For the uninitiated, I like to ramble about interesting startups I’ve come across recently. Sometimes there’s a theme, but other times it’s random.
Let’s start with the “unbundling of colleges”, since Lambda School recently raised a $74M C round. You’re starting to see this model across a wide range of skillsets. There’s OnDelta* for marketing, Reforge for growth, ProductSchool for product, Skillfull for strategy & ops, Uvaro* for sales, Insight Fellows* for data science, Microverse* for becoming a remote developer, Acadium offers apprenticeships, and Talent Accelerator is for leveling up freelancers. The ones with an asterisks allow you to pay only after you get a job. The impact of training people for practical and in-demand jobs for no upfront cost will be great for the ecosystem (and hiring managers).
Two projects that tickled my geekier side are Wolfram Physics, tackling the fundamental laws of physics, and Hugging Face, democratizing NLP research. I’m also pretty excited about tele-operated machinery like Reliable Robotics (cargo planes), Einride (trucks), Phantom Auto (forklifts and delivery robots), and Mira Robotics (butler robots).
I saw a handful of health related companies that peaked my interest this month. Soter Technologies has a suite of tools helping places (like schools) open up. Ready is helping restaurants go contactless. Pathspot makes sure employees are washing their hands correctly. Patient Orator and Medcorder help patients communicate with doctors. Levels is a constant glucose monitor for athletes. Ghost Pacer let’s you race yourself with AR glasses.
On the crazier side of things, I’ve been interested in DNA for data storage like Catalog, Twist, and Helixworks. Then there’s these guys at Pipedream Labs building technologies for an underground network of tunnels for physical delivery of things.
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