Happy Holidays! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are ready for December and the end of 2019. Once again, thank you for being a valuable part of AVX. In this newsletter, we will tell you a bit about our newest statistics and give you some news and events from around the network. As a reminder, you can see all AVX opportunities here at the Feed.
Conversation Statistics: We are up to 4363 total connections and conversations on the AVX network - 276 more over the last month. We are currently tracking 11 potential match negotiations and another 70 with multi-month long discussions heading toward possible matches.
NEWS
Extreme Tech Challenge 2020: XTC is focused around investable commercial ventures that also make a real impact on furthering one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals grouped into these 7 categories: 1) AgTech-Food-Water, 2) Smart Cities-Transport, 3) Cleantech-Energy 4) Education, 5) Healthcare, 6) Fintech, and 7) enabling technologies (like chips, 5G, IOT, AI, etc.) If you'd like to learn more, feel free to ask!
EVENTS
VC Healthtech Investing at NEA (Dec 5, SF): Have a chance to learn more about NEA's Healthtech investing from Tak Cheung. Tak joined NEA in 2018 as a Principal on the healthcare team. He focuses on medical device investments. Prior to NEA, Tak was a Venture Partner at Merieux Development Venture Fund and was co-founder of Lexington Medical.
The George Shultz Innovation Fund Final (Dec 5, Chicago): Applicants from across the University of Chicago, Argonne National Lab, Fermilab, and the Marine Biological Laboratory will compete for up to $250,000 in proof-of-concept capital. Previous finalists have built exciting technologies across a wide range of industries representative of the core strengths of the University of Chicago and partners.
Yale Life Sciences Pitchfest (Dec 6, New Haven): Giving you all an extended heads up on Yale's upcoming Life Science Pitch Day - these teams will feed into their short list of Blavatnik awards. If you are interested to see these teams early, be sure to hold the day.
Yale Innovation Summit (May 13, New Haven): Yale’s premier tech and biotech event, with over 1000 attendees, 100 investment opportunities, 160 investors, and dozens of leading corporations. This year we are moving to an even bigger venue – Yale’s brand new science building on “Science Hill”. Hold the date!
Equalize 2020 (June 24-25, St. Louis): Equalize 2020 is a pitch competition and symposium designed to take national action around the disparity of women academic inventors forming university startups.
So long for now! – Hamdi