Tag: Startups

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Read the Top U.S. Startup Cities For 2016 Report

The top seven cities in the U.S. for startups in 2016 were San Francisco, New York, Boston, Cambridge, Palo Alto, Austin, and Seattle. These cities each received $2 billion in investment, had 58 new deals, and had 479 active VC-backed startups on average in 2016.

While these well-known startup cities continue to dominate the landscape, startup clusters are forming all over the U.S.  Policymakers in many cities that historically were not associated with high-growth, high-tech firms are now clearing succeeding in cultivating startups, as a strategy to boost their local economies.

 

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McNair Center Startup Ecosystems

Manufacturing Incubators

In the past few decades, there has been a decline in manufacturing jobs in the United States. Companies have been able to produce goods abroad at a cheaper price due to lower labor costs in developing countries.

Incubators are crucial to the revitalization of U.S. manufacturing. The Fulton-Carroll Center Incubator in Chicago is one of the largest and first manufacturing incubators in the nation. It was established in 1980 with $2.6 million in grants from the federal government. In 2015, the city of Seattle awarded the Industry Space Seattle, a manufacturing incubator started by Johnny Bianchi in 2015, a grant of $100,000.

Importance

Traditional startup incubators provide office space, network access and business advice for tech companies developing things like software and apps. Startups usually pay a monthly/annual membership fee, or pay monthly rent at a rate determined by the incubator. The rent is usually slightly more expensive than what companies need to pay to get a similar office in the same area. However, extra value comes from access to the incubator’s resources. Costs are shared among multiple startup companies, as well as by the incubator sponsor. Sponsors can be nonprofit or for-profit entities.

Incubators are perhaps even more important to the manufacturing industry than to the tech industry. Manufacturing firms require more expensive machines and tools, in addition to basic resources. Incubators that provide those technologies are especially important for manufacturing startups that aren’t ready to invest in their own infrastructure yet.

Providing Equipment

Chicago’s mHub, opened in March 2017, is an innovation center for physical product development and manufacturing. mHub is equipped with ten labs, including a 3D-printing lab, fabrication labs, electronics labs, plastic molding, textiles, welding and grinding, wood shop and wet lab. Overall, they provide a total of more than $2.5 million of prototyping and manufacturing equipment.

Industry Space Seattle gives its tenants the use of 10 overhead crane systems, which can cost up to $80,000 each, along with a $30,000 compressed-air system, a $20,000 forklift and an industrial paint booth.

MHub in Chicago

Other Resources

In addition to the machinery and tools, incubators provide manufacturing startups with general business resources. The Industry Space Seattle partners with Impact Washington. Impact Washington is a nonprofit that provides consulting services and business mentoring to fledgling manufacturers.

The Advance Business & Manufacturing Center Incubator, a program provided by the Greater Green Bay Chamber in Wisconsin since 1987, partners with local universities, who connect college students to startups when extra manpower is needed. When multiple firms work in close proximity, they share knowledge and inspire each other with ideas. The business networking at incubators can also foster collaboration and expansion.

Structures of Manufacturing Incubators

The sizes of manufacturing incubators can range from less than 100,000 square-foot to the size of a city block. On the smaller side, the Industry Space Seattle provides up the ten industrial working spaces, while mHub can serve  hundreds of startups at one time.

Although these incubators provide machinery for manufacturing, not all of their client companies are in the manufacturing industry. Startups service companies, ranging from non-profits to law firms to consulting firms, can rent out only the office space at a cheaper price.

Incubator Sponsors

The up-front investment in a manufacturing incubator is expensive. Although most are sponsored by the government, there are individuals who started an incubator because they believe that incubators offer talented minds chances to succeed. Bianchi bought  and renewed a building into Industry Space Seattle because “there’s a whole bunch of people operating out of garages trying to legitimize their business [and] it’s financially infeasible to grow them.” Elissa Bloom started a fashion incubator because “there’s so much talent in the city, but they’re not getting the know-how to run and launch a business.”

Trends and Barriers

The long-term trend in U.S. manufacturing is of more automation to increase productivity with fewer workers. This trend favors larger manufacturers who can afford the capital investment needed to remain competitive. In recent years though, technologies like 3D printing, CNC laser cutters and other CAD/CAM equipment, have reduced the price and time needed for prototyping and development.  There are therefore now lower barriers to entry to new product development in manufacturing, providing firms have access to the necessary technologies.

Conclusion

Manufacturing incubators take advantage of economies of scope and scale by providing capital equipment to manufacturing startups. This works because a typical piece of equipment will be mostly idle even at a fairly large single firm. Manufacturing incubators have also borrowed some best practices from startup incubators. In particular, they often provide broader business services and access to networks.

However, manufacturing incubators are a recent phenomenon. They are still on their first evolutionary cycle and their funding is largely not tied to their performance. Startup ecosystem participants, by comparison, have now faced almost a decade of competitive pressures. Competitive pressures  select  business models and niches that are aligned with market needs. Manufacturing incubators will likely become more successful when they partner with industry incumbents. A first step towards this is to sponsored by local for-profit firms.

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McNair Center Women

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

Photo courtesy of Shelby Bice.

McNair Center Intern Shelby Bice attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference along with 18,000 other computer scientists on October 4-6, 2017 in Orlando, Florida. 

The Grace Hopper Celebration honors the legacy of Grace Hopper, a trailblazer in computer programming who led the team that developed the first programming language, a precursor to COBOL. The conference is organized by The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 by computer scientist Anita Borg. It is an event to recruit, retain, and advance women in careers in computing and technological innovation.

The Grace Hopper Conference brings together companies ranging from small startups to tech giants. All are looking to recruit talented computer scientists and engineers. The event also includes panels on topics such as new applications for artificial intelligence and formulating an elevator pitch. In many ways, Grace Hopper resembles any other tech conference. However, there is one crucial distinction: the majority of the panelists, presenters and representatives are women.

What makes the Grace Hopper Celebration so important?

First and foremost, the Grace Hopper Celebration reminds the tech industry that female engineers not only exist, but that they are also just as hardworking and capable as their male counterparts.

When companies like Uber face backlash for low female representation, they often blame a lack of women in the industry. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reports Uber’s laughable finding that only 1,800 women engineers might be qualified to work for Uber. However, tickets for the celebration sold out within hours due to high interest from female computer scientists across the country. It seems safe to say that there are more than 1,800 women who meet Uber’s standards, regardless of their rigorousness.

The conference exposes women at different career levels to the vast array of careers in computer science. The stereotype of a lone male programmer sitting in a dark room coding video games is not an accurate depiction of computer science. Despite the many areas in which female engineers can apply their skills, many women are often unaware of available opportunities.

Grace Hopper showcases juggernauts like Google and Microsoft alongside smaller, lesser-known startups. The conference embodies the interdisciplinary and dynamic nature of computer science. For instance, Grace Hopper piqued my interest in Flatiron, a company that partners with oncologists to analyze data and recommend better cancer treatments.

McNair Center Intern Shelby Bice at the Grace Hopper Celebration (October 4-6, 2017). Photo courtesy of Shelby Bice.

Most importantly, Grace Hopper celebrates women in computer science. According to the WSJ, the percentage of female computer scientists in industry fell from roughly 37% in the mid-1980s to 18% in 2014. With only minimal gains since 2014, leaders must make a conscious effort to bring more women into the field. It’s also just as important to keep female computer scientists engaged and fulfilled throughout their careers. Many female computer scientists leave technical positions due to a lack of support from their company or, sometimes, gender discrimination. The Grace Hopper Celebration combats these negative forces by fostering an inclusive community.

Going forward

The Grace Hopper Celebration is just one step that the tech industry can take to empower women in computer science. After listening to the inspiring experiences of female computer scientists, entrepreneurs, researchers and leaders, I am confident that events like the Grace Hopper Celebration can help resolve the gender imbalance in computer science.

Grace Hopper will be coming to Houston in 2018. I look forward to attending!

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Read the Houston Entrepreneurship Pipeline Report

This paper examines the startup training institutions in Houston, Texas, and what they are doing to open up the city’s pipeline of startup firms.

Recent academic research has shown that startup training institutions can have an enormous positive effect on an ecosystem’s growth. A good ecosystem pipeline turns out a large quantity of high-quality startup firms that have received top-tier training. Houston’s accelerators and incubators do not perform at the levels of benchmark institutions. The quality of deal flow coming from its accelerators, incubators, and hubs will be crucial to Houston’s future.

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McNair Center Weekly Roundup

Weekly Entrepreneurship Roundup 4/14

Weekly Roundup is a McNair Center series compiling and summarizing the week’s most important Entrepreneurship and Innovation news.

Here is what you need to know about entrepreneurship this week:

How to Make Texas More Startup-Friendly

Iris Huang, Research Assistant, McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

McNair Center’s Huang interviews Blake Commagere, entrepreneur, angel investor and startup mentor in the San Francisco Bay Area on how to improve an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Commagere graduated from Rice University in 2003 with a degree in Computer Science. Upon graduation, Commagere moved to Austin to begin his career as an entrepreneur and soon decided to move to Silicon Valley. Commagere has raised over $12 million in VC, started seven companies and sold five.

Commagere describes the pull of talent toward San Francisco as “a virtuous cycle,” where “former successful startup founders become the next generation angel investors and venture capitalists, who fund and help more startups succeed.” Silicon Valley’s concentrated network of VC firms and tech startups provide struggling entrepreneurs with a vast pool of mentorship opportunities, funding resources and talent. Budding startups heavily rely on local tech networks for early-stage support and advice. In order to develop its entrepreneurial ecosystem, Texas cities need to focus on building its tech space.

Additionally, the state’s cities must expand their VC presence. Otherwise, there will always be too many startups fighting for too little capital (as if this isn’t a problem already), and startups will continue to move to cities like San Francisco. Startups depend on local VC firms because many firms refrain from investing in companies outside their primary city. When firms do invest in outside companies, the qualification bar is set much higher.

Medical Device Startups and the FDA

Iris Huang, Research Assistant, McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

McNair Center’s Huang takes a look at the FDA approval process for medical devices. The medical device industry is a $140 billion market. For many companies in the industry, obtaining FDA approval is a long and costly path. For some, it’s a barrier. Of the 6,500 companies in medtech, 80 percent are composed of fewer than 50 employees.

A Stanford University survey of over 200 medtech companies found that the average cost for a low-to-moderate-risk 510(k) product to obtain FDA clearance was $31 million. The same survey found that it took these products 31 months from initial communications with the FDA to obtain clearance. For startups, these costs pose significant barriers to entry. Huang aptly summarizes this dilemma: “as the cost of getting to market approaches the average exit value, the medtech funding equation looks less attractive to venture capitalists.”

The FDA approval process acts as an essential screening point in the medtech industry. However, Huang recommends that policymakers consider possible ways to alleviate the significant burdens placed on the businesses involved in the development of these critical technologies.

First Data Joins Silicon Valley Bank In Fintech Accelerator

Tom Groenfeldt, Contributor, Forbes
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) recently announced a collaboration with First Data, a global payments technology solutions company, on Commerce.Innovated, its fintech accelerator. Commerce.Innovated, founded in 2014, is a four-month long virtual accelerator for startups in the financial services and technologies sector. The accelerator, unlike most early stage accelerators, focuses on startups that have already secured or are in the process of securing seed or Series A funding.

According to SVB’s Reetika Grewal, the accelerator looks for firms with “five to 10 people with an idea they are committed to.” In this stage, startups usually require help with the “operational,” rather than conceptual, front of development. Commerce.Innovated helps fintech firms bring their solutions to market. Since these startups already possess strong leadership with a clear vision for their product, a virtual platform makes sense.

A $150 Million Fund, The Engine, Will Back Startups Others Find ‘Too Hard’

Lora Kolodny, Contributor, TechCrunch

The Engine is a venture fund and accelerator for “advanced technology startups.” The new fund recently closed its debut round at $150 million. Startups in The Engine’s portfolio gain access to one of MIT’s unique resources, The Engine Room, a laboratory for small startups to develop and test their technologies. In addition to to The Engine Room, startups also receive access to laboratory equipment and technologies from organizations in the greater Boston area.

Despite its close affiliation to MIT, The Engine invests “in teams and technologies that hail from a variety of industry and academic backgrounds, not just from the MIT ecosystem.” The Engine supports companies involved in the development of “hard-tech” – so basically anything “from advanced materials and manufacturing technologies to medical devices, robotics, artificial intelligence, nuclear energy, fusion and more.”

Hard-tech startups typically face higher costs, more risk and a longer development period than most B2B or consumer-focused software. These startups often find it difficult to find VCs willing to invest in their innovative, but risky technologies. The Engine, according to the fund’s CEO Katie Rae, is dedicated to lowering the costs of development and testing “hard-tech” and encouraging more entrepreneurs to go into the field.

Tax Reform Must Help Small Businesses, Too

Laurie Sprouse, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Laurie Sprouse, a small business owner from Dallas, covers tax reform and small businesses for The Wall Street Journal. As Sprouse points out, small businesses have added two thirds of new jobs to the U.S. economy in recent years. Still, analysts and policymakers continually propose tax overhauls that largely ignore the plight of small firms. Instead, politicians and reporters alike focus on alleviating financial burdens for larger corporations and providing helpful, but insufficient, tax credits for small businesses. According to Sprouse, “Only a plan that benefits businesses of all sizes equally will create the broad economic growth President Trump and Congress seek.”

Stripe Acquires Indie Hackers in Bid to Strengthen Relationship with Entrepreneurs

Ken Yeung, Contributor, VentureBeat

Founded in 2010, tech company Stripe delivers application programming interfaces (APIs) that support electronic payments for consumers and businesses. Recently, the firm announced plans to acquire Indie Hackers, a startup dedicated to creating an internet community for entrepreneurs to share their success stories and lessons. While the financial terms of the deal remain unclear, it seems that site will operate as an independent subsidiary of Stripe.

Indie Hackers founder, Courtland Allen, describes his site as a “community where successful founders could share their valuable stories and insights, and where aspiring entrepreneurs could go for inspiration and advice.” Meanwhile Stripe executives view the deal as an opportunity to grow “the GDP of the internet” by increasing the “overall number” of successful businesses.

In an interview with VentureBeat, a Stripe spokesperson revealed that the company wants to support Indie Hackers’ mission by taking on some of the budding site’s financial burden. In just under a year, the site already runs a monthly profit of $6,000. Going forward, Allen hopes to see Indie Hackers take on a similar role as Y Combinator’s Hacker News.

The Weekly Roundup will return in June. 

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Government and Policy McNair Center

Medical Device Startups and the FDA

Does the FDA approval process impede innovation? Medical devices must be reviewed for safety and effectiveness by the Food and Drug Administration before being marketed in United States, which encompasses 43 percent of the global market for medical devices. Startups in the medical device industry are often dissatisfied with this approval process, favoring the FDA’s European Union peer, CE Marking. Some founders even believe the time consuming and expensive FDA process “holds back the entire industry.”

Classification of Medical Devices

The FDA classifies medical devices based on their associated risks. Class I devices, like enema kits and elastic bandages, have minimal potential for harm and are typically exempt from the regulatory process. Devices that present medium risk, like contact lenses, are classified as Class II and carefully reviewed. Class III devices, such as pacemakers and replacement heart valves, are the highest risk devices, subject to the most regulatory controls.

Blood Pressure Cuff -- Class II

The FDA categorizes devices based on their function, not their underlying technologies. These categorizations may cause unnecessary delays by imposing regulatory requirements on technologies that have already been tested. Ariel Dora Stern of Harvard Business School found that for devices based on the same technologies, those placed in already existing product categories took less time to approve than those placed in new categories.

Premarket Processes

There are two FDA processes required of medical devices in different classifications:  Premarket Notification 510(k) and Premarket Approval (PMA).

Most Class I and Class II devices can be marketed after receiving 510(k) clearance. It demonstrates that the device is “substantially equivalent” to a device already on the market. Those devices that can be paired with substantial equivalents or “predicate devices” do not require a PMA. The 510(k) clearance tends to take around 200 days and costs much less than PMA.

PMA is required for new Class III high-risk devices. Companies need to submit evidence that provides reasonable assurance that the device is safe and effective. The PMA can take more than 450 days and include the ongoing costs of clinical trials among other expenses.

The clinical study stage often takes as long as the initial concept development stage. Josh Makower, Aabed Meer and Lyn Denend at  Stanford University surveyed over 200 medical device companies and found that it took the companies an average of 31 months from first communication with the FDA to receive 510(k) clearance and 54 months for PMA. 81 percent of survey respondents believed that the FDA has a difficult time with novel technologies. Stern also found that the first device in any given category took 34 percent longer to receive approval than the next device in that category, leading to an average delay of 7.2 months.

Hefty Expenditures

Makower et al. found the average total cost to bring a low- to moderate-risk 510(k) product from concept to clearance was $31 million, with $24 million spent on FDA-related activities. For a higher-risk PMA product, the cost became $94 million, with $75 million spent on FDA requirements. Approximately 50 percent of medical device exits (acquisitions or IPOs) are under $100 million; 75 percent are under $150 million. As the cost of getting to market approaches the average exit value, the funding equation looks less attractive to venture capitalists.

Obstacles to True Innovation

It is likely that companies sometimes compromise and pursue the less risky yet also less innovative 510(k) route. They make relatively simple extensions to low-risk product lines already in existence. The FDA typically evaluates more than 4,000 510(k) notifications and about 40 original PMA applications each year. This means that only one percent of devices are innovative, new medical technologies that require clinical data to get FDA approval.

Challenges Facing Small Companies

Startups face particular challenges in navigating the FDA regulatory process. More than 80 percent of the 6,500 medical device companies in the U.S. have fewer than 50 employees. According to the industry-wide survey, 72 percent of small companies submit new products. Only 35 percent of large companies do this. The total average review time for small companies is 330 days, as opposed to 177 days for large companies. However, Stern found that privately-held firms with revenues under $500 million made up only 14 percent of FDA submissions for follow-on devices and 7 percent for novel devices.

CE Mark or FDA?

The EU represents 31 percent of the global medical device market, which has a projected value reaching $544 billion by 2020. Access to both the American and European markets gives startups 74 percent of the global market, worth $400 billion. Attempting both FDA approval and CE Mark approval simultaneously is not feasible for most companies

In 2012, a Boston Consulting Group study found that most PMA medical devices were available in Europe 3 years earlier than in the U.S. Makower et al. found it took medical technology firms an average of seven months to get CE Mark clearance and 11 months to get PMA for the EU. Approximately two-thirds of small medical device companies obtained clearance in Europe first. The number one reason is the unpredictability of 510(k) requirements, according to a comprehensive industry-wide survey conducted by John H. Linehan and Jan B. Pietzsch at Northwestern University.

The difficulty of obtaining FDA approval also makes it harder for startups to raise VC funding. In 2012, BCG interviewed venture capitalists on medical device investments and found that some investors would not invest in a medical device startup unless the company received a CE Mark and promised consequent revenues in Europe.

Conclusion

The value and importance of FDA approval are undeniable. However, policymakers should examine whether the lengthy and expensive FDA approval process is necessary. The FDA might consider reducing the length of the process for all applicants. It might also help if the FDA accommodates startups’ specific needs. This can be done by granting subsidies to small businesses, offering expedited paths to truly novel and needed technologies and providing equipment or space for conducting clinical trials to innovative startups.

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McNair Center Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup on Entrepreneurship 3/24/17

Weekly Roundup is a McNair Center series compiling and summarizing the week’s most important Entrepreneurship and Innovation news.

Here is what you need to know about entrepreneurship this week:

Congress Turns Its Attention to Entrepreneurship and Innovation — But Does It Take Effective Action?

Anne Dayton, Research Manager, McNair Center
The 115th Congress has passed 3 bills this legislative session relating to entrepreneurship and innovation. The tally seems abnormally high considering that only 10 bills have been passed in total since Congress first convened on January 3rd, While this wave of legislation might appear to indicate that Congress has set its sights on promoting entrepreneurship and innovation, the McNair Center’s Anne Dayton notes that out of the three bills passed by Congress, only one substantiates effective policy.

Out of the three bills passed, Dayton highlights the TALENT Act as likely to “make a real world impact.” The TALENT Act essentially codifies and formalizes the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, an initiative originally introduced by President Obama. The bill falls under House Majority Leader McCarthy’s Innovation Initiative for spurring higher rates of innovation in the private sector. For more insight into the work done by Innovation Fellows, check out Julia Wang’s post for the McNair Center on President Obama’s efforts to generate an “innovation nation.”

The other two acts, Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship and INSPIRE, aim to support women in entrepreneurship but are unfortunately, according to Dayton, “devoid of meaningful changes to public policy.” If you’re interested in how policy can increase women in STEM and innovation-based fields, check out this post from McNair’s Tay Jacobe.

Notwithstanding the results of the recent legislation, Dayton acknowledges that “all three acts passed Congress with bipartisan support”; hopefully these unified efforts are a function of “a shared interest in furthering innovation in government and expanding access to careers in entrepreneurship and STEM” among U.S. politicians.

In Silicon Valley, a Voice of Caution Guides a High-Flying Uber

Katie Benner, The New York Times, Reporter

Bill Gurley is a general partner at prominent Silicon Valley VC firm, Benchmark. Gurley spotted Uber early on, claiming a 20 percent stake in the successful ride-hailing app six years ago. Since Benchmarks original investment in Uber in 2011, the startup’s value increased 1,100-fold. Despite the startup’s huge successes, Uber has run into a host of problems in recent weeks, including legal disputes, stiff competition from rival ride-sharing app Lyft and negative press attention for employee allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination.

In light of the startup’s series of blunders, Gurley decided to take a more hands-on approach in advising Uber’s damage control strategy and will reportedly assist in the search for a COO for the startup. Since joining Benchmark, Gurley has been involved in the firm’s profitable investments into GrubHub, OpenTable and Zillow. However, with a successful public offering, Uber could become Gurley’s greatest tech investment yet.

Gurley is famous in Silicon Valley for his often unorthodox and unpopular advice to successful tech firms. During the dot com boom, he advised tech startup Net Gravity to go public as soon as possible, rather than to delay their IPO for further funding rounds. According to Gurley, “taking on too much venture funding…can fuel a lack of discipline” and lead to the absence of “rigorous financial and operational controls” among startups.

Will the Gig Economy Make the Office Obsolete?

Diane Mulcahy, Harvard Business Review, Reporter

Harvard Business Review’s Mulcahy reports on the potential of the gig economy going forward. In a traditional economy, companies demand employee attendance – in other words, the five day, eight-hour workweek. Under a gig economy, however, companies value employee performance over attendance and allow employees to disconnect their work from the office space. Options that allow employees to work remotely or in co-working spaces cut real-estate costs for employers and provide productive and flexible work environments for employees.

According to Mulcahy, “the most impactful lesson that traditional companies can learn from the gig economy is to judge all workers, including employees, on their results, not on when and where they do their work.” Perhaps entrepreneurs and startups might take a hint from the benefits of the gig economy. For most firms, and especially small businesses, labor is the most costly input into the production process. In fact, according to a study from CBRE, the average U.S. company spends roughly $12,000 per employee per year on office space alone. A survey of 8,000 employees conducted by McKinsey’s Global Institute reveals that employees who work outside of the typical office lifestyle report higher levels of satisfaction and productivity.

MuleSoft Stock Soars after Latest Tech Unicorn IPO

Mikey Tom, PitchBook, Contributor

PitchBook’s Tom covers MuleSoft’s IPO from last Friday. The IPO secured the VC-backed startup a market cap slightly above $3 billion. Mulesoft is 2017’s first large tech enterprise to go public. The San Francisco-based company develops software platforms that integrate data, devices, and APIs (application programming interfaces). Although 2016 was a slow year for public offerings (in comparison to M&A deals), Tom predicts that 2017 could reverse this current trend in VC exits. Tom predicts that the market’s “warm” reception to Mulesoft public offering could signal a shift in the “public market’s appetite for enterprise.” Just last week, tech unicorn Okta filed for its IPO. Okta provides identity management technologies, a hot sector in the tech industry right now.

How Spotify Is Finally Gaining Leverage over Record Labels

Josh Constine, TechCrunch, Reporter

Music-streaming startup Spotify has come a long way since its founding in 2008. In 2012, Constine wrote an article for TechCrunch explaining how Spotify’s success has always hinged on the cooperation of record labels; as a result of Spotify’s limited bargaining power in negotiating with artists, the startup pays huge royalties to their record labels. Despite limited leverage over record labels, the popular company now boasts over 50 million paid subscribers. In his latest post for TechCrunch, Constine notes several ways that Spotify has fundamentally shifted the power balance between streaming platforms and record labels.

First, Spotify has become a vehicle for music discovery, with its Discover Weekly feature shaping a many listener’s music preferences. Going forward, Spotify might take further advantage of the selection process for these recommended playlists to gain bargaining power when negotiating with artists. Currently, Spotify attributes a large proportion of the total royalty payments for many large record labels. If record labels want to rethink their partnership with Spotify now, they will potentially jeopardize a substantial stream of revenue. What’s more, Spotify has recently made moves to diversify its service offerings to include videos, limit content access by offering a tiered subscription system for new releases, and own the rights to the music it streams so that it can eliminate royalty payouts completely for some artists.

According to Constine, if Spotify successfully capitalizes on these strategies, the startup may achieve lower royalty rates and negotiation power before going public.

A Physician’s Open Letter to Health Tech Startups

Dr. M. Christine Stock, Guest Author, VentureBeat

In her post for VentureBeat, Dr. Christine Stock sends a clear message to health tech startups: start inviting physicians “innovation process.” According to Dr. Stock, who is a tenured professor of anesthesiology at Northwestern University, doctors want to be involved in the process that will transform how medicine is practiced going forward. The current model of implementation leaves physicians out of the development process.

Dr. Stock comments that “many new technologies work well after the period of adaptation,” but “leaving end-users (physicians) out of the product development process leads to unanticipated problems such as unintuitive and frustrating workflow, taxing documentation requirements and nonsensical and inaccurate cut-and-paste progress notes.” To increase the productivity of physicians during the rollout period and more effectively promote the well-being of their patients, tech startups should openly communicate with physicians. Through feedback from medical professionals, tech innovators might realize that flooding doctors with a flurry of new digital tools often leads to poor workflow and patient dissatisfaction on the consumer end of the chain.

Dr. Stock also notes on areas of the medical field that urgently demand innovation from the startup sector, including patient ownership of personal medical information and creating an open platform for EMR (electronic medical records) systems, so that healthcare providers can easily access medical records from and communicate with providers using different systems.

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McNair Center Weekly Roundup

Entrepreneurship Weekly Roundup 3/10/17

Weekly Roundup is a McNair Center series compiling and summarizing the week’s most important Entrepreneurship and Innovation news.

Here is what you need to know about entrepreneurship this week:

A Tale of Untapped Potential: Cincinnati

Eliza Martin, Research Assistant, McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

McNair’s Martin focuses on Cincinnati’s entrepreneurial ecosystem this week. While this midwestern city might appear a surprising or unlikely choice, many of Cincinnati’s entrepreneurs have thrived in recent years due to the city’s ample resources. For starters, the city is home to ten Fortune 500 companies, including Macy’s and Kroger. Its large corporations offer an invaluable network of resources and access to capital for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Furthermore, the University of Cincinnati, which boasts a marketing program that ranks among the top five in the nation, and Xavier University both offer university accelerator programs designed to support young entrepreneurs as they look to launch a business plan. In addition to university accelerator programs, entrepreneurs in Cincinnati also have the option of applying to three other accelerators within the region, The Brandery, UpTech and Ocean Accelerator.

Although Cincinnati is home to a variety of different VC funds and investment options, like CincyTech and Cintrifuse, the city closes significantly fewer deals on average per year than the likes of Austin or Denver. Martin explains this smaller number of deal closures as a function of lower levels of VC activity and fewer funding rounds. To compete with major entrepreneurial hubs, Cincinnati must increase its VC presence even further.

Wanted: More Women Entrepreneurs

Taylor Jacobe, Research Assistant, McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

In her latest post for the McNair Center, Jacobe analyzes how improving female representation in entrepreneurship could boost economic growth in the U.S. Currently, women-owned businesses account for only 16 percent of employing companies. While women entrepreneurs tend to perform as well as, if not better than, their male counterparts, many cite lack of access to capital and limited mentorship opportunities as major obstacles to success.

According to a study from the National Women’s Business Council, women entrepreneurs start their businesses with 50 percent less capital than men. A survey conducted by the Kauffman Foundation revealed that 79 percent of women entrepreneurs drew from their personal funds when launching their business. Perhaps more telling, women are three times less likely than men to receive funding from angel and seed investors for their startups. By tackling gender bias in VC firms and other barriers to capital, public and private initiatives can better integrate women into America’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

As Snap Ascended, These Rival Apps Faltered

Joanna Glasner, Reporter, TechCrunch

According to TechCrunch’s Glasner, VCs love messaging apps for a number of reasons: “massive scalability, low startup costs, loyal users and the potential to mint billions without having to turn a profit.” Messaging apps present a huge potential for success for investors in the modern age, exemplified by Snap’s recent IPO and WhatsApp’s acquisition by Facebook for $17 billion in 2014. Despite this rosy picture, many VC-backed startups that were messaging apps have fallen through the cracks over the years. TechCrunch recently took a closer look at how much capital has been invested into messaging apps only to find that VCs have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into companies that haven’t raised a funding round in two years. Glasner concedes that it is too early to dismiss these once promising startups as failed investments. Regardless the outcomes of these startups, prospects of success in the messaging app arena are daunting.

Y Combinator Opens Registration for Its Free Startup School Online Course

Ken Yeung, Contributor, VentureBeat

Y Combinator,one of the most successful seed accelerators in the U.S., has funded over 1,464 startups since its founding in 2005. Known for its excellent track record of spotting tech giants (Dropbox, Reddit and Airbnb, to name a few), its companies have a total valuation of over $80 billion. The famous accelerator recently announced that it would be opening up its Startup School event to the masses through a massively open online course (MOOC). The 10-week online course will offer entrepreneurs, who are not enrolled in Y Combinator’s core program, access to online courses taught by successful entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and industry greats. Lessons will focus on important topics in the startup business, such as “idea generation, product development, growth, culture building, fundraising and more.” Y Combinator partner Jessica Livingston told VentureBeat  back in 2015 that the accelerator’s mission was “to help startups at whatever stage they’re in become billion-dollar companies.”

Lemnos Just Raised a $50 Million Third Fund to (Mostly) Focus on Hardware

Connie Loizos and Katie Roof, Contributors, TechCrunch

San Francisco-based VC firm Lemnos was founded in 2014 as a firm focused on seed-staged investment into hardware companies. Successful companies like Fitbit, Oculus, Square and GoPro have boosted investor confidence in hardware companies in recent years. Lemnos recently announced that it will discontinue its incubator program to focus solely on investing in promising software development and hardware startups. The announcement marks a new stage in the VC firm’s short history, as Lemnos used to invest exclusively in hardware companies. When asked about possible investment opportunities moving forward, Lemnos executives told TechCrunch that they were very excited about the field of robotics.

This Program Uses Lean Startup Techniques to Turn Scientists into Entrepreneurs

Greg Satell, Contributor, Harvard Business Review

In 2011 the National Science Foundation (NSF), headed by Subra Suresh, founded I-Corps, a program designed to help transform scientists into entrepreneurs. The idea for the program originated when Suresh noticed that many of the scientific discoveries, made possible with NSF research grants, were not breaking out of their academic silos and into the marketplace. Harvard Business Review’s Satell describes the program as an initiative by NSF to “foster better links between government and industry.” Errol Arkilic, director of I-Corps, initially reached out to Steve Blank to help design the program, which is now an 8-week course for graduate students. The curriculum adopts the philosophies of Blank’s lean startup movement. Blank stresses the importance of developing products that actually address consumer needs; early on, Arkilic realized that many aspiring scientist-entrepreneurs create solutions to problems that consumers don’t want. Upon completion of the entrepreneurship training, participants partner with VentureWell, a nonprofit accelerator.

As of last May, I-Corps successfully trained over 700 teams. In aggregate, I-Corps teams have raised over $80 million from government grants and VC firms. Significantly, 90 percent of the program’s participants say that I-Corps changed their approach to conducting research and writing grant proposals. In response to the program’s success, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense implemented programs that resemble the I-Corps model.

When Will All the Unicorns Exit? VC Liquidity Lagging behind Expectations

Mikey Tom, Senior Financial Writer, PitchBook

PitchBook’s Tom explains that “for the VC model to work, huge rounds need to lead to huge exits.” However, while 2015 was a year of unicorn funding rounds, 2016 did not bring large exits. In fact, VC-backed exits reached their lowest point in six years in Q4 of 2010. Part of the decline in exits could potentially be explained by an increased buildup of capital in private markets; abundance of VC in private markets might lead startups to wait longer to go public or get acquired. Another important statistic revealed by PitchBook’s analysis of VC liquidity in 2016: the median size of corporate M&A deals increased – by a lot. The total exit value of corporate M&A deal reached its second highest level in the decade, indicating larger and fewer acquisitions. On the other hand, the amount of capital raised and the number of completed IPOs in 2016 reached lows not observed since 2010 for VC-backed firms.

These Are the 50 Most Promising Startups You’ve Never Heard Of

Ellen Huet, Reporter, Bloomberg

Bloomberg recently released a list of the 50 most promising U.S. startups. Market researcher Quid generated the list by looking at over 50,000 startups and considering factors, such pace of funding, industry and history of the company’s founders.All 50 startups were founded within the last six years, and they represent a variety of industries. Startups involved in online security, fraud detection, AI, autonomous driving and AR drew the most capital. VC firms Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital each invested in six startups that made the cut.

 

The Weekly Roundup will return on March 24.

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McNair Center Weekly Roundup

Entrepreneurship Weekly Roundup 3/3/17

Weekly Roundup is a McNair Center series compiling and summarizing the week’s most important Entrepreneurship and Innovation news.

Here is what you need to know about entrepreneurship this week:

Crowdfunding

Tay Jacobe, Research Assistant, McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

This week, McNair’s Jacobe analyzes a relatively new phenomenon in capital fundraising: crowdfunding. Crowdfunding enables startups and entrepreneurs to raise capital for their businesses, without going through more formal sources of funding like angel investors, bank loans and VC funds. Although Indiegogo and KickStarter are by far the largest and most successful crowdfunding websites, many additional crowdfunding platforms have emerged in recent years. In 2015, the crowdfunding industry was valued at roughly $17.25 in comparison to $58.8 billion for VC funds.

While startups may find success in raising cash on crowdfunding sites, there is still no guarantee that the startup will be successful. This uncertainty holds for VC-backed startups as well, but unpredictability becomes a particular concern for crowdfunding-backed startups; the success rate of Kickstarter’s startups stands at 35.72 percent.

According to a study conducted at the Wharton School, a differentiating factor between startups that go through successful crowdfunding campaigns is strategic and longterm planning. Jacobe believes that “crowdfunding has potential to shake the dynamics of investment in the coming decades.” In order for crowdfunding to reach its full potential as an alternative platform for entrepreneurs to raise capital, policymakers should implement regulations that support and empower the crowdfunding environment

Startups Seeking Funding Should Consider Corporate Venture Capital Arms

Richard Harroch, Contributor, Forbes

In recent years, many large corporations, like Google, Nokia and Qualcomm, have been sprouting “venture capital arms.” Venture capital arms or corporate venture arms are VC funds that are separately owned or subsidiaries of a parent company. According to Forbes’ Harroch, corporate venture arms typically participate in seed, Series A and Series B investment rounds. These funds often look out for startups that offer the parent company a strategic or synergistic edge.

Among other positive outcomes, the corporate venture model benefits startups by providing credibility, a larger consumer base, access to an expansive network of resources and connections and strategic and industry-specific guidance. However, as pointed out by Michael Yang, the Managing Director for Comcast Venture, “there is no shortage of capital for the best startups.” Because the most promising startups can easily choose from a wide range of investing options, corporate arms distinguish themselves from traditional VC funds by leveraging their in-house expertise and ability to benefit companies post-investment.

Venture capital arms are a strategic and financially attractive option for many large corporations. Parent companies gain access to new and disruptive technologies, potential industry partners, budding industry talent, insight into alternative business models and additional sources of cash inflow.

Tech Startup Market Sinks to Lowest Point in Three Years

Sarah McBride, Journalist, Bloomberg

Stock markets have been enjoying a post-election rally amid expectations of infrastructure spending, decreased regulations and corporate tax cuts. Since January 26th, the Nasdaq Composite Index soared 13% percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke the 20,000 mark.

However, Bloomberg’s McBride points out under-performance by one key segment of the market: private technology startups. While private tech startups are also likely to benefit from the Trump administration’s proposed tax cuts and deregulation, stricter immigration rules for the H-1B visa program could prove harmful. Bloomberg’s U.S. Startups Barometer measures startup deal-making in the U.S. at 37 percent below its level from December, putting the startup sector at its lowest point since April of 2014.

Although private market deals tend to reach a lull at the beginning and end of the year, deal flow in 2017 seems unusually low when compared to previous years. According to McBride, many VCs are now facing “the prospect that they had overpaid for many investments” in previous years, “particularly the coveted unicorn startups valued at $1 billion or more.”

Fortunately, the recent slow in deal flow is not symptomatic of a lack of capital; according to the National Venture Capital Association, U.S. venture funds raised $41.6 billion in 2016, “ the most since the dot-com days of 2001.” Despite the current trend, McBride expects more VC-backed private technology firms to go public.

And in startup news…

More bad news: JackThreads, Stayzilla shutting down

Dana Olsen, Financial Writer, PitchBook

Pitchbook’s Olsen reports on recent layoffs by VC-backed startups. In 2016, many startups halted operations and trimmed down their work forces. Last year, employees at many startups like Sonos, Pebble, Shyp, Optimizely, Yik Yak and Github faced waves of layoffs. Unfortunately, layoffs in the startup sector seem likely to continue into 2017. Munchery, Joyable, JackThreads and Stayzilla are four startups that have already instituted mass layoffs ahead of March. According to Olsen, VC-backed Stayzilla and JackThreads are also considering shutting down operations due to unsound financial practices and lack of profitability.

SoftBank set to invest more than $3 billion in WeWork

Brian Sullivan, Reporter, CNBC

WeWork is reportedly set to receive over $3 billion in investment from Japanese VC firm, SoftBank. WeWork, founded in 2010 in New York City, provides coworking spaces, networking opportunities and educational services to entrepreneurs, small businesses and freelancers. Since opening its original office location in New York City in 2010, WeWork has expanded its operations nationwide and globally, with a new location likely to open in downtown Houston later this year, The startup currently offers over 150 coworking spaces, with locations in most major U.S. cities and over 15 countries.

At the time of its last investment, WeWork was valued at approximately $17 billion. With the deal, WeWork’s valuation would surpass $20 billion. In recent years, this successful startup has accumulated over $1 billion in capital from prominent VC firms like Goldman Sachs, Benchmark and Hony Capital.

SoFi Raises $500 Million Led by Silver Lake for Global Expansion

Selina Wang, Reporter, Bloomberg

Founded in 2010, San Francisco-based Social Finance Inc. (SoFi) provides modern underwriting services. Using SoFi, customers can purchase financial products, such as student loan refinancing, mortgage loans, personal loans, wealth management and life insurance online.

In its latest funding round, SoFi raised over $500 million, drawing investments from SoftBank, GPI Capital and some sovereign wealth funds, but PE firm Silver Lake Partners led the charge. The recent funding round will support SoFi’s efforts to break out into international markets and expand its financial product offerings. Many SoFi executives have expressed interest in providing customers with an larger set of personal financing tools, such as mobile deposit.

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McNair Center Weekly Roundup

Entrepreneurship Weekly Roundup: 2/17/17

Weekly Roundup is a McNair Center series compiling and summarizing the week’s most important Entrepreneurship and Innovation news.

Here is what you need to know about entrepreneurship this week:

The International Entrepreneur Rule: The US Startup Visa

Ramee Saleh, Research Assistant, McNair Center for Entrepreneurship

During the last days of the Obama Administration, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) passed the International Entrepreneur Rule. The legislation intends to attract international entrepreneurs to the U.S. by granting them “discretionary parole.”

Under the rule, entrepreneurs can apply for temporary five year visas, as long as they partially own a startup that has received at least $250,000 in VC funding from “established U.S. investors” or $100,000 from “government entities.” If a startup fails to meet these funding requirements, the applicant must prove that a “significant public benefit” would result from the his or her entry into the United States. Due to the strict standards, the Department of Homeland Security estimates the program to admit only 2,940 entrepreneurs annually.

Scheduled to go into effect July 17, the International Entrepreneur Rule is still subject to change by any reforms to the H-1B visa program by the Trump Administration.

With $6B in Deals in 2016, ID Management Is a Hot Sector You May Have Missed

Joanna Glasner, Contributor, TechCrunch

In 2016, startups involved in identity management collectively claimed over $6 billion in acquisitions from private equity buyers. Identity management startups also experienced successful funding rounds, raising over $200 million from VCs. These startups are responding to a growing need for improvements in health care IT and authentication. Last year,ECRI Institute, a global nonprofit focused on patient safety, listed “patient identification errors” as the second most important safety concern for health care organizations.

TechCrunch’s Glasner highlights tech unicorn Otka, an identification management and authentication platform provider, that has raised over $200 million from VCs. Otka is considering going public this year.

Lawmakers Try to Stop State-Sponsored Retirement Plans

Anne Tergese, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Last week, Republican Congressmen introduced measures to prevent small businesses from automatically enrolling employees in state or locally sponsored retirement plans. The bill comes as several states have enacted retirement savings programs that automatically deduct earnings from employee’s paychecks for deposit into individual retirement accounts.

These programs only affect residents who do not have access to a workplace retirement plan; AARP estimates that this number stands at 55 million people nationwide by. AARP executive vice president Nancy LeaMond has publicly stated that Congress should take steps to support, rather than end, these state savings programs.

Supporters of the bill believe that state-sponsored retirement plans “discourage small businesses from offering private-sector plans” by forcing employees “into government-run plans with fewer protections and less control over their hard-earned savings.”

Banks Are Finally Sprouting Anew in America

Rachel Witkowski, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

In the past few months, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation received the greatest volume of applications for “startup banks” since the financial crisis.The increase reflects an improving economy and expectations for future deregulation of the financial sector.

Startup, or “community,” banks are traditionally viewed as banks that hold less than $1 billion in assets. According to Q3 FDIC data from last year, community banks are responsible for 43% of loans to small businesses. The Wall Street Journal’s Witkowski reports that many community bankers believe that “the decline in the number of banks has led to fewer lending options for startups and small businesses.” Supporters of deregulation believe that greater numbers of community banks spur economic growth and job creation.

Don’t Panic Labs Pioneers “Dev-for-Equity” Model to Help Startups

Christine McGuigan, Reporter, Silicon Prairie News

Don’t Panic Labs is an offshoot of the engineering arm of successful VC fund, Nebraska Global. Don’t Panic Labs adopts a “dev-for-equity” model, assisting startups and entrepreneurs with software and product development in return for company equity. The firm also provides software development services for publicly traded companies that do not require capital investment.

Despite serving established companies, Bill Udell, Integrator for Don’t Panic Labs, told Silicon Prairie News that the firm’s “DNA is in creating startup companies.” In 2016, the firm poured $396,000 of dev-for-equity investment into startups. Don’t Panic Lab focuses on product development and training for its clients’ in-house software engineers.

PitchBook Brings Company Financial Data to Its Mobile App

John Mannes, Writer, TechCrunch

MorningStar, Chicago-based investment research and management firm, acquired PitchBook in 2016. Pitchbook is an industry leader in providing investors with up-to-date coverage of VC, PE and M&A transactions. According TechCrunch’s Mannes, PitchBook, although known for its comprehensive coverage of tech firms, is also increasingly expanding its database to include coverage on non-tech companies as well.

PitchBook recently announced plans to add financial data for 226,000 private companies to its mobile app. The update will provide the database’s 7,000 active members with previously unavailable insight into the financials and revenue figures of private companies.

And in startup news…

Ford to Invest $1 Billion in Artificial Intelligence Start-Up

Mike Isac, technology reporter based in The Times’s San Francisco bureau, and Neal E. Boudette, Reporter, The New York Times

Many automakers are hoping to achieve some of the success that many Silicon Valley startups have found by investing in autonomous vehicle technology and ride-hailing services. Ford recently announced that it will invest $1B in Argo AI, startup focused on utilizing artificial intelligence to develop self-driving cars. Mark Fields, president and CEO of Ford, told reporters last week that the automaker hopes to become “part of the ecosystem of Silicon Valley.”

With the rise in popularity of “mobility services,” car ownership is growing increasingly unnecessary for consumers living in urban centers. Ford’s move suggests an industry-wide shift in strategy, as traditional automakers must adapt to shifting consumer attitudes. For instance, last year General Motors invested $500 million in ride-hailing startup, Lyft, and acquired Cruise Automation, a startup geared toward developing roadway technologies that support autonomous vehicles.

Fields explains the motives behind Ford’s investment: “If we can combine the best of a start-up and marry that with proper equity compensation, then that’s the best of both worlds.”