Insights
Startups
From the real-world impact of AI and the rise of operator-investors, to the growing influence of women and underestimated founders in the funding landscape. Sarah breaks down what’s happening beyond Silicon Valley, explore how capital and media now move together, and spotlight the billion-dollar ideas driving the next wave of innovation.
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups, Venture Capital
Scaling to $2 billion, Backed By Oprah and Finally Getting to His Why
Nearly 25% of fruits and vegetables are lost globally, and a shocker to some North America is among the global regions with the highest level of food waste. For the company Apeel — mitigating food waste is a multi trillion dollar market opportunity they’re working on, made even more critical by the pandemic.
To keep fruits lasting longer, Apeel has engineered an edible coating product made from plant materials that can make fruit last two to three times as long and is today is commercially available for avocados, organic apples and citrus fruits (mandarins, lemons, limes, finger limes).
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups, Venture Capital
Unleashing AI & The Future of XR with Martina Welkhoff
Unless you’re living under a rock, you know that ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. And with it, a whole conversation surrounding AI, it’s opportunities and yes perils. Well, to go deeper in this, I’m excited to speak with someone who has been working in this space of AI, VR and XR, immersive and extended reality long before it was the hype it is today. Martina Welkhoff, Managing Partner of WXR fund, an early stage fund that invests in two of the greatest opportunities of our time: the next wave of computing + female entrepreneurs; with companies like Obsess AI, BODs and Embodied labs in her portfolio.
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups, Venture Capital
Leveraging Community to Invest in the Future with Jenny Fielding, Everywhere Ventures
Founder turned Funder, from Head of Digital Ventures of the BBC to Managing Director of Techstars, to now Managing Partner of Everywhere Ventures with 250 portfolio companies and counting, Jenny Fielding is the ultimate community builder and investor. Together with Scott Hartley, Jenny is today pursuing a global strategy, as U.S. venture capitalists have taken a step back from deals abroad; launching a new $25M fund, to be the first-check in for startups building in the future of money, health and work.
What does investing as a community mean, what do we think about the upset we’re hearing about Y Combinator’s new terms, how do you manage 500 Limited Partner investors in your fund and what is Jenny’s deepest insecurity? We cover it all and more.
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups, Venture Capital
From Lab to Table: The Startup Founder Revolutionizing the Seafood Industry | Sandhya Sriram, Shiok Meats
What does it take to sell and execute on what feels like an impossible vision?
This, is the task of a stem-cell scientist turned founder who is tapping into the multi-billion opportunity to create lab-grown crustacean meat.
Under Dr. Sandhya Sriram's leadership, Shiok Meats today is the world’s first cultivated shellfish meat company, and Southeast Asia’s first cultivated seafood and meat company. The startup’s mission is to bring delicious, sustainable, and healthy seafood to your table, using the cellular agriculture technology to grow meat from stem cells instead of slaughtering animals.Since its inception in 2018, they have grown from 2 to over 50 employees today, made a strategic acquisition themselves, raised over USD 30 Million dollars from big names from Y Combinator to Korean Conglomerate CJ’s Food Arm.
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups
Diverse Hires ≠ Diverse Goals
Your Chief Diversity Officer is likely leaving; or they've already left.
The CDO tenure at under 2 yrs remains one of the shortest-among all exec roles.
Here's why brands are approaching diversity all wrong!
#diversity
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups
Getting Users Hooked & Regaining Control of Your Attention with Nir Eyal
You're holding yourself back and don't even know it.
A ping on your phone takes you out of a conversation with a friend. At the office, a colleague interrupts your work on a project. At home, screens intrude on time with your partner.
Your goals don’t get done and it feels like someone (or something) is constantly pulling you away from what you really want to do.
Why does it seem we’re no longer in control of our attention or our lives?
How different would your life be if you were “indistractable”?
In today's conversation, I sit down with WSJ Best-Selling Author, investor & legend Nir Eyal who shatters the narrative that the problem is our gadgets, but a symptom of a deeper dysfunction, as he examines in his book 'Indistractable'.
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Startups, Venture Capital
Riding the Venture Downcycle: Investing in Southeast Asia with Dmitry Levit, Cento Ventures
This week we are up for a treat as we take a turn to Southeast Asia—we bust some myths about Southeast Asia's VC activity and the narratives driving the expansion seen in the region. The key question: will the momentum survive this downcycle?
You’re tuning into a two-part episode with venture capitalist Dmitry Levit, Russian-born Israeli citizen who is now deemed an expert of investing in SEA having spent more than a decade building his firm Cento Ventures. They typically invest in Series A and lead the round. Notable investments include 2C2P, Pomelo, iPrice and Kaidee, formerly led by Tiwa York who we also had on the show.
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups
Scaling a $4.2Bn Global Business with Nicole Sahin, G-P
While scaling globally seems often to be part of the 'Billion Dollar Plan', it is hardly as simple as it is thought to be. Nicole Sahin who founded and scaled G-P, a global PEO leader from an idea to over $4Bn in value chats with me in Davos on her thoughts on the future of work, the challenges of globalization and some of her own hard lessons in scaling.
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups
The Non-Political Leader with Global CEO LEGO, Deloitte
The 'non-political' company leader.
In 2020/2021, we saw feathers ruffled when leaders like those from Google Coinbase declared certain "political activism" was a distraction.
Employees walked out since of course, in many ways, we're in a generation that have been told to bring "our full selves to work", including our belief systems.
But how do we as leaders, manage what feels like a double bind?
I ask global leaders,
Niels B. Christiansen, CEO of the LEGO Group,
Stanley Bergman Chair of Henry Schein,
Joseph Ucuzoglu, Global CEO Deloitte to weigh in at #Davos2023 World Economic Forum.
Here's what they said, do you agree?
- Billion Dollar Moves Episodes, Personal Growth, Startups, Venture Capital
The Cost of Influence & Billion Dollar Ambitions with Vivy Yusof, Fashion Valet Group
FashionValet.com, an online marketplace that once stocked over 400 brands across Southeast Asia, became a major regional player in the fashion industry but, by 2022, she had wound the venture down, shifting her focus to her own in-house modest fashion brands, dUCK and Lilit. The silver lining? By 2022, Yusof had built a network of 14 physical stores across Malaysia and Singapore and sold more than 3 million scarves from just one of her brands. Today, we unpack Vivy’s journey, the cost of building a brand around herself, her regret on not acting on her gut and her BILLION DOLLAR AMBITIONS for her next decade in the modest fashion industry.