Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: Conferences/Events (Page 1 of 80)

A.I. Startups of Several Flavors Pitch Passionately in Minneapolis

It was my pleasure to host an awesome group of founders at a conference on June 7, 2024 — all of them focused in data and AI. The conference attracted more than 1200 attendees. It was the seventh edition of the MinneAnalytics DATA TECH Conference, which took place at the Best Buy HQ Campus in Richfield, MN.

As a board member of MinneAnalytics, I again organized and hosted  a “Startup Showcase”  that morning. It was the 16th such session over the past decade that I’ve had the privilege of putting together. All told, MinneAnalytics has given a platform to a total of 139 startups in these showcases, which collectively have raised hundreds of millions in capital and created thousands of jobs. Already, a dozen of these startups have had successful exits via acquisition.

view of the crowded room at the Startup Showcase

Our startup session this time continued the strong attendance we had at our last event, the April 19 Healthcare Conference (which I wrote about in my previous post). Attendance was again standing room during most of this session, and even more crowded for the VC Panel at the end.

Please do click on the links below to learn about each of these promising startups! They’re representative of the wide array of data & AI startups that are popping up all over these days. After the event, I asked each presenter, What was one good thing that happened to you because of your participation in this session, or one interesting contact you made?

STARTUP PRESENTERS’ FEEDBACK

Luke Roquet, Datavolo (Minnesota & Arizona): “We met some really interesting people from across town, but hearing what Philips Healthcare is doing and how we might be able to help them with their image processing pipelines was my top takeaway from the event.”Datavolo pitching

Kristopher Purens, Uroboros Innovations (Chicago): “We made several great connections with new people and reconnected with old contacts. Really valuable event for us. Panel discussion was very helpful, too.”Uroboros pitching

Dan Feehan, Code4pro (Minnesota): “Fantastic event. Loved the organization and straightforwardness of it all and the complement of the panel and timely AI discussion. I also loved how easy it was to connect with folks and understand their part of the ecosystem. I even ran into my best friend from 7th grade that I haven’t seen in 30 years! Great job by all presenters!”Code4pro pitching

Michael Petersen, Raise a Hood (Minnesota): “We came away from the event with a dozen new connections — potential investors, potential customers, and even potential partners. It was a day very well invested!”Raise a Hood pitching

Jeremy Vaughan, Start Left Security (Jacksonville FL): “Great event, great community! MinneAnalytics provides an example of what other cities can do for their tech folks and startups. Start Left Security made great connections with new partners and even have some investors chasing us down now!”Start Left Security pitching

Toriano Sanzone, Dot Dog (New Orleans): “The Startup Showcase was truly impressive. I do wish I had brought more business cards and USB drives with my pitch deck, as the networking opportunities were exceptional. Presenting my company DOT DOG and Dog Training AI has boosted my confidence in the direction I am heading. Attending MinneAnalytics events is a priority for the rest of 2024, and I look forward to the possibility of presenting again in 2025.”Dot Dog pitching

Jolly Nanda, Altheia (Minnesota): “It was a great event. I liked the opportunity to connect with my fellow startups, VCs, and supporters. I enjoyed the networking between sessions as well.”Altheia pitching

George Asante, Affine Health Intelligence (Evanston IL): “It was great to be included in such a remarkable event.”Affine Health Intelligence pitching

My sincere thanks to these amazing founders! They pitched their hearts out and captivated our audience.

PANELISTS’ COMMENTS

The panel following the startup pitches packed the room even further. The topic was, “How Are Investors Evaluating Startups in the Age of Data and AI?” After the event, I asked each panelist, What was the single best insight or comment you would cite from the discussion?

headshots of panel participants

Ryan Weber, Great North Ventures (Minnesota): “I loved hearing from John about Piper’s cautious adoption given security concerns and protecting their clients — and from Ryan Broshar about how one of their portfolio companies is addressing it. Also loved Nick’s comment on the due diligence “BS call,” where they bring in an expert to chat with [a startup pitching them] to ensure they aren’t just big talkers. We do that, too, but I never thought of it so bluntly. It makes very clear the intention of that call. With all the hype and new jargon, [such a step] makes a lot of sense in this age of AI.”

Nick Moran, New Stack Ventures  (Chicago): “I believe it was Ryan Weber that emphasized the importance of data in an AI strategy. This is an area we’ve been spending on a lot of time in as we think about defensibility and long-term moats. The comments really resonated and made me think about how that applies to our investments.”

Ryan Broshar, Matchstick Ventures (Minneapolis & Boulder) : “I liked the discussion around the adoption of AI by enterprises, and that we know they will be late adopters when it comes to any product they are building — but probably don’t know the extent to which their employees are already using it to improve productivity.”

John Gast, Piper Sandler (Minneapolis): “I enjoyed the discussion and appreciate how you moderated it, Graeme. It struck me that our collective remarks underscored how quickly this market is moving. We didn’t dwell on the fervor around LLMs in the last 12 to 24 months – instead, we had a rational discussion about the application of this technology to real problems.”

Really excellent panel! Thanks again, guys — and to all who attended and asked great questions.

I hope those of you reading this post can join us at our next Startup Showcase. Watch for an announcement in a future MinneAnalytics newsletter. If you aren’t on that list, please do sign up here. Join the almost 20,000 in the amazing MinneAnalytics community!

Hit the comments and let me know what you think, or if you have a question. Thanks!

Eight Up-and-Coming Healthcare & Medtech Startups I Hosted Recently

Among many other things I do, I serve on the Board of a wonderful organization called MinneAnalytics, a community of some 20,000 data and business professionals. The seventh edition of our Healthcare Data Science Conference took place Friday, April 19, 2024 at the Best Buy headquarters campus in suburban Minneapolis. More than 1000 attended.

In my role as Startup Showcase Organizer, I hosted yet another session of startup pitches at this conference. It was the 15th such session we’ve had over the past decade. (We do them at all our major conferences, not just the events we do focused in healthcare.) Not counting this session, we’ve now featured a total of 114 startups, which collectively have raised hundreds of millions in capital and created thousands of jobs. About 10% of them have had successful exits via acquisition so far.

Big Crowd

The startup session at the recent conference had what I think was the largest attendance of any we’ve ever done. It was standing room only throughout the two and half hours. I attribute that both to the quality of the startups, and to the amazing medtech ecosystem we have here in Minnesota.

The startup presenters and their companies were as follows. I encourage you to visit their websites to learn more the amazing work each is doing!

• Mark Summers, Dosentrx

Dosentrx web page image

 

• Tony Hyk, TheraTec

TheraTec web page image

 

• Jeremiah Scholl, AESOP Technology

AESOP web page image


• Keith Kallmes, Nested Knowledge

Nested Knowledge web page image

• Lia Butler, NeoPrediX

NeoPrediX web page image

• Laura Stoltenberg, Cryosa

Cryosa web page image


• Ping Yeh, Vocxi Health

Vocxi web page image

 

• Chris Darland, Peerbridge Health

Peerbridge web page image

 

A VC Panel Discusses Funding Issues

A panel I organized took place after the startup pitches. It packed the room even further — very little standing room was left! The topic was, “The Current Funding Environment for Healthcare and Medtech Startups.”

Panorama of the audience during the panel

I asked each panelist, What was the single best insight or comment you would cite from the discussion?

Frank Jaskulke, Medical Alley Association: “Having heard Stephanie Rich share that they may see 2500 companies in a year to invest in 3 or 4 — that really highlights the competition startups face. But it also speaks to the importance of engaging the right investors, not just any investors. A startup can waste a lot of time chasing the wrong targets.”

Stephanie Rich, Bread & Butter Ventures: “The biggest thing I was struck by was the interest in venture and healthcare by our ecosystem and attendees! The attendance and questions were amazing.” [Stephanie sat in for her colleague Mary Grove, who called in at the last minute with a cold.]

Dave Dalvey, Brightstone Venture Capital: “The tracking and market implications of ‘overhang’ or ‘dry powder’ as it’s called in the venture capital industry are important to understand. Too much or too little un-invested capital held by active venture managers, at a time when a new company is in the market for funding, has a significant impact on the pricing, terms, and general receptiveness of a fund manager to a new opportunity.”

Greg Banker, Vensana Capital: “I liked Dave’s comment about making sure to research VCs before you go out to fundraise, to ensure you’re a match for their criteria — or that you’re similar to other investments they’ve made in the past. For example, if you’re raising a seed investment and the fund you’re trying to talk with has never done anything but Series B and beyond — well, not likely a fit.”

We had some great questions after each pitch, and after the panel. Thanks again to all who participated and attended!

The next Startup Showcase will be held at the largest annual MinneAnalytics event of them all: Data Tech, to be held on June 7, 2024 at the same venue. It will draw 1200+ registrants and feature 40+ speakers, in addition to the startup pitch session.

Data Tech conference logo

If you’re able to attend, look me up!

Gov. Doug Burgum Touts ND, Rich Karlgaard Sizes Up the Economy

event ballroom and stage

North Dakota has a lot going for it. The state embodies many good, positive things. The spirit of the pioneering American West. The frontier. Teddy Roosevelt. Hard work. Endless possibilities. Family values. The great American farmer. It also happens to have one of the best damn football programs in the entire U.S.A.: the NDSU Bison. Oh, and not the least, a booming economy.

I consider myself lucky to live in the next-door state, where I can closely admire what’s going on there. So, early Thursday morning, February 20th, I jumped in my car and headed Northwest to Fargo to attend the annual “Economic Outlook” luncheon event put on by the Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo Chamber of Commerce.

It was fantastic! I’d only heard about it a few days earlier, in one of the email newsletters I get regularly from the fine folks at the Emerging Prairie organization.  (Thank you, Greg.) I knew it would be a bit of a time investment — a seven-hour round trip! But I happened to have the day open, and I quickly decided I just couldn’t miss the main speaker, my friend Rich Karlgaard (who happens to be a native of Bismarck, North Dakota).

Rich is the longtime Publisher of Forbes and a well known  futurist and speaker, whom the Chamber described as “one of the most influential and respected figures in the technology, economic, and business worlds. He advises audiences on how to harness an organization’s disruptive spirits to maximize business opportunities in the global marketplace. He’s also a regular panelist on one of cable news’ most popular business shows, Forbes on FOX.” Rich has a long bio, and you can learn more about him here, including his many great books. He’s one of my all-time favorite people in the tech business! We originally met some 20 years ago, and I manage to connect with him from time to time.

I arrived about 40 minutes early and was lucky enough to run into Rich as soon as I walked in. So we had a nice chance to catch up before the crowd started arriving. The event was held in a huge ballroom, and Rich drew a full house of business leaders. It was a packed,  high-energy affair!

Doug Burgum (left) and Rich Karlgaard

Doug Burgum (l) and Rich Karlgaard.

As we chatted in the big room, just as it was starting to fill, he saw his friend and colleague Doug Burgum, the noted software founder, VC, and now the Governor of North Dakota, walk into the room. So, we headed over to chat with him. I of course know Doug’s VC firm, Arthur Ventures, quite well and regularly stay in touch with some of the folks there. But Doug has been focused on serving as Governor since assuming that office more than three years ago. He was slated to give some opening remarks.

Times Are Good in North Dakota

“Every region in the country would trade places with us,” Doug declared after taking the stage. “There’s never been a better time for us here!” Then he started ticking off a list of ratings for his state:

• #1 Best Place to Raise a Family

• #1 for Millennials

• Fargo is the #1 Hottest Job Market, with Bismarck (the capitol) coming in at #9

• And, as we’ve all heard by now, North Dakota is the #2 Oil Producing State

“We’re powering and feeding the world,” the Governor said. He also noted that North Dakota ranks high in broadband deployment — one of the most connected states in the U.S.  As one of the top agriculture states, and arguably the most technologically advanced in ag tech, he said, “We need to have every combine connected!”

He went on to say that his state has one of the lowest unemployment rates, and that it needs more workers and education. “Our number-one priority is developing a larger, better educated workforce.”

The Main Event

Billed as a talk on “Tech, Trade, Turbulence, and the 2020 Election,” it was now time to hear from the keynoter, Rich Karlgaard. He began by saying he’s now been with Forbes for 28 years. (I remember when he began as editor of a brand-new publication called Forbes ASAP, after being a key team member of a ground-breaking Silicon Valley-based publication called Upside, which I loved and was where I first came to know him. I had the honor of introducing Rich at a huge event in downtown Minneapolis in 2000  — that will provide some more color about his early career.)

Rich Karlgaard on stageRich kicked off by mentioning a couple of his recent books, “The Soft Edge” and “Team Genius.” The latter, he said, received praise from Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and — interesting tidbit — Rich noted that Satya once reported to Doug Burgum at Microsoft. Then Rich quickly dove into a hot topic of the  moment, the 2020 elections, as the latest Democratic train wreck debate had just happened the night before. His first slide spoke of “The Grim Logic of Money,” referring to the massive sums at play for Bernie and Bloomberg. He commented on some of the candidates, noting that Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar “can’t get into orbit,” and that Nate Silver, the noted statistician, recently said Bernie will come up short of delegates, at only 1500-some, when 1991 are needed to get the nomination. He said it’s looking like a brokered convention this summer — “a mess like Chicago” (referring to 1968).

Rich dove right into a rapid-fire talk with many slides, touching on a  whole array of topics. It was hard to keep up the note-taking, but I was trying:

GDP Growth Rates

Trump has averaged 2.6% 2017-2019. Obama averaged 2.2%  2009-2016. George W. Bush averaged 2.1% 2001-2008 (but that last year was the financial crash). With the you-know-what virus scare, GDP in Q1 2020 will not be good, he said. But he nonetheless sees 2.2 to 2.3% growth for the year — a solid “B.”

Reasons for Hope

“Stocks are still undervalued — there’s room to grow,” said Karlgaard. He noted the increase in housing starts in December of 16.9%. Combined mortgage and household debt is near the bottom of the recent historical range. Interest payments on federal debt as a percent of GDP are way down. And CEO confidence rebounded in Q4 according to the Conference Board. “Also, small business optimism is going up,” he said. “It dipped a bit in Q4 but remains high.”

Life in the Valley

Rich put up a slide of Peter Thiel, the noted conservative VC and billionaire founder, who used to be in Silicon Valley but now lives in LA. Not sure the subtle point there, but Rich made a funny comment: “We conservative Republicans in Silicon Valley could hold our quarterly meetings in a phone booth.”

Bits vs. Atoms

Speaking in North Dakota, Rich couldn’t help but bring up what he calls the “atoms industries” — meaning mining, agriculture, industrial production, manufacturing. The kinds of industries where it’s harder to raise capital — as opposed to the digital industry centered in Silicon Valley, where money flows. (But a side note here: North Dakota is also a major software hub, with the Microsoft Dynamics business in Fargo being one of the largest employers in the state.)

Calling a 2020 Winner

“Trump is favored by voters in the world of atoms,” he said. “Meanwhile, Dems assume they’re better at digital things.” The Obama campaign in 2012 “cleaned Mitt Romney’s clock,” with social media and other digital tools. But, Rich said, look out for Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital campaign manager in 2016, who’s now heading the entire campaign in 2020. He cited a commentator who calls him “smart and dangerous.”

So, the digital edge may be changing. “Look what the Dems did in Iowa!” Karlgaard exclaimed — meaning the big digital fail. He predicts Trump wins easily in November.

Tech Trends that Are “Mega”

So, where are things headed in tech? Rich’s Megatrend #1 is this: “The tech economy is not slowing down — it’s speeding up.” The old Moore’s Law  essentially brought us a 30% improvement each year. But advances in semiconductors will soon be taking us from 30 billion to 60 billion transistors per chip. Taiwan Semiconductor just announced it will be opening a production facility for 3-nanometer silicon — a feat unheard of not long ago. He put up a slide citing “The New Engine of Disruption: Diane Greene’s Law” (she being the recent head of Google’s cloud division, and formerly a cofounder of VMware.) The new norm this brings us, says Karlgaard, is “a 60% annual improvement in digital bang for the buck.” He also quoted Scott Guthrie, head of Microsoft Azure: “Cloud not only scales up — it scales out, to users.” That referring to computing at the edge, which brings us advances like “near-instant trend analysis.” What industries will be transformed in the next decade? Here’s the slide: list of industries that will be transformed

Megatrend #2: “Extreme valuation creates asymmetric funding.” To illuminate, Rich cited the valuation of Tesla, currently at about $166 billion, as compared to GM at $49 billion. “Tesla’s getting free money,” he said. “They roll the dice! The investors want that.” GM, on the other hand, has investors that are primarily pension funds — and they don’t like or want change. What this trend results in, he said, is “repeated assaults to the profits of legacy companies.” And he couldn’t help but cite the current number of “unicorn” companies: it’s now up to 524.

Megatrend #3: “Digital awareness is becoming more important.” And here Rich delves into what the says are best practices — one being “cultural clarity.” Companies  have to know who they are, what they’ll do, and what they won’t do. He showed  what Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx, calls his triangle of health for companies: “Execution” on the left, “Values” on the right, and “Strategy” on the bottom. And he cited Scheel’s, a privately held, employee-owned sporting goods and entertainment chain headquartered in Fargo, which is “a good example of executing on its self-identity.” Another couple of best practices come out in his 2015 book, Team Genius: 1) small is better when it comes to teams, and 2) seek cognitive diversity — meaning both analytical and intuitive people. An example he cited: the pairing of two opposites at Starbucks: Howard Schultz and Howard Behar. When its rapid growth stalled, and customer service was suffering, the hard-charging Schultz promoted the other Howard to deal with the soft side of the business. Behar, not an analytical type and not even a college grad, was critical to the creation of what became Starbucks unique culture, eventually becoming president of Starbucks North America and Starbucks International. Another example of teaming: Fred Smith at FedEx had the “inside view” nailed, but he recruited a key outsider from Silicon Valley as a board member: Judy Estrin, who brought the digital view. Finally, Karlgaard talked about all the Silicon Valley technical-genius founders and cofounders with 800 math SAT scores: Woz, Zuck, and many other well-known names. “No HR manager ever got fired for hiring 800 scores!” But there’s a lot more to talent in the world of cognitively diverse teams in this digital age.

Do you know how many players got list of Karlgaard's "Super Powers"drafted ahead of Tom Brady, he asked? There were scores of them — and he showed many of the names you’ve never even heard of. So the question he asks is, “How do you find more Tom Bradys?” That’s a topic Rich addresses in his most recent book, Late Bloomers (also coming out in paperback soon). And he gave us a brief list of what he puts forth in that book as his key “Super Powers” — shown in the slide here. (I have the book and recommend it — in fact, I brought it along to get Rich to sign it!)

During the audience Q&A following his talk, Rich made an interesting comment about Fargo-Moorhead: “I think it punches well above its weight. I see it as a smaller Austin TX or Columbus OH.” Yes, indeed — population isn’t everything. Intangibles matter.

As the event ended and Rich was being interviewed by a local TV station, I chatted with a few good folks I’d met, then jumped back into my car to get back home before dark. My head was buzzing all the way back down Interstate 94. So glad I made the trip!

 

 

 

 

 

Ten New Year’s Resolutions… and I Intend to Break Them All

champagne toast

Have you been doing a lot of thinking about making changes in 2020? Yeah, me too. Well, I did for a little while, anyway. And I actually came up with a few things I could resolve to do. But I quickly came to my senses. Nah! — why would I do these things? Here my list of discarded resolutions:

1) I will not tweet so much about $AAPL.

Okay, I admit it. What I do on Twitter, week in and week out, is over the top — all my cheering for the best company, and stock, in the world. But no chance I will stop. Sorry — I’ve been an investor in $AAPL since 1990. And it’s just too much fun trolling the Apple haters. (It’s hell to be right.)

2) I will go to SXSW again in March.

Don’t think so. Got the t-shirt. Don’t even wear that. No CES either — and no Times Square New Year’s Eve (like I ever did or would). You get the idea.

3) I will have coffee with every single person who wants to “pick my brain.”

Are you kidding me? Just seeing if you were paying attention. (And, yes, that awful phrase is actually still being used by some people.)

4) I will stop telling startup founders their pitch decks are… lacking.

I can’t — that would be impossible. Because 90% of them are pretty bad in my long experience. (And the other 10% can use a boost.) Haven’t seen one yet that can’t be improved. And don’t get me started about Executive Summaries. But I try my damndest to help folks with both.

5) I will quit Facebook.

No, I do still post to it once a month or so. Yeah, that’s about it. So, it’s still worth a teeny bit to me. Still ticked that they stopped allowing all my tweets to go automatically to my Facebook feed. That made my Facebook friends think I was amazing — posting multiples times per day. Little did they know I rarely ever went there… muahahaha!

6) I will sign up for a paid account on LinkedIn.

Thought about that for a microsecond. Are you kidding? What a rip! Who’s in charge of pricing at that place? Don’t they know that a large percentage of the population doesn’t care about the traditional, corporate work world anymore? They don’t care about a site for job hunting and job hopping and touting all one’s multiple advanced degrees. Soon, 40% of the workforce will be freelance or contract workers. And a recent survey found 51% of those folks would never take a traditional job, no matter how much it paid. Sure, LinkedIn’s an okay networking site. So I’ll keep using it for free. Thanks, Microsoft!

7) I will stop ignoring LinkedIn connection requests from people I don’t know or from countries I never intend to visit.

Haha! Just checking again to see if you were paying attention. And is LinkedIn (and Microsoft) really proud of having created a channel where so many jerks are trying to sell crap all day long?

8) I will spend more time at WeWork.

I didn’t spend much time when I got a free account for a year (which will end soon), so why the hell would I pay for it?

9) I will be more discerning about what clients I take on.

No, I will be extremely more discerning.

10) I will work really hard to get more followers on Instagram, and will open an account on TikTok.

Yeah, when Hell freezes over.

That’s it. Ten things to start my 2020 right! Now, off to work out and lose a few pounds… 🙂

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