Austin Next

“The new status quo always starts off as contrarian" Made me realize again to truly change things you must first be looked upon as a fool, a heretic, & even mad. Build what will be obvious tomorrow. Thanks Jani Tuomi for the reminder

And here we go... Austin Tech Week kicks off this morning! How is it evolving beyond Austin Startup Week? Well, I'm speaking this year, so it must be amazing, right? 😯 Tuesday afternoon I will join Amy Jackson, Brent Wistrom, & Lyn Graft discussing "The Future of Storytelling" - exploring how to create, own, and tell your story in the age of social media, newsletters, podcasts, legacy media, and of course AI. Sessions definitely on my radar: 🧬Biotech: Shaping the Future of Health and Innovation Eliah Overbey, Remy Berlinger, Ian Kim, & Sindy K 🚀Raising $200M+ as a Female Founder Michelle Davey being interviewed by Nick Spiller 🌟The Past, Present, & Future of Entrepreneurship in Austin  Brett A. Hurt & Joshua Baer 🔥New VCs on the Block: Emerging Fund Managers You Want on Your Cap Table Claire Hansen, Zaz Floreani, Daniel Dart, & David Endler 💰The Startup & VC Landscape of Texas Charlie Plauche, Krishna Srinivasan, Morgan Flager, Kerry Rupp, & Thomas Ball 🏛️A Founder’s Guide to Institutional Fundraising Aasim Hasan 👥Fireside Chat Jason Calacanis & Joshua Baer 🤖Beyond the Hype: What Investors Look for In AI Startups in 2024 Andrea Kalmans, Asanka Jayasuriya, David Evans, & Prerna Sharma ✨ Plus all of the serendipity & creative collisions in between. 

🧬 This week's Austin Bio & Health Roundup features exciting events, funding, insights, & the start of my journey as a "Human Guinea Pig" testing out local Bio & Health offerings 🧬 🚨Austin Tech Week is Next Week Bio & Health is making a strong showing: Raising $200M+ as a Female Founder - Michelle Davey being interviewed by Nick Spiller. Biotech: Shaping the Future of Health and Innovation with Remy Berlinger, Eliah Overbey, Ian Kim, & Sindy K. The Future of Storytelling - Amy Jackson, Brent Wistrom, Lyn Graft, & Me 🏙️ Community University of Austin (UATX) is hosting the 1st SOMA Astronaut Summit, “Neo-Astronaut Foundries: Decentralizing Pathways to the Final Frontier,” What does a space summit have to do with Bio & Health? SOMA stands for Space Omics & Medical Atlas, highlighting Austin’s “power of And”, combining Space and Bio. I love it! FYI, they’re also seeking sponsors. Also I’ll be moderating a panel, so don’t miss it! Register here to attend or support: https://lnkd.in/eVEC_9_T. ---- Micha Y. Breakstone 🇮🇱🎗️, CEO of Somite Therapeutics AI, will discuss what comes next after a successful exit at the Post Exit Founders Virtual Conference on November 6th. Watching Micha, the answer is more! Drop a comment or reach out to Max Pog to attend. 💰 Funding Legion Health, an AI enabled digital psychiatry practice, raised a $6.3M seed round. Congrats to Yash M. Patel, Arthur MacWaters, & Daniel Wilson. 🙏 for missing this last week; things move fast! 💡 Insights from Local Builders and Innovators Taylor Capito of GenRAIT joined Austin Tech Connect with • Thom Singer, CSP 🌟, discussing tech impacting humanity, innovation, Star Trek, and even Flubber. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/eDzZ8f4U Thatch co-founders Chris Ellis and Adam Stevenson discussed consumer-driven health insurance on the a16z Bio + Health podcast. The long term potential is "more flexible, localized plans, with individuals choosing the add-ons that work best for them at that moment in their lives.” Listen here: https://lnkd.in/efFPTpty 🧪 Human Guinea Pig Notes I tried my first DEXA scan with BodySpec®: 37% body fat at 5'10", 193 lbs. What the 😱! Elaine Shi Shu, this might be what finally pushes me toward lasting changes. 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins Autonomize AI is now available for Copilots for Prior Authorization, Care Gaps & Medical Record Review on Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Nice job Ganesh Padmanabhan. 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle Houston-based March Biosciences closed an oversubscribed $28.4M Series A to advance therapies for patients unresponsive to current immunotherapies. Its Texas funding Texas as KdT Ventures & Modi Ventures joining. Impressive work Sarah Hein. Rice University announced a new biotech venture creation studio called the Rice Biotech Launch Pad located in the Texas Medical Center Helix Park. What's Next?

Doom & Gloom Media is trying again to turn good data into a negative story. Follow the data not the headlines.

🧬 This week's Austin Bio & Health Roundup brings significant new capital to the table, exciting launches, insights on the AI-Bio convergence, & fresh data to ponder. 🧬 💰 Funding KdT Ventures closed their oversubscribed Fund IV with over $100M, bringing their AUM to $250M+. Huge congrats to Cain McClary, MD, Mack Healy, Patrick Malone, MD PhD, and team. Excited to see which companies you back next! Adams Street Partners raised over $1.2B for their Venture Innovation Fund IV. Adams Street has a presence in Austin and backed one of our newest Bio & Health residents, BillionToOne. As a growth equity fund with check sizes between $20M-$50M, they will be a key capital source as our seed and Series A pipeline continues to mature. MDisrupt, a health & life sciences focused expert marketplace, received a $1M investment from the American Heart Association’s venture arm and entered into a services agreement. Great momentum for Ruby Gadelrab Tudor and the team. 💡 Insights from Local Builders and Innovators Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital released his Autumn 2024 AI-Life Sciences update. His key message “We are at an unprecedented juncture where technological maturity, business and economic interests, and extraordinary value creation potential are converging around AI in healthcare and life sciences” Jim highlights milestones, from Nobel Prizes to Eli Lilly’s appointment of its first Chief AI Officer and closer-to-home efforts like the 2nd annual joint UT & Breyer Capital AI/Healthcare Summit. 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins Oracle launched their Oracle Health Clinical Data Exchange, which streamlines medical claims processing through an automated data exchange system built on Oracle’s cloud infrastructure. The combination of their tech stack, EMR data assets, and its clinical/patient-facing elements positions Oracle as an intriguing player in the Bio & Health space. BIOSTRAP launched Sympathetic Arousal, a new mental health measurement that combines their wearable tech with Philia Labs’ autonomic nervous system expertise. This enables real-time stress management plus personalized mental health interventions. Data combined with action is key, so I love the move, Sameer Sontakey. 📊 Data Peter Walker’s recent data looks at the intervals between funding rounds by sector. Seed to Series A Healthtech: 34.2 months Biotech: 27.1 months Consumer: 27.1 months SaaS: 23.6 months Fintech: 23.5 months Series A to Series B Biotech: 34.6 months Consumer: 32.9 months SaaS: 29.9 months Fintech: 25.3 months Healthtech: 23.9 months (Interesting shift—any thoughts?) 🏆 Recognition John Joyoprayitno, CEO of Alafair Biosciences, Inc., was named as Best CEO in the Medium Company Category in the Austin Business Journal. What’s Next?

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🧬 This week's Austin Bio & Health Roundup brings insights, upcoming events, new funding, strategic partnerships, recognition, & Texas funding the Texas Bio Triangle. 🧬 🏙️ Community I moderated a great discussion with Marianne Fazen, PhD and John Forrest at Health Tech Austin’s Brain & Mental Health Summit titled "Catalyzing Transformation in Brain and Mental Health: Innovating in Tech, Care Delivery, and Business Simultaneously" on how single points of innovation aren’t enough to solve the challenges we face. (h/t Jie Li & Dan Greenfield for the pics) More upcoming events: Austin Biotech Meetup hosted by Michael J Weiss on Thursday, October 17, with a fireside chat featuring Micha Y. Breakstone 🇮🇱🎗️, co-founder and CEO of Somite Therapeutics. Apply to attend here: https://lnkd.in/eWNGhaDe Bio Octoberfest by BioMedSA on October 24 from 4–6 PM at Texas State University, featuring a panel discussion by Alamo Angels & Central Texas Angel Network. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eAwzXZkU 💰 Funding Babson Diagnostics received a strategic investment from BD, with whom they’re already partnering on their novel blood collection device. The funding amount was undisclosed, big teases 😛. Kudos to David Stein, Eric Olson, & team. And well done to Bridget B. and the BD crew (my old stomping ground!). Bio & Health really is a small world! 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins NearWave, an AI-driven handheld imaging device for predicting cancer therapy response, has been accepted into the Texas Medical Center's Accelerator for HealthTech Bootcamp. Kudos Roy Stillwell, PhD. VISIE Inc., Formerly Advanced Scanners, a 3D computer vision and spatial computing company for surgery, announced Continuous Anatomic Auto Tracking for Robotic-Assisted Total Knee Arthorplasty. Well done Douglas Fairbanks & team! 🤝 Partnerships and M&A Truemed is partnering with Peloton to enable consumers to use Health Savings Account (HSA)/Flexible Spending Account (FSA) to purchase applicable Peloton product including the Peloton Bike, Bike+, Tread, Tread+ and Row. Exciting move by Justin Mares & team! Denim Health, AI solutions for call center operations and patient engagement, have announced a development partnership with Community Health Systems, to develop and scale conversational AI across CHS’s Patient Access Center serving their 1K primary care providers. A big step for Mike Kadyan & team. 🏆 Recognition LinkedIn released its inaugural list of top startups in Austin, showcasing the city's growth in Bio & Health, defense tech, and advanced manufacturing. Bio & Health companies Nuclein and Curative made the list. Well-deserved Alan Blake, Charles Collins, Fred Turner, & Isaac Turner! 🚩 Texas Bio Triangle Woodlands-Based Cellipont Bioservices, a CDMO focused on cell therapies, secured a growth equity investment from HealthQuest Capital, marking another great example of Texas funding Texas. Fuel for the engine Darren Head! What’s Next?

I'm excited to be a speaker at HealthTech Austin's Brain & Mental Health Summit this Wednesday. To tackle the challenges ahead, the solutions must go beyond a better widget or the question of who pays. That's why I'm moderating a session titled "Catalyzing Transformation in Brain & Mental Health: Innovating in Tech, Care Delivery, and Business Simultaneously" Joining me for this conversation will be: Marianne Fazen, PhD, President & CEO of Texas Business Group on Health John Forrest, CEO & Co-Founder of VERAVAS, Inc. Come to the summit, share your thoughts & let me know here what we should address.

"The FDA has to listen to the advocacy groups...because frankly, the advocacy groups have more experience than the FDA in the drug and in the disease." -Chris Andrews, founder of Firefly Fund, on this week's podcast

Some changes coming to Austin Next. New topic ideas & will be adding more elements: full video & a newsletter (more than just the pod). Can anyone help with guests/ideas for upcoming episodes? 1. Austin Unicorns: I want them all! Already featured Icon, ZenBusiness, Atmosphere, SparkCognition, Colossal, & Jasper. 2. Innovation in Physical Spaces: How do different environments (offices, labs, manufacturing, studios) shape innovation? How do we design, build, & activate for this? (Doesn’t need to be from Austin for this one) 3. Austin's Music & Innovation: How is music innovating internally and interacting with Austin's broader innovation ecosystem? 4. Austin's Art & Innovation: Same idea as the music episode. I did this for the food scene. 5. Roundtables: Considering more group discussions. Suggested innovation/tech topics? (Can be in or out of Austin depending on the topics) 6. Open to fresh topic ideas that fit the podcast's vibe.