Episode 368 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Matthias Hofmann, Co-Founder & CEO of Eyebot.

I met Matthias and Jack, Eyebot’s Co-Founder & CTO at a pre-party for TechCrunch’s Early Stage event in Boston a couple of years ago.

It was one of those meetings that when someone describes their product - an AI powered kiosk that could conduct vision tests in 90 seconds… it sounded like something out of science fiction… but it made you pause and think… what if they actually build this… the market opportunity is massive - like TAM - everyone in the world massive.

On top of that, here are some crazy stats of the void in the market that needs to be addressed with a solution:

40,000 unfilled eye doctor positions in the U.S. - more doctors retiring than graduating from school)
25% of U.S. counties don't have a practicing eye care provider 
63% of Americans don't have vision insurance

Well, this product and solution became a reality when Eyebot announced its partnership with Zenni Optical by deploying their kiosks in various locations and as you’ll hear from Matthias… the pipeline of demand for their kiosks is incredibly strong. 

Another crazy stat that he shared with me is that the team is only 14 people.

It’s another perfect example of the level of innovation in the Boston tech scene with several next generation hardware & robotics companies that are emerging like 10 Beauty, Ozlo Sleepbuds, Pickle Robot, and many more.

Eyebot raised a $6M seed round of funding last year led by AlleyCorp and Ubiquity Ventures with participation from other top investors.

In this podcast, we cover:

* Eyebot’s first appearance at CES this year and advice on how to create a buzz.
* Matthias’ background story and how positions at EyeNetra & Formlabs helped shape his career.
* The full story of Eyebot and the challenges in the market that they are addressing.
* How their technology works, plus their go-to-market strategy, and details on funding.
* Advice for founders on building hardware and raising capital.
* And so much more.

Episode Sponsor:

As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Episode 368: Matthias Hofmann - Co-Founder & CEO, Eyebot

Episode 369 of The  @Venturefizz  Podcast features Krenar Komoni, CEO & Founder of Tive.

The question: “What led you down the path to start this company?” is always interesting, as you never know what ultimately inspired the entrepreneur. It could be years of experience working in an industry, maybe it is a personal experience, or it could be a tremendous amount of research to find a problem that’s worth solving… or in the case of Krenar and Tive, it could be your family as the idea stems from his father-in-law’s trucking company and the manual process of located its drivers.  From Krenar’s point of view, it is a problem that could be fixed with a tracking system and oh… it is a problem that Krenar just happens to be uniquely qualified to solve based on his expertise and background with wireless connectivity, hardware, and chipsets.

Fast forward to today, Tive is a leading provider of supply chain and logistics visibility technology. Trusted by over 900 customers, the company recently announced a $40M Series C round of funding led by WiL (World Innovation Lab) and Sageview Capital.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
02:23 Advice for Raising Follow On Rounds of Venture Capital
08:47 Krenar's Background Story in Kosovo
11:11 Landing in Vermont & Experience at Startups
19:45 Background Story of Tive
23:32 Industry Trends
25:22 Naming the Company
28:25 Landing First Customers
30:50 Early GTM Approach & Learning from the Sales Team
36:08 Picking the Right Industry Vertical
43:19 The Latest at Tive
46:35 The Question that Entrepreneurs Need to Ask Themselves.
48:09 The Culture at Tive
48:20 New Chapter
50:06 Apps &  Book Recommendations

Episode: 369: Krenar Komoni - CEO & Founder, Tive

Episode 370 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Toshit Panigrahi, Co-Founder & CEO and Olivia Joslin, Co-Founder & COO of TollBit.

There are going to be so many amazing benefits and advancements that are a result of the platform shift to AI. However, in this new world, many industries will need to go through radical transformation and the publishing industry is right in that mix.

We even see some of these issues with VentureFizz, of course at a much smaller scale as compared to major publishers. For example, if you are searching for information about some startups in Boston, it’s possible that the results will include content from VentureFizz in the results from Google Gemini.

While in one regard, it is great that Google views us as an authority on the topic, it does however eliminate the need for the consumer to come to our site because they likely have their question answered. It’s really not a major problem for us because of our business model, but it is certainly a major problem for publishers who count on pageviews for ad revenue.

Enter TollBit, a two-sided marketplace for AI companies and publishers started by two alumni of Toast. The platform seeks to address the new economics of content creation in the AI era by reducing the legal uncertainties of scraping and protecting the health of the entire content ecosystem.

The company recently announced a $24M Series A round of funding in October of last year which comes shortly after raising a $7M seed round in March of last year, as well.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of great topics:

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:10 AI & the Media Industry
03:51 Olivia's & Toshit's Background & Professional Journey
12:48 Starting TollBit
17:46 The Details of TollBit's Platform
25:07 TollBit's Funding & Pitch Advice
31:06 TollBit's Business Model
37:27 The Importance of Advisors for Your Startup
39:12 Lessons Learned While Building TollBit
42:18 Hiring
44:11 App & Podcast Recommendations

Episode Sponsor:

As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Episode 370: Toshit Panigrahi & Olivia Joslin - Co-Founders, TollBit

Episode 371 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Melissa Withers, Managing Partner & Co-Founder of RevUp Capital.

As an entrepreneur, are you thinking about your capital stack? Meaning, how are you going about funding your company? There are lots of options… you could bootstrap, raise money from friends & family, grants,  and of course, raise venture capital which is the most discussed option in the media and blog posts.

But, one vehicle that I don’t think is talked about enough is Revenue Based Financing which is a non-dilutive form of financing where repayments are tied to a percentage of the company's revenue. 

In this interview with Melissa, we get into lots of details about what why this is a compelling option for entrepreneurs as RevUp is focused on this category as a non-equity investment fund for B2B and B2C companies ascending the $1M-$10M growth curve. 

In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of great topics:

* Melissa’s background and the story of her journey to becoming an investor.
* All the details about RevUp and how their model works.
* The importance of storytelling when pitching your startup to investors.
* KPI’s and figuring out your company’s God Metric.
* The importance of mental health and balance for entrepreneurs.
* And so much more


Episode 371: Melissa Withers - Managing Partner & Co-Founder, RevUp Capital

Episode 372 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Florian Hillen, CEO & Founder of VideaHealth.

It goes without saying that AI is going to transform pretty much every industry, but I think there is such a unique opportunity in healthcare as the benefits are hopefully going to be extraordinary.  

The tricky thing about building a company in healthcare is that it’s heavily regulated industry, so you need to get FDA approval on the algorithms and AI technology if you are building software as a medical device, so that is going to take a lot of time… but once you get there, it makes your company highly defensible.  

And this is the very case of VideaHealth which was ahead of the curve as an AI native company that has been in existence for 6.5 years and crossed the hurdles of the FDA. 

Fast forward to today, VideaHealth has scaled to over 40,000 dental clinicians using their platform every day for identifying and treating dental conditions and the company is processing over a half of a billion x-rays a year. VideaHealth recently announced a $40M Series B round of funding.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:10 The Rise of AI in Healthcare
03:19 Florian's Journey from Medicine to Entrepreneurship
08:35 Founding VideaHealth: The Vision Behind the Company
12:03 The Importance of Oral Health and Its Impact
13:34 Early Days of VideaHealth
18:10 Transforming Dental Practices with AI
25:06 Scaling Through Strategic Partnerships
26:56 Hiring and Company Culture at Video Health
30:00 Lessons Learned in Building a Startup
30:15 Hiring & the Importance of Talent Density
31:09 Priorities and What You "Do Not Do"
31:49 Be Customer Obsessed
32:59 Process for Fundraising
39:07 App, Podcast, & Book Recommendations

Episode 372: Florian Hillen - Founder & CEO, VideaHealth

Episode 373 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Jeff Bussgang, General Partner at Flybridge. 

Jeff has accomplished so much throughout his career.  I’m sure lots of people probably know him best as a Venture Capitalist and Professor at Harvard Business School.

But... you might not know the details about his startup career prior to Flybridge which I was really excited to dig into because he played a key role at two incredibly successful companies in the Boston tech scene.

The first being OpenMarket, which pretty much invented eCommerce with its shopping cart technology that was licensed by companies like Amazon when they were just getting started.  The company went public at a billion dollar valuation back in 1996 which was a very big deal.

The second company is Upromise, where he was a Co-Founder along with Michael Bronner, who was also the Founder of Digitas and really helped establish the world of direct & loyalty marketing and David Fialkow, who you might also recognize as one of the founders of General Catalyst.  Upromise allowed consumers, including myself, to save for their kids' college education through a loyalty rewards program.  The company was very successful and it was later acquired by Sallie Mae.

In addition to being an entrepreneur, investor, and professor, Jeff is also an author of three books and his latest book is called The Experimentation Machine - Finding Product-Market Fit in the Age of AI.

Plus we talk about his Dad (Julian Bussgang), a scientist and entrepreneur who developed the Bussgang Theorem, Jeff's educational background in AI, Flybridge’s history of investments in AI, Hack.Diversity and so much more!

Chapters:

00:00 Intro
00:05 Jeff's New Book - The Experimentation Engine
04:47 Jeff's Background and Early Influences
08:47 The Story of OpenMarket & Shopping Cart Tech
17:21 The Creation of Upromise
25:06 Transition to Venture Capital & Flybridge
26:37 Flybridge's History & Focus on AI
32:50 Flybridge's Investment Process
34:13 Advice on Go-to-Market Strategy
35:36 Getting Pitched by Curt Schilling
38:03 Teaching at Harvard Business School
39:48 Career Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
42:22 Must-Have Versus Nice-to-Have Products
44:00 Hack.Diversity
46:46 The Boston Tech Ecosystem & AI
52:55 Recommendations - Apps & Podcasts

Episode Sponsor:

As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Episode 373: Jeff Bussgang - General Partner, Flybridge

Episode 374 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Dave Blundin, serial entrepreneur & investor.

Dave’s track record is legendary as one of the top entrepreneurs and investors in the Boston tech scene. 

He’s co-founded 23 companies… and many have been incredibly successful:

* DataSage - acquired by Vignette for over $1B in today’s dollars
* EverQuote - which went public
* Vestmark - manages over $2 trillion in assets

Companies like CourseAdvisor, Jobcase, Autotegrity, LeadKarma were all acquired.

Plus he’s invested in CarGurus, TripAdvisor… and he is the Founder & General Partner of Link Ventures and he’s also the founder of the startup incubator, Cogo Labs.

One might think that after all of this success, Dave would downshift and relax… but it is the exact opposite.  He has been waiting for this moment since he was 14 years old and that is the current platform shift to AI.

He studied AI at MIT back in 1984 and pioneered quantizing neural networks as early as 1992.  Needless to say… his time is now and he believes that it has the potential to be the greatest thing that ever happened to humanity. He wants to savor the moment and work to train and build faster, better, & smarter AI.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
02:43 Dave Blundin's Journey Begins
08:27 Founding DataSage and Early Innovations
15:55 Meeting Jeff Bezos & Building Personalization at Amazon
18:18 DataSage Acquisition by Vignette
20:59 Founding Story of Vestmark & Its Scale
27:39 Link Ventures & Cogo Labs - Building Consumer Companies at Scale
32:31 Story of EverQuote to IPO
35:04 The Best Friend Method for Investing
36:33 AI & The Importance of Chip Manufacturing
41:45 The AI Revolution & Opportunities
44:11 Liquid AI: General-Purpose AI Systems at Every Scale
47:45 Boston's Talent Density & MIT's Advantage
53:44 Personal Insights and Hobbies
57:40 Podcast & Book Recommendations

Episode Sponsor:

As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Episode 374: Dave Blundin - Serial Entrepreneur & Investor

Episode 375 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Becca Xiong, Managing Director of Programs & Engagement at Harvard Innovation Labs.

Becca is a serial entrepreneur with the rare experience of having success in both consumer and B2B products. She was a Co-Founder of an early social networking startup called Going.com which was acquired by AOL and then she went with her fellow Co-Founder, Roy Rodenstein to start SocMetrics, a social insights platform for marketers that was also acquired.

This combination of experiences makes Becca the perfect leader for the Harvard i-lab where 1 in 9 students across all of the schools under the Harvard umbrella are a member of the i-lab. 

Since its founding in 2011, the i-lab has supported over 6,000 ventures that have gone on to raise over $8B in funding including unicorns like WHOOP, Shield AI, Mark43, Lightmatter, and others.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
02:34 The Most Common Startup Mistakes
04:40 The Importance of Storytelling for Startups
06:31 Becca's Background Story
09:26 Early Career and Startup Experiences
13:28 The Story of Going.com
27:00 Building Socmetrics: A Social Insights Platform
30:34 Difference Between Building B2B & Consumer Products
32:52 Transitioning from Startups to Supporting Entrepreneurs
36:05 The Harvard i-lab: Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship
40:46 How the Harvard i-lab Supports Student Entrepreneurs
43:55 Alumni from the Harvard i-lab
45:10 Using ChatGPT for Customer Research
47:05 Startup Pitch Advice
51:15 Fundraising Advice
53:34 Book Recommendation for Founders

Episode 375: Becca Xiong - Managing Director, Harvard Innovation Labs

Episode 381 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Mike Massaro, CEO of Flywire, a global payments enablement and software company.

This is the full lifecycle story of an idea to a pillar publicly traded tech company in the Boston tech scene and it has it all. An international founder who discovered a major problem while trying to pay his tuition at MIT, to Mike joining the company after its Series A, an evolving business model from consumer to B2B, navigating choppy near death experiences to scaling aggressively, then raising multiple rounds of venture funding to an IPO, and more!

It really is an inspirational story for all entrepreneurs to hear, as it is never an easy up & to the right story.  There is so much that goes into building a successful company and this one does not disappoint.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
02:17 Learning to Lead & the Importance of Communication
04:51 Mike's Background & Getting Started in Tech at edocs
15:00 Carrier IQ
19:47 The early days of Flywire
19:52 Navigating the Go-to-Market Strategy
29:52 Moving into the Role as CEO of Flywire
31:55 Challenging Times
35:09 Scaling the Company & Playing Long Ball
39:17 Expanding into New Industries
41:47 The Impact of COVID-19
45:20 Flywire IPO
50:06 Looking Ahead: Growth and Innovation
51:42 Building a Strong Company Culture
57:12 The Importance of a Strong Board of Directors
59:50 Hiring for Leadership Roles
01:02:13 Apps, Books, & Fun

Episode Sponsor:

As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Episode 381: Mike Massaro - CEO, Flywire

Episode 386 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Shahid Azim, Managing Partner & CEO of C10 Labs, an AI venture fund and studio.

When ChatGPT was released towards the end of 2022, it changed everything and the AI era officially began.

It was perfect timing for Shahid and his two co-founders of C10 Labs that being Professor Ramesh Raskar and Dr. Patricia Geli, as the organization was born out of a course they were co-instructors on called AI for Impact.

They knew the time was now and it was an opportunity to build a market leading venture studio that is specifically focused on AI-first companies.

They were early to the movement and helped create the spark for the AI ecosystem in the Boston area. Fast forward to today, Shahid and the team at C10 Labs are deeply involved in creating the core foundation for AI in the Boston tech ecosystem from the startups that are participating in their accelerator to playing a key role in lots of other initiatives like the Massachusetts AI Hub.  Overall, C10 Labs is making a major impact.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Details about how C10 Labs came to fruition.
* Shahid’s background story and his journey into entrepreneurship.
* The details about Shahid’s startups which focused on lots of important matters like brain health or heart health like Quanttus, a VC backed company with ground breaking tech for a continuous blood pressure monitoring wearable device that came before the launch of the Apple Watch.
* All about C10 Labs and what companies can expect by going through their program.
* The criteria they look for while reviewing companies for their accelerator and the details on their upcoming AI Biology cohort this fall.
* Common stumbling blocks for native AI companies.
* And so much more.

Episode 386: Shahid Azim - Managing Partner & CEO, C10 Labs

Episode 394 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Brian Stempeck, CEO & Co-Founder of Evertune.

Think about how people search for things on the web now and GenAI’s massive impact.   A lot of people just go straight to different platforms like ChatGPT with the goal of just getting the answer to what they are searching for versus having to go to a website to find the details. 

This evolution matters and it matters a lot, especially if you are a brand or publisher.  In the past, you had to worry about SEO to hopefully rank high in the Google search results.  Now, the rules have changed and companies are trying to figure out what to do.  

Is your brand being mentioned in the LLMs? If so, what is being said?  And if you ask multiple times, how does the response vary from the LLMs versus the consistency of the search results that you would get from Google.

It’s a wild wild west and this was the void that Brian recognized and led him down the path of starting Evertune, which helps companies build its brand presence for visibility in AI search.  It’s a category called GEO that being Generative Engine Optimization.  

The company recently announced a $15M Series A funding, led by Felicis Ventures, including returning investors Eniac Ventures, NextView Ventures, Roger Ehrenberg and others. 

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* A discussion around the shift in consumer behavior and how they are looking for information in the world of GenAI.
* Brian’s background and getting his career started as a journalist and then working in consulting at Bain after business school.
* How he got involved in The Trade Desk as employee #8 even without adtech or sales experience.
* The full lifecycle story of The Trade Desk to an IPO in 2016 and how they differentiated from the competition.
* How Brian’s role evolved through the years at the company and how he gained a board seat.
* His biggest lessons learned from his experience at The Trade Desk.
* The background story of Evertune and what led him and his co-founders down the path of starting the company.
* All the details of Evertune and how they are helping brands and agencies.
* Advice for building out your GTM strategy and a key piece of advice for hiring salespeople.
* And so much more!

Episode 394: Brian Stempeck - CEO & Co-Founder, Evertune

The VentureFizz Podcast is the flagship podcast of VentureFizz.com, the leading authority for jobs & careers in tech. In this podcast, VentureFizz Founder Keith Cline interviews the top founders and investors in the tech industry.

Episode 394: Brian Stempeck - CEO & Co-Founder, Evertune

The VentureFizz Podcast

Related tracks