The Tech Talks Daily Podcast

DCM Ventures is a venture capital firm with over $3 billion under management. Since 1996, they have invested in more than 325 technology companies across the U.S. and Asia. With offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing, and Tokyo, DCM Ventures empowers our entrepreneurs with hands-on operational guidance and a global network of business and financial resources. David Cheng is an investment manager at the venture capital firm. David has a particular focus in AI and agricultural tech.

I speak with Raj Sark on the podcast who tells me all about the success story of Xupo. However, after embarking on a journey from concept -> product design -> Kickstarter -> procurement -> manufacturing -> fulfillment & distribution and product design from hardware, software, apps & qualifications. Sark has a lot of experience and also offers advice for other tech entrepreneurs who want to appear on Dragons Den or showcase their product at CES in Las Vegas.

Kevin Hrusovsky is the CEO of Quanterix and the Founder of the Powering Precision Health Summit. He has more than 25 years experience leading life sciences and biotechnology companies I invited Kevin Hrusovsky onto the show about how we are approaching a more proactive than reactive approach to healthcare where traditionally we used to wait until something was wrong. We also discuss how technological advancements are enabling us all to track the environment’s impact on our health in real time.

Voices.com is the largest global online marketplace for audio and voice over products and services comprised of nearly half a million business clients and voice actors. Although receiving two million unique visitors annually and 250,000 transactions are impressive, it's their startup story that will steal your hearts and minds. This tech startup story has it all. From the moment David Ciccarelli future wife Stephanie mapped out the original idea on a napkin, something special was happening.

Protagonist is a “Narrative Analytics” company that provides brand data to enterprises for marketing purposes. The platform that uses Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to analyze millions of data points via all media channels (social included) is introducing new marketing and communications offerings to enhance data-driven messaging, channel strategy development and brand signature tracking through the Protagonist Platform.

How GroundTruth is using technology to drive in-store visits and sales by leveraging location as the primary source of intent. The company provides foot traffic location data for retailers and predicted Chipotle’s earnings last year stemming from foot traffic. GroundTruth also work the likes of Macy’s, Dillard’s, Walmart, Starbucks and Dunkin’ – providing foot traffic data for seasonal planning, earnings predictions and better consumer insights.

Swanest is a financial technology start-up that develops intelligent investment tools to help investors to build, analyse and manage portfolios in a simple way. The company also introduced a brand-new online investment tool (Investment Assistant), based on algorithms and designed to help private investors make better decisions when investing in stocks, ETFs or mutual funds. I invited Silvan Schumacher, CEO of Swanest onto the show to find out more.

Envoy is building the office of the future by automating away mundane workplace-management tasks like receiving, sorting and dispensing the myriad of packages we have sent to our offices. The app allows whoever is receiving packages at the front desk to snap a picture of the label to automatically email the recipient and send daily reminders. Some of Envoy’s Beta users, including Slack, Box, Github and Mindspace have reported saving hours of time per day using the application.

Storyblocks’ CEO, TJ Leonard revealed insights that indicate a shift in attitudes from the 64M searches and 38M downloads across their sites in the last year (365 days). The results suggest that creators are increasingly globally aware and are unwittingly creating a strong increase in demand for diverse and global content. The data shows that there’s an increasing desire for representation (“LGBT” +782%, “diverse” +27%, and “woman” +21%) as well as for authentic, relatable subjects.

Pavia Systems provides much-needed technology solutions to infrastructure projects across the US. They work with both Departments of Transportation and private companies. Tthe CEO and co-founder George White talks about some of the most interesting innovation in infrastructure such as driverless cars and the requirements they will have, drones in project assessment and making our highways and byways sustainable and reducing the impact on the environment.

The tech startup story behind the Vienna-based hardware company called Robo Wunderkind. They develop modular programmable robots for young children: with Robo Wunderkind, kids can just snap the modules together in different configurations to build their robotics creations. Once the robot is built, it can be programmed in an app, which uses a graphical drag and drop style programming. No prior coding or even reading knowledge is necessary. It teaches children the basics of coding and robotics.

The next-gen Bitmoji competitor just came out of stealth and is valued at $100M from top investors. Genies enables you to create a digital clone of yourself that reacts to the news in real-time throughout the day and be shared with friends. It's like Apple's new Animojis, but more expressive (and without an iPhone X). The creators see this not only as a form of self-expression, but also as a source for news. I talk to Akash Nigam, CEO of Genies about how Avatars are about to take off.

A student team from the University of Michigan won Adobe’s Analytics Challenge in Lehi, UT, taking home $35,000 in prizes. The team competed against schools across the nation to analyze real data (from MGM hotels) and present the best business solution using Adobe analytics tools. We talk about how the Adobe Analytics Challenge focuses on giving college students access to Adobe's analytics products and data from real-world organizations and companies and the inspiration behind them entering.

Fastly is an edge computing provider, the infrastructure backbone supporting the technology that everyday internet users depend on. Fastly has achieved over 100% annualized revenue growth in the last two quarters and doubled its overall customer base. After hearing that their edge cloud platform serves over 10% of internet requests and is performing at rates akin to Salesforce, SuccessFactors, WorkDay, Marketo etc. I invited Artur Bergman, Founder & CEO of Fastly onto the show to find out more.

Whether mature and global or young and aspirational, the new currency of today's high speed economy is innovation. Innovation is resource intensive but critical to every organisation's survival. Accelerating innovation is essential as it enables organisations to shorten the time to commercialisation and maximise R&D returns. By demystifying the complex data associated with the innovation landscape and intellectual property, PatSnap is helping businesses thrive.