Industrial Tech Startups In The San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley are considered the worldwide center of software and technology innovation.

The SF Bay Area was a hot bed of industrial production up until the end of the cold war.  However, one Tesla plant does not make up for the little that is left of that industrial base.

A new generation of disruptive industrial tech and manufacturing startups has been funded since 2012, the top ten alone to the tune of more than 2.7B US Dollars:

• Carbon
• Diamond Foundry
• Bright Machines
• Velo3D
• Covariant
• Flexiv Robotics
• Fictiv
• MycoWorks
• ARRIS Composites
• Everactive

Vertically integrated manufacturing startups dominate the top 10. Six of the top ten are founder led, and two of the top 10 were founded in 2012; the last in 2018.

Read 👉 here 👈 for the complete overview and deep dives.

This article was first published on LinkedIn on September 21, 2023.

The market dynamics of Industrial Tech software

 

Image credit: presentationpoint.com/blog/data-signals-triggers-industry-4-0

The automation industry has completed 3 transformations, and each transformation has created a new set of players.

The market for business process software alone was > $60 Billion in 2022. It is dominated by established SW generalists, SW specialists and industrialist companies. These incumbent players have acquired to enter new market segments.

Will new standalone companies establish themselves in the Industry 4.0 category?

Read 👉 here 👈 for a comprehensive overview. 

This article was first published on LinkedIn on October 24, 2023

HXM Software Trends

 

Credit: GPT

Human Experience Management (HXM) is one of the most exciting software markets segments: People constantly change, and sometimes very quickly. Each emerging generation, such as millennials and Gen Z, introducesnovel behaviors and expectations. Underlying trends such as artificial intelligence technologies, a growing contingent workforce, the ongoing globalization, and most recently, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, result in exciting changes in the workplace.

👉This deck 👈 provides an overview of HXM trends, software categories, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, of unicorn startups and of the mega trend 'distributed work' as of 2022.

This article was first published on LinkedIn on January 9, 2024

Where German Tech Unicorn Founders Should Go Public

Many founders of tech unicorns in Germany have to choose whether to go public in Germany or in the US. These choices come with big trade offs regarding incorporation and board governance.

To cut to the chase: Tech founders wanting to play in the big leagues should list on NASDAQ or NYSE in the US.

👉 And this is why 

Viele Gründer von Tech Unicorns in Deutschland müssen sich entscheiden, ob sie in Deutschland oder in den USA an die Börse gehen wollen. Diese Entscheidungen verlangen nach einer umfassenden und gründlichen Abwägung der verschiedenen Optionen. 

Aber um es kurz zu machen: Tech Startupgründer, die in der ersten Liga mitspielen wollen, sollten an der NASDAQ oder NYSE in den USA notieren.

👉 Und hier ist warum 

This article was first published on LinkedIn on September 12, 2023

How UiPath’s European Founder Kept Control and Built an Expert Board of Directors For His High Tech Startup

 

European startup founders typically raise their first funding rounds from European venture capital firms.

While being private they tend to be subject to governance rules which have been copied from the US venture markets.

The awakening comes as the successful founders approach the opportunity to take their startup public in Europe: They are often faced with lower valuations, loss of founder control, and with boards which are elected by shareholders without CEO and founder input and control. And hence, Daniel Dines of UIPath elected to list the company's shares on NYSE.

Going public on U.S. markets like NYSE or NASDAQ comes with specific governance boundary conditions. For instance, they allow for the founder CEO to serve as the chair of the board of directors. An in reality, UIPath is a founder 'controlled company' in NYSE terms but tries not to appear as such. For instance, three of the board members are venture capitalist who helped fund the company and yet are listed as 'independent directors'. It is not surprising, that UiPath's governance score is low. 

But there is no statistical correlation between a company's governance score and total return to shareholders. 

Read on if you want to find out how UiPath’s Daniel Dines kept control and built an expert board of directors for his high tech startup 👉 here 👈

This article was first published on LinkedIn on December 5, 2023

The Founder Journey To CEO After Series A

 

Venture capitalists make Series A investments in companies with product market fit (PMF), expecting an exponential growth trajectory towards future a unicorn outcome.

A. Unicorn. Outcome.

These expectations put enormous pressure on the founding team just when they have achieved a major milestone. 

A founder team lead is expected to grow into CEO who forms, norms and manages a high performing team. It is the first of many major turning points in the personal and business development journey of a founder.

Steve Jobs wouldn't have been able to grow Apple into a company without changing his leadership behavior. And every founder is faced with similar challenges.

The Series A funding event is a first step change in a startup's life and comes with significantly higher expectations. 

I have the privilege to work with many pre-seed founders and companies that go on to raise subsequent rounds of funding. 

Here is a short guide on what to do at the beginning of the journey from founder to CEO👇

The Founder Journey To CEO Arter Series A.

A version of this article was first published on LinkedIn on March 21, 2024

Industrial Tech SW: Category Renewal And Creation

Every industrial revolution has created a new set of categories and a new set of players. But the industrial tech software space has lacked IPOs and has been dominated by consolidation among existing players in the decade after the term 'Industry 4.0' was coined.

Multiple new technologies have emerged, and according to Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction many new categories should have been created. And yet, Samsara and C3.ai are the only companies which have gone public so far.

There is good news: The pipeline of emerging industrial tech startups is stacked with many promising unicorns and IPO candidates. Manufacturing startups constitute the largest share in the SF Bay Area, and software startups dominate this segment in Germany.

More here 👇

This article was first published on LinkedIn on June 11, 2024