Startup Investing

These Companies are Shaping the Future of Corporate Innovation

These Companies are Shaping the Future of Corporate Innovation

Jan 22, 2016 | , ,

By 2020, the laptop will take a backseat in importance to smartphones and wearable devices in the workplace, a recent study by Cisco said; in fact, today’s employees under the age of 35 already complete tasks faster using mobile devices and apps rather than personal computers. More than half of these so-called millennials consider themselves available for work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and prefer working a flexible schedule, utilizing various mobile devices, rather than a 9-5 job in the office. This changing office culture is just one of the ways that technology is altering the corporate world, from how people work to how enterprises do business to how customers make decisions. The first major shift in the corporate world came in the 1980s, with the introduction of the PC. These computers made it possible not just to organize and store information more efficiently, but also gave professionals the opportunity to write their reports and keep their own records, rather than relying on a secretary or central typing center. The advent of email in the 1990s...

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5 Innovative Technologies Tackling Women’s Health Challenges

5 Innovative Technologies Tackling Women’s Health Challenges

Jan 21, 2016 | ,

In the United States, heart disease is the number one cause of death in women, responsible for about 1 in 4 female deaths. But only 54% of women realize this, and many are not diagnosed until it is too late. In fact, 64% of women who die of coronary disease do not have any previous symptoms, or at least do not recognize such symptoms, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Another disease, cervical cancer, which when caught early can be treated with much success, can be fatal if not detected. Of the 275,000 women who die each year around the world from this disease, 85% are in poor countries, where screening is not as accessible as in the United States and Europe. As we see here, in the field of women’s health, there are a number of factors, including perception, education, and access to care that can mean the difference between life and death. These statistics are sobering, but there are many changes in progress that leave room for optimism, including developments in the high-tech field. There...

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The Future Mobile: Ringing in the next generation of smartphones

The Future Mobile: Ringing in the next generation of smartphones

Jan 19, 2016 | , ,

Before mobile phones were developed in the 1970s, dreams about handheld phones that worked anywhere and everywhere were brought to life in the world of entertainment: in the 1960s, the character Maxwell Smart often talked on his famous shoe-shaped phone in the television series GetSmart. Before that, a 1931 children’s book, Conrad’s Ride to the South, portrays a man who keeps a phone in his pocket to use while he is out and about around town. After a series of vehicle-based phone systems were developed in the 1950s, the first handheld mobile phone was introduced by Motorola in 1973; weighing more than two pounds with a battery life of only 30 minutes before needing to be recharged for a full ten hours. Not only are today’s phones a fraction of that size and able to be recharged in minutes, but are for much more than talking.  Today there are more mobile devices than people on the planet. And there is still massive potential for the mobile market, with devices on their way to replacing, at least partially, not only...

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Rev your engines: Expert panel explores what’s next in autonomous driving

Rev your engines: Expert panel explores what’s next in autonomous driving

Jan 19, 2016 | ,

At this year’s CES, driverless car technology was not just one of the hottest trends, it was THE hot trend.” – OurCrowd Investments Partner David Stark “Safety is the main reason that this will become the norm, not just a fancy feature for premium cars.” – Mobileye VP of Business Development Yonah Lloyd Science fiction writers and fans have been dreaming up self-driving cars for almost 100 years. In July, CNBC reported Google’s claim that autonomous cars will finally be available to consumers as early as 2020. It seems that nothing is putting the brakes on driverless cars, and the startup scene is helping drive the industry forward into safer territory with companies like Cruise, Delphi, Valeo, and Israel’s very own Mobileye, a technology company that develops vision-based advanced driver assistance systems providing warnings for collision prevention and mitigation. OurCrowd recently hosted a live conversation with Yonah Lloyd, VP of Business Development at Mobileye; Greg Moran, Co-Founder and CEO of Zoomcar; and Steven Millward, editor-in-chief of Tech in Asia, each bringing their unique viewpoint as we explore what’s next in autonomous driving. The conversation was...

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The Future Car: Driving the next generation of automobile technology

The Future Car: Driving the next generation of automobile technology

Jan 18, 2016 | , ,

Henry Ford’s Model T is not famous for being the first car; in fact, there were several automobiles built in the decades before his. But the Model T is famous for being the car that ushered in a new era, not just of transportation – but of life. In other words, Ford’s model, because it could be mass produced at an affordable cost to consumers, disrupted the world. In 1908, the Model T ushered in a new era of transportation dominated by personal automobile ownership, giving people freedom of movement much greater than that provided by wagons, trains and the earlier, more expensive versions of cars. The development had far-reaching social and economic implications, including the emergence of the middle class and the development of suburbs. Now, more than a century after Ford began building the Model T, the car industry is again seeing great disruption, with the likes of driverless cars and the sharing economy setting the stage for another revolution with accompanying social and economic changes. Until recently, most changes and developments in the automobile industry revolved...

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