Category archives: Portfolio Company
Beware of Fake / Scam Engineering Candidates
Recruiting engineers is hard enough, but having to deal with fake/scam candidates makes it that much harder. You may be wondering how this whole scheme works. I certainly was, until one of our engineers at HiHello received an inbound from someone offering him $60-$80/hr just to attend a couple of Zoom meetings and pretend to be someone else on those calls.
Read moreHit Start Media – Enabling Enterprise Companies to Own Their Narrative
Hit Start Media is a startup that helps enterprise companies “Own your narrative.”
Read moreThe Story of How/Why K9 Invested in Pragli
Pragli is a virtual office for remote teams… I often found that it was easier for me to communicate with a remote colleague on Pragli that it was to even get up and walk to the other room to talk to a co-located colleague! In my mind Pragli had nearly achieved remote-work Nirvana!
Read moreIntroducing Avoma: Meeting Intelligence
I’m pleased to announce and support the launch of Avoma, a K9 Ventures’ portfolio company that is making all of us who spend time in meetings more productive by utilizing AI. One of the big changes that has happened in business today is that an increasing amount of it is now conducted on the phone […]
Read moreSolving Hard Problems: Traptic’s Harvesting Robots
A little known fact about me is that my paternal grandmother was a farmer. When we would visit her I remember running along the paths surrounded by fields of rice, wheat, grape vines, and apricots. Barring one lonesome mechanical tractor, pretty much everything else on the farm was pretty manual. The wheat would be harvested […]
Read moreAI Power: Introducing Currant
The home is getting smarter. We hear that every day and we’re constantly exposed to new devices that all help to bring this home of the future to us. From smart doorbells, to smart door locks, to smart light bulbs and more. But one thing in our homes hasn’t changed much in over a hundred […]
Read moreThe future is keyless: Introducing Nexkey
Ah, the morning pat down: wallet, check; phone, check; keys, check. That’s been my routine for decades. That’s probably been your routine for decades as well. And yes, we’re carrying a super computer in our pockets, but so much of our daily lives is still unlocked by mechanical keys — little mechanical gizmos and puzzles […]
Read moreWhat you didn’t know about TechCrunch Disrupt Winner Forethought AI
Yesterday, K9 Ventures portfolio company, Forethought AI, was declared the winner of the TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018 Startup Battlefield competition. SAN FRANCISCO, CA – SEPTEMBER 07: (L-R) TechCrunch Editor in Chief Matthew Panzarino, Jordan Crook, winner of Battlefield, ‘Forethought,’ and TechCrunch team onstage during Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 at Moscone Center […]
Read moreHi. Hello. And Bye Bye Business Cards!
I last ordered business cards in 2009. I think I ordered a thousand of them. And I haven’t run out of them yet — because most times when I need them, I don’t have them on me. They’re either at the office, or in my car, or in my backpack; but never with me where/when […]
Read moreBrowsers were meant for browsing, but with Workona they’re now designed for working
I’m excited to announce K9 Ventures’ recent investment in Workona. K9 led the initial financing for Workona in December 2017. What is Workona? Well, this video does a great job of explaining that… so I’ll let the video do the talking… Quinn Morgan and Alma Madsen, the co-founders of Workona are alumni from another K9 […]
Read moreYou Can’t Spell Hardware without H-A-R-D
I started my tinkering with hardware first. As a kid I used to trek down to the “electronics bazaar” in New Delhi, known as Lajpat Rai Market, and go store to store to try and find the components I needed for whatever I was building. It was both fun and frustrating at the same time. […]
Read moreGradescope: AI for Grading and Assessment
“I love grading” — I doubt those words have ever been uttered in earnest! The only times I’ve ever heard them or even used them is with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Lot’s of people (me included) will say “I love teaching,” but that love for grading just doesn’t come naturally. Grading gets tedious […]
Read moreEverlaw Raises Series A led by a16z
Today K9 Ventures’ portfolio company Everlaw announced that it has raised $8.1M in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from K9 Ventures. I couldn’t be more excited about Everlaw’s Series A round as it reflects a recognition of the amazing work that the company, co-founded by CEO AJ Shankar and Jeff […]
Read moreAuth0: Solving the Identity Crisis
We have a problem. The first step to solving that problem is acknowledging it exists. And the second step to solving that problem is start using Auth0. Twenty years ago, most of us had maybe one password, and most often a single identity. Today, it’s almost impossible to manage without a password manager and we […]
Read moreOsmo Masterpiece: No more fear of drawing
I still remember pleading with my elder sister to help me draw the diagrams for my Biology class. She could draw the leaf with perfect proportions and beautiful veins. Her microscope and her digestive system looked so much better than mine! Over the years, I finally just resigned myself to thinking “I suck at drawing.” […]
Read moreFounders on a Mission
I’ve often repeated that the definition of entrepreneurship is “Insane perseverance in the face of complete resistance” (something I learned from my professor and mentor the late Jack Thorne). Put differently, there are some founders for whom failure simply isn’t an option. They’re on a mission and they’re not going to let anything stand in […]
Read moreFinding a Problem Worth Solving
Patagonia, Ben O’Bryan When we started in the PhD program in Computer Science at Stanford, Prof. Rajeev Motwani, who was the “default PhD advisor” for all incoming PhD students told us that our only priority should be to find a research topic that we care about. In fact, Prof. Motwani was so adamant that […]
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