Category: Minneanalytics

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

May 2, 2024 / Graeme / 2 Comments

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

• Tony Hyk, TheraTec

• Jeremiah Scholl, AESOP Technology

• Keith Kallmes, Nested Knowledge

• Lia Butler, NeoPrediX

• Laura Stoltenberg, Cryosa

• Ping Yeh, Vocxi Health

• Chris Darland, Peerbridge Health

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.”

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.

If you’re able to attend, look me up!

The State — or Lack of a State — of Marketing Analytics

September 11, 2015 / Graeme / 2 Comments

Image @VentureBeat

How does one assess the landscape for an exploding technology category like marketing analytics? There’s so much confusion and hype around the topic. You’ve heard it all — too much data, we’re drowning in it, woe is us. And, along with that, too many vendors trying to sell us the latest cure. First we were shocked to hear the number of vendors was 1000, now we’re told it’s 2000! The argument that all these vendors create too many data silos is now a refrain we’re hearing more often. Hard to argue with that.

With such high numbers of players comes confusion, and complexity.

But it begs the question: how in the world do you unify all your marketing data to understand it and gain a competitive edge for your organization? Will a platform or single vendor solution emerge? Some of the big players like Oracle, Adobe, and Salesforce are certainly trying, opting in a big way for buy vs. build. (These three have led a frenzy of acquisitions in the marketing technology space.)

Yet significant roadblocks still exist to widespread adoption of marketing analytics in business today — and for companies to extract real value from it. The lack of data science skills we’ve all heard about by now till we’re blue in the face — it’s the “sexiest job title in the country,” blah blah blah. Big shortages, universities scrambling to launch graduate programs, etc, etc. But should this technology really require a PhD in every marketing department and agency in the land? That simply doesn’t compute! Why can’t there be more solutions, more tools, that marketers and general business folks — regular Joes and Janes — can use? Why does it all have to be so complex? Continue reading

Big Data Storms the Big Apple This Week

March 16, 2014 / Graeme / 0 Comments

And I'm looking forward to reporting on this high-level gathering: the Gigaom Structure Data conference. It's billed thusly: "The industry's leading denizens share their views on big data and its impact on the information economy."

That's right: big minds sharing deep thoughts on a humongously hyped topic — what could be more fun than that? But it won't be just big companies represented at this fine event, there'll be lots of smaller ones, too — including my favorite kind: #startups. And you know what they say: pretty much every tech startup today is a data startup of one sort or another — or will be. That's what happens when a topic is hyped as breathlessly as Big Data is — it permeates damn near everthing. Even your mother has asked you about it.

So, why am I going? Well, first of all, I've had a media pass to a Gigaom event before, and was impressed by the quality of their events. And this one gave me a chance to visit my son and his wife, who recently took up residence in Manhattan, where I haven't been in years. (I like my conferences mostly in California and Colorado, thank you very much.) That, plus the fact that I've been focusing a lot of my attention in data and analytics of late, right here in Minnesota. We have a large contingent of big data professionals in the state — mostly big-company types at our 20 Fortune 500s, of course, but some very interesting startups as well. I've become quite involved with a wonderful professional meetup-type group called Minneanalaytics.org over the past couple of years. Get this: our database now numbers 3700 data professionals across 600 organizations! (Follow Minneanalytics on Twitter.) It's a great group of people — lots of energy and smarts around the burgeoning, rapidly growing field of Big Data. I'm on the organizing commitee and have assisted with several Minneanalytics events, which have attracted up to 900 attendees. I'm specifically involved in engaging more of the startup community with the organization, and I also help manage the organization's social media presence.

My involvement in Minneanalytics and helping with content curation and community engagement got me to thinking beyond just our Twitter and email list communications, however. What might be another way I could help spread the love — and the need to keep up on the latest — around this thing crazy, hot topic of Big Data?

As a huge user of the Flipboard app since day-one of the iPad in 2010, it hit me: why not launch a Flipboard magazine on the topic? I hadn't done one before. I noted there were others who had already started Big Data magazines, but they were way geeky. I thought there might be room for one with a little different focus: on real-world uses for Big Data — how the technologies were being applied in ways that even everyday people could understand, in a wide variety of fields, professions, and vertical markets. I figured there was more than enough to content to begin — and I was right.

So one day, on a lark, I launched my first Flipboard magazine, Big Data in the Wild (shown at right). I subtitled it "Real-world examples of how big data is making big impact." Fast forward: in just four months, it has more than 4600 subscribers and almost 89,000 page flips. Flipboard features it regularly on its Daily Picks, and Mike McCue, Flipboard's CEO, has even told me "great magazine!" So, I'm committed now! (As the magazine got establshed, I asked a colleague, Dan Atkins, one of the cofounders of Minneanalytics, to be a contributor to it.)

But after I recently committed to making the trip to the Big Apple, I started thinking… hmmm, being a magazine publisher now — haha, I mean a content curator — how could I, as a longtime reporter and blogger at tech conferences, not cover this event for my own magazine? It was just too much of a crazy notion not to do it. So, here's what I'll be doing this week: publishing blog posts during and after the event and, you got it, flipping those posts into my magazine.

But wait, there's more! How can a magazine exist without a Twitter account? That would be just cruel. So, a week or two ago, I started @BigDataWild on Twitter, and have since built up a nice little, well focused following of professionals, which continues to grow. Naturally, I'll be tweeting links that will — yep! — take people to the magazine!! …to the posts I'll be writing about the event. Now how recursive is that? But who am I not to create more data! Post, publish, link, flip, tweet, link back — feed the stream!

If you'll be at Gigaom Structure Data, be sure to say hello. I'd enjoy meeting! You can still register here. And, if you need convincing the agenda is worthwhile, read these two recent posts from Gigaom writers that will give you a flavor of what to expect:

• 5 Things that Will Remake Big Data in the Next 5 years

• Upcoming Gigaom Event: Three Innovators Who Are Shifting the Big Data Landscape

Here's to a really BIG time!