NVTC Newsletter No. 4
Sep 27, 2022
Kaley Ubellacker
Market Stirrings 🚩
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
Happy Tech Tuesday, and welcome to the NVTC weekly newsletter! Here you’ll find recent updates from the tech world, insightful articles related to startups and highlights from NV portfolio companies – and this week, a great new opportunity to get involved!
THIS WEEK’S FEATURES ⚡
🔔 DEVELOP FOR GOOD – Develop for Good connects volunteers with opportunities to use their tech skills to help nonprofits. Click here to learn more, and reply “yes” to this email if you’re interested in attending an info session.
⭐ Advekit – More patients receive the care they need, without the headaches.
⭐ Homies at Home-y – Hilton’s astronaut suites and Google’s Bay Area plans.
⭐ Tr(ai)tor – How AI might steal your job and Getty Image’s ban on AI art.
⭐ Read Between the Lines – France’s €3 book delivery charge.
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY
The exciting opportunity you have all been waiting for! NVTC is partnering with Develop for Good to offer members the chance to work on impactful projects with nonprofits.
Develop for Good welcomes both students and professionals to volunteer with a wide array of nonprofits. Its volunteers have built websites and apps for over one hundred different nonprofit organizations and for dozens of different causes. As a volunteer, you can commit as little as one to two hours per week and contribute to an inspiring, fulfilling cause you care about.
Reply “yes” to this email if you’re interested in attending an information session with Develop for Good’s co-founder Mary Zhu.
STARTUP HIGHLIGHT
Seeking help to improve your mental health shouldn’t cause more mental strain. Advekit is creating a space where connecting with therapists and receiving therapy is not only affordable, but also approachable.
Advekit accomplishes this by handling all insurance claims and automating the out-of-network payment process. With Advekit, clients are reimbursed immediately, and therapists are paid as soon as the session ends. Advekit waits for reimbursement from insurance companies, so you don’t have to.
Finding a therapist is pretty similar to dating, and finding someone you want to start a professional relationship with can be stressful. As someone seeking therapy, Advekit gives you access to a personalized list of therapists that match your requirements. As a therapist, you gain access to an extensive network of new potential clients. What’s even better? Advekit’s platform has helped develop lasting client-therapist relationships, and therapists using Advekit have seen 70% better client retention.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
NEWS & ARTICLES 📖
France announces minimum €3 book delivery fee to help booksellers compete with Amazon
Getty Images bans AI-generated art over copyright concerns
Robinhood debuts new non-custodial crypto wallet with Polygon to 10K beta users
For the less rushed reader …
Hilton hotels will design astronaut suites on private Starlab space station
Hilton’s new project is out of this world – no, really. Hilton is partnering with Starlab, a future earth-orbiting space station under development by Voyager Space Holdings and Lockheed Martin. Hilton will leverage its hospitality expertise to design astronaut facilities.
Can Google Solve the Bay Area’s Housing Crisis?
Google is partnering with development firm Lendlease to create thousands of new units in the Bay Area and tackle a severe housing shortage. Google has a personal stake in these changes, as the development will directly impact the look and feel of the area surrounding Google’s headquarters. Concerns have been raised about Google’s capability in urban development given its devastating dissolution of Quayside, a similar project it undertook in Toronto.
Coding Made AI—Now, How Will AI Unmake Coding?
Have coders programmed their own demise? Trends suggest that coding as we know it may be doomed. AI’s are capable of writing complete, though simple, computer programs using natural-language descriptions. Although it's unlikely that humans will be entirely replaced, programmers may soon not be required to learn programming languages. This means that the infamous Ratatouille mantra “anyone can cook” might also apply to coding.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Highlights from this week’s pre-seed raises:
REDDIT HIGHLIGHT 📈
This week’s trending Reddit relates to a topic many people are a little too familiar with: student loans. Although President Biden recently promised to cancel $10,000 of debt for low- to middle-income borrowers, climbing US tuition costs are likely to exacerbate the student loans dilemma. The following chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics displays the increasing rise of US university tuition in comparison to minimum wage.
What is the solution here? If Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg have anything to say about it, maybe it’s time to bypass University altogether.
One reddit user posed a question I’m sure we’re all thinking:
Outro🚪
Have any questions, feedback, or comments? Just reply here. We iterate and curate the newsletter according to your interests!
Some last matters of business:
If you’re a technologist (engineer or product manager / designer with a technical background) join us on the NVTC LinkedIn group if you haven’t. We’d love to have you!
Sign up here if you’re interested in co-investing with Necessary.
If you’re a startup founder, we’d love to help where we can! Brex provides full-stack finance solutions for startups. Sign up via Necessary and get bonus points.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
