Tech for the tip of your tongue
Necessary Nuggets
Happy Tech Tuesday! If you’re new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets. We deliver exciting updates from Necessary Ventures and some helpful tidbits on the tech world to you bimonthly. Every edition is also on our blog.
Jobortunities 🚨
Taro: Taro increases access to healthcare while reducing costs and physician burnout via direct primary care based health insurance.
🚨✨FEATURED✨🚨 Taro has a full-time, remote or hybrid opening for an experienced individual to lead aspects of its network. This is a tremendous opportunity for an eager professional to grow in healthtech and drive operations at an early stage company.
| Network |
Arc Boats: Electrify watercraft. Build the Tesla of boats. Arc’s aim is both sustainability and high performance.
| Test Engineer |
Forage: Create a unified API that helps low-income Americans buy online groceries. It’s Stripe, but for Electronic Benefits Transfer.
Reach out with any questions! All 146 open job postings are listed here.
A New Nugget 🐔
The saying goes that “people make the place,” but where are the right people?
At Necessary Ventures, we know that talent is distributed across the globe, but opportunity is not. We're excited to share our preferred partnership with Assembly Industries, which provides access to management consulting level talent, vetted for strong critical thinking and communication skills, at an exclusive price of only $1600/month. While originally only for Necessary portfolio companies, we have seen strong enough results to share with you as well.
Companies are using Assembly across sales, marketing, project management, account management, customer success, operations, and finance. See talent here that you can hire today. Extending this preferred pricing is one way we're saying thank you for being a part of our community, just be sure to mention Necessary in your onboarding.
Market Stirrings 🚩
Here’s some context from Pitchbook on where we stand in the pre-seed market. From 2018 onwards, pre-seed deals have experienced rapid growth in the U.S. While 2023 seems to be lagging behind 2022 and 2021 by a significant degree, we are still on a decent track compared to years prior. Check it out:
This Week’s Special 🔆
Meet Augmental, a company developing smart mouthwear for hands-free device control and conversational AI. This tech is instrumental for people with paralysis, locked-in syndrome, and similar disabilities. I hope the cat doesn’t have your tongue, because you’re going to need it.
Augmental’s MouthPad sits on the roof of your mouth and gives you control to every device – your computer, smartphone, or tablet – all at the tip of your tongue. Intrigued? Watch this 1-minute demo to learn more.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
Wired interviewed DeepMind’s climate action lead, Sims Witherspoon, who elaborated on areas where climate tech may see the greatest impact from AI.
With increasing demand, energy supply now comes mainly from wind and solar farms, and power companies need a way to balance supply and demand. Enter virtual power plants.
Google launched a new search feature that helps people practice their English speaking skills with personalized feedback.
Nvidia and Foxconn announced that they will be building “AI factories” together.
For the less rushed reader …
AI companies are like toddlers in a toy store: they can’t help touching everything. Climate tech is no exception. Wired interviewed DeepMind’s climate action lead, Sims Witherspoon, who elaborated on areas where climate tech may see the greatest impact from AI. Some examples include better prediction and monitoring models, infrastructure optimization, and new technologies. Perhaps the greater issue is how we think about the carbon footprint of AI itself. It’s true that data centers consume a massive amount of energy, but few studies have been done to understand how much energy AI models actually use. I personally can’t wait to see more efficient AI models that use less compute and invent more nuclear reactors.
I’ll rap some bars: Electricity demand is getting out of hand. Usage is escalating due to growing numbers of electric cars, data centers, and our beloved AC units in a warming climate. With increasing demand, energy supply now comes mainly from wind and solar farms, and power companies need a way to balance supply and demand. Enter virtual power plants, which aggregate electricity producers, consumers, and storers in one system that grid managers can tap into as needed. One added benefit is virtual power plants are located where electricity is consumed, which eases the burden on transmission lines. The con? Virtual power plants complicate the roles of electricity producers and consumers by letting consumers control electricity demand.
Google is tired of dealing with its antitrust lawsuit, so it’s looking for a new monopoly: language learning. Watch out, Duolingo. Google launched a new search feature that helps people practice their English speaking skills with personalized feedback. The feature has been rolled out so far in Argentina, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Venezuela, with more countries coming in the near future. If Google’s dominating the world, what will our anthem be? My vote is a Beyonce / Larry Page mashup called “Run the World (Google).”
If you’re still in the dark about how AI is born, I have an answer for you. Nvidia and Foxconn announced that they will be building “AI factories” together. Imagine a space where data is continually received and processed to make autonomous vehicles smarter and smarter. AI factories will feed into a workflow that consistently improves and updates software for entire AI fleets. Oh captain! My capt(AI)n!
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Notable pre-seed raises in …
Climatetech
Aerovy - The sky’s the limit
The Problem: Power grids can only take so much, and electric-powered aircraft operate inefficiently.
The Tech: Cloud-based software that identifies which locations will have the highest demand, which allows users to size power generation and storage and reduce grid dependence.
Recently Raised: $800k round from Purdue Innovates, M25, and the Flywheel Fund.
Also Note: Aerovy also announced an expanded partnership with Electro Base, a leading provider of battery container technology.
CNaught - Easy button for carbon credits
The Problem: Companies rely on carbon credits to work towards net zero goals, but buyers can’t trust credits on the market.
The Tech: A blended, science-backed portfolio of carbon credits with flat pricing based entirely on usage.
Recently Raised: $2.25 million round led by Greycroft.
Also Note: The voluntary carbon credit market is predicted to reach $50 billion by 2030.
fintech
Ergo - Shop without the drop
The Problem: Price negotiations can be stressful, and retailers would rather let excess items rot than go through it.
The Tech: Software that automatically negotiates prices, giving online retailers a way to clear out inventory and increase profits without the trouble of putting them on sale.
Recently Raised: $1.5 million round led by Anthemis and Wischoff Ventures.
Also Note: Founder and CEO Claire Stepanek discovered the idea while working on Apple’s supply chain team.
TECHBITS
PickNik Robotics - Grow an arm, grow a pair
The Problem: How do you solve robotics challenges when you’re not sitting in a factory with the tech in front of you?
The Tech: A platform that enables any engineer to create advanced applications with robot arms.
Recently Raised: $2 million led by Stellar Ventures and Cypress Growth Capital
Also Note: The company secured two SBIR contracts with NASA.
Outro
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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