Quantum Leaps: Computing, Healthcare, and Opportunities at NV Portfolio Companies
Necessary Nuggets
Happy Tech Tuesday! For those new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets. We include helpful tidbits on the tech world as well as exciting updates from Necessary Ventures. The Necessary Nuggets newsletter is delivered bimonthly. If you can’t get enough of the newsletters, don’t worry! You can access every edition on our blog — perfect for when you can’t wait for the new edition and are dying to read more or just need a midnight snack.
THIS WEEK’S FEATURES ⚡
🚨 Looking for a real challenge in your next role (or know someone who is)? – Look no further! Taro and Relief are hiring to increase access to good healthcare and save people from toxic debt, respectively. See below.
⭐ We Quant Take It – Quantum computing is a fancy field that needs fancy security.
⭐ Talk is Cheap – Is ChatGPT just another pretty program?
⭐ A Healthy Dose – Health systems took a hit, and blockchain might offer some bandaids.
🌪️ Tech’s Turndown – The layoffs still haven’t laid off.
JOBORTUNITIES 🚨
We have 2 new opportunities with Necessary Ventures’ portfolio companies. Feel free to reach out with any questions:
Taro is on the hunt for a product engineer to help them deliver health insurance designed to keep you healthy.
Are you someone who likes developing good software and is looking to make a big impact on not only a product but also a company’s growth and operations? This is your gig.
From Taro: “Our patients and doctors are actively using our software to navigate care and billing now, and we have lots of workflows we want to improve. We’d love any referrals to this role!"
Relief is looking for a strong back-end engineer to help them get people out of toxic debt.
Do you want to contribute to a fast-growing startup in the FinTech space? Even better, do you want to help Americans say bye to their debt for free? This is the perfect chance.
If you know of anyone, please reach out to us or send an email to careers@relief.app.
NV Portfolio Highlight 🎢
Breaking news: Moov announced a new Head of Enterprise Partnerships, David Duke. Kudos to Moov for popping the big question, because David Duke is quite the catch. Tall, handsome With 27 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, Duke brings unique expertise to Moov. Responsible for Moov’s new Enterprise Partnerships division, his extensive experience in remarketing semiconductors will be a huge asset to Moov in expanding global partnerships.
Moov provides a crucial answer to the semiconductor question as supply chain issues deepen. It’s the largest global marketplace for secondhand semiconductor equipment – the Goodwill of semiconductors. With Moov, chipmakers have a ready place to sell idle assets, and interested buyers have immediate access to a wealth of used equipment and sales-focused data.
Moov is where the spirit of recycling meets technology and asset management. It’s backed by a knowledgeable team with over 50 years of experience in the manufacturing equipment brokerage industry. Moov’s steady growth is matched by milestones reached. In March last year, Moov announced a new headquarters in Tempe, Arizona and followed the momentum in July by bringing onboard a Head of Global Sales. The company is surely named Moov for a reason!
GOOD READS 📖
It’s officially the new year. Aside from the trend of writing 2022 every time you should be writing 2023, it’s also time to think about the trend of quantum computing. In summer 2022, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) revealed four revolutionary quantum computing algorithms. These advancements raise the concern of quantum resilience: how can we prepare our encryption infrastructure and maintain high standards of cybersecurity?
Kaley’s Comment: The article also outlines the market landscape. Startups focused on quantum technologies accounted for $1.4 billion of funding in 2021 alone. Although the private sector has turned its intention to quantum computing, public infrastructure has yet to catch up. Some progress has been made: just last month, Joe Biden signed the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act into law which will begin to implement the NIST-approved algorithms. SentinelOne announced it will be joining the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) to support the U.S. government’s strategy. This environment plays into what has been dubbed “zero trust” architecture – a framework meant to hunker down on cybersecurity once and for all.
My vote for homecoming queen goes to ChatGPT. Just like the temporary glitz and glam of the tiara, investors are starting to wonder if ChatGPT is just another popular toy or if it actually has product potential. Although the road ahead is uncertain, ChatGPT is responsible for the swell of interest in generative AI, which is no meager feat. Regardless of which direction it takes, Microsoft is poised to benefit. The tech giant is rumored to be weighing a $10 billion investment in OpenAI in addition to its initial $1 billion commitment.
Reducing carbon emissions doesn’t mean eliminating carbon materials. Carbon plays a crucial role in lithium-ion batteries to insulate volatile metals and keep them from catching fire. Carbon is also integral to nifty new research like waste-derived graphite, platinum replacements for hydrogen fuel cells, and carbon-coatings for solar cells. In reaching our climate goals, it’s important to emphasize carbon’s potential for good in the right contexts.
Kaley’s Comment: It will be interesting to track how these carbon applications in development will contribute to climate technologies. Carbon coatings show promise for the current solar boom. Just last week, Hanwha Qcells, a Korean solar company, announced it would build a large manufacturing complex in Georgia for $2.5 billion. This could further accelerate solar development in the US by shifting some of the supply chain, otherwise focused in China, to the US. As far as carbon’s use in lithium-ion batteries, we have more pressing issues. Lithium is in short supply, and prices are rising. To add insult to injury, we also lack many of the imported critical minerals like cobalt, copper, and nickel.
In 2022, U.S. hospitals and health systems faced intense financial pressures. Through November 2022, the Median Kaufman Hall Year-To-Date (YTD) Operating Margin Index, was -0.2% for 900 U.S. hospitals. Health systems fared better, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. The struggle for hospitals and health systems is keeping up with high-tech companies offering more competitive, convenient aid. The pressure to be efficient operators means health systems must continue to improve infrastructure and seek new growth opportunities, one such being partnerships with VC firms.
We’re living in constant information overload, and blockchain is perhaps the best solution to organizing it, allowing information control to shift from one entity to a distributed network. The healthcare industry has endless databases that could use the magic touch of blockchain, from supply chain information to medical records to communications with patients and insurance companies. Tokenization, inherently built into blockchain technology, would expedite pre-authorizations, allowing patients to receive care more efficiently.
Kaley’s Comment: Researchandmarkets.com released a new report predicting the global blockchain technology in healthcare industry will reach $5.3 billion by 2028. The market growth is largely thanks to blockchain’s ability to address two main pain points currently experienced in healthcare: 1) a need for improved communication between healthcare providers and patients, and 2) requirements for storing and safeguarding medical data. However, the market is also constrained by the lack of a streamlined process to connect insurance companies and healthcare providers.
STARTUPS TO WATCH 🔥
Aqua Metals is reinventing metals recycling. This past week, it announced it recovered its first critical battery metal from lithium battery black mass. This follows its December announcement of the official opening of its first-of-a-kind recycling facility.
Kwara is a Kenyan fintech company digitizing credit unions. The company raised a $3 million seed extension, adding to an already interesting list of investors including Mikko Salovaara, the CFO of Revolut. Kwara also signed a deal with the Kenya Union of Savings & Credit Cooperatives to reach over 4,000 credit unions.
Human Interest is a fintech startup developing a digital retirement benefits platform. BlackRock announced it is taking a minority stake in Human Interest. The company has raised a total of $336.7 million in funding and has seen over 400% growth in the number of customers and revenue since the close of its last round in August 2021.
Shoobx provides automated equity management operations software to private companies at any stage of their growth. Shoobx was acquired by Fidelity this past week, making it Fidelity’s first acquisition in 7 years.
It’s a FinTech-concentrated, M&A vibe. This article gives a deep dive into the deals from this past week.
TECH TURBULENCE 🌪️
It’s worth dedicating a section here to the less-than-ideal turn of events in the tech industry to give a full picture. 2023 is underway, along with another batch of tech company layoffs.
Already this year, Amazon cut 6% of its workforce, which amounted to letting go 18,000 employees. Salesforce will reduce its workforce of 80,000 by 10%. Additional companies following the layoff status-quo include Alphabet, Coinbase, Huobi, Genesis, and Blockchain.com.
Cue Health is axing its headcount by 36%, reflective of how severely the medtech investment downturn hit companies. Supply chain software startup Flexport and software developer Informatica are also conducting layoffs, each expressing the same sentiment of being overstaffed.
Roger Lee, a San-Francisco-based HR tech founder, created Layoffs.fyi, a neat site that tracked tech layoffs during the pandemic and is now becoming a handy tool once again. Roger also founded Human Interest, noted above!
If you’re someone affected by the tech layoffs or know someone who is, Necessary Ventures’ portfolio companies are hiring! Take a gander at this product engineer position at Taro and this back-end engineer at Relief.
REDDIT HIGHLIGHT 📈
For anyone that’s been keeping up with the Southwest catastrophe, Reddit seems to be entertained. I hope the poor intern is somewhere on an island in the South Pacific by now. Then again, he might have booked a Southwest flight, and we all know that’s going nowhere.
OUTRO
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