🤖 Issue #83: The Autonomy Revolution For Physical Industries
Eclipse Ventures Partner Seth Winterroth shares the forces that will drive increased adoption of autonomous systems across physical industries over the next decade.
💬 Welcome to issue #83 of Between the Lines
Good morning & happy Thursday. The rapid pace of autonomous technology continues to let us take on tasks previously too complex to handle, and we’re just now beginning to see a revolution happening in many new industries.
This week, serial investor and Claremont grad Seth Winterroth (CMC) discusses how autonomy in physical industries is growing, the ecosystem of startups productionalizing automation, and what this means for investors and entrepreneurs moving forward…..It’s a Claremont world out there. 👇
~ Josh, Miles, & Pat
📢 👥 Community Voices: The Next Decade of Innovation in Physical Industries
Author: Seth Winterroth
Claremont graduate Seth Winterroth (CMC) is an investor and Partner at Eclipse Ventures – a VC firm investing in physical industries and industrial evolution. Seth began his career at General Electric, where he helped develop and implement a variety of robotics, 3D printing, and IoT solutions. After GE, he joined Eclipse to invest in companies building transformative solutions for the manufacturing, supply chain, transportation, and healthcare industries.
Seth recently wrote about how autonomous systems are sparking the next innovation in physical industries. He lays out the forces driving the revolution and the implications this could have for the way we work and live in the future.
As an investor and history major, I’ve always believed one of the most powerful data sources for due diligence are history books. If you study the past closely enough, it will paint a picture for where exactly the market is going and therefore, where the next big opportunity is for new capital and innovation. For instance, the seed was planted decades ago for today’s cloud computing world. It started with personal computing in the late 1970s. Personal computing evolved to networking, which further led to widespread adoption of the internet, the cloud, and finally the explosion of mobile.
I see a similar pattern unfolding within physical industries — we’re in the early innings of a new computing revolution that is reminiscent of previous computing shifts. Just as cloud computing is now ubiquitous, the same will become true for automation in physical industries — intelligent compute systems that sense the world, compute their understanding, and take action or inform action will proliferate through every physical world sector…
Global economic and geopolitical events combined with the evolution of the tech talent market will propel autonomous innovation forward in 2023 and beyond. Besides market forces, underscoring this movement is the fact that technology in this space is coming of age. It’s now possible to develop and integrate systems that meet performance, reliability, and safety metrics within industries like manufacturing, supply chain, transportation, healthcare, and more.
Autonomous systems will ultimately be the driving force behind physical industries, and there has never been more opportunity or access for those looking to build new solutions that will power the New Economy. The timing is impeccable — in part because the market is set up for it, and in part because we have no choice.👇
📣 Pardon the Announcement: KGI Career Fair
In-Person Career Fair: Friday, March 24, 2023, 10 AM (Set-up) | 11 AM - 2 PM (Event time), 535 Watson Drive, Claremont, CA 91711
Email Career Services to reserve your spot!
Whether you’re looking for interns, or full-time employees, or would like to network with the KGI talent pipeline, you can join by reserving your spot now. Email KGI Career Services with any questions.
💼 Who’s Hiring?: Gather & Alloy
Claremont entrepreneur and Stanford GSB Professor Rob Urstein (CMC) is the co-founder of Gather – a digital experience platform that enables institutions of all sizes to create dynamic digital environments and experiences for their members. With Rob’s passion for education, technology, and community building, Gather was founded in 2020 to empower museums and institutions to provide meaningful and seamless experiences to members through its subscription software products.
The company raised a $3.5M Seed round led by Owl Ventures to continue its mission of enriching lives by creating connections through learning. Learn more about Gather and their open roles here:
Fintech unicorn Alloy is a global identity decisioning platform and a leader in the fraud prevention space. They help some of the most innovative banks and fastest-growing fintech companies scale operations by allowing them to find customers and onboard them without increasing the risk of fraud. The firm supports more than 350 banks and fintech startups in North America, including Brex, Marqeta, Gemini, and Ramp.
Claremont alumna Caroline Lu (CMC ‘16) is a Fraud Analytics Manager at Alloy, and they’re currently looking for Senior Data Scientists and Analysts to work closely with her:
Check out the other ~5,000 open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 1,000+ remote jobs, 100+ internships, or 40+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention, Claremonsters!
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or, if you are an employer looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s top read 🔥
Claremont grad Jesse Pollak (PO) recently launched Coinbase’s new Ethereum L2 chain – Base. Jesse is the Senior Director of Engineering for Coinbase, and he leads the efforts to build, support, and integrate protocols into their products. He is also contributor #001 for Base – a secure, low-cost, developer-friendly blockchain operating on top of Ethereum. Base was built to bring the next billion users to web3 with increased transaction speeds, reduced gas fees, and improved scalability and efficiency for developers and customers.
This week’s Claremont financing 💸
Claremont entrepreneur Kyle Schuster (PZ ‘16) and Autobound recently raised a $4M Pre-Seed round led by Dundee VC. Autobound is a sales intelligence platform that analyzes buyer and seller data across the web to generate instant, ready-to-send individualized sales emails. They’re building the ChatGPT for sales emails.
This week’s top listen 🎧
Claremont founder Vanessa Castañeda Gill (CMC ‘18) explains how her autism and ADHD diagnosis at age 14 led to her life’s mission and starting her own company. She also shares advice on how to overcome self-sabotage and scarcity mindset as a young entrepreneur. Vanessa is the co-founder and CEO of Social Cipher – an online gaming platform for neurodivergent youth.
Everything else you need to know💡
VC and Claremont grad Maya Horgan Famodu (PO ‘12) shares how founders can improve their pitch and secure investments from VCs. Maya is the Founding Partner of Ingressive Capital – a VC firm that invests in early-stage, tech-enabled companies based in Sub-Saharan Africa. She is also a 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 and an investor in Claremont-founded biotech startup 54Gene.
Can’t get enough of Between the Lines? Follow and connect with us on Twitter!
🍽️ BTL Snacks:
🧠 The Best (And Worst) Startup Founders….. Claremont entrepreneur Cooper Galvin (PO '14) shares his perspective on why Ph.D. students can potentially make the best (and worst) startup founders. From persistence to analytical thinking to grant writing, PhDs have much to offer the startup world, but he thinks there are also potential stumbling blocks to watch out for. Cooper is the co-founder and CEO of Endless Health – a bioelectronic health detection startup and one-stop-shop for cardiovascular health.
🔬 Accelerating Biology With AI….. Claremont graduate and entrepreneur Daniel Goodwin (HMC ‘08) sat down with Schmidt Futures’ CIO, Tom Kalil, to discuss more about the current developments in Program Synthesis and its future influence on how we do biological research. Dan is the former CTO and co-founder of Mobile Data Labs (acquired by Microsoft) and is currently the Founding Co-Director of Homeworld Collective – a nonprofit that serves the needs of the growing climate biotech community.
🚀 Science In The Space Station….. Biotech startup Machine Bio recently won the Technology in Space Prize, receiving $500k in grant funding. The award is an annual opportunity from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space and Boeing for qualified startups interested in leveraging the ISS National Laboratory. Machine Bio, co-founded by Claremont entrepreneurs David Marash (KGI ‘19) and Alexander Hilbert (KGI ‘19), seeks to validate their proprietary technology for the single-step synthesis of protein from a DNA template onboard the space station.
We’ve tracked 21 different Claremont-founded startups that have gone public, including Cisco, Doximity, Matterport, and Avalara. Sixteen of these 21 have IPO’d within just the last decade.
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