Forward

We sat down with Cockroach Labs’ (last valued at $5B)  Spencer Kimball to talk about the value of the CEO coach to a startup founder, the key factors making this relationship effective, and why being honest with your team is critical for the company’s success.

Cockroach Labs is the creator of CockroachDB, the most highly evolved, cloud-native, distributed SQL database on the planet. Helping companies of all sizes — and the apps they develop — to scale fast, survive failures, and thrive everywhere. CockroachDB is in use at some of the world’s largest enterprises across all industries, including some of the most recognized companies in banking, media & entertainment, retail, and technology. Headquartered in New York City, Cockroach Labs is backed by Altimeter, Benchmark, Greenoaks, GV, Firstmark, Index Ventures, Lone Pine, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, and Workbench. 

Web: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cockroach-labs/

CEO Pod: https://www.venwise.com/

CEO coach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markteitell/

We sat down with Patricia Thaine to talk about the current state of the privacy space, identifying PII with high accuracy, generating synthetic personal information, and what’s the right culture for building a privacy-focused company.

Patricia is the co-founder and CEO of Private AI. Started by privacy and machine learning experts from the University of Toronto, Private AI’s mission is to build the privacy layer for software. 

0:00 - The state of data privacy

2:16 - Private AI approach to remove private information

11:48 - Generating synthetic personal information

14:00 - Case studies

20:30 - Optimizing NLP models to run efficiently and annotating data

23:57 - Starting Private AI, recruiting customers, raising funds

34:20 - Acquiring the initial dataset to train the models

36:50 - The culture for the privacy-focussed company

42:30 - The future of the privacy space

Links:

Web: https://www.private-ai.com

Blog: https://www.private-ai.com/blog/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/private-ai/

At Dawn we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com   

Contact us at [email protected] 

We sat down with Jiminny’s Tom Lavery to talk about building a product loved by customers (Jiminny is rated 4.7), applying AI to analyze sales calls, customer success as a key differentiator, mortgaging a home to fund the business, and why it makes sense for the CEO to spend 60% of your time talking with your customers.

Tom is the CEO and founder of Jiminny. Jiminny is the conversation intelligence platform that records, transcribes, and analyzes sales calls to help teams coach at scale, win more deals and smash targets. With Jiminny, teams take the next step toward quicker ramp-up time, enhanced pipeline visibility, higher win rates, and ultimately more revenue for the business. Jiminny raised $19M to date.

The audio version is available everywhere you listen to podcasts. 

https://anchor.fm/forward-by-dawn/

0:00 - What challenges Tom faced as a sales leader, that led him to start Jiminny

3:29 - Jiminny’s capabilities

09:41 - What does success look like with Jiminny’s implementation

14:20 - Customer success function as a massive differentiator

16:12 - Building a product that loved by customers

19:20 - How to stay focused on the customer as the organization scales

25:40 - Jiminny’s origins 

28:49 - Getting first customers

30:50 - How to pick the right features for your MVP

34:22 - AI capabilities

38:17 - Fundraising seed vs. series A

44:31 - Tom’s vision for Jiminny

Links:

Web: https://jiminny.com/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomlavery7

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomlavery7/ 

At forward we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com 

Contact us at [email protected]

In this conversation with Adam, we managed to combine 3 of my favorite topics - AI, energy, and investing. We talked about applying AI to solve the oil wells’ productivity surge puzzle, building an ML system in the environment of an investment firm, Adam’s views on the solar, wind, and nuclear, as well as the future energy supply breakdown in the US, Europe, China, and India.

Adam is a Managing Partner of Goehring & Rozencwajg. Goehring & Rozencwajg (G&R) is a fundamental research firm focused exclusively on contrarian natural resource investments with a team with over 30 years of dedicated resource experience. G&R is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. 

0:00 Goehring & Rozencwajg Profile. Lessons from 30 years investing energy and minerals

12:26 Applying AI to the fundamental research & Solving the doubling of oil wells’ productivity puzzle

37:26 Global fossil fuels supply picture

47:10 Solar & Wind as sources of energy

54:29 Nuclear energy

58:56 The future global energy landscape

Links:

Web: gorozen.com 

Letters: http://gorozen.com/research/commentaries 

US geological survey: https://www.usgs.gov/ 

Twitter: @GoRozen

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/goehring-&-rozencwajg-associates-llc/ 

Video on the history of energy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz75yScqPpQ 

At forward we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com 

Contact us at [email protected] 

We caught up with Tomas Vykruta (founder at EvolutionIQ, ex. Machine Learning @ Google) to talk about GPT-4 & Plugins. We discuss vision, input vector size, plugins, and the path to fostering a competitive environment with multiple options of foundation models for developers to choose from.

6:40 - GPT-4 vision

9:00 - Expanding the size of the input vector

12:50 - ChatGPT Plugins

20:25 - Data storage

22:45 - GPT-4 alternatives

Links:

Codex: https://twitter.com/mckaywrigley/status/1638011552401096705

Alternatives: https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/21/googles-bard-lags-behind-gpt-4-and-claude-in-head-to-head-comparison/

At forward we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com

We sat down with Dave DeCaprio to talk about predicting preventive interventions in healthcare, designing for explainability, bias and fairness, as well as building a domain-specific language to operate the platform, working on the human genome project and the forthcoming healthcare data revolution.

Dave is the CTO & Co-founder at ClosedLoop.ai. Purpose-built for healthcare, ClosedLoop is a data science platform built specifically and exclusively for healthcare that combines an intuitive automated machine learning platform with a comprehensive library of healthcare-specific features and model templates. Customers use ClosedLoop's Explainable AI to drive clinical excellence, operational efficiency, value-based contracts, and enhanced revenue. 

Example applications include predicting unplanned hospital admissions, recommending palliative care, predicting total utilization/cost, preventing ED over-utilization, reducing out-of-network utilization, avoiding appointment no-shows, predicting chronic disease onset or progression, improving clinical documentation and reimbursement, and dozens more.

ClosedLoop raised $50M and is backed by Greycroft, .406, and Telstra Ventures among others. 

Timestamps:

0:00 - Healthcare Data Science Platform

05:58 - Population health and other use cases powered by ClosedLoop 

13:35 - Value-based care in the US

19:40 - AI systems powering ClosedLoop

28:20 - Designing for explainability

35:15 - Approaching bias and fairness

40:20 - Starting ClosedLopp

49:52 - How to think about your company mission and the team you bring in

53:17 - Convincing first customers and getting access to data, fundraising

1:00:54 - Winning an AI Health outcome challenge - the largest AI health competition ever sponsored

1:05:52 - Healthcare data revolution

Links:

Web: https://www.closedloop.ai/ 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/closedloop-ai/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/closedloopai 

Health Outcomes Challenge: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-selects-winner-and-runner-artificial-intelligence-health-outcomes-challenge 

At forward we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com 

Contact us at [email protected]

We sat down with Plotlogic’s Andrew Job to talk about mining industry challenges, strategic reserves of key green metals, mixing advanced sensors with AI to boost mining productivity, and extending the life of existing mines.

Plotlogic has taken the mining industry by storm over the last 12 months - signing four of the world’s top five mining companies, completing a $25 million capital raise backed by BHP (its first investment in a mining tech company) and well-known California-based venture capital firm Innovation Endeavors.

Plotlogic was started by Andrew Job, a 20-year mining industry veteran, while he was doing his Ph.D. at the University of Queensland. Its technology uses a combination of advanced imaging and artificial intelligence to characterize ore in real time. It is much more accurate than traditional mining methods and enables mines to operate far more efficiently, with less wastage and environmental impact.

The tech can extend the life of existing mines and is also helping revive industries like the tungsten industry which has lain dormant in Australia for more than three decades because of the exorbitant costs involved as well as environmental legacy issues. Plotlogic has rolled out its tech with Australia’s only operating primary tungsten producer EQ Resources where it is starting to scan the mountains of tailings enabling recovery of tungsten and the clean-up of the previously moth-balled site.

The company is constantly innovating and recently achieved a significant breakthrough with iron ore producer SIMEC - managing to reduce assay turnaround time from seven days to less than 24 hours. With the timely return of drilling results a major problem particularly for junior explorers, this is an industry game changer.

0:00 - Four big challenges of the mining industry: fossil fuels, green metals, environment, productivity

12:57 - Fighting mining productivity decline with better tools, sensors, and AI

20:00 - Case studies. 20% uplift in mining performance and increased turnaround time

33:53 - AI technologies & sensors deployed by the company

41:00 - Collecting data for initial training

49:00 - Andrew’s journey: Mining, Ph.D., starting a company

53:00 - Principles over paradigms, and the two other pillars of the Plotlogic’s culture

1:00:00 - The future of the mining industry

Links:

Web: https://www.plotlogic.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/plotlogic/

Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtjob/

At forward we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com

Contact us at [email protected]

We sat down with Sorcero’s extraordinary Dipanwita Das to talk about working with T-1 Pharma and early-stage biotechs, building the largest open-access scientific literature database, 10x-ing productivity, and surfacing strategic signals with the medical analytics platform powered by the latest advances in NLU.

Dipanwita Das is the CEO and founder of Sorcero. Sorcero is on a mission to improve patient outcomes by empowering life sciences experts to dramatically increase productivity, decrease literature monitoring time, and increase tracking of portfolio products.

Sorcero raised $16M and is backed by City Rock Ventures Partners, Harmonix Fund, Rackhouse, Mighty Capital, Leawood VC, Castor Ventures, and Worldquant Ventures among others.

0:00 - Medical analytics platform for life science companies.

09:13 - Case studies: Increasing productivity by 10x, reducing costs, unifying internal and external data, surfacing strategic signals

14:00 - Getting to insights faster with the help of AI

18:24 - AI technologies powering Sorcero: LLMs, Summarization, MLOps

33:45 - Dipanwita’s pass to founding Sorcero: starting a consulting firm, falling in love with healthcare

38:01 - Benefits of reading science fiction

40:40 - Building the team for Sorcero as a recent immigrant, without a huge network

45:52 - 0-to-1 people vs 1-to-100 people

51:00 - Building a culture of mastery, humility, collaboration

56:30 - The future of medical analytics at Life science companies / medical affairs transformation

Web: https://www.sorcero.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dipanwitadas/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dipanwita_d

Turing test of summarization: https://www.sorcero.com/blog/ai-experiment

Sorcero and OurResearch Partner to Bring Open Access Scientific and Medical Content and Patient-Centric Publication Metrics to Life Sciences: https://www.prweb.com/releases/sorcero_and_ourresearch_partner_to_bring_open_access_scientific_and_medical_content_and_patient_centric_publication_metrics_to_life_sciences/prweb19134162.htm

At forward we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com

Contact us at [email protected]

We sat down with CloseFactor’s Leena Joshi to talk about boosting GTM efficiency with tailored data sources and machine learning, partnering with Sequoia Capita (seed/A), doubling LaunchDarkly reps productivity, and building a team at your startup.

Leena is the CEO and co-founder of Closefactor. CloseFactor is the world’s first GTM operating system for revenue teams. Using machine learning to automatically curate unstructured information about companies and extract meaningful insights that go-to-market teams can act on, CloseFactor identifies your best customers, empowering sales and marketing teams to hit their goals.

Closefactor raised $20M from Sequoia, Vertex, and GTMFund among others.

The audio version is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

https://anchor.fm/forward-by-dawn/

0:00 - Why does a company need a GTM operating system?

3:38 - Customizing Closefactor to the customer needs: datasets, GTM motion

9:08 - Using Closefactor: talking to the right people about the relevant ongoing challenges

14:25 - Case studies: Faster ramp times, 2x reps productivity, increased visibility into the market

16:20 - Implementing Closefactor

21:51 - What’s the best engagement strategy for a sales rep?

23:49 - Starting Closefactor: from enterprise GTM exec to a founder. Finding first customers.

29:00 - Partnering with Sequoia Capital

33:35 - Building an effective team at your startup

38:20 - Leena’s vision for CloseFactor

Web: https://closefactor.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/close_factor

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/closefactor/

Careers: https://closefactor.com/company/careers/

At forward we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com

Contact us at [email protected]

We sat down with Deci’s Yonatan Geifman to discuss applying AI to build better AI - at the edge and in the cloud and boosting inference performance by 3x-10x. We also talked about NAS, dealing with uncertainty in AI, how 22-23 environment is better for AI startups than 21, recruiting design customers, and more.

The audio version is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

https://anchor.fm/forward-by-dawn/

Yonatan is the CEO and founder of Deci.  Deci enables deep learning to live up to its true potential by using AI to build better AI. With the company’s end-to-end deep learning acceleration platform, AI developers can build, optimize, and deploy highly accurate and efficient models for any environment, including cloud, edge, or mobile.

With Deci’s platform, developers can increase deep learning model inference performance by 3x-10x, on any hardware, while still preserving accuracy. This translates directly into enabling new use cases on edge devices, substantially shorter development cycles, and reduced compute costs by up to 80%.

The platform is powered by Deci’s Automated Neural Architecture Construction (AutoNAC) technology, a neural architecture search engine that empowers AI teams to build hardware-aware models that deliver optimal accuracy without sacrificing speed, based on the specific use cases and device.

Deci achieved a record-breaking 11.8x accelerated inference speedup on Intel CPUs at MLPerf Industry Benchmark and has been named to the CBInsights top 100 AI companies.

Deci is backed by Jibe Ventures and Insight Partners among others.

0:00 - Applying AI to build better AI

5:15 - Evolution of NAS

12:10 - Developing a way to assess model performance without actually running them

13:40 - Expanding from NAS to a bigger platform

16:30 - Customer and use cases

22:35 - Optimizing video generative model efficiency 3x

26:10 - Pushing the models to the edge

32:40 - Biggest challenges Deci had to overcome to build the product

37:00 - How to figure out the direction for your startup

39:40 - Recruiting design customers

43:36 - Dealing with uncertainty in AI

53:13 - How the way we build AI systems will evolve

1:01:10 - SuperGradients

Links:

Web: https://deci.ai

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/learnaitogether

Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deciai/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deciai/

SuperGradients: https://github.com/Deci-AI/super-gradients

At Dawn, we invest in visionary leaders who move the world forward. Learn more at https://dawn-gv.com

With questions about Forward contact us at [email protected]