NVTC Newsletter No. 12
Happy Tech Tuesday! For those new here, 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.
THIS WEEK’S FEATURES ⚡
⭐ Dr. Robot – Scalpel? More like circuit board.
⭐ The Tech World, As We Know It – A Thera-no-no and metaverse musings.
⭐ No Fake Friends – Intel’s hunt for deepfakes.
⭐ I Quant Believe It – An up and coming digital currency.
🔮 Headstarts – 3D-printed drugs, a Meta exec’s migration, and OpenAI’s interest.
NV Portfolio Highlight 🎢
Surgery is perhaps one of the highest stakes disciplines yet also the most reliant on human expertise, which can be extremely prone to error. It’s no wonder that investors everywhere are hedging bets that robots will one day replace doctors altogether. Vinod Khosla, a legendary investor in Silicon Valley, predicts that day will come by 2035. Vicarious Surgical is one company leading the technological efforts for robot-driven surgery.
Vicarious Surgical completed its Beta 2 robotic surgery platform in August, which uses a combination of human-like surgical robots and 3D visualization to transport surgeons inside a patient for minimally invasive surgeries. Essentially, Vicarious Surgical is the magic schoolbus of surgery. Rather than replacing the role of surgeons, the company’s proprietary technology facilitates cooperation between robots and humans to yield advanced performance.
Vicarious Surgical announced just last week it successfully performed two cadaveric ventral hernia procedures in partnership with world-renowned surgeon Igor Belyansky, MD, which is a major step in bringing its platform to market. In the beginning of this month, Vicarious Surgical’s system was also named to Time’s list of Best Innovations of 2022. Necessary Ventures is an investor in Vicarious Surgical alongside Bill Gates, Khosla Ventures, Marc Benioff, and others. The company is hiring, open opportunities are here.
GOOD READS 📖
What comes to mind when you read the following descriptors: black turtleneck, charisma, leader of a fast-growing tech company? They are all characteristics that both Steve Jobs and Elizabeth Holmes, founder of disgraced company Theranos, have in common, but with two vastly different fates. This past week, Holmes was sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison for her frauds committed under the guise of revolutionary blood-testing. The unofficial Silicon Valley motto “fake it ‘til you make it” is suddenly hitting a sour note.
Kaley’s Comment: What does this mean for the medical technology industry, which already faces intense scrutiny? For one, close-guarding intellectual property in the future may sound alarms for health tech investors, who will need to step up due diligence efforts. Additionally, the health tech community must work to regain the trust of the public. David Stein, the CEO of Babson Diagnostics, cites the following three principles as paramount for future health tech startups: 1) caring for patients first and foremost, 2) leading with science, 3) ensuring transparency and understanding.
With Meta’s recent struggles, more and more individuals are wondering if the metaverse may be facing its demise. Since Meta announced its strategic pivot to the metaverse, its stock value has plummeted, and Meta announced major layoffs across the company. Despite the company’s hardships, this article argues that the metaverse is alive and well, blaming misinformation for the lack of public support. In the author’s opinion, it’s our manifest destiny to experience the world in first-person – the metaverse is inevitable.
Kaley’s Comment: In the spirit of playing devil’s advocate, there are also signs suggesting the metaverse may indeed be on its deathbed. Matthew Ball, chief analyst at Canalys, pointed out that the world is entering difficult economic times, where people are struggling to support themselves in the real world and cannot consider their lives in a virtual world. Although he supports gaming in the metaverse, he rejects the notion that business has a meta-future, predicting most projects will be closed by 2025.
Deepfakes are both creepy and severely harmful, contributing to political misinformation, fake job interviews, and even pornography without the depicted person’s consent. Intel created a deepfake filtering system called FakeCatcher that can differentiate between videos of real people and AI-generated deepfakes in a matter of milliseconds and with 96% accuracy. The secret to its magic? It looks for signs of blood flow.
The Netherlands is on a mission to ditch cars for alternate transportation methods. This week, its national government announced a €780 million investment in cycling infrastructure, bringing the total investment to €1.1 billion by 2030. The Netherlands boasts dozens of bike startups, such as FlickBike, Urbee, and Mokumono to name a few, all receiving a notable boost from this news.
Could this be the digital money everyone has been waiting for? As crypto continues to spiral, it might be time to turn to cryptographic money, which presents a possible solution to security without identification. Digital currency eCash 2.0 is currently under development, surrounded by lofty claims that it will be protected against counterfeiting even from a quantum computer.
Kaley’s Comment: This article hints at another interesting topic – quantum security. Quantum security is receiving increased attention right now due to the threat of post-quantum computing, which has applications in national security in addition to digital currencies. This week, the U.S. Air Force announced a partnership with SandboxAQ in preparation for quantum cryptography.
STARTUP SNIPPETS 🔮
CurifyLabs: 3D-printed drugs for personalized treatments
The raise: €3.5 million in Seed funding
Lead investor: Lifeline Ventures
Credibility: 100 peer-reviewed articles, including 60 in 3D-printed medicine
Sesamy: challenging the publishing world’s subscription model
The raise: €3.3 million in Seed funding
Lead investor: GP Bullhound
Plaid: integrated banking data and seamless account linking
Notable: former Meta exec joined as the new head of payments
Speak: English language learning platform with AI-powered features
The raise: $27 million in Series B funding
Lead investor: OpenAI Startup Fund
Elephantech: eco-friendly printed circuit boards
The raise: $15 million in new funding
Reddit Highlight 📈
At this rate, there’s no need for reality TV anymore. Everyone should just read Elon Musk’s tweets and watch the Twitter world go up in flames.
On a more optimistic note, here’s a hilarious Reddit post making fun of this week’s Musk v. Twitter mayhem:
Great news: the platform will be whipped into shape in no time! A two-week deadline seems reasonable.
For those of you on the hunt for a new social media platform, here’s a bonus article about Mastodon, where many ex-Tweeters are reuniting to mourn.
OUTRO
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