News & Insights
On the Record with Nate Cavanaugh, CoFounder & Co-CEO of FlowFi
On the Record with Nate Cavanaugh, CoFounder & Co-CEO of FlowFi.
In 2021, Nate co-founded of FlowFi, a SaaS-enabled marketplace that connects startups and SMBs with finance experts. FlowFi has raised $10M from top VC firms including Blumberg Capital, Differential Ventures, Clocktower Ventures and Precursor Ventures, and generated 7-figures of annual recurring revenue in its first year.
Nate was nominated to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Enterprise Technology.
On the Record with Elissa Ross, CoFounder & CEO of Metafold
On the Record with Elissa Ross, CoFounder & CEO of Metafold. Elissa Ross is a mathematician and the CEO of Toronto-based startup Metafold 3D. Metafold makes an engineering design platform for additive manufacturing, with an emphasis on supporting engineers using metamaterials, lattices and microstructures at industrial scales. Elissa holds a PhD in discrete geometry (2011), and worked as an industrial geometry consultant for the 8 years prior to cofounding Metafold. Metafold is the result of observations made in the consulting context about the challenges and opportunities of 3D printing.
Banking in Venture Capital & the Tech Industry
On Tuesday, April 25th, 2023, Differential Ventures hosted a webinar on “Banking in Venture Capital & the Tech Industry”. The panel was moderated by David Magerman, Managing Partner of Differential Ventures, and joined by guest speakers Michael Crook (Chief Investment Officer, Mill Creek Capital Advisers), Samir Kaji (CEO & Cofounder, Allocate), and Matt Streisfeld (General Partner, Oak HC/FT).
David Magerman: Why Sophistication Will Win Out In The Machine Learning Ops Sector
UniteAI: There’s no question that machine learning operations (MLOps) is a burgeoning sector. The market is projected to reach $700 million by 2025 – almost four times what it was in 2020.
Still, while technically sound and powerful, these solutions haven’t generated the expected revenue, which has raised concerns about future growth.
The Implications of Generative AI in Different Parts of Industry & Society
On Thursday, March 16th, Differential Ventures hosted our first webinar entitled Implications of Generative AI in Different Parts of Industry + Society. The panel was moderated by David Magerman, Managing Partner of Differential Ventures, and joined by guest speakers Sharon Zhang (Cofounder & CTO, Personal.ai), Erik Bernhardsson (Founder, Modal Labs), and Adam Oliner (Founder & CEO, Graft).
The Seed of Success
Welcome to the "Private Placement Perspective," a new pod storm series hosted by Matt Brown. In this first series of 2023, Matt dives deep into the world of venture capital and investing, speaking with investors and CEOs who have successfully helped scale start-ups.
How to Pitch Me
TECHCRUNCH: How to pitch me—7 investors discuss what they’re looking for in March 2023
Systemic Bias in Data Makes AI a Stereotype Machine
InsideBigData: Artificial intelligence (AI) software systems have been under attack for years for systematizing bias against minorities. Banks using AI algorithms for mortgage approvals are systematically rejecting minority applicants. Many recruiting tools using AI are biased against minority applicants. In health care, African Americans are victims of racial bias from AI-based hospital diagnostic tools. If you understand how data science research produces the models that power AI systems, you will understand why they perpetuate bias, and also how to fix it.
On the Record with Deddy Lavid, CoFounder & CEO of Cyvers
On the Record with Deddy Lavid, CoFounder & CEO of CyVers. Deddy Lavid is a serial ML entrepreneur. He is skilled in giving life to abstract, cutting-edge ideas and turning them into powerhouses. He has founded 3 startups from the ground up (a 0 to 1 kind of person), including one which was acquired, and one that is currently growing fast. Deddy loves envisioning the future and builds amazing teams that focus on making these visions a reality.
Government of Canada invests over $14 million to create jobs and grow economy across Greater Toronto Area
While in Toronto, Minister Tassi joined representatives at an event hosted by Cognota Inc. and Mero Technologies Inc. Cognota, is a Toronto-based software company that provides AI-enabled learning applications. The company’s LearnOps platform helps customers find new ways to manage strategy, intake …
How global unrest will impact innovation in 2023
TECHCRUNCH: The global economic and political turmoil of the past year has had a meaningful impact on corporate innovation in the technology industry and beyond. All of these factors have led to belt-tightening in the corporate world, layoffs and hiring freezes and a more conservative investment posture from the investment community. Inevitably, these changes will have a chilling effect on innovation in the years to come.
However, there is perhaps a silver lining when it comes to the prospects for innovation. In some ways, these market forces might actually serve as an accelerant for creativity and advancement in technology.
David Magerman in Fast Company’s “The Biggest Tech Trends of 2023”
FAST COMPANY: Fundraising as a business model is dead. Valuations in the tech industry will ultimately settle above pre-pandemic levels, but down from 2021. The top companies will be surprisingly closer to the record highs. There is still a significant amount of undeployed cash in venture funds at all stages. Investors and managers are still smarting from recent pain, and appropriately chastened by overly exuberant valuations, but they will have to deploy their capital eventually. Once markets and macroeconomic forces stabilize, we should see the strong companies returning to 2021 valuations.
On the Record with Tomide Adesanmi, CoFounder & CEO of Circuit Mind
Tomide Adesanmi is the Co-founder/CEO of Circuit Mind, a venture-backed startup that is developing intelligent software for electronic engineers. Circuit Mind's software enables electronics teams to design faster and better by specifying their input requirements and exploring automatically generated design options in seconds/minutes. Before Circuit Mind, Tomide was an electronic systems engineer at BAE Systems, where he developed Heads Up Display Systems and Helmet Mounted Display Systems for jet fighter pilots.
Israel’s cybersecurity startup Cyvers secures $8M Seed funding to make Web3 and crypto exchanges safer
Today, Cyvers announced it has raised $8 million in seed funding to protect against fraudulent cryptocurrency purchases before reaching the ledger. What makes this critical is that in 98% of the cases, crypto exchanges, DeFi protocols, and custodians are not alerted about the fraud until after it has been immutably registered.
Startup Hustle Podcast with David Magerman: The Limits of AI/ML
n this episode of Startup Hustle, Matt DeCoursey and David Magerman, Managing Partner & CTO of Differential Ventures, talk about the limits of AI/ML. Learn about AI and ML learning modes, their limitations, and how you can maximize the use of data and machine learning to improve your own processes.
Perfecting privacy: Private AI secures $8M USD in funding to expand their “Privacy Layer for Software”
Private AI’s solution gets to the root of the problem by identifying, removing, and replacing personal data with an unparalleled level of accuracy. With $8 million secured in Series A funding, they have begun expanding their operations across Europe and investing in product enhancements, such as the forthcoming self-service platform.
On the Record with Itay Sinuani, CoFounder & CEO of Demoleap
Itay Sinuani is the Co-Founder & CEO of Demoleap. He has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management; Information Systems Engineering, and an MBA from the Tel Aviv University Coller School of Management. Itay previously worked at ServiceWise and Salesforce before founding Demoleap in 2019. He currently lives in the Tel Aviv area with his family.
Alternative Fund Podcast with Renaissance veteran and venture capitalist David Magerman
David Magerman, a venture capitalist with Differential Ventures and former quantitative hedge fund manager with Renaissance Technologies, was the guest on episode five of the Alternative Fund Insight podcast.
On the Record with Marc Stevens, CEO & CoFounder of Row64
Marc is the Co-Founder and CEO at Row64. Previously, Marc was the CEO of Boon AI (a Gradient Ventures portfolio company), bringing “low code” machine learning solutions to the media and entertainment markets. Before getting into startups, Marc spent 25 years as a technology executive in the media and entertainment markets for large multi-national corporations, managing industry-leading product portfolios for Autodesk's media and entertainment division, the 3D division of Avid Technology, and the Softimage division of Microsoft.
Demoleap raises $4.4 million to Shift the Sales Process Towards AI-guided Selling Solutions
Demoleap, the only AI-powered live demo assistant and sales discovery platform empowering sales teams, today announced the completion of their $4.4 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures and Differential Ventures with additional participation by 25madison, Ground up, and other key angel investors.