Edit №039 — Weekly Newsletter on Corporate Innovation & Venture— sent June 7, 2020
The Editorial
What a heavy week. Here at The Edit, we’re trying to get smarter — leading with listening and seeking to better understand from our privileged vantage points — and we’re trying to act in small ways that help build toward the massive collective advancement that is clearly required. We know that while injustice impacts unequally, every one of us, equally, must be part of the solution. So, however clumsily and inexpertly, we will endeavor to do our part.
We’re hopeful that some of the quick moves we saw this week — a16z began raising a fund focusing on underrepresented and underserved founders, SoftBank raised $100m for founders of color, and Alexis Ohanian vacated his Reddit board seat urging a black hire — are just the beginning of much more meaningful action, and indicative of lasting change on the way.
Insights Corner — Recap on the latest industry news, insights, and signals
Mastercard announces FinTech Express to empower startups to launch and expand rapidly.
FinTech / FinTech Finance. Mastercard’s new Fintech Express programme provides tailor-made solutions that boost market entry and expansion for startups. The programme supports digital payment innovators by making it simple to collaborate with Mastercard and its extensive network to launch new fintech products. Mastercard Fintech Express enables participants to create new tech alliances designed to propel fintechs from concept to market in a matter of days.
Akin Note: Mastercard continues to push aggressively into the larger FinTech ecosystem with partnership programs such as FinTech express as well as with bespoke partnerships with larger organization’s startup efforts such as Standard Chartered’s new credit aggregator startup CardsPal. Both of these moves from Mastercard are being matched by Visa’s Fast Track program, which recently reported on their latest batch of FinTechs. We’re eager to see which of these trees bear the most fruit, and whether Visa and Mastercard stay in mimicry mode, or if these partnerships help them morph into more differentiated platforms.
Digital startups boost the fashion industry’s digitization.
Retail / WWD. In a moment defined by uncertainty, the search for innovative, efficient solutions seems to become more urgent than ever for fashion and luxury brands that want to safeguard and even grow their businesses during the global economic downturn caused by the coronavirus. “In this period, I’ve really seen that brands are actively looking for digital solutions, which a few months ago would have found many difficulties to be considered by the market,” said Giusy Cannone, chief executive officer of Fashion Technology Accelerator. “Companies have finally understood the potential of digital solutions, which have become a priority. Before the crisis, the problem was not technological, but cultural.”
MassMutual Ventures launches third $100 million fund.
Corporate Venture / Olean Times Herald. With this new fund, the Boston-based team will manage a total of $300 million on behalf of the fund’s parent company, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual). “In addition to providing initial and follow-on financial investment capital, MMV materially helps our founders by making strategic introductions across the financial services sector. MMV’s active and ongoing participation in the entrepreneurial marketplace allows our parent company and portfolio companies to collaborate, create strategic partnerships, and share valuable insights.”
CVS Pharmacy tests self-driving vehicle delivery for prescriptions.
Health Care / Retail Dive. Nuro, a delivery robotics startup, announced a partnership with CVS Pharmacy to test prescription deliveries in the Houston market. In June, the company will use its fleet of autonomous vehicles to transport prescriptions and essential items to CVS customers, according to a company press release. As part of the pilot, customers in three different zip codes in Houston can order prescriptions and other items via the CVS Pharmacy app or website, select the autonomous delivery option and confirm their identity to retrieve their order, the company said.
Lowe’s launches new AR tool geared towards professional home visits.
Gig Economy / Retail Dive. Lowe’s on Monday introduced “Lowe’s for Pros JobSIGHT,” an augmented video chat tool that allows professionals to virtually visit homeowners and business clients. Clearly of value to homeowners with more people staying at home, this new service also expands job opportunities for “Pros” who’ve been hit hard by the crisis. The retailer developed the service with Streem, an AR computer vision and machine learning tech development company.
The Water Cooler — Conversation starters for around the (virtual) office
While most are stuck at home, others chose to gamble both their money and their health as Las Vegas opened up. Florida’s innovation remains unmatched as they offer both drive-thru testing and drive-thru botox statewide. When your Apple Watch just isn’t enough, Hublot enters the smartwatch fray with a $5,800 Wear OS smartwatch. Role-play Facebook groups provide Pandemic escapism. If you wanted to buy a pizza oven, or a whole pizza oven bus, now is your time as Zume’s assets hit the auction block. Who better to compare your quarantine “bubble” with than the Queen. Jeff Skilling (yes, that Jeff Skilling) just launched his new company. Lamborghini is getting into esports.
Company U. — Lessons, wisdom, and best practices
Now is the time for “Open Innovation”.
As we have written about extensively, a silver lining that has shone through during this pandemic has been the surge of open innovation and corporate collaboration. From Ford working with the United Auto Workers, GE Healthcare and 3M to build ventilators using F-150 seat fans, portable battery packs, and 3D printed parts, to truck-maker Scania sharing expertise in collaboration with Karolinska University Hospital to convert trailers into mobile COVID testing stations and more. Such moves have shown immense promise and truly results that could not have been realized another way. But, sustaining open innovation post-crisis is another matter altogether. This week, HBR shared lessons learned that keep this collaborative mindset alive, focusing on how companies can overcome some of the main challenges in open innovation. Lessons below:
1️⃣ Forget about the IP at the beginning — Smart companies take a leap of faith, collaborating on the important stuff, without risking negative exposure.
2️⃣ Leverage two-sided motivation — Companies need to rely on a combination of hard and soft incentives to motivate internal and external collaborators.
3️⃣ Embrace new partners — A crisis can prompt companies to explore a greater number and even new kinds of partners. Preserving some of that open-minded attitude towards new partners after the crisis can help companies stay on top of innovation.
4️⃣ Urgency leads transformation — Successful open innovation often requires operational and structural changes to how business is done. In this time of crisis, the necessary executive focus is suddenly there. Leverage that going forward to continue moving fast as an agile digital sprinter.
The Corporate Card
Corporate Venture & M&A Deals
Venture Deals
Progressive Insurance joins the $241 million Series D of challenger bank Varo Money. FinTech
HSBC, Rabobank, & Keybank invest in the $225 million financing round of solar energy startup 8minute Solar Energy. Energy
Goldman Sachs led the $100 million Series C of Chinese E-Commerce ERP startup Jushuitan Network Technology. eCommerce
SK Telecom led the $74.5 million Series C of managed cloud startup Bespin Global. Cloud Computing
Sanofi-Genzyme BioVentures invest in the $55 million Series B of biotechnology startup NodThera. BioTech
Zebra Ventures, the venture arm of Zebra Technologies, led the $40 million Series D of autonomous robot startup Locus Robotics. Robotics
Tekfen Ventures invests in the $28.5 million Series B of AgTech startup Tropic Biosciences. AgTech
Comcast Ventures invests in the $20 million Series B of smart oven startup Tovala. Hardware
SK Telecom invests $20 million into medical screening startup Nanox Imaging. MedTech
ABB Technology Ventures, & Rockwell Automation, join the $17.75 million Series B of next-generation circuit breaker startup Atom Power. Electronics
UBS Investment Bank led the $17.5 million Series B of voice trading FinTech startup Cloud9 Technologies with participation from JP Morgan Chase & Barclays Investment Bank. FinTech
National Grid Partners (NGP) led the $15 million Series D of cybersecurity startup RiskIQ with participation from MassMutual Ventures. Cybersecurity
National Grid Partners (NGP) co-led the $14 million Series A of data discovery and privacy startup 1touch.io. Big Data
Nationwide Ventures, & EMC Insurance, join the $7.5 million Series B of data and risk analytics startup Betterview. InsurTech
Gradient Ventures, the AI-focused investment arm of Google, led the $5 million Series A of paperwork automation startup Anvil with participation from Citi Ventures. Artificial Intelligence
SE Ventures, the investment arm of Schneider Electric, led the $4.7 million Venture Round of connected worker platform Poka with participation from Robert Bosch Venture Capital. Training
GV led the $2.25 Million Seed Round of analytics startup Ahana. Analytics
WhatsApp & PayPal back Indonesian food and payments giant Gojek. Delivery
Salesforce Ventures made a strategic investment in Salesforce consulting partner Coastal Cloud. Professional Services
Mitsubishi Electric made a strategic investment in train automation startup EKE-Electronics. Transportation
De Beers Group invest an undisclosed sum in the Seed Round of DTC custom jewelry startup Gemist. Fashion
Acquisitions
Zynga acquires Toon Blast creator Peak Games for reported $1.8 billion. Cloud Computing
Change Healthcare acquires pharmacy IT firm PDX for $208 million. Health Care
NetApp acquires cloud infrastructure management startup Spot. Cloud Computing
The Bulletin Board
Job openings and opportunities
Co-Founder/Intrapreneur at General Mills. General Mills is looking for a passionate “intrapreneur” to join our new 3-person co-founder team, which is an internal startup accelerator that discovers and builds new business in high growth spaces. The team will be responsible for creating, building, and launching new products/businesses to accelerate our enterprise growth initiatives.
Director of Innovation of Salty Snacks at Campbell Soup. The Director, Salty Innovation for Campbell Snacks is responsible for setting the innovation agenda for the Salty Snacks business unit. The role involves identifying and vetting the strongest concepts and leading a cross-functional team to deliver initiatives against the stated consumer, product, and financial goals.
Director of Footwear Innovation at Brooks Running. The Brooks Next innovation group is a team of world-class innovative minds collectively focused on improving the performance running experience through product, experiential, and performance innovation. As the Director of Footwear Innovation, neXt, you will utilize your expert leadership, management, and strategic skills, along with your advanced products and process knowledge to create strategies, product, technologies, processes and experiences that will fuel the future of Brooks running and enable every runner to run their path to a better self.
