Startup – Page 2 – Impact Lab

Electric Vehicles, Science & Technology News, Startup, Transportation

New Texas EV startup unveils US-made electric motorcycle with the right specs and price

October 31, 2020

Volcon Grunt electric motorcycle unveiled

Volcon is the latest startup hoping to bite off a piece of the growing electric motorcycle pie. The company’s new Volcon Grunt is poised to fill a gap in the market with an interesting mix of specs and pricing.

The Volcon Grunt is a fat tire electric motorcycle of sorts that doesn’t just talk the talk.

The bike also walks the walk, if its spec sheet is to be believed.

The Volcon Grunt’s 37 kW (50 hp) motor offers 102 Nm (75 lb-ft) of torque and propels the bike to a claimed 60 mph (96 km/h) top speed in 6 seconds.

It also comes with a maximum range of 100 miles (160 km), though there is no word on what speed that range is clocked at. Some electric bike manufacturers get away with impressive range ratings by measuring ranges at very low speeds, which require less battery power and thus are more efficient. And with giant tires like those, the Grunt could surely use all the efficiency favors it can get.

Either way, Volcon claims the batteries will be swappable, so even if the range isn’t quite as good, a spare battery could easily double it.

Continue reading… “New Texas EV startup unveils US-made electric motorcycle with the right specs and price”

Coronavirus, Finance, Money Talk, Science & Technology News, Startup

The Pandemic Plutocrats : How Covid is creating new fintech billionaires

October 6, 2020

In 2015, Nick Molnar was living with his parents in Sydney, Australia, and selling jewelry from a desktop computer in his childhood bedroom. Hocking everything from $250 Seiko watches to $10,000 engagement rings, the 25-year-old had gotten so good at online marketing that he had become Australia’s top seller of jewelry on eBay, shipping thousands of packages a day.

That same year, he teamed up with Anthony Eisen, a former investment banker who was 19 years his senior and lived across the street. They cofounded Afterpay, an online service that allows shoppers from the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada to pay for small-ticket items like shoes and shirts in four interest-free payments over six weeks. “I was a Millennial who grew up in the 2008 crisis, and I saw this big shift away from credit to debit,” the now 30-year-old Molnar says today. Either lacking credit cards or fearful of racking up high-interest-rate debt on their credit cards, Molnar’s generation was quick to embrace this new way to buy and get merchandise now, while paying a little later.

Five years later, Molnar and Eisen, who each own roughly 7% of the company, have become billionaires—during a pandemic. After initially tanking at the start of lockdowns, shares of Afterpay—which went public in 2016—are up nearly tenfold, thanks to a surge in business tied to e-commerce sales. In the second quarter, it handled $3.8 billion of transactions, an increase of 127% versus the same period a year earlier.

Continue reading… “The Pandemic Plutocrats : How Covid is creating new fintech billionaires”

Coronavirus, Money Talk, Science & Technology News, Startup

‘A moral dilemma’: Tech startups wrestled with taking coronavirus bailout loans

May 5, 2020

Some startup founders hesitated to apply for the SBA’s PPP loans because they feared Main Street businesses may need them more. Now, the pot of money has run out.

In the past few weeks, Silicon Valley startups have grappled with a confusing, ethical quandary: whether to take money from the government to weather the economic downturn brought on by coronavirus.

Congress passed the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act on March 27, which included $349 billion in forgivable loans for small businesses to help avoid laying off employees. The Paycheck Protection Program, as it’s called, is run through the Small Business Administration, and the loan applications are processed by banks like Bank of America or Silicon Valley Bank. The SBA will forgive the loans if the recipient uses the money to help keep all its employees on the payroll for eight weeks.

Continue reading… “‘A moral dilemma’: Tech startups wrestled with taking coronavirus bailout loans”

Analysis, Business, Science & Technology News, Startup

Why S-curves are probably the most important concept in entrepreneurship

March 20, 2020

The world of entrepreneurship is full of buzzwords. We all want to found the next disruptive game-changing hot startup, leveraging our first-mover advantage in deep tech by thinking outside the box, just before pivoting (in an agile way!) after our A/B tests showed concerns with our UX and product market fit, then finally putting our early adopter pick-up speed and monetization unit economics on viral escape velocity, earning us that unicorn-valuation series C term sheet. Don’t we?

With all that noise, it’s very easy to lose sight of the truly important concepts. One of the most important ones, maybe the most important one for startup leadership teams, is the phenomenon of the S-curve. It determines almost everything in innovation, and while it looks simple, it is incredibly hard to grasp in practice.

Continue reading… “Why S-curves are probably the most important concept in entrepreneurship”

Business, Employment, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News, Startup, Trending

Are Millennials the new entrepreneurs?

March 2, 2020

The next generation of leaders are making headlines for their entrepreneurial attitude – are millennials driving a new startup revolution?

Millennials came of age in a world powered by the products of rockstar entrepreneurs – Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Alexis Ohanian. TV Shows like Shark Tank, highlighting the aspirations and potential success of entrepreneurs, drew audiences of over 6 million. Meanwhile, the 2008 recession threw the stability of traditional career paths into question. It’s no wonder, then, that millennials seem to look very favorably upon entrepreneurship. But is this younger generation actually more entrepreneurial than preceding generations? The data is split. In this final article in my series on how millennials are transforming the workforce, I explore what entrepreneurship really means to millennials.

Continue reading… “Are Millennials the new entrepreneurs?”

Analysis, Business, Science & Technology News, Startup

For entrepreneurs, 45 is the new 25

February 8, 2020

Many have argued that entrepreneurship is a young man’s game. Look no further than the storied entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley. Mark Zuckerberg. Evan Spiegel. Elon Musk. Larry Page. Sergey Brin. Steve Jobs. All of these individuals achieved success before turning 30.

But is it really the case that young people are more likely to succeed in entrepreneurial ventures? Or, is there more to the story than meets the eye?

New research forthcoming in the American Economic Review casts doubt on the idea that youth is advantageous when it comes to entrepreneurial success, especially in the case of high-growth entrepreneurship.

A team of researchers led by Pierre Azoulay of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology investigated the connection between age and high-growth entrepreneurship.

Continue reading… “For entrepreneurs, 45 is the new 25”

Automobiles, Money Talk, Science & Technology News, Startup

Automaker startup is fast and furious

February 8, 2020

When it comes to startup investment, automakers are still going full speed ahead.

From ride-hailing apps to driverless car technology, transportation startups have attracted unprecedented sums of investment capital from auto manufacturers in recent years. In the past few quarters, that trend has been accelerating.

An analysis of Crunchbase data shows that since the beginning of 2019, the world’s largest car and truck manufacturers have led financing rounds valued at more than $6 billion. Over that period, they’ve participated in more than 50 deals for several million dollars and up, indicating an expanded willingness to pump significant sums into rounds.

“It has been a continuation of the trends for many of the automakers that have been particularly active over the past few years,” said Chris Stallman, a partner at Detroit-based transport venture firm Fontinalis Partners. “In 2019 and 2020, however, it has been interesting to see a few automakers—particularly those in Asia—aggressively ramping up their innovation efforts.”

Continue reading… “Automaker startup is fast and furious”

CES 2020, Crazy Stuff, Science & Technology News, Startup

Somebody snuck a potato int CES 2020 to make a scathing point about useless smart gadgets

January 13, 2020

Startup founder launches ″Potato″ at CES 2020

I almost walked right by it. But then I realized the object the young man was holding up, apparently thrilling the small crowd gathered around his tiny CES 2020 booth, was a potato.

The vegetable in question looked like an ordinary, chunky Idaho spud, although protruding out of one side was some kind of antenna, a black plastic appendage bent upward. Close to the potato’s surface, the exterior of the antenna became a thin, blade-like electrode that pierced the skin, clearly doing… something.

The man was regaling the crowd with his incredible smart product, which he said was finally unlocking the awesome decision-making power of the potato. The antenna, which he called the NeuraSpud, tapped into the potato’s “artificial intelligence.” Once you connected your smartphone over Bluetooth to the device and launched the accompanying app, you could ask the potato anything — with your voice, no less — and it would spout an answer on the screen, the digital-vegetable equivalent of a Magic Eight Ball.

If the smart potato sounds like a big, stupid stunt, that’s because it is. The man behind the idea, Nicholas Baldeck from France, told me he brought his admittedly ridiculous “invention” to CES to make a point about the torrent of smart gadgets at the show, many of which don’t really solve problems at all.

“This product has way more chance of success than 60% of the startups here,” Baldeck says. “I am skeptical of this idea of ‘connected everything.’ Now it looks like innovation is about putting a chip into any object. I’m not sure the word ‘smart’ makes more sense before the word toothbrush than the word potato.”

Continue reading… “Somebody snuck a potato int CES 2020 to make a scathing point about useless smart gadgets”

Analysis, Science & Technology News, Startup, Venture Capital

The average age of a successful startup founder is 45

December 11, 2019

It’s widely believed that the most successful entrepreneurs are young. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg were in their early twenties when they launched what would become world-changing companies. Do these famous cases reflect a generalizable pattern? VC and media accounts seem to suggest so. When we analyzed founders who have won TechCrunch awards over the last decade, the average age at the time of founding was just 31. For the people selected by Inc. magazine as the founders of the fastest-growing startups in 2015, the average age at founding was only 29. Consistent with these findings, Paul Graham, a cofounder of Y Combinator, once quipped that “the cutoff in investors’ heads is 32… After 32, they start to be a little skeptical.” But is this view correct?

Continue reading… “The average age of a successful startup founder is 45”

Business, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News, Startup

The world’s most valuable company

December 11, 2019

After multiple delays, Saudia Arabia is finally making it happen.

A much-watched step in the country’s goals to modernize and privatize parts of its economy, its state-owned oil business, Saudi Aramco, raised $25.6 billion in the world’s largest IPO ever after pricing 3 billion shares at 32 riyals ($8.53) apiece.

The raise beats the largest yet—that of Alibaba’s in 2014—by about $600 million. It also crowns the company as the most valuable among publicly-traded companies right now.

Continue reading… “The world’s most valuable company”

Business, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News, Startup

The age of celebrity cofounders

November 29, 2019

Feel like more celebrities have become venture capitalists than ever before? You’re not alone.

Not a week goes by that another actor, athlete, musician, or internet celebrity doesn’t pop up on a cap table as an angel investor or via their family office-turned-venture fund. The media treats Ashton Kutcher as patient zero of the celebrity investing bug, but the truth is, celebrities have acted as minority partners in brands, businesses, and startups for decades prior. No disrespect to Kelso but if I’m being honest, it’s all become quite boring.

A decade ago, being a celebrity-turned-tech investor used to mean you were an early adopter, with rare connections into the new, exciting world of technology startups. Likewise, getting a celebrity investor in your company meant you were well-networked or that your product had the potential to catch the eye of the elusive glitterati. But with all the deal flow, advisers, syndicates and co-investment opportunities available to celebrities today, if you’re not at-least passively allocating some of your wealth into startups as an A-Lister, well, consider yourself B+ at best.

Continue reading… “The age of celebrity cofounders”

Business, Employment, Science & Technology News, Startup

Why Canada is becoming a start-up mecca rivaling Silicon Valley

November 20, 2019

KEY POINTS

Five Canadian companies made CNBC’s 2019 Upstart 100 list unveiled on Tuesday: Attabotics, Calgary; Cmd, Vancouver; Deep Genomics and Nobul, Toronto; and RenoRun, Montreal.

Collectively, these promising start-ups raised more than $77 million in venture capital.

The entrepreneurial ecosystem is booming in major cities in Canada, thanks to government incentives, a growing tech talent pool and access to venture capital.

Continue reading… “Why Canada is becoming a start-up mecca rivaling Silicon Valley”