Nate Houghteling

A SAFE and convertible note had a baby and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati was the midwife- out popped the D-SAFE! 👶🏽🎉 A new #climatetech funding instrument was announced by Elemental Excelerator last week. One of the company’s main goals is to support smaller, up and coming companies during the awkward “Scale Gap” phase between #VC funding and natural growth. It’s called the #DSAFE (Development Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and it aims to aid the process by giving companies a small amount of cash to overcome initial risks and expenses during the developmental stages of a product launch or company. How does it work? D-SAFE has a redemption clause meaning companies can choose to have their payments offered as a loan or convert to equity at the investor’s discretion. Funders and companies will have clear communication and expectations about where the money is going and how it will be applied to either the company or the projects at hand. Financiers and companies will work together with more #transparency, and that’s a great boon for #startups and VC alike. As of this month, Elemental has already invested using D-SAFE in eight different companies, including Dimensional Energy and Origen — both companies investing in innovative and out-of-the-box solutions to environmental issues! Seems like a win-win on the surface. What do you all think about the D-SAFE? Alfredo Coppola Momoka Ueda Tim Wagner Stephen D. Torres Olya Irzak Natsuho Toyama Noriya Tarutani Shin Ogawa

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As we’ve begun building Oversubscribed Ventures, we’ve learned that the world of venture capital is way too mysterious and insular. We wanted to crack it wide open and make it accessible to everyone. So, we launched a new podcast, with Phil Schwarz. Some of you may already listen to our World’s First Podcast (and if you do, thank you!). The Oversubscribed Podcast takes a lot of what makes World’s First Podcast great and focuses on the business world. This is a business podcast for anyone and everyone who is curious about stories of success, failure, recovering from rejection, pivoting, and more. Why launch a new podcast? - The lessons that come out of talking to founders, executives, etc can apply to everyone, whether they’re starting a company or not; - We could add something to the (way too few but super impressive) female voices in the startup and venture world; and - We could inject our own personality and - admittedly - often inappropriate humor into the conversations (iykyk). We hope our Oversubscribed Podcast does all of this and more. Link below, and of course you can find it anywhere you can listen to podcasts. More to come! Link: https://lnkd.in/e2E6kynn

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Thrilled to announce BBG Ventures second institutional fund – a $60M early-stage fund backing overlooked founders who are building for the Polycultural Future of America. Thanks Emma Hinchliffe at Fortune for sharing the news: https://lnkd.in/gSwqpHpq We’ve spent the last few years observing the passage of the country from a monoculture to one where women were a bigger part of the story, to today - where identity and lived experience matter more than ever. We call this the Polyculture – a new status quo in which America is a mosaic of unique segments; where identity is multivariate and dynamic; and where individuals can identify with multiple communities at once. I began using this term over 2 years ago, as a cross-culture kid myself: the child of Indian immigrants, growing up in rural Australia - and now an immigrant in America. We wondered - how do Americans perceive identity, and how does that drive their most fundamental needs? We conducted research with +2000 Americans across equal cross sections of race, gender, age and income. Here’s what we found: 1. We have surprisingly common priorities, needs and concerns despite our unique identities. 2. The biggest areas of the economy are still on the table, with Americans highlighting huge areas of opportunity in health, work, financial security, climate safety, and the underserved. 3. But we need new, more nuanced-solutions and personalization considering the emerging majority minority generation, an aging population, widening wealth gaps and continued differences along gender lines. To that end, we’ve officially expanded our mandate to embrace this evolution, backing underestimated founders – female or diverse – addressing the biggest pain points for our polycultural population. Read the full report here: The Mind of Polycultural America - https://lnkd.in/gdtiFE7v We’re proud to partner with new LPs including Fairview Capital, Pivotal Ventures, The California Endowment in addition to our many returning partners like Illumen Capital, George Kaiser Family Foundation who believe as we do: when you make change, you make money. If you’re an early-stage founder working to move the world forward in health, work, financial security, climate safety or for the underserved - in B2B or B2C - we want to talk to you. Susan Lyne Claire Biernacki Drew Silverman Fennessy Carol Magalhães Isaacs, CFA Addison B. Marsh, Jr.

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At BBG Ventures we continue to think about changing demographic shifts and the groups of overlooked Americans at the centre of those shifts. We ask: what are the opportunities to build something valuable for those groups across the biggest areas of the economy to drive prosperity, growth and wellbeing for all Americans, not just some. Future of Work and underserved workers is an arena we've long dug into. This summer, my partner Susan Lyne and investor Carol Magalhães Isaacs, CFA went deeper on Boomers - by 2030, Boomers will outnumber under 18s - living longer, working longer, spending longer - what will their Third Act be? How might AI supercharge their productivity? Check out their post below and share your thoughts with us. Longevity and Prosperity > Death and Decay. If you're building at the intersection of Aging x Work reach out!

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In this week’s Borkowski Media Trends we apply Meltwater data to Justin Timberlake’s DWI crisis to demonstrate two home truths about the new conditions. Negative publicity unfolds at mind-boggling speed and in uncontrollable volumes. BUT.. #PR Crises flare out quickly in the modern news cycle Meme culture can accelerate this process by diluting negative publicity “In the past week, 81% of non-neutral mentions of Timberlake in the media have been negative – that’s over 100,000 stories and significant social media posts. But it’s not all bad; crises these days don’t last long – overall mentions of Timberlake spiked at 132,000 on Wednesday but, as of Friday, have already dropped 93% to below 10,000. And the comedy is undoubtedly distracting from the negativity; nine of the top 10 most shared links about Timberlake in the last week have been memes – with only the first significant share of his mugshot treating his arrest as anything more than a joke. If that doesn’t illustrate the trivial nature of the crisis, there’s also the small matter that the ‘ROFL’ emoji has been used in conjunction with Timberlake’s name over 2,000 more times than ‘DWI’ since the arrest. While instructive, it’s important to note that it would have been very hard, if not impossible, for Timberlake to engineer a situation where a meme distracts the general public from his reputation crisis. Possibly the only major public figures who have done that successfully in recent times have been Donald Trump and Boris Johnson – and neither of them was able to swim against the serious undercurrent of their reputational issues forever. But it does show any errant celebrity worried about a career-ending scandal that the modern news cycle is short-lasting and easily distracted by frivolity...there's hope for us all.” For weekly insights into the PR, Communications and Reputation lessons behind the week’s top stories, delivered every Friday, subscribe to our Substack: https://lnkd.in/eB9ME6VJ #PR, #CrisisCommunications #Reputation #celebrity #reputation #riskmanagement #crisismanagement 

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California's Carbon Champions in this week's Climate Tech Roundup number 21 #climatetechquartet. Cool stuff happening in our state to fight #CO2. Here are 4 #California early-stage companies working on clever ways to capture or utilize carbon. Check them out: Ebb Carbon HQ: California Founders: Ben Tarbell, Matthew Eisaman, Todd Pelman Ebb Carbon uses #electrochemistry to remove carbon dioxide from the ocean while also reducing ocean acidity. Their innovative approach not only helps combat climate change but also addresses the growing problem of #oceanacidification, benefiting marine ecosystems. Blue Planet Environmental Systems Inc. HQ: California Founder: Brent Constantz Blue Planet Systems is creating carbon-negative #concrete by mineralizing CO2 in building materials. Their process captures CO2 from industrial sources and permanently stores it in synthetic #limestone aggregate, which can then be used in concrete production, effectively turning a carbon problem into a valuable #construction material. Curious about more climate tech startup updates? Stay in the loop, I publish a new episode of my #climatetechquartet every week. Twelve HQ: California Founders: Kendra Kuhl, Etosha (Eee-tah-sha) Cave, and Nicholas Flanders Twelve is transforming CO2 into valuable products and materials. Using their carbon transformation technology, they're able to convert captured carbon dioxide into chemicals, materials, and fuels that are typically made from #petroleum. Heirloom HQ: California Founders: Shashank Samala, Noah McQueen Heirloom Carbon is accelerating the natural process of #carbonmineralization. By enhancing the ability of minerals to absorb CO2 from the air, they're developing a scalable, permanent carbon removal solution. #carboncapture #climatetech #CO2 #carbon #carbonoffset #greenstartups #cleantech #california #Innovation #carbonremoval #netzero #sustainability

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The learning, discovery, inspiration, innovation and creativity that makes the in-person SXSW experience so much fun has come and gone for 2024. But the many many many great ideas put forward by so many thought leaders who come to Austin each March are still available via the extensive content on the SXSW YouTube channel. For today's edition of this ongoing SXSW-focused LinkedIn series, we highlight the video for "Masterclass: Storytelling for Social Impact." This session features Amber Payne (publisher and general manager of the Emancipator) and Ibram X Kendi (author nine books, including "How to Be an Antiracist"). These two discus how to take a single, powerful idea and reimagine it to reach entirely new audiences. Their session from SXSW offers practical insights on how you can unleash the power of storytelling to create transformative change. Click here to watch the complete 60-minute video of "Masterclass: Storytelling for Social Impact" https://lnkd.in/gDd5FnYP Or visit the SXSW YouTube page to gain access to hundreds of other informative and entertaining video clips from the 2024 event. https://lnkd.in/dFivB6RN Got a great idea for a session at next year's SXSW? Then be sure to enter your speaking proposal via the SXSW PanelPicker. Speaker proposals accepted via this interface from Tuesday, June 25 until the end of the day on Sunday, July 21. panelpicker.sxsw.com/about #sxsw, #sxsw2024, #sxsw2025, #innovation, #creativity, #inspiration, #storytelling, #movementbuilding, Amber Payne, Ibram X. Kendi, #leadership, #leaders, #masterclass, #socialimpact, #impact #Austin, #ATX, #video, #youtube

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