Shiv Krishnan

Friends, Q2 was a quarter of progress and learning for us at HawkTower, where we invest in early-stage startups applying breakthrough computing technologies to maximize California's natural resource markets. Our focus is on technology-enabled interventions (e.g., AI-enabled geospatial radars for lithium-ion batteries in the waste stream) for critical, market-level imperatives (e.g., disaster prevention) that can drive rapid commercial adoption (e.g., placed on every recycling truck in the world). Our current investment priorities are: - Agricultural productivity and efficiency - Biomanufacturing - Labor and mobility automation - Waste stream optimization and decarbonization - Disaster prevention and management Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to: Milestones and Investments: - In late April, we officially launched our fund, filing with the SEC. Yay. - By June, we completed our first fund close ahead of schedule, with backing from family offices, foundations, high-net-worth individuals, and organizations aligned with California's future. - Our portfolio now includes three early-stage investments (Farm-ng, Agriful Software, and Nexstera Tech). Strategic Partnerships: - We believe that startups operating closer to their customers and resources, especially in agriculture and biomanufacturing, have a strategic advantage. For instance, the Salinas Valley, a major agricultural hub, is less than an hour from Silicon Valley and serves as a center of thought leadership in the convergence of agriculture and AI (from Western Growers, Taylor Farms, and others). - Similarly, the North San Joaquin Valley is emerging as a biotech and agtech innovation hub, and we are proud to support BEAM Circular, a startup hub for the circular bioeconomy. Key Relationships: - Karen Warner, CEO of BEAM Circular, joined HawkTower as a strategic advisor. - Jackie Cruz, Ed. D. Cruz, Hartnell College’s VP of Advancement, advises on Salinas Valley and workforce development. - Ben Palone from Western Growers, with his technical background in agriculture, became a trusted advisor. - Matthew Hoffman from Driscoll's Global R&D team provides insights on global agriculture, product positioning, and investment strategy. - We collaborated with Monterey Bay DART for workforce development and automation in agtech. - Dominic Milano and the Milano Technical Group from Merced collaborated on key initiatives and advised us on investments. - HawkTower is participating in Santa Cruz Works's accelerator cohort as a mentor and advisor. Thank you Doug Erickson. - We published an overview of entrepreneurship across the UC system with input from across the University of California system. Moving into the fall, we remain deeply committed to supporting founders shaping California's future natural resource markets. Stay tuned and be in touch! : ) Db

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Platforms achieving 10 million concurrent users are rare and represent significant technological and infrastructural capabilities. Roblox's milestone places it in the same league as Steam by Valve corporation (11.7 million CCU) and Fortnite (12.6 million CCU), showcasing its growing popularity and the success of its event-driven engagement strategy. 👉 Brands, act now! Leverage Roblox's massive user base to maximize your reach. Don't miss out on engaging millions of active users. Create targeted campaigns, sponsor events, and make your mark where it counts. Roblox is your gateway to unprecedented visibility and growth. Start today with GIANTY! 🤙

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Hosted a curated group of NYC AI builders for dinner tonight, including product / research / eng / design / GTM leaders from Runway, LangChain, Hume AI, Norm Ai, Galileo 🔭, Spring Health, NVIDIA, Scale AI, and Haize Labs (a Visible Ventures portco!) as well as early-stage AI founders Building in AI by day, two musically gifted guests have performed at the Grammys & Obama's inauguration - as marginal cost of software creation trends towards zero, I'm a big believer in NYC's future in the AI ecosystem for the multidimensionality of talents it attracts and empowers - VCs bearish on NYC are simply blinded by their own lack of imagination 🌆 🎶 I noted some of my favorite POVs from the night - some I strongly agree with, some not so much - but welcome any reaction: - OpenAI may be the Waymo in AI where its edge comes from its head start, not from any 'secret sauce.' OpenAI can keep scaling and improving its model quality, but will eventually flatten out due to fundamental limitations of the transformer architecture - that said, similar to Microsoft's bundling strategy, OpenAI has done an amazing job packaging a variety of features and products to create commercial value 📦 - AI research has been boring last year as no new technique has been introduced 💤 - Anthropic will one day face the pressure of pivoting away from its safety / research core and following OpenAI's commercial footsteps, except it will be years later ... ⛑ - Advanced AGI cannot be accomplished as human intelligence is passed down and enriched generationally - there's no way for AI models to 'learn' how to recreate humanity's collective abstract intelligence 👵 - VCs have mistakenly funded many seemingly technical founders who actually ... are not 🥷🏻 - Humans are lazy by default, and no one likes typing - AI products should prioritize reducing the work it takes for end users to interact with and benefit from AI 🐨 - Open source is over-hyped due to lack of means to sustainably access GPU clusters. While Meta can fund its own AGI play, the entire open source community relies on Zuck. Meta also isn’t truly open source as they’ve built a custom license where Azure / AWS would have to pay royalties past certain usage thresholds, which will help fund Meta's model development 🔓 - Crafting a scalable implementation strategy is key to selling to enterprises as adoption is almost always delayed by legal roadblock and organizational grunt work 🚧 - Healthcare AI today lacks creativity - workflow automation for providers / payers may be the first wave, and the next wave should be focused on truly improving care outcomes with AI models 💉 Thank you for John Bryson (Banc of California)'s partnership, and if you are building impactful AI products our doors are always open at Visible Ventures !

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What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

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DeepCast shipped a number of really cool new features recently in advance of a broad outreach push to podcast listeners. One new feature is our new Daily DeepDigest tool that sends you a concise daily email including any new episodes from the trailing 24 hours from any podcasts you Subscribe to (on DeepCast). Think daily podcast cliff notes or podcast news ticker tape, with a hint of Morning Brew various brews or PitchBook News—it's increasing information throughput when you're pressed for time. And this feature is rapidly evolving to distill other key extractions from shows you're already interested in, but also exposing you to other shows you might be unfamiliar with that also have nuggets to share—and thus increasing your aperture yet still conscious of your time. Want to go deeper on any given episode? Click the episode detail and you're off to an episode on DeepCast, where you can subsequently read a longer form distillation of that episode or go straight to the source and listen to the episode. (And podcaster friends, these pages are definitely increasing indexing and thus Google entry points to your shows!) I'm loving this feature as a user, personally. Can't wait to see what others think! #BuildingInPublic #Podcasts #AllTheWorldsInformation #HowYouWantIt

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Strong capital allocation is crucial for ensuring a company's growth and profitability. Without it, a business may miss out on opportunities and waste money on things that don't align with supporting their goals. Listen in on this week’s episode of the M&A Science Podcast where Keith Levy, Operating Partner at Sonoma Brands Capital shares his experience on successful and unsuccessful capital allocation strategies here: https://hubs.ly/Q02tzzRb0 #MergersAcquisitions #Divestitures #CapitalAllocation #Profitability #Recapitalization

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If you don't allocate capital properly, you miss out on opportunities and potentially lose your company in the process. In our latest M&A Science podcast episode, Keith Levy, Operating Partner at Sonoma Brands Capital, shares his experience on successful and unsuccessful capital allocation strategies. Listen to the interview here: https://hubs.ly/Q02tzzQ90 #Mergersandacquisitions #MaScience #CapitalAllocation #Recapitalization

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🚀 𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐔.𝐒 𝐕𝐂 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐐2’24 Here are the top U.S. venture capital investors for Q2 2024. Noteworthy is how xAI, Wiz, and Stripe garnered the highest investments from these leading VCs. 1. SOSV - Princeton, NJ 𝐐2 '24 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 35 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: Deep tech and sustainability. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Transcarent ($126M Series D), meati™ 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬 ($100M Series C). 2. Andreessen Horowitz - Menlo Park, CA 𝐐2 '24 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 33 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: Tech startups at various stages. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: xAI ($6.0B Series B), Wiz ($1.0B Series E), Cape ($61M Series A). 3. General Catalyst - Cambridge, MA 𝐐2 '24 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 31 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: Early to growth-stage tech companies. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Stripe ($694M Series I), Transcarent ($126M Series D). 4. Lightspeed 𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 - Menlo Park, CA 𝐐2 '24 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 28 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: Enterprise and consumer sectors. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Wiz ($1.0B Series E), Xaira Therapeutics ($500M Series A), Suno ($125M Series B).  5. Khosla Ventures - Menlo Park, CA 𝐐2 '24 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 27 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: Transformative tech. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Cyera ($300M Series C), Metsera ($240M Series A). 6. Sequoia Capital - Menlo Park, CA 𝐐2 2024 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 26 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: Early to growth-stage tech. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬:  xAI ($6.0B Series B), Stripe ($694M Series I), AlphaSense ($650M Series F), Xaira Therapeutics ($500M Series A), Figma ($416M Series F). 7. Accel - Palo Alto, CA 𝐐2 '24 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 25 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: Early-stage tech startups. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Scale AI ($1.0B Series F), Cyera ($300M Series C). 8. GV (Google Ventures) - Mountain View, CA 𝐐2 '24 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 23 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: AI, life sciences, and enterprise tech. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Metsera ($240M Series A), Sensi.AI ($31M Series B) #VentureCapital #USVC #TopInvestors #Q22024 #StartupFunding #AI #FinTech #BioTech #AlternativeProteins #DataSecurity #CloudSecurity #CollaborativeTools #QuarterlyReview

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💲The Founders Weekly BOOST - the 12 Rules to 10x your Business, All the New Minted Ca$h from VCs for you to Pitch for, AI 🤖 Lots on AI & so much more 🔥 💲 Another Jam Packed edition from Rubén & I to help you Raise Capital and Grow Revenues 📈 💲Gen AI - Whats Coming Next According to Sequoia 🤔 💲or lack of 💲- Whats happening in a World With No Exits as we're still 90% (😱) off of Peak! There are green shoots 🌱 💲You Founders in Pro Services - Convert to an AI Business 🤖 It's All in Here 💙 💲Dig in, share with friends & colleagues BUT also ask questions too - we have loads of experts who can join the conversation 📣 🎯 Don't Forget To Subscribe so you Never Miss A Single 💲of Value 💙 "The Founders Corner"

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I’m excited to share this one! Redactive has raised a $11.5M seed round -- their mission is to become the trusted GenAI engineer for enterprise teams. Blackbird co-led this round alongside Felicis with participation from Atlassian Ventures and Zapier. Andrew, Alexander and Lucas are working to solve an urgent problem hidden in plain sight – empowering GenAI applications to meet their promise of "magic" in an enterprise setting. GenAI applications are only as useful as the data that they have access to, and for most enterprises, the most valuable data is sensitive and permissioned. We all want a chatbot (“ChatGPT for…”) at work that can search the data that we share in private Slack conversations or store in private folders on Sharepoint but first, we need to trust that our data will be kept safe – from prying eyes and accidental disclosure to others in the organisation who should not see it. Redactive keeps your sensitive data safe, giving developers the trust to connect it to GenAI applications and build products that you will love. Here's to the next decade. https://lnkd.in/gPuEAFvW

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🎙️ In this Lenny's newsletter episode, we dive deep into the essentials of building a successful marketplace business. 🏗️ 🔑 Key Takeaway: Start by achieving product-market fit for the hardest (aka most valuable) side of your marketplace. #ProTip: Identify which side is most challenging and grow it first! 💡 Next Step: Focus on liquidity—the efficiency in matching supply and demand. High liquidity = better user experience and higher retention. 🚀 A simple metric to track this is your fill rate—the percentage of demand that turns into transactions. The higher, the better! #MarketplaceGrowth 💥 Is a marketplace the right model for your idea? Look for: High fragmentation on both sides Uniform set of needs Significant barriers in matchmaking or transaction creation ⚠️ Why Marketplaces Fail: Not maintaining quality control Failing to achieve liquidity 🛑 Neglecting one side of the marketplace for too long 🙌 Pro Tip: Leverage your most engaged users to onboard new ones! 🏅 Example: Lyft’s mentor program paid top drivers to train new drivers, resulting in better retention and lower turnover. #RetentionHack #CommunityBuilding 🇪🇺 vs. 🇺🇸 Product Management Insights: In Europe, job security often trumps autonomy, leading to more control from management. In contrast, U.S. companies emphasize equity and ownership, giving teams more freedom. If you're operating in Europe and want to adopt the U.S. approach, focus on education around equity and creating a culture of ownership and accountability. #GlobalPerspective #ProductManagement Tune in for more actionable insights on building and scaling your marketplace! 🎧 #PodcastHighlights #GrowthHacks https://lnkd.in/ddweqdTA

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Big things on the horizon, we are motivated and blessed to be at the dawn of a new age for the internet. Read more about our journey below or listen to the podcast: https://lnkd.in/eJeNhvVa

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Instacart is a market leader when it comes to leveraging AI tools to boost productivity at work. I had an amazing conversation with JJ Zhuang, Instacart’s Chief Architect, who has shepherded over 50 AI-driven initiatives to market across the org. We explored what catapulted Instacart to the forefront of AI integration, supporting radically diverse use cases across various functional areas. One striking insight (echoed by Ethan Mollick and others elsewhere) is that you often don't need specialized tools for specialized work. Frontier models like GPT-4 can seamlessly adapt to a wide range of functions and use cases. They're not just for engineers; they're incredibly versatile tools used by marketing, comms, and legal teams. From generating code to proofreading and ideation, GPT-4 empowers every department to leverage AI for enhanced productivity and innovation. By integrating LLM’s like GPT-4 into their workflows, teams can streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock bandwidth for new creative possibilities. How can you harness the power of AI in your own work to boost productivity? Share your thoughts below 👇 Want to hear more insights from JJ? Check out the full podcast episode by clicking the link in the comments.

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Building on the data shared by Peter Walker, I've compiled a list of top VC firms and investors in CA to approach for funding your SaaS startup: 1. Accel Focuses on Seed to Growth Stage Ventures Sector: Enterprise IT, Fintech, Hardware, Healthcare, Media, Security, Services, Consumer, Cloud/SAAS, AI Notable Portfolio: Slack, Dropbox, and UiPath 2. 500 Global Startups Focuses on Pre-seed, Seed, and Early Stage Ventures Sector: 3D Printing, AI/Machine Learning, Accounting, AdTech Notable Portfolio: GitHub, Canva, and Udemy 3. Sapphire Ventures Focuses on Growth-Stage Ventures Sector: Enterprise, Sport, Consumer Notable Portfolio: DocuSign, Alteryx, and Monday.com 4. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Focuses on Seed to Growth Stage Ventures Sector: Consumer, enterprise, bio, healthcare, crypto, fintech and games Notable Portfolio: Asana, Okta, and GitHub 5. Scale Venture Partners Focuses on Early-Stage Ventures Sector: AI apps, Fintech, Infrastructure, Productivity, SaaS, Security, Verticals Notable Portfolio: Box, DocuSign, and HubSpot 6. Menlo Ventures Focuses on Seed to Growth-Stage Ventures Sector: AI, Bio + Healthcare, Consumer, Cloud Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Fintech, SaaS, Supply Chain + Automation Notable Portfolio: Benchling, Carta, and Scout RFP 7. IVP (Institutional Venture Partners) Focuses on Late-stage (Series B to IPO) Ventures Sector: AI, Consumer, Health, Fintech & Crypto, Enterprise Infrastructure, Gaming, SAAS  Notable Portfolio: Dropbox, Slack, and Mindbody 8. Greylock Partners Focuses on Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A Ventures Sector: AI, Consumer, Cybersecurity, Fintech & Crypto, Infrastructure, Marketplace & Commerce, SaaS Notable Portfolio: Workday, Cloudera, and ServiceNow 9. Redpoint Ventures Focuses on Seed, Series A, Series B and Series C+ Ventures Sector: AI, Application, Blockchain, Consumer, Fintech, Healthcare, Infrastructure Notable Portfolio: Twilio, Looker, and Stripe 10. Storm Ventures Focuses on Seed and Early-Stage Ventures B2B Software Notable Portfolio: Marketo, Talkdesk, and Algolia Stay tuned for the NY list. Looking to connect with the right investor for your SaaS startup? Drop a “LIST” in the comments, and we’ll send you a link to a personalized investor lineup. Know a top SaaS investor or VC firm we missed? Share in the comments! At Thunder.vc, we excel in pairing your startup with venture capital firms that align with your specific sector, growth phase, and objectives. #SaaS #startups #VC

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Having a Cars and Capital event tomorrow in Southern California with Oren Klaff. If you want to join message me. https://lnkd.in/gDQ4D39u Oren Klaff Bridger Pennington #InvestorEvent #FamilyOffice #InvestmentOpportunity #CarlsbadEvent #PrivateEquity #WealthManagement #InvestmentConference #CapitalRaising #NetworkingEvent #IndustryLeaders #FinancialGrowth #InvestorsMeetup #WealthBuilding #BusinessGrowth #InvestmentForum

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Ever since we launched SHAKTI, every quarter we write a letter to our LPs = Each letter includes an update on the portfolios, the GP's (our) view on the zeitgeist, an interview with a portfolio CEO and an interview with a TITAN = So far, we have 16 such letters = it's been on our "to do" list to share these publicly (i am lazy) = then Google comes along to save lazy people like me (thank you NotebookLLM) = here's a 10 min podcast summarizing our journey since Dec/2020 with the 16 LP letters as source = if you wanted to know what we are about, this is a pretty good place to start = https://lnkd.in/db7K2TrT cc SHAKTI

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Thank you Prateek Joshi! Exciting insights from our co-founder Mehul Nariyawala on the journey of Matic Robots 🚀 While there are over 200 self-driving car startups and numerous companies tackling industrial robotics challenges, very few are focusing on bringing advanced technology into our homes. The home robotics industry has seen few substantial advancements since the introduction of #RobotVacuums in the early 2000s, which were often plagued with user frustration due to their limited capabilities. We know that indoor robots need on-device mapping capabilities to address privacy, latency, and changing indoor environments. This in-depth interview delves into the evolution of floor cleaning robots, the emerging trends in robotics, as well as the challenges and opportunities in the commoditization of consumer #AI.

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The state of venture capital is wild right now. We are witnessing a surge of innovation across the spectrum: - Funds merging - VC doing PE - PE doing VC - Secondary funds - Buyout funds - Spin-out funds - Debt funds - Continuation funds - Infrastructure funds - GP turnover - Hard Tech surging - Family Office uptick

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