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Today’s manufacturers face numerous challenges, including skilled worker shortages, high production costs, and compliance concerns. Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI) technology can address many of these concerns. According to a McKinsey study, by 2030, AI is expected to create $13 trillion of realized value for the world’s economy. Within manufacturing specifically, companies have added AI solutions to streamline their core production processes.

In a recent analysis by Axios, Alumni Ventures (AV) ranked third in the number of investments made in U.S.-based climate tech companies, behind only Breakthrough Energy Ventures and SOSV.

Like many of our peers in the venture community, we believe we’re entering into a new part of the venture cycle. We’ve already seen a dramatic reset of public market valuations — with impacts also affecting the private markets.

AVTV features OfferFit, a company using AI to improve marketing experimentation techniques. AVTV videos feature Alumni Ventures’ portfolio companies sharing their stories and asks with our community.

One of the core pillars of Alumni Ventures’ investment strategy is working closely with other established VC partners. To date, we’ve co-invested with well-known VCs specializing in a wide variety of sectors, stages, and regions. We are strictly a co-investor, following other well-regarded lead investors into rounds. We don’t negotiate terms or take Board seats, allowing us to focus on identifying promising opportunities. This strategy also affords us the latitude to build diverse portfolios while investing alongside VCs with deep experience in a given area.

One of Alumni Ventures’ most crucial assets is our broad network of venture capital partners. We are strictly a co-investor, following other established lead investors into rounds. That means we don’t negotiate terms or take Board seats, giving us more time to source promising opportunities. It also affords us the latitude to build diverse portfolios while investing alongside VCs with significant domain experience.

According to a PitchBook report, global investors closed as many climate-focused funds in 2021 as were raised during the previous five years combined. Alumni Ventures Managing Partner Matt Caspari and Partner Erik Hammer spoke with Venture Capital Journal to discuss the influx of capital VCs are deploying into ClimateTech. They shared their thoughts on the profitability of climate-focused startups, consumer demand for sustainability, and the lessons investors and entrepreneurs alike have learned from companies like Tesla.

Low-code development platforms are an increasingly popular option for web and mobile app developers. According to Forbes , some of the many benefits of this tech include lower cost and maintenance burden, increased productivity across teams, quicker innovation and development, and rapid prototyping. Low-code development also makes it easier for entrepreneurs to test new ideas, products, and services. As a result, the value of the global low-code development platforms market is expected to reach $94.8 billion globally by 2028 .

Third-party vendors (suppliers, partners, customers, etc.) are crucial to a company’s growth and success. Yet, o nboarding these vendors is among the most time-consuming, opaque, and manual processes within an enterprise. Companies face a wide spectrum of risks across several domains (legal, privacy, procurement, compliance, etc.) and need to coordinate with multiple stakeholder groups to ensure that they’re sufficiently mitigating each one. Growing data security concerns, privacy regulations, evolving sanctions , and a heightened emphasis on ESG only add further complexity and burden to the overall process. As a result of these bottlenecks, onboarding new vendors can take mid to large enterprises over 90 days .

While radar has historically been associated with aviation, the technology has been utilized by automotive manufacturers since the late ‘90s in a number of safety features. Radar sensors are used for convenience features, such as adaptive cruise control; and in critical safety systems, including collision avoidance and emergency braking systems. Beyond these applications in conventional passenger vehicles, radar development has grown dramatically with the advent of commercially available autonomous vehicles and autopilot-like systems.

There are a number of smart reasons to consider adding venture capital (VC) to your investment mix. VC can play an important role in a sophisticated wealth-building strategy, yet it’s still missing from the majority of investors’ portfolios. If you’re one of the 10+ million accredited investors in the U.S., it is easier than ever to start investing in high-growth startups. In our conversations with potential investors, we’ve found that many misperceptions persist about VC investing. Here we’ll share with you the top three, with the goal of busting these myths once and for all.

Alumni Ventures’ spring Blockchain Fund will offer a portfolio of high-potential, venture-backed companies innovating in areas like decentralized finance (DeFi), Web3, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other blockchain-related products. The spring fund is actively managed by three experienced investment professionals, Managing Partner Ed Tsai, Principal Yiwen Li, and Analyst Drew Wandzilak. In this video, Managing Partner Ed Tsai introduces himself and discusses how the team sources and evaluates blockchain opportunities. 1