Food for thought

Food For Thought

Check out this post from Tom Goodwin…

Modern life is reading about how AI will take 60% of admin jobs, while you're phoning around 40 companies, being put on hold each time, to find out if they have something in stock.

Modern life is boarding a plane with your face as ID, before seeing a dot matrix printer holding up the flight because airlines still run on actual paperwork.

Modern life is the iPhone having precise 3D data of 30,000 points on your face to pay for a $3 coffee, but needing to waft a pen over a piece of paper in an office to sign a contract to get a loan to show it's you.

Modern life is the very most important documents in your life are bits of easily photocopied paper, send slowly to you by physical mail, easily lost or intercepted on the way, while irrelevant messages are send electronically, securely and immediately to email folders you can only access with a password.

None of these are moans. It's just worth remembering that change happens at different levels and at different speeds.

Nuclear power plants run on air gapped computers from the 1960's, nuclear weapons launch codes are on floppy discs, the healthcare system runs on paper.

The more important something is, the more likely the slower it changes.

Housing, Education, Energy, Healthcare, remain the most vital elements of society and they all change the slowest or not at all. While the trivialities of life change the fastest.

Well worth thinking about this next time you think Tech X will change everything, it may change your retailers stock tomorrow but not your kids education .

M&A

• Blend360 acquired FutureproofAI (marketing tech consulting).

• Mizuho acquired Greenhill (investment banking).

• Snowflake acquired Neeva (intelligent search).

*transactions have been announced but may not be closed

Fundraising

• Ariadne (location data and crowd analytics) raised $7M in a Series A led by Marathon Venture Capital.

• Datasembly (CPG & retail data) raised $16M in a Series B led by Noro-Moseley Partners.

• Novisto (ESG data management) raised $20M in a Series B led by Inovia Capital.

• OpenFin (interoperability) raised $35M in a Series D led by Bank of America.

• Satellite Vu (thermal satellite imaging) raised £12.7M in a Series A2 led by Molten Ventures.

• Twirl (managed data platform) raised $2.5M in a Pre-Seed round led by Creandum.

People Moves, Promotions, and Appointments

• Noah Berliner was promoted to Global Head of Sales at Moody’s Analytics.

• Leigh Marie Braswell joined Kleiner Perkins as a Partner.

• Justin Brickwood was promoted to Chief Product Officer at Rimes.

• Rich Carbone joined Balyasny Asset Management in Business Development.

• Kevin Crowley joined LightBox as VP of Sales.

• Rachel Lojko joined Fitch Solutions as Chief Commercial Officer.

• Philipp Mueller joined Outsell as Chief Product Officer and Chief Analyst.

• Bryce Reid joined MedMine as VP of Sales.

• Natasha Shamis joined the Advisory Board of MarketReader.

• Patricia Wilson joined CFRA Research as Global Head of Research.

Who’s Hiring

• 3E is hiring a Head of Marketing.

• Inrix is hiring a Director, Customer Success.

• PEI Group is hiring a Head of Data Science & Engineering.

• S&P Global is hiring a Global Head of Strategy, S&P Global Ratings

• Simon Data is hiring a VP, Solutions Engineering.

• Tegus is hiring a Head of Content.

What I’m reading

• An Alternative Data Algorithm Example by Alex Izydorczyk on Substack.

• The Right Stuff, a new Substack from my old colleague Justin Frank.

• VK Data Dispatch, a new newsletter from Vertical Knowledge.

• The Seed 100: The Best Early-Stage Investors of 2023 in Insider.

• The Significance of Institutional Knowledge in Data Science by Scott Cohen on LinkedIn.

• DataIQ 100 - The Most Influential People in Data

• Climate and ESG Data and Analytics Deals, a LinkedIn post from my old colleague, Cornelius Graubner, who has been tracking deal activity in the space and produced the awesome infographic below…

What I’m Listening To

Upcoming Events

*new events added since last newsletter

• Amass Insights - Alternative Data Happy Hour - May 31, NYC

• *People Data Labs - Hot. Data. Summer. - May 31, NYC

• Neudata New York Summer Data Summit - June 1, NYC

• Low-Key Data Happy Hour - June 1, NYC

• Datatechvibe Velocity Data and Analytics Summit - June 5-7, Dubai

• Eagle Alpha UNBOUND New York - June 6, NYC

• FISD Alternative Data Council: Expert Networks Panel and Networking - June 7, NYC

• *StoryIQ Data Storytelling for Business - June 7, NYC

• FISD London - June 13, London

• Substantive Research Unbundling Uncovered - June 14, NYC

• *StoryIQ Data Storytelling for Business - Virtual - June 15, Virtual

• FinTech Connect North America - June 27, NYC

• *Low-Key Data Conference - July 12, Virtual