S. Air Force selects firms including AI.Reverie for a $950M IDIQ Contract for Advanced Battle Management System. (PR Newswire)

#goodreads

Links we'd send you if you were in our team's Slack.

• 14 Podcast Predictions for 2021 from Industry Leaders - including those from our portfolio (Pacific Content)
• *DISRUPTION ALERT*  -- COVID-19 pandemic accelerated shift to e-commerce by 5 years (TechCrunch)
• Dissecting 'The Business Model Of The Decade' (Forbes)
• Build Products That Solve Real Problems With This Lightweight JTBD Framework (First Round)
• A Look Back at 2020 in the Context of Tech/Startups/VC/Crypto (AVC)

This Newsletter is for informational purposes only. This is not intended to be specific investment advice. All statements made regarding companies, securities or other financial information contained in the newsletter are not endorsements of any company or security or recommendations to buy or sell any security. Investors should determine for themselves whether a particular service or product is suitable for their investment needs or should seek such professional advice for their particular situation. No part of the content may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without the express written permission of TechNexus.