Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:

US investors deployed $32.6bn in venture capital (VC) funding across 1,853 deals, registering 10.5% increase in volume and a 22.5% decrease in count compared to 1Q 2018.

Angel & seed deal value reached $1.9bn in the first quarter, but saw the greatest decline in deal count among investment stages, falling 44.2% between 2015 and 2018, said the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

Early-stage startups saw $9.3bn invested across 487 deals in 1Q, bringing the median size of early-stage financings up 36.0% YoY to $8.2m, said the quarterly report on venture capital activity in the US entrepreneurial ecosystem and is jointly produced by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Associate (NVCA), with support from Silicon Valley Bank, Perkins Coie and Solium.

Growing numbers of people in the second half of life are embracing entrepreneurship. Yet America’s start-up ecosystem of business incubators, accelerators and co-sharing workspaces largely ignores people over 60 who are eager to launch companies, either full-time or part-time in retirement. That’s why it’s worth looking at an experiment in Israel aimed specifically at this demo. And it’s why cities and states in America might want to create their own versions.

Here's a list of some of the recent startup pitch decks published by Business Insider:

AirBnB: The first-ever investor pitch deck for $31 billion startup Airbnb' which has raised over $3 billion and is nearing an IPO

Amify: Here's the pitch deck a Virginia startup used to raise $6 million after seven years of bootstrapping its business

Brex: A buzzy startup raised $57 million from Peter Thiel and Y Combinator using these 19 slides

Amazon employs thousands of people to listen to voice recordings captured by Echo speakers in an effort to improve the software, according to Bloomberg.

The process: The Alexa voice review team includes both contractors and full-time Amazon staff working in offices around the world, including Boston, India, Romania, and Costa Rica. Each reviewer is expected to check about 1,000 audio files in each shift, two of the workers told Bloomberg. The recordings are transcribed, annotated, and fed back in hopes of improving Alexa, the software that powers Echo devices.

Image: https://www.technologyreview.com

Seven regional innovation cluster (RIC) initiatives have each been awarded $500,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Although the SBA has yet to publish an official press release indicating the release of the 2019 Regional Innovation Cluster awardees, SSTI identified the awardees through other sources, such as USASpending.gov and a review of local news media. Read on for more information on the program’s awardees.

The 5th annual Biohealth Capital Region (BHCR) Forum was held on April 8th and 9th at AstraZeneca in Gaithersburg, MD. Biotech and life science executives and expert speakers from industry, academia, healthcare, government, finance and real estate development, among others, converged to discuss the BHCR’s path forward to becoming a top three U.S. biotech cluster by 2023.

Image: https://biobuzz.io

Contaminant-free steel, an engineered matrix self-healing composite, and a Shape Memory Alloy Rock Splitter —just a few of the recent materials innovations emerging from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. New discoveries are in the process of being patented, and many technologies are already available for licensing by industry through NASA’s Technology Transfer Program. Glenn has a strong history of research in materials science, developing alloys, coatings, composites, and cutting-edge materials as well as the processes involved.  Examples of these technologies are presented here.

Image: Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) 370 Resin for High-Temperature Applications. Photo Provided by NASA Glenn

“There are problems in the world that cannot be changed by money,” Alfia Ilicheva

Dispelling “the entrepreneurial myth” of being hit by a lightning bolt of a brilliant idea that then becomes the next Facebook or Google, Alfia Ilicheva and Maria Potoroczyn, cofounders of the educational nonprofit Women in Innovation, reminded us that Facebook and Google did not come out of the box as they are today. They started as technologies that were addressing a simple issue that the founders were looking for and went through a massive number of iterations to find their value and business model.

Image: Alfia Ilicheva (l) & Maria Potorocyzn (r) from Women in Innovation WOMENININNOVATION.CO

I fund startups for a living and before that I ran two software startups that I founded. I’ve spent countless hours looking at historical finances, budgets, forecasts and future projections. With a standard tech startup I can tell you in my sleep that your two biggest cost items by a long shot are people (between 60–75% of total costs) and space (10–20% of total costs). The only other significant cost item that I see in some early-stage startups is inventory (for hardware or eCommerce companies).

Image: https://bothsidesofthetable.com

Anyone can become an entrepreneur. All it takes is an idea, a website and a bit of marketing money in your pocket. But if you want to become a successful entrepreneur, you’ll need a certain set of skills, passion and determination. These essentials will improve your chances of surviving the entrepreneurial roller coaster.

BRUSSELS, April 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Horizon Europe, the European Union's next Research and Innovation (R&I) Programme, will run for seven years, from 2021 to 2027. With a proposed budget of EUR94.6 billion, it is the EU's biggest ever R&I programme and one of the largest scientific funding initiatives in the world. These are the most important things to know about the programme:  

Technology is the undisputed champion of efficiency. Tasks that were once complex and time-consuming are now completed in the blink of an eye. But there is a downside to an abundance of technology. In his new book, scholar Edward Tenner explains how too much efficiency can kill creativity, which can turn off avant-garde thinking, innovation and problem-solving. He believes there is a better way to improve our lives through a combination of technology and intuition, and by exploring the random and unexpected.

Image: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/

A new accelerator powered by LaunchKC is Black & Veatch’s attempt to “create the world that we want,” said Hyleme George, director of the freshly announced IgniteX CleanTech program.

“It’s a world that we want to invest in to accelerate the adoption of sustainable infrastructure,” George continued. “What that means is a world where there’s clean water, clean energy available — a world where we fix climate change. It’s a world where we eliminate constraints on travel. It’s a portal where we can solve hunger.”

Image: Hyleme George, IgniteX accelerator

I first met Misti and Will Staley last summer during the kickoff weekend of the Delta I-Fund accelerator, a program supporting early-stage entrepreneurs in Arkansas and across the Mississippi Delta region.

Something about this young couple from Helena – serious, poised, attentive – reminded me that starting a venture can be a profound decision. The adventure, joy, and allure of startup life might entertain a listener of “How I Built This” or a fan of Shark Tank, but at its heart, entrepreneurship is about solving a problem. And problems, by definition, are painful.

Nestlé has created a new R&D accelerator to bring together Nestlé scientists, students and start-ups with the ambition of accelerating the development of innovative products and systems.

Internal, external or mixed teams will be eligible to use dedicated hot desks over a defined period of time. Thesereams will be provided with access to Nestlé’s research expertise and infrastructure, including shared labs, kitchens, bench-scale and pilot scale equipment.

The scientists behind it spent a decade using a virtual telescope the size of Earth to create this historic image.

Image: https://www.technologyreview.com

Corporate partnerships resemble marriages in many respects – including an unfortunately high failure rate.

The number of companies establishing strategic partnerships is growing all the time. According to Greve, Rowley and Shipilov, companies around the world formed nearly 42,000 alliances between 2002 and 2011. Steve Steinhilber cites a report claiming that more than 2,000 strategic alliances are launched each year and the number is growing at 15 percent per annum.

Most entrepreneurs who start a company alone soon come to the conclusion that two heads are better than one – someone to share the workload, the hard decisions, and the costs. In a moment of crisis, you may be tempted to take on the first person expressing interest as a co-founder. This would be a mistake, and could easily cost you your startup.

Most importantly, VCs finance after Aha – after proof of potential. The “standard” VC model is to seek ventures that have reached Aha, seek control, and try to exit as soon as possible at the highest possible valuation. This model has been called to question recently with the success of Facebook and Lyft where the founders control the ventures.

Few VCs succeed because it is tough to find winners. Entrepreneurs have an advantage in negotiations with VCs after the venture has taken off. The take-off proves their strategy and their leadership. Due to lower risk after Aha, entrepreneurs have more financing options, and can pick the ones that best helps them build their unicorn – be it the top 20 VCs, IPOs, strategic alliances, or internal cash flow.

Something is happening in life sciences in Atlantic Canada, which was far and away the most exciting segment of the innovation economy in the first quarter of 2019.

In the three months to March 31, biology-focused companies raised $74.3 million in equity funding, filed a prospectus for a stock market listing and announced a $145 million plant expansion. Behind those headline items, things are happening that should support the long-term outlook for the sector.