Fund of the Future: 2018 Portfolio Update
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A very happy 2018 to everyone who’s been following along with Humanizing Tech over the last few years. As most people are putting out their 2018 predictions now, we figured we’d do something else. We’d describe not just predictions, but where we’ve placed technology bets over the last year in preparation for 2018 and beyond. Thus, it’s less of a prediction and more of a “put your money where your mouth is” kind of thing.
I. Augmented Reality: RealWear
I have been talking with the investors, the Board, the management team and employees for about five months. I spent three months doing diligence on the product, the market, the team to get a sense of how this new approach to Augmented Reality in the Industrial space would play out.
To repeat a friend’s words that keep echoing in my mind, “I remain ridiculously impressed”.
It combines the team from Sonim, a global leader in rugged smart phones, Metaio which Apple acquired in 2015 to form ARKit, and Daqri which was an original AR hardware and software startup.
So, suffice to say, I’ve joined the team full time as an operator to help execute against the vision. It’s going to capture almost all of my time and will be traveling frequently so if I’m in your location, perhaps it’s worth a coffee.
RealWear’s got product market fit, revenue is growing at a pretty astounding clip, are shipping production units to 32 countries globally, and have 100 brand name customers. After only 18 months in existence. Crazy.
More announcements to come but if you’re going to be at CES or Distributech, stop by our booth (#21536, Las Vegas Convention Center South Hall 1) or give me a shout to meet in our private suite.
In the meantime, have a look at our Data Sheet.
II. Artificial Intelligence: PROME
PROME has been an R&D labor of love for the entire team for many years. Connectomics is the keyword here, though we call it Biologic Intelligence.
I spent a year talking to everyone I could get my hands on: venture capitalists, angel investors, management consultants, investment bankers, startup people, AI experts, software engineers, neuroscientists, self-driving pros, you name it. And wouldn’t you know it, only about 5 people out of thousands had ever heard of the term “connectome”.
That’s when you know the world hasn’t caught up to the right answer yet. Whenever everyone is so focused on mathematic approaches and a global PR engine that tells you that Level 5 self-driving is here and ready today, yet no vehicles exist or are operating as such, you know something’s amiss.
So, our technology will remain in incubation mode until the rest of the world catches up. We’ve added another engineer to the team and are making daily progress on self-driving in a rover setting. Autonomous Service Bots on Earth and in Space is the future.
You can view our technical presentation on Basic Plasticity by our CTO Timothy Busbice, or check out our previously unreleased demo video below (without voice over). The big thing to note here is that this self-driving rover and pattern matching test has never been turned on before nor has had any previous training data. It learns on the fly based on the sensory input it experiences in real time.
Finally, I’ll be contributing to a new book, backed by a major publisher, on self-driving operating systems and user interfaces, which should hit shelves the back half of this year. So, the work continues and PROME ain’t going anywhere. We still own the IP, after all.
III. Media: The Mission & Humanizing Tech
Writing my unadulterated thoughts onto the internet for the last decade has been the catalysts for some of the best things I’ve ever done in my career. Everything you see in this letter can be traced back to something I wrote or some relationship I met through Humanizing Tech. The pen is mightier than the sword, I suppose.
One of those relationships is with Chad Grills, the founder of The Mission who I’m also a very close advisor and frequent contributor to. The Mission is the fastest-growing and #1 publication on Medium, even beating The Economist and The Washington Post in numbers of subscribers. We which just passed 400,000 subs on Medium but includes millions of unique viewers every month.
So, in the new era of media, where Millennials and Gen Z are sick of negative news, fake or otherwise, this is one of the only places where you can accelerate your learning faster (news with a purpose, if you will) in a more friendly place.
I’ve been so busy over the last 6 months that the public writing has slowed significantly. I doubt 2018 will be less busy, but as I get my feet back under me, expect some additional updates.
As always, if you have compelling knowledge to share (not promotional content), let me know, we can get you some exposure.
IV. Software Development: SSI Decisions
I met the folks at SSI almost a year ago during an Industrial IoT conference in the Valley for senior execs. I bumped into the founder (the company’s been going for 25 years now) and realized after 30 minutes talking that we both graduated from Chicago Booth’s business school. I ended up getting closer to the team, doing diligence on the quality of their software and made the determination that they are incredibly high-quality software people that I enjoyed working with closely for many months.
They have about 200 people spread across Chicago, Germany, Pakistan and a few smaller locations like Kuala Lumpur and NYC, of course. Their model is not like other software agencies: they don’t do one-off projects, and they damn sure don’t do crap quality. Rather, they have become the outsourced development team (from about 3 FTEs startups up to 90 FTEs for the likes of Thompson Reuters) and they’ve even taken startups through two acquisitions.
I’ve worked with them closely on a few projects and will continue to do so as an Advisor. If you have software needs for scaling your product, and you don’t want to get burned again by low-quality development like what’s happened to you in the past, let me know, I can fast track you. You can also have a look at a case study deck that just keeps going, and going, and going, and going. They’re growing by about 5 FTEs per month so to say it’s going well is an understatement.
Their main expertise is on big data, optimization, IoT, and machine learning problems across FinTech, HealthTech, and yes they’re even exploring Crypto at my pressing :)
V. Cryptocurrency: Not Disclosed
I’m considering advising a few companies in the space that I’m not ready to announce yet. However, over the last year I have:
- Put together a private 20-page Long-Term Valuation whitepaper in Q3 2017 with the help of a friend.
- Written a book on Bitcoin.
- Had the September 2017 feature in Fortune’s magazine cover story that I worked with the reporter on for months.
- A video profile by CNBC.
At this point I still don’t feel anyone in the entire space has solved the absolute #1 problem: trust like a bank, required for the entire crypto space to Cross the Chasm to normal people.
VI. Mentorship
If any of this aligns with what you’re working on, feel free to reach out. I’m already mentoring a number of younger entrepreneurs so the time, as you might imagine, is in short supply.
But I’m of the belief that at any point in your life you should both mentor someone and have someone mentor you. A good rule of thumb is someone 10 years younger than you and someone 10 years older than you.
Passing along the knowledge from generation to generation is important. I’d urge you to do the same.
Besides, the people you work with in the future are likely the people you’re already friends with today.
Here’s to a 2018 that’s up-and-to-the-right to you all as we move ever closer to the 12 Tech Theses of the 2030s.
— Sean
