Amid one of the most tumultuous years in recent economic history, Los Angeles companies managed to land $9 billion in venture capital funding in 2020.

According to a new report from CBRE Group Inc., that’s a record for the greater L.A. region, where funding jumped 15.4% in 2020 from $7.8 billion in 2019. The aerospace, media and technology industries led the way, raking in a total of $4.1 billion.

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Fail fast, the adage goes, and move on to the next big idea. Most innovation managers know that few of their initiatives will succeed, so they keep multiple projects running at the same time and create processes for quickly separating winners from losers.

One popular way to make decisions about what stays and what goes is the use of stage gates. This is when project leaders present their progress and findings to date, alongside updates to commercial expectations. Executives then decide whether to unlock funds for further development. For example, a project might have to pass reviews at one, three, and six-month milestones to determine whether it continues to promise return on the innovation investment.

Long home to federal institutions like the National Institutes of Health and leading universities, suburban areas like Montgomery County have long been home to a cluster of talent and companies working to commercialize pharmaceuticals, biotech and medical devices. Then came the pandemic. The federal government needed to invest in new treatments to stop the spread of COVID-19. In Maryland, the companies around the NIH and FDA figured prominently in the solution, as many had expertise that left them poised to jump into the fight.

It has been clear for years that net domestic migration to and from major metropolitan areas (over 1 million population) has been characterized by moving out of costly areas, like Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York to much less expensive areas, like Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta and Nashville. However, within these metropolitan areas, there are substantial variations.

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These are exciting and invigorating times for the venture capital and entrepreneurship landscape in India. We are witnessing multiple large fundraises and exits. On the whole, the ecosystem is buzzing with energy. Makes us question -- are we on a Moore’s Law ride? 

Moore's Law, from the world of computing, refers to the number of transistors on a microchip doubling every two years, though the cost of computers is halved. 

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Tweet Post Share Save Print In 2012 MIT Professor Amos Winter was asked to develop a lighter, cheaper prosthetic leg for the huge Indian market. And not just a bit cheaper: the new limbs needed to be 90% cheaper than those sold in western markets to meet the needs of the over half a million amputees unable to afford prosthetics that often cost tens of thousands of dollars and lasted only 2-3 years. Under these dramatic constraints, Winter’s team went back to fundamentals and reframed the problem: what could the science of movement teach us about how to design and deliver a radically different prosthetic?

These days, we could all use a vacation. But while everyone has been working from home, some feel this reality is more like living at work. According to a May 2020 Washington Post article, nearly half of Americans reported a decline in their mental health since the beginning of the pandemic.

For many, a vacation is a reprieve from the stresses of daily life, where you can try to bury the trauma of your 9 to 5. But the reality is, rest isn’t what most entrepreneurs need right now. What they really need is restoration.

Americans are slowly returning to their favorite mom-and-pop shops and locally-owned restaurants. With COVID-19 cases falling each day, and 14% of the population fully vaccinated, most states have lifted the strictest lockdown measures.  

Of course, relief can't come soon enough for small to mid-size businesses. These firms are the backbone of our economy, accounting for more than 40% of GDP and almost half of all jobs. And our economy will depend on these firms to create new jobs and quickly rebuild to bring the nation back to full recovery.  

Image: Though hiring increased, US small businesses are more concerned about the future amid the Covid-19 pandemic Photo: AFP / Patrick T. Fallon 

Getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is one important step toward a return to normalcy, but there are a few things about post-vaccination life that can feel like an adjustment for some people after months of taking precautions. One in particular may be puzzling: Why do you still need to wear a mask if you've been vaccinated?

Experts say the answer is a little more complicated than most people realize. Here's what you need to know.

Identifying gaps and bridging them—that’s what Connected DMV’s President and CEO Stu Solomon does best. And now he and his partners are turning their attention to one of the globe’s most important and challenging divides: Preparing for the next pandemic.

Solomon recently discussed his career and Connected DMV’s response to COVID-19 with Rich Bendis on his BioTalk podcast. Bendis is the President and CEO of BioHealth Innovation (BHI). 

The success of the US government’s efforts to develop, produce, and distribute COVID-19 vaccines reflects several factors. If the European Union wants to reproduce a similar initiative in Europe, mobilizing sufficient financial resources will be a significant obstacle – though perhaps not the biggest one.

DeepGreen has written an open letter to various brands, such as BMW, Google, Samsung SDI, and Volvo. Before I dive in and share the open letter, I want to re-share what DeepGreen is: a deep-sea mining company that has a vision of a zero-carbon, circular economy with goals to source metals with the least environmental and societal impact. I interviewed its CEO, Gerard Barron, back in August of last year — you can read that here.

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One of evolution’s cleverest tricks was giving us a sense of shame. It’s a miserable feeling—low, humbling, publicly discomfiting—but it’s supposed to be: if you do something lousy you ought to feel something lousy, so you don’t do it again.

By Paul Brennan

While it may not be ‘politically correct’ to discuss, the majority of the world’s drug developments and innovation are underwritten by the United States (U.S.). The U.S. is the global leader in pharmaceutical sector research and development (R&D). U.S. pharma R&D has grown from $2 billion in 1980 to over $64.3 billion by 2019 according to PhRMA.  

In my experience, one of the biggest mistakes I see you make as a startup or new business owner is to create a business that is totally dependent on you. That means you are the only one who knows how the business works, you make all decisions, and progress grinds to a halt when you are away. That may make sense on day one, but it will kill you and the business over time.

This article updates our perspectives on when the coronavirus pandemic will end to reflect the latest information on vaccine rollout, variants of concern, and disease progression. In the United Kingdom and the United States, we see progress toward a transition to normalcy during the second quarter of 2021. The new wave of cases in the European Union means that a similar transition is likely to come later there, in the late second or third quarter. Improved vaccine availability makes herd immunity most likely in the third quarter for the United Kingdom and the United States and in the fourth quarter for the European Union, but risks threaten that timeline. The timeline in other countries will depend on seven crucial variables. And when herd immunity is reached, the risks will not vanish; herd immunity may prove temporary or be limited to regions in a country.

There are a number of strong and expanding life sciences hubs in the United States, with Boston, San Francisco and San Diego claiming the top three spots. New markets are emerging, and a new report from the market research team at JLL pinpoints some of these growing areas.

The JLL team ranked these emerging areas based on a number of metrics, including employment base, talent, millennial population, median household income growth and the availability of housing. In the report, the JLL team said they wanted to determine which factors would “would best capture the most dynamic and substantial trends within the industry.”

There is more than one reason to get involved in venture investing. Sure, it can be a lucrative career. Pop culture and the media tend to focus on the money associated with success, so it might seem to some that’s all there is. But the motivation to break into “VC” shouldn’t be purely monetary.

For many in the space, a perhaps even greater appeal lies in the opportunity to meet inspiring, talented people who are building things to resolve problems, literally changing how business is done. It is thrilling to be a partner to such innovation.

At the beginning of 2021, JLL Research expanded its lens on life sciences to capture the qualities that define a new set of emerging life sciences markets. While the traditional top markets of Boston, San Francisco and San Diego will likely retain their positions, it is increasingly clear that the next tier of markets is poised to ascend – and offer valuable opportunities to both investors and occupiers as they build scale. With this in mind, we present our Emerging Life Sciences Markets Index. Our proprietary categorization and ranking index evaluates metro areas with respect to a wide variety of metrics chosen to best reflect the most critical qualities of life sciences markets on the upswing.

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When it comes to success, age is really just a number. All one needs to succeed in the business world is a strong drive and guidance to be able to navigate the waters and make the right choices.

Here are a few tips to help young entrepreneurs thrive in the business world:

Image: Brendan Cox, Author of “Strictly Business: How to Crush it as a Young Entrepreneur”  - https://www.influencive.com