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partwildflower · 5 years

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10 of London’s must-visit secret art galleries

Whether you’re looking for on-the-rise artists or the Western world’s most esteemed Old Masters, London’s art trail never disappoints. Its landmark museums and galleries are strangers to no-one – but swap a day at the Tate for a clutch of lesser-known galleries, to experience the city’s creative flair from a cutting-edge, and often far less crowded angle.

Pedro Reyes at the Lisson Gallery, 27 Bell Street, London. Image courtesy of Lisson Gallery/Pedro Reyes

Lisson Gallery

Since its opening in 1967, Lisson Gallery has brought celebrated artists to the forefront of London’s art scene, with Anish Kapoor, Lee Ufan, Ai Weiwei and Richard Deacon just some of the internationally-acclaimed names to have made their mark within its clean, all-white interiors. Perfectly placed between Edgware Road station and Regent’s Park, it’s a must-visit for anyone making their rounds of Marylebone’s upscale boutiques and landmark museums.

Address: 67 Lisson St, Marylebone, London NW1 5DA

Maureen Paley

Wander east of the capital’s hip-and-happening Shoreditch to find this small gem of a gallery, hidden away in a warehouse-style building so discreet and nondescript, that anyone searching for it would almost certainly walk right past its door. A moment’s walk from Bethnal Green station and garden, its red-brick façade conceals fascinating interiors, however, as it shows off the ground-breaking multimedia works of contemporary artists, including Turner prize winners Wolfgang Tillmans and Gillian Wearing.

Address: 21 Herald St, London E2 6JT

Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Image courtesy of Dulwich Picture Gallery/Adam Scott

Dulwich Picture Gallery

Founded in 1811, this quaint Dulwich hub is the world’s first purpose-built art gallery that houses more than 600 paintings to date. From the works of Rembrandt, Canaletto, Rubens and Fragonard across its permanent collection, to its fascinating themed exhibitions, talks and community-led learning programmes, it’s an institution within its local community and a landmark destination for fine art-lovers – yet retains its under-the-radar status, particularly by way of its location, tucked away near Dulwich Park in leafy southeast London.

Address: Gallery Rd, London SE21 7AD

Victoria Miro

Spread across a former furniture factory in Hoxton and a classic red-brick building behind Sotheby’s in Mayfair, Victoria Miro is perhaps best known amongst modern art fanatics for housing the playfully dotted sculptures of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Since its conception in the 1980s, it has also been graced by the works of Grayson Perry, Isaac Julien, Idris Khan, and more international names boasting varied portfolios of paintings, sculptures, photography and cinematic installations.

Address: 16 Wharf Rd, Hoxton, London N1 7RW

‘Leaving the Theatre’ by Carlo Carra (1910) at the Estorick Collection, London. Image courtesy of Estorick Collection

Estorick Collection

A London go-to for acquainting yourself with modern Italian art at its finest, the Estorick Collection opened in 1998 within the walls of a Grade II listed Georgian townhouse, to exhibit Futurist artwork alongside figurative art and sculptures from the late 1800s to the 1950s. Its carefully curated exhibitions are thoughtful and exemplary, with famous names such as Modigliani, Emilio Greco and Marcello Geppetti displaying the influence and power of Italian art and culture.

Address: 39A Canonbury Square, London N1 2AN

Hauser & Wirth

Though it has no fewer than nine venues across the world, set in everything from an impressive Gstaad chalet to a converted Somerset farm, Hauser & Wirth remains an independent gallery offering a refreshing take on contemporary art. Located in a sought-after central London location – the prestigious Savile Row – it presents the works of both emerging and established talent, with an impressive roster that includes Paul McCarthy, Fausto Melotti and Fabio Mauri. Expect spectacular diversity across the board – from the themes explored, to the mediums showcased, to the many origins and stories of its international artists.

Address: 23 Savile Row, Mayfair, London W1S 2ET

‘Loie Hollowell: Dominant / Recessive’ at Pace Gallery, London. Image courtesy of Pace Gallery/Damian Griffiths

Pace Gallery

Situated between Piccadilly Circus and Green Park tube stations, Pace Gallery enjoys a central location in a wing of the Royal Academy of Arts. Founded in Boston in 1960, you’ll find its venues across New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, Palo Alto and Geneva – making it rather well-known amongst seasoned art followers, yet unknown enough for you to enjoy a relatively crowd-free day of art-viewing in the Big Smoke.

Address: 6 Burlington Gardens, Mayfair, London W1S 3ET

The Crypt Gallery

A goose bump-inducing site of historic wonder, the Crypt of St Pancras Paris Church has been used throughout its 200-year-old history as a burial site and air raid shelter, before its most recent transformation into a gallery space – leading the way for imaginative art venues in central London. Wander its vaulted underground pathways to explore its thought-provoking programme of 21st-century art exhibitions and immersive dance performances.

Address: Euston Rd, Kings Cross, London NW1 2BA

‘A Coin in Nine Hands – Part 1’ (2017) at Large Glass, London. Image courtesy of Large Glass

Large Glass Gallery

Open Wednesday to Saturday, this Caledonian Road hotspot offers a unique and innovative approach to its curation of contemporary art, with photography, sculpture and abstract paintings all featuring highly across its all-grey walls. Named after and inspired by the mind of Marcel Duchamp, it has housed the works of American visionary Sol LeWitt, Italian artist Guido Guidi and more, across a series of thoughtful thematic exhibitions since its opening in 2011.

Address: 392 Caledonian Rd, London N1 1DN

Banner Repeater

Housed along platform one of Hackney Downs railway station (yes, you read that correctly), Banner Repeater is an artist-run library and exhibition space set in the most unique of locations – a project which, funded by the Art in Empty Spaces government initiative, has helped introduce a rich cultural offering to the local community, as well as bring disused premises back to life. Just be mindful of its opening times when planning your visit: 8-11am Tuesday to Thursday, 11am-6pm on Friday, and 12-6pm on weekends.

Address: Hackney Downs Network Rail, Platform 1 Dalston Ln, London E8 1LA

Written for Secret Escapes’ blog, The Great Escape, published 18 September 2018.

#England #work

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shakesonaplane · 6 years

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Rikav & Shakes on a plane - 37.5 Hours in Lisboa

(Guest Written by Rikav Chauhan)

Hi friends, I get to hijack shakesonaplane today with my very own blog post (muhahahaha) chronicling our 37.5hr trip to Lisbon, Portugal.

Here’s a short guide on how to have an epic jaunt in Lisboa, the ‘enchanting port,’ of Portugal. (Note: we optimized for culture, food and dançando / bebendo….drinks and dancing if you’re too lazy to translate).

Culture

Portuguese history is full of firsts (think Vasco da Gama, Magellan….Cristiano Ronaldo, jk). Each inch of the city is riddled in history and it seemed liked every cobblestone had a backstory.

The Old

1. Castelo de S. Jorge - A 16th century Moorish castle overlooking the entire city. It was really cool to walk along the castle walls and towers and you get amazing views, a recurring theme that you’ll see in our trip.

2. Arco da Rua Augusta - A beautiful view of the underlying plaza and Tagus river. The Arch stands right by the main square and has an amazingly intricate statue atop it.

The New

1. LX Factory - Wow, imagine a massive manufacturing complex that has turned into the hub for the most innovative creatives in the city. We could have spent hours here. You’ll find amazing art galleries, creative studios, phenomenal food and really interesting shops.

2. Landeau Chocolate - You can die after you eat this cake

3. Cantina Lx - You can also die after you eat this octopus, and you might actually bc the service is so bad here, but the flavor is worth it.

4. Rio Maravilha - High rising vibes with a modern Christ the Redeemer statue, a la Rio

Food

1. O Eurico - This spot is a local favorite, and when in Lisboa you have to try the Bahhcalo fish

2. Time Out Market - You may have read Time Out magazine. These folks have gathered some of Portugal’s best restaurants, bookstores and shops under one warehouse roof. Best advice we got: stay on the west side of the building - that’s where the top food stalls are And make friends with the bartenders since they know the best spots to grab a meal from.

3. Pasteis de nata - These dangerous bad boys pastries are all over the city. Check out Pasteis de Belém or Manteigaria for the good stuff. They’re basically fluffy baked custard pieces of heaven and a must have in Lisbon.

Dançando / Bebendo

1. Barto - A local’s delight, offering live entertainment in an indoor / outdoor bar setting. Off the beaten path! Check their schedule for events. 2. Pensao Amor - a wonderfully weird ‘brothel’ themed bar with Shake’s favorite cocktails

3. Tokyo Lisboa - This is the spot you go to after a bit of drinking and you’re ready for some partee-ing. Awesome live events and fun dancing. Also check their schedule for events.

Some Advice for Your Trip

Where to Stay: Barrio Alto Neighborhood

How to get around: Uber (reasonable to/from the airport) and Public Transportation (don’t rent a car - the streets are hectic to drive / park)

FYI: The Entire country shuts down on Sundays #church

And, as always, here is the album of our adventure and a map to guide your way in Lisbon:

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Saúde, Rikav

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phooll123 · 6 years

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Austria's Pioneers Conference: The Hub For Global Early-Stage Startups, Investors

Jean Baptiste Su ,

CONTRIBUTOR

Vice-President and Principal Analyst at Atherton Research

Pioneers

The Pioneers'18 conference happening this week in Vienna, Austria, is focused on early-stage startups and investing.

The startup conference season is now officially opened in Europe with some of the continent's largest entrepreneurship events happening this month of May, like The Next Web (TNW) in Amsterdam, Vivatech in Paris, France, Infoshare in Poland or Latitude 59and Arctic 15, in Estonia and Finland respectively, for startups in the Nordics region.

However, Pioneers'18, formerly the Pioneers Festival which is happening this week in Vienna, Austria, is quite unique with its maniacal focus on early-stage startups and investing, and emerging and future technology themes (space, artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, science…).

"Over the years, Austria has emerged as an early-stage startup hub,” told me ahead of the event Oliver Csendes, the CEO of Pioneers. “And this year, we’ve handpicked 550 early-stage startups, from all over the world, to attend the event and pitch hundreds of investors, corporations, public sector representatives and media.”

A few years ago, Pioneers was moved from November to May to avoid clashing with the Web Summit, now in Lisbon, Portugal, and the world’s largest startup event.

“My impression is that TNW is more focused on technology industry trends, whereas startups and investors are the focus of Pioneers,” said hardware entrepreneur Daniel Maggs, CEO of Bisu, located in Tokyo, Japan. “We are currently running our seed fundraising process in the U.S. and I decided to attend Pioneers to try and bring some European VCs into the mix.”

Farewell Toys R Us, We Will Miss You

Tinder for business meetings

Of the hundreds of events I attend every year, Pioneers' matchmaking tool is incredibly efficient, finalizing my meeting schedule several days before the event begins. I just had to enter the topics and profiles I was interested in and the tool automagically suggests startups and investors to meet. It also learns from my preferences, in a way that reminds me Tinder, but for business meetings.

Pioneers

The Pioneers conference is hosted this week in Vienna's 500-year-old Hofburg Imperial Palace, which limits the total number of attendees to 2,500.

Also unique in the conference circuit is the historical venue chosen to host Pioneer: The 500-year-old Imperial Palace, where a couple centuries ago, the Hofburg family was ruling Europe from. An amazing spot which also limits the total number of attendees to 2,500, 10 to 20 times smaller than the Web Summit or France’s Vivatech, for example.

“It’s where the past meets the future,” added Csendes. “But, because of this limitation, we had to be much more selective in who can attend, which makes Pioneer a much higher quality event than most other startup conferences.”

What’s next in the Public Sector

This year, the Pioneers organizers added a one-day Govtech event, a day ahead of the main event, where politicians, public sector CIOs (San Francisco, Palo Alto…), startups, corporations, and investors will discuss the latest trends in Citizen Collaboration, Blockchain, and Security.

"Pioneers has an explicit and thorough focus on core smart city solutions, more (in substance) than the other conferences,” said Mark DeSantis, the CEO of Pittsburg-based RoadBotics who was selected to pitch at the event. “Also, they’re making a great tool to connect participants with decision makers. For example, I’m meeting with officials from the City of Vienna to pitch our solution.”

With Pioneers and Austria's now vibrant early-stage startup ecosystem, actively supported by the country’s public funding agency (Austria Wirtschaftsservice), entrepreneurship might soon be as common as skiing in this pristine Alpine country.

Author: Jean Baptiste is a Vice-President and Principal Analyst at Atherton Research, a global technology intelligence firm helping clients deliver successful go-to-market strategies.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2rYgHkl

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ladystylestores · 4 years

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A Silicon Valley for everyone – TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT). Subscribe here.

Many in the tech industry saw the threat of the novel coronavirus early and reacted correctly. Fewer have seemed prepared for its aftereffects, like the outflow of talented employees from very pricey office real estate in expensive and troubled cities like San Francisco.

And few indeed have seemed prepared for the Black Lives Matter protests that have followed the death of George Floyd. This was maybe the easiest to see coming, though, given how visible the structural racism is in cities up and down the main corridors of Silicon Valley.

Today, the combination of politics, the pandemic and the protests feels almost like a market crash for the industry (except many revenues keep going up and to the right). Most every company is now fundamentally reconsidering where it will be located and who it will be hiring — no matter how well it is doing otherwise.

Some, like Google and Thumbtack, have been caught in the awkward position of scaling back diversity efforts as part of pandemic cuts right before making statements in support of the protesters, as Megan Rose Dickey covered on TechCrunch this week. But it is also the pandemic helping to create the focus, as Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital tells her:

It is like the world and the country has a front-row seat to what Black people have to witness, take in, and feel all the time. And it was before they were seeing some of it, but they were seeing it kind of protected by us. We were kind of shielding them from some of it… It’s like a VR headset that the country is forced to be in because of COVID. It’s just in their face.

This also putting new scrutiny on how tech is used in policing today. It is renewing questions around who gets to be a VC and who gets funding right when the industry is under new pressure to deliver. It is highlighting solutions that companies can make internally, like this list from BLCK VC on Extra Crunch.

As with police reforms currently in the national debate, some of the most promising solutions are local. Property tax reform, pro-housing activism and sustainable funding for homelessness services are direct ways for the tech industry to address the long history of discrimination where the modern tech industry began, Catherine Bracy of TechEquity writes for TechCrunch. These changes are also what many think would make the Bay Area a more livable place for everyone, including any startup and any tech employee at any tech company (see: How Burrowing Owls Lead To Vomiting Anarchists).

Something to think about as we move on to our next topic — the ongoing wave of tech departures from SF.

Where will VCs follow founders to now?

In this week’s staff survey, we revisit the remote-first dislocation of the tech industry’s core hubs. Danny Crichton observes some of the places that VCs have been leaving town for, and thinks it means bigger changes are underway:

“Are VCs leaving San Francisco? Based on everything I have heard: yes. They are leaving for Napa, leaving for Tahoe, and otherwise heading out to wherever gorgeous outdoor beauty exists in California. That bodes ill for San Francisco’s (and really, South Park’s) future as the oasis of VC.

But the centripetal forces are strong. VCs will congregate again somewhere else, because they continue to have that same need for market intelligence that they have always had. The new, new place might not be San Francisco, but I would be shocked just given the human migration pattern underway that it isn’t in some outlying part of the Bay Area.

And then he says this:

As for VCs — if the new central node is a bar in Napa and that’s the new “place to be” — that could be relatively more permanent. Yet ultimately, VCs follow the founders even if it takes time for them to recognize the new balance of power. It took years for most VCs to recognize that founders didn’t want to work in South Bay, but now nearly every venture firm of note has an office in San Francisco. Where the founders go, the VCs will follow. If that continues to be SF, its future as a startup hub will continue after a brief hiatus.

It’s true that another outlying farming community in the region once became a startup hub, but that one had a major research university next door, and at the time a lot of cheap housing if you were allowed access to it. But Napa cannot be the next Palo Alto because it is fully formed today as a glorified retirement community, Danny.

I’m already on the record for saying that college towns in general are going to become more prominent in the tech world, between ongoing funding for innovative tech work and ongoing desirability for anyone moving from the big cities. But I’m going to add a side bet that cities will come back into fashion with the sorts of startup founders that VCs would like to back. As Exhibit A, I’d like to present Jack Dorsey, who started a courier dispatch in Oakland in 2000, and studied fashion and massage therapy during the aftermath of the dot-com bubble. His success with Twitter a few years later in San Francisco inspired many founders to move as well.

Creative people like him are drawn to the big, creative environments that cities can offer, regardless of what the business establishment thinks. If the public and private sectors can learn from the many mistakes of recent decades (see last item) who knows, maybe we’ll see a more equal and resilient sort of boom emerge in tech’s current core.

Insurance provider Lemonade files for IPO with that refreshing common-stock flavor

There are probably some amazing puns to be made here but it has been a long week, and the numbers speak for themselves. Lemonade sells insurance to renters and homeowners online, and managed to reach a private valuation of $3.5 billion before filing to go public on Monday — with the common stockholders still comprising the majority of the cap table.

Danny crunched the numbers from the S-1 on Extra Crunch to generate the table, included, that illustrates this rather unusual breakdown. Usually, as you almost certainly know already, the investors own well over half by the time of a good liquidity event. “So what was the magic with Lemonade?” he ponders. “One piece of the puzzle is that company founder Daniel Schreiber was a multi-time operator, having previously built Powermat Technologies as the company’s president. The other piece is that Lemonade is built in the insurance market, which can be carefully modeled financially and gives investors a rare repeatable business model to evaluate.”

(Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Adapting enterprise product roadmaps to the pandemic

Our investor surveys for Extra Crunch this week covered the space industry’s startup opportunities, and looked at how enterprise investors are assessing the impact of the pandemic. Here’s Theresia Gouw of Acrew Capital, explaining how two of their portfolio companies have refocused in recent months:

A common theme we found when joining our founders for these strategy sessions was that many pulled forward and prioritized mid- to long-term projects where the product features might better fit the needs of their customers during these times. One such example in our portfolio is Petabyte’s (whose product is called Rhapsody) accelerated development of its software capabilities that enable veterinarians to provide telehealth services. Rhapsody has also incorporated key features that enable a contactless experience when telehealth isn’t sufficient. These include functionality that enables customers to check-in (virtual waiting room), sign documents, and make payments from the comfort and safety of their car when bringing their pet (the patient!) to the vet for an in-person check-up.

Another such example would be PredictHQ, which provides demand intelligence to enterprises in travel, hospitality, logistics, CPG, and retail, all sectors who saw significant change (either positive or negative) in the demand for their products and services. PredictHQ has the most robust global dataset on real-world events. Pandemics and all the ensuing restrictions and, then, loosening of restrictions fall within the category of real-world events. The company, which also has multiple global offices, was able to incorporate the dynamic COVID government responses on a hyperlocal basis, by geography, and equip its customers (e.g., Domino’s, Qantas, and First Data) with up to date insights that would help with demand planning and forecasting as well as understanding staffing needs.

Around TechCrunch

Extra Crunch Live: Join Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra for a live Q&A on June 16 at 2pm EDT/11 AM PDT Join us for a live Q&A with Plaid CEO Zach Perret June 18 at 10 a.m. PDT/1 p.m. EDT Two weeks left to save on TC Early Stage passes Learn how to ‘nail it before you scale it’ with Floodgate’s Ann Miura-Ko at TC Early Stage SF How can startups reinvent real estate? Learn how at TechCrunch Disrupt Stand out from the crowd: Apply to TC Top Picks at Disrupt 2020

Across the Week

TechCrunch

Theaters are ready to reopen, but is America ready to go back to the movies? Edtech is surging, and parents have some notes When it comes to social media moderation, reach matters Zoom admits to shutting down activist accounts at the request of the Chinese government

Extra Crunch

TechCrunch’s top 10 picks from Techstars’ May virtual demo days Software’s meteoric rise: Have VCs gone too far? Recession-proof your software engineering career The complicated calculus of taking Facebook’s venture money The pace of startup layoffs may be slowing down

#EquityPod

From Alex:

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

After a pretty busy week on the show we’re here with our regular Friday episode, which means lots of venture rounds and new venture capital funds to dig into. Thankfully we had our full contingent on hand: Danny “Well, you see” Crichton, Natasha “Talk to me post-pandemic” Mascarenhas, Alex “Very shouty” Wilhelm and, behind the scenes, Chris “The Dad” Gates.

Make sure to check out our IPO-focused Equity Shot from earlier this week if you haven’t yet, and let’s get into today’s topics:

Instacart raises $225 million. This round, not unexpected, values the on-demand grocery delivery startup at $13.7 billion — a huge sum, and one that should make it harder for the well-known company to sell itself to anyone but the public markets. Regardless, COVID-19 gave this company a huge updraft, and it capitalized on it.

Pando raises $8.5 million. We often cover rounds on Equity that are a little obvious. SaaS, that sort of thing. Pando is not that. Instead, it’s a company that wants to let small groups of individual pool their upside and allow for more equal outcomes in an economy that rewards outsized success.

Ethena raises $2 million. Anti-harassment software is about as much fun as the dentist today, but perhaps that doesn’t have to be the case. Natasha talked us through the company, and its pricing. I’m pretty bullish on Ethena, frankly. Homebrew, Village Global and GSV took part in the financing event.

Vendr raises $4 million. Vendr wants to help companies cut their SaaS bills, through its own SaaS-esque product. I tried to explain this, but may have butchered it a bit. It’s cool, I promise.

Facebook is getting into the CVC game. This should not be a surprise, but we were also not sure who was going to want Facebook money.

And, finally, Collab Capital is raising a $50 million fund to invest in Black founders. Per our reporting, the company is on track to close on $10 million in August. How fast the fund can close its full target is something we’re going to keep an eye on, considering it might get a lot harder a lot sooner.

And that is that; thanks for lending us your ears.

Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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WHAT WE LOOK FOR STARTUPS

I'd forgotten. There were a few other patterns, but these were the biggest surprise for me. And that gave us flexibility. Would the transplanted startups survive? Imagine what it would take. Would the city be described as hip and tolerant, or as reflecting traditional values? If you look at the responses, the common theme is that starting a startup is—that a startup operating out of a small agricultural town wouldn't benefit from moving to a startup hub a place is, the highs are also very high. Although the finiteness of the number of good ideas is not the usual one, which applies even when you know which basket is best. Whereas mere determination, without flexibility, is a greedy algorithm that may get you nothing more than a mediocre local maximum: When someone is determined, there's still a danger that they'll follow a long, hard path that ultimately leads nowhere.

Google. And in this context, low-cost investors to undercut the rest. One of the many things we do at Y Combinator said, Once you take several million dollars of my money, the investors get a great deal of control. There's something that needs to happen first.1 And it would get easier over time, because the more startups there are, the more we'll see multiple companies doing the same thing. They want enough money that a they don't have to do whatever seems best at each point. Presumably their cars fit together more precisely than ours for the same reason Chicago investors are more conservative than Silicon Valley investors are noticeably more aggressive than Boston ones.

But openness to new ideas has to be tuned just right.2 Presumably their cars fit together more precisely than ours for the same reason their joinery always has. The emotional ups and downs were more extreme than they were prepared for. I didn't realize how much of a role luck plays and how much is outside of our control. If they have a hard time paying a bunch of young guys millions of dollars, if possible. You don't have to persecute nerds, the very word taste sounds slightly ridiculous to American ears. And finally, if a good investor has committed to fund you if you choose them. It's the basis of everything.3 They probably assumed we were on the same VC gravy train they were. By the time the Boston VC grasped what was happening, the deal was already gone. It's practically a mantra at YC. And I think I can prove I'm right.

They don't understand startups as well. When we want to make a car better, we stick tail fins on it, or make it longer, or make the windows smaller, depending on the current fashion.4 After the last talk I gave, one of the most surprising things I saw was the willingness of people to help us. The sixth largest center for oil, or finance, or publishing? As big a deal as the Industrial Revolution? It's unpleasant work, but it will only get harder, because change is accelerating. You can't benefit from a high valuation is a great thing. In fact, for most people, would be if you could get a 30% better deal elsewhere?

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Michael Mandel, Robert Morris, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this. Or we can improve it, which usually means encrusting it with gratuitous ornament. So the only way out. With a property management company, you can rely on your intuitions as you ordinarily would, and b look at the problem from this direction. Founders who fail quickly tend to blame themselves. We don't especially prize design or craftsmanship; they just get a larger, more conspicuous version of the standard house. I written about yet?5 Where did they get their ideas?

But they only build a couple office buildings or suburban streets at a time, and you have to do lots of different things. This is a very slippery slope, greased with some of the most powerful forces that can work on founders' minds, and excessive dilution in series A rounds for as much equity as founders want to sell, they take the meeting. But I bet that particular firm will end up ahead. Google was better at search.6 One founder said the thing that surprised him most was The degree to which persistence alone was able to dissolve obstacles: If you spend all your time talking to executives at cell phone companies, trying to arrange deals. This is also true of starting a startup was the value of community. Most people implicitly believe something like this about their opinions. Then you don't depend on any one feature or deal or anything to bring you success.

And yet even when they know what corp dev people like to turn the tables on you. Complaining that VCs were like this. Then you'd really be in good shape. If your first version is so impressive that trolls don't make fun of it, you should leave business models for later, just as pop songs are designed to sound ok on crappy car radios; if you say anything mistaken, fix it immediately; ask friends which sentence you'll regret most; go back and tone down harsh remarks; publish stuff online, because an audience makes you write more, and thus generate more ideas; print out drafts instead of just looking at them on the screen; use simple, germanic words; learn to distinguish surprises from digressions; learn to distinguish surprises from digressions; learn to distinguish surprises from digressions; learn to distinguish surprises from digressions; learn to recognize the approach of an ending, and when one appears, grab it. That's one source of ideas, but not the best.7 Unfortunately, though public acquirers are structurally identical to pooled-risk company management companies.8 It would be up to them to pick, because every good startup would approach them first. So it was literally IPO or bust. The best case, for most people the latter is merely the optimal case of the former. But was it the most interesting work I could imagine doing? My advice is generally pessimistic. If you get to the next step, whatever that is.9

It is, in some ways. In a couple years he may not sound so chipper. But was it the most interesting work I could imagine doing? This conference was in London, and most founders of successful ones do. Suppose to be on the safe side it would cost a million dollars each to move, a lot of people. So the only way out. Fortunately, it can become a lot less stressful once you reach cruising altitude: I'd say 75% of the stress is gone now from when we first started. But I think the biggest danger for VCs, and also the biggest opportunity, is at the series A round.10 We would have sold. You can't benefit from a high valuation unless you can somehow achieve what those in the business call a liquidity event, founders should start companies that make money and live off the revenues. My advice is generally pessimistic. People just don't seem to get how different it is till they do it?

Notes

A Timex will gain or lose about. 92. To be safe either a don't use code written while you were going back to 1970 it would work to have invented. There are people whose applications are perfect in every way, because some schools work hard to say about these: I once explained this to users than where you go to work on a desert island, hunting and gathering fruit.

Lecuyer, Christophe, Making Silicon Valley, MIT Press, 1981.

Since they don't want to create a portal for x.

Like the Aeneid, Paradise Lost that none of your universities is significantly lower, about 1.

But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the prior probability of an urban context, etc.

The word suggests an undifferentiated slurry, but they were connected to the extent we see incumbents suppressing competitors via regulations or patent suits, we used to build their sites.

I'm not saying public school kids are smarter than preppies, just try to establish a protocol for web-based applications. In fact it's our explicit goal at Y Combinator. Disclosure: Reddit was funded by Y Combinator. But while it is certainly part of the funds we raised was difficult, and a few old professors in Palo Alto.

Professors and politicians live within socialist eddies of the businesses they work. After a bruising fight he escaped with a sufficiently good at talking about why something isn't the problem is that their local network infrastructure would be far from the rest generate mediocre returns, like parents, truly believe they have wings and start to get into that because server-based applications. But that turned out the answer to, but they're not influenced by buzz. One YC founder wrote after reading a draft, Sam Altman points out that it's a bad deal.

I deliberately pander to readers, because time seems to have been the general sense of the aircraft is. I've observed; but as the little jars in supermarkets.

We don't call it ambient thought. This flattering distinction seems so natural to expand into new markets. P spam and legitimate mail volume both have distinct daily patterns. There is archaeological evidence for large companies, executives at large companies.

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scottishfoodreview · 6 years

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Forget the Monday blues, Edinburgh Cocktail Week is back next month!

Edinburgh Cocktail Week Reveal Over 80 Signature Cocktails and Full Programme of Events, Parties and Masterclasses Ahead of Next Month’s Festival

A Whisky Escape Room challenge, over participating 80 bars, a new Cocktail Village, a hidden Masterclass Hub, a Pornstar Martini Party, and distillery tours are just some of the highlights you can look forward to hopping between at next month’s Edinburgh Cocktail Week, 15th – 21st October, as they reveal their full programme of events and 82 signature cocktails.

Over 80 bars across the capital are taking part in this year’s Edinburgh Cocktail Week (30 more than last year) including Harvey Nichols, Tigerlily, Dragonfly, The Voyage of Buck, The Voodoo Rooms and The Grand Café, with each bar designing a unique Signature Cocktail which can be enjoyed for just £4 each with an ECW wristband - £6 for a weekday band (valid Monday to Friday) and £8 for a weekend band (valid Saturday and Sunday).

This year’s expanded format also sees the introduction of a new Cocktail Village at Festival Square, which is free to enter with a wristband. Enclosed within a marquee, the Cocktail Village will act as the social hub of the week-long cocktail celebrations, where attendees can meet up with friends and catch up over £4 cocktails from 15 pop-up bars such as Edinburgh Gin, Grey Goose Vodka, St-Germain, Johnnie Walker, Rumbullion Rum, Belvedere Vodka and Poco Prosecco, plus a very special ‘Golden Ticket’ themed bar from The Pop Up Geeks. As well as lots of cocktails to try, there will also be live music, DJs and drop-in style masterclasses and tastings to keep revellers entertained.

"We wanted to give the event more of a festival feel this year, so we have introduced a much larger programme of things happening all around the city for wristband-holders to hop between on their cocktail adventure, as well as extending the event to seven days and increasing the number of bars taking part to spread footfall. As a city of event-goers we all love a pop-up space to hangout in, so the Cocktail Village is an exciting new development for the event and the city. It has been designed with an outdoor festival theme to make you feel like you are in an autumnal garden while being in the comfort of an enclosed marquee. With this year’s expansion also came a lot of work with brands and distribution to ensure supply meets demand; a challenge some bars faced last year. New partnerships with brands and local distributors will ensure sufficient stock levels are in place with backup stock from local warehouses just a phone call away." -- Gary Anderson - Festival Organiser and Hero

Between sipping, sampling and socialising around the bars and Cocktail Village, there is also a programme of events, masterclasses and parties for wristband-holders to attend throughout the week, kicking off with a Pornstar Martini Party hosted by Absolut Vodka at 4042, Edinburgh’s newest late-night venue. Partying continues throughout the week as Altos Tequila host a sleepover themed party at Tonic with a menu of £4 ‘Agave Dream’ inspired cocktails to choose from. Entry to both events are free on a first-come basis and tables can be booked in advance by contacting each venue directly.

Thrill-seeking wristband-holders are invited to join Chivas Regal for a whisky themed Escape Room at Nightcap. Designed for both experienced and amateur whisky drinkers, attendees must use their senses to guide themselves through a labyrinth of flavour, collecting whisky along the way to unlock and create their own personalised blend at the end of the challenge, before enjoying a complimentary cocktail in the Nightcap Lounge.

Another exciting addition this year is 'The Secret Spirits Study' pop-up on Queen Street – a masterclass hub by day and underground bar by night, hosted by Wemyss Malts and Darnley's Gin. Those eager to sample and get creative can look forward to experiential masterclasses such as ‘Mixed Drinks Through the Ages’ which explores the past, present and future of cocktails through sampling and hands-on cocktail-making. Or take ‘A Liquid Journey’ and sample six botanical spirits to discover how they react with one another to form the award-winning Darnley’s Gin range, while ‘The Secret to Blending Whisky’ masterclasses take pupils on a laboratory style flavour tasting before crafting a personalised blend to take home. In the evening The Secret Spirits Study will transform into a hidden cocktail bar with a programme of bar takeovers with mixologists from across Scotland showcasing their skills to create £4 cocktails for wristband-holders to imbibe on in the lounge or underground bothy.

If a break from cocktails is needed, festival-goers can head along to The Empress of Broughton Street for a beer & whiskey pairing with Jameson Whiskey and local craft brewers Barney’s Beer, or be the first to take a tour of the Sweetdram distillery as it opens for the first time, exclusively for wristband-holders. Tour tickets cost £4 each and include samples of Sweetdram’s Escubac (described specifically as not a gin) and their Smoked Spiced Rum.

Local gin producers Pickering’s Gin are also joining in the cocktail debauchery with a collaboration with Brewhemia for a whirlwind week of food & gin pairings, ‘How to at Home’ cocktail classes featuring Pickering’s new Pink Grapefruit & Lemongrass Liqueur, plus tastings and competitions with co-founders Marcus Pickering and Matthew Gammell in the Brewhemia Boudoir.

And the fun and benefits of an ECW wristband don’t end there: wristband-holders can also enjoy a complimentary cocktail with beauty treatments at NOW by One Spa; promotions at the Official ECW Bottle Shops, Royal Mile Whiskies and Drink Monger; 50% off a ride with mytaxi; and free entry before midnight to Edinburgh’s top late-night venues Lulu, 4042 and Shanghai – visit the ECW website for T&Cs.

Social Media: Instagram - @edcocktailweek Facebook - @edinburghcocktailweek Twitter - @edcocktailweek Hashtag - #ECW18

Wristbands: On sale now at www.edinburghcocktailweek.co.uk Weekday (valid Monday – Friday) - £6 Weekend (valid Saturday & Sunday) - £8

#edinburgh #Event #Cocktails

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ufoauthor-blog · 6 years

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ALIEN HUB - RESURECTION

"Diaspora is the place to be, UFOs and family, universe stretching out so far and wide, take the ordinary just give me a starry sky!" (wit appologies to Green Acres theme song lovers everywhere).

Yes, ALIEN HUB lovers, it's closed, "gone forever" as was posted. But, the people, the conversations, the purpose... that can continue. Join me, connect, use the hash tag #ufi or #ufi-auttori and #alienhub to get started. Oh, bonus, no ads, no monitors, no money required.

![enter image description here](https://i0.wp.com/digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Alto-Campoo-Ski-Lift-Milky-Way-e1502733284583.jpg?resize=750%2C501&ssl=1 "enter image title here")

#alienhub #alien #ufo #experiencer #ufology #ufologist #writer #reporter

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haritha003 · 3 months

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Transform your hospital's online presence today with our affordable, customization and SEO-ready templates. Visit our website to get started.

#altos theme hub #theme hub #hospital templates websites #web designers #low cost templates #website development

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contentmag · 6 years

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Cinequest, founded by Halfdan Hussey and Kathleen Powell, is still going strong after 28 years. This year’s theme, “Impact,” focuses on the importance of the film festival as a platform and opportunity for filmmakers, audiences, and the community. Filmmakers are able to take the next step in their careers by sharing their work with appreciative audiences who provide valuable feedback, in addition to the recognition that filmmakers gain through festival awards or simply having their work included as festival selections. Audience members who open themselves up to the diversity of experiences and stories that are shared through the films in this festival are able to benefit from the power of film to build bridges and increase cross-cultural understanding. In addition to experiencing these carefully curated films, audience members are impacted by the connections they are able to make while participating in both formal and informal conversations with the community of artists and fellow filmgoers that attend Cinequest. And of course, there is the economic impact that the film festival has on the neighboring businesses in San Jose and Redwood City.

Without access to Camera 12 in recent years, Cinequest has been working diligently to ensure that audiences continue to experience the quality and quantity of screenings, panels, workshops, soirées, and other events that Cinequest has become known for. To that end, Cinequest expanded programming up the peninsula to Redwood City last year—which not only bolstered the number of available screens but also eased the burden of commuting for attendees that live or work further north—however, Cinequest remained committed to San Jose’s downtown core as the festival hub. This year, with the opening of 3Below Theaters & Lounge (formerly Camera 3) to supplement the palatial California Theatre and the renovated Hammer Theatre Center, Cinequest will once again be able to screen all films in the downtown core. Peninsula attendees need not fear, though, as Cinequest will still be screening many films at the Cinemark Century 20 in Redwood City, as well.

The big names coming to this year’s Cinequest will include the 2018 Maverick Spirit Award winners Tatiana Maslany, Tom Cullen, Andie MacDowell, and John Travolta, as well as the 2018 Media Legacy Award winner Ben Mankiewicz. Beyond the Hollywood stars, Cinequest is also a great place to meet local filmmakers, like Dana Nachman, whose independent documentary production company KTF Films is based in Los Altos. Nachman, who brought audiences the uplifting Batkid Begins, will return to Cinequest with another heartwarming story, titled Pick of the Litter, about puppies in training to become guide dogs. And it wouldn’t be Silicon Valley without some attention paid to the cutting edge of film technology. From VR cinema programs featuring the likes of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage to workshops addressing the storytelling implications of immersive virtual experiences, audiences will be able to fully explore the world of VR and AR.

Cinequest is also keen to develop community partnerships in order to enrich the festival experience. Cinequest has been proud to center the work of women in film for many years, with 98 directors who are women included in this year’s lineup. In a new partnership, on the eve of International Women’s Day, Cinequest will host Lunafest, a traveling exhibition of short films by, for, and about women. Cinequest also believes in the value of bringing together creative communities. Building on the success of last year, Cinequest will partner with Reed Magazine to present “Poets N Film,” featuring local spoken word artists (scheduled to include ASHA, Bill Cozzini, Roberto Duran, Eli Hansen, Lita Kurth, Mighty Mike McGee, Joe Miller, and Kimy Martinez) combined with satirical dance routines, hilarious costumes, sound experiments, live music, and projections. Two short films about poets will also be showcased as part of this event.

There are many ways to explore this 13-day festival, running from February 27 to March 13, but one thing is for certain: it is an experience not to be missed.

The complete line-up, as well as tickets and passes, can be found on the Cinequest website.

Co-Founder Halfdan Hussey

Co-Founder Kathleen Powell

Operations & Special Projects Manager Sharon McWilliams (L) and VR Programs & Film Producer May Yam (R)

Volunteer Terra Wood-Taylor

Volunteers Nathan Louie (R) and Company

Written by Julia Canavese Photography by Daniel Garcia

Cinequest instagram: cinequestinc facebook: cinequest twitter: cinequest

Cinequest 2018 Cinequest, founded by Halfdan Hussey and Kathleen Powell, is still going strong after 28 years. This year’s theme, “Impact,” focuses on the importance of the film festival as a platform and opportunity for filmmakers, audiences, and the community.

#Cinequest Film Festival #Downtown San Jose #Film #Film Festival #Filmmaking #Redwood City #San Jose #Virtual Reality #VR

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summercampforkids · 3 months

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Kidizens: Shaping Future Leaders Through LEGO Adventures in the Bay Area

Nestled in the vibrant Bay Area, Kidizens stands as a unique platform, transforming LEGO play into a potent tool for both learning and leadership development. Beyond the colorful bricks, Kidizens provides a project-based learning environment that immerses children in the intricacies of community building, governance, and economic understanding. Let's explore how Kidizens is creating a dynamic space where children build, learn, and lead, all while enjoying the thrill of LEGO.

Empowering Tomorrow's Leaders - One Brick at a Time: Kidizens has a clear mission – to shape responsible future leaders through a hands-on, immersive experience. Their city-building framework introduces children to real-life skills and strategies that go beyond mere LEGO construction. The focus is on cultivating social emotional growth and leadership skills, project-based learning and self-confidence building, collaborative decision-making, and empowering kids to craft their own stories within the LEGO universe.

Diverse Learning Experiences for Every Child: Kidizens offers a wide array of programs and classes, catering to the unique interests and ages of children. Whether it's extending the learning beyond school hours with after-school camps, delving into the philosophy and unique approach of Kidizens through LEGO-based education, or immersing in specially curated camps that blend fun and education seamlessly – there's something for everyone.

The spring camps welcome the season with creativity and LEGO-inspired adventures, while summer camps provide a dive into the excitement of the season with LEGO-themed experiences. Structured classes cover various aspects of learning through LEGO, while specialized workshops elevate the LEGO learning experience. Evenings of LEGO fun and friendship are offered through Kids Night Out, and special occasions can be celebrated with unique LEGO-themed parties.

Building Communities Across the Bay Area: Kidizens extends its innovative programs to various locations across the Bay Area, making learning accessible and enjoyable for children in different communities.

In Los Altos, the Kidizens center invites exploration, offering a unique space for the community to engage in LEGO education. Summer camps in Los Altos are tailored to the community's interests, providing a specialized experience for local children.

Belmont becomes a hub for LEGO education, featuring unique challenges and activities that resonate with young builders in the area. Summer camps in Belmont offer a chance to experience the joy of LEGO in a community-focused setting.

Palo Alto unveils the magic of LEGO with programs designed to align with the local culture and interests. Specialized summer camps in Palo Alto provide an opportunity to dive into LEGO adventures within the community.

[Continue with a similar format for each location, highlighting the unique offerings for the respective communities.]

Conclusion: Kidizens goes beyond being a LEGO program; it's a transformative journey where imagination meets leadership. Join the Kidizens community, and let your child discover the joy of learning, one LEGO brick at a time.

#lego summer camps #kidizens #lego camp bay area #lego

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ultracooldreamerpaper-blog · 6 years

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Wheels of Wander

Name of the campaign: Wheels of Wander

By: Maruti Suzuki Alto and Outlook Traveller Magazine

Date: 23rd December 2017 to 6th March 2018

Highlights of the campaign: Different target groups of Maruti Suzuki Alto are brought on board to self-drive the car along 6 exciting routes in India, for 4-day journeys.

Wheels of Wander

A set of wheels can give you wings. Figuratively, of course. The appeal of a first car trumps any measure of success in your life in the times to come. Many people in India can relate to the time when they got their hands on the wheel and took their first car for a spin. The Maruti Suzuki Alto embodies that same vibe – the rush of excitement, a feeling of liberation and a knowingness that this car will feature in many memories from this period of life. And what better way to build this repository of good times, than to make your favourite people a part of some of these memories.

The Maruti Suzuki Alto and Outlook Traveller join hands to help 6 sets of the car’s target audience to experience this thrill and marry it with the wonderful cultural landscape of India. “We are delighted to partner with Maruti Suzuki Alto in bringing the magic of India alive for different travellers. As a company that has 16 years of mapping the world, we’ve selected some of the most pulsating festive backdrops, thrilling adventures and a variety of themes for the audience to choose. They can pick a trail and apply on our website for a self-driven journey that will be etched in the minds forever.”

Participants will be invited to register on the website, outlooktraveller.com/wow, to choose from a set of 6 trails in different parts of the country. The trails have been specifically timed with a particular festival or vibrant mood of a time in the year, to add extra exuberance to the destination. Each trip has been planned, keeping a certain audience in mind.

Trips Details

1. Meghalaya: Into the Clouds (23rd- 26th Dec, 2017)

This nature and music focused trip is planned around the festive spirit of Christmas and is aimed at an all boys group, preferably a young Indie band.

2. Festive Punjab (11th to 14th Jan, 2018)

The trip will coincide with Lohri when the energy is high and there is a celebratory mood through the state. This trail will be best experienced with two young couples, perhaps young parents.

3. Discovering Araku Valley (18th -21st Jan, 2018)

Young professionals take to the tarmac to explore the lesser-known part of the Eastern Ghats, where a tribal enclave and a cave system are the highlights.

4. The Colours of Rann Utsav (30th Jan – 2nd Feb, 2018)

Imagine a group of young girl friends and a splash of colour in embroidery, weaving and other crafts of Gujarat. The Rann Utsav becomes their playground for the day as they explore other cultural hubs close by.

5. Rejuvenating Kerala (7th -11th Feb, 2018)

Kerala’s natural bounty is hard to match, no matter which part of the country you journey into. A young couple explores this in a Maruti Suzuki Alto, sampling local life, cuisine, a houseboat and the longest drivable beach in India.

6. Coastal Maharashtra (3rd-6th March, 2018)

When it to comes to watery adventures, cousins are the go-to buddies who amp up the fun. The trail along the coast of Maharashtra is all about that. Parasailing, jet skiing and discovering underwater wonders while snorkeling, as the young family hops from one place to another in a Maruti Suzuki Alto.

At the end of each trip, the audience will be able to see these journeys captured in videos, photos and stories on the website, www.outlooktraveller.com/wow

About Outlook Traveller

Outlook Traveller is one of the leading travel magazines of India, with over one and a half decades of bringing the most inspirational travel stories to the readers. As one of the first travel magazines of India, it is considered authority on experiential travel content. Each story is well researched by a large network of on-ground writers and captured on camera by photographers, to bring credible information and quality suggestions to the reader. Outlook Traveller has a strong editorial panel that includes inputs from its four verticals; magazine, website, guide books and responsible tourism initiative. More on https://www.outlooktraveller.com

About Maruti Suzuki Alto

One of India’s first cars, the Maruti Suzuki Alto has been a key player in driving India’s transformation in the automobile industry. Thanks to its fuel efficiency and high mileage the Maruti Suzuki Alto has formed a special place in the heart of most Indians. It is because of this legacy, that most families choose to purchase an Alto, making it the highest selling car for 12 years in a row. Designed especially for Indian roads, the Maruti Suzuki Alto has given more than 30 lakh families the freedom to embark on their journey to success.

#Wheels of Wander

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csemntwinl3x0a1 · 7 years

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How synthetic biology startups are building the future at RebelBio

The accelerator is helping scientists turn their longer-term moonshot visions into feasible projects.

Biology is becoming the new digital. As the engineering of biology starts delivering solutions at industrial scale while becoming more data-driven and automated, investors are getting excited to fund breakthrough biotechnologies that unlock this potential for a whole range of industries.

Europe has been steadily rising as a global hub for innovation and is attracting big bets from veteran VC investors. It has even been hailed as the “New Silicon Valley.” Boasting an active DIY biology scene, world-class institutions and productive innovation ecosystems, the continent is a fertile base to grow global startups from the early stage to the next level.

Accelerators are indispensable elements to harness this early-stage innovation, which often remains locked up in institutions or falls into the “Valley of Death,” the often deadly funding gap between those first discoveries and a working prototype.

This is the stage the RebelBio accelerator comes in to help startups solve global grand challenges—with life itself.

An Innovation Engine

It’s as exciting in biology today as it was in the computer industry in the late '70s, when the Apple II came out. Computers became personal.

As Steve Jobs said, “I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology,” the ethos of RebelBio is to bend and break the rules of the status quo at the intersection between these two disciplines.

A total of 15 multidisciplinary teams from across the world have begun the latest program at RebelBio, garnering an investment of over $100,000 for each company. In addition to gaining access to fully equipped labs and office spaces, they also draw from a network of hundreds of mentors, including RebelBio-founder Bill Liao, who also cofounded Xing, Davnet, and CoderDojo.

The program helps the founders to make their longer-term moonshot visions (the “innovation” part) into feasible projects which generate revenue early on (the “engine” part). It is transforming scientists into entrepreneurs across diverse areas of life sciences and is currently in its fourth batch.

From novel biomaterials to new ways to brew the foods we love, from speeding up cancer lab tests turning days into hours, to a microbe-miner discovering life-saving antibiotics. We even have a machine learning startup for drug discovery, and another working on microbial fuel cell modules to treat wastewater while generating electricity!

Bill Liao, founder of RebelBio and general partner at SOSV

So what kind of startups are brewing at RebelBio?

Figure 1-1. The lab and some of the cohort IV at University College Cork (Image: RebelBio) Diagnostics 2.0: Rapid, Portable, and Personal

One RebelBio startup is Sex Positive, founded by Nico Bouchard and Mary Ward, cofounders of Counter Culture Labs and both biohackers from California. Developed as a smart diagnostic device for sexually transmitted infections, Sex Positive is enabling rapid self-testing of sexual health in the privacy of one’s own home, without the need for a hospital lab. The first test will be for chlamydia. The device combines fluid dynamics, immunology, genetics and electronics designed by a Tesla engineer remotely in Palo Alto.

Meanwhile, KaitekLabs is founded by Emilia Diaz from Chile, who is turning bacteria into living computers. They function as a ready-to-use, portable biosensor kit to detect shellfish toxin directly from shellfish—a major food source for many people living in coastal regions around the world. It makes the invisible poison orange! The startup has already sold out a batch of the first prototype.

Figure 1-2. KaitekLabs’ founder Emilia with the “MOSES” (Microbial Optic Shellfish Evaluation Sensor) toxin-detection kit (Image: KaitekLabs)

Then, OaCP (Oncology and Cytogenetic Products) is a university spin-out from Bologna, Italy, using its patented reagents to speed up diagnostics. Since many in vitro diagnostic tests for cancer can take over three days of agonized waiting, OaCP uses a novel reagent which enhances hybridization of nucleic acid probes. This reduces the diagnosis time to as little as two hours. As the applications are versatile, the reagent can also be used to accelerate bottlenecks in genome sequencing, genome editing, or liquid biopsies.

Figure 1-3. Sex Positive’s personal in vitro diagnostic test to detect sexually transmitted infections (Image: Sex Positive) DNA As the New Silicon

As biology is becoming an information technology, DNA emerges as the new silicon.

For instance, Helixworks Technologies is the first to offer storage of digital data in DNA. The startup is now developing a new product: a portable molecular machine (dubbed OpenMOSS) that converts digital data into DNA—in your home.

By storing data completely offline in a medium as durable and dense as DNA, Helixworks could provide a biological solution to the rapidly expanding need for cost-effective, long-term data storage while addressing the rising threat of cybersecurity. Storing large or sensitive sets of data completely offline in a physical medium offers safety from cyberthreats. The startup recently won the “Most Innovative” award at pitch competition SXSW.

Tools that make it easier to program life are a running theme across the cohorts, with another example, Briefcase Biotec: it’s building a DNA synthesizer called Kilobaser, “the Nespresso Machine of DNA synthesis”: simply add a reagent-cartridge and enter your sequence! The machine will make oligos and primers quickly and cheaply directly on the lab bench.

Moirai Biodesign is also adopting this modular approach, in their case to build programmable cancer therapeutics with “Plug-and-Play RNA”. The molecule consists of two domains, whereas the sensor part reacts to the presence of cancer-specific biomarkers, while the trigger part encodes a certain protein. Allowing for switch-like activation of the biodevice, specifically in cancer cells, this targeted therapeutic holds great promise to alleviate side-effects of cancer therapy in the future.

Figure 1-4. Left, Conor Crosbie, Eshna Gogia, Sachin Chalapati, Nimesh Chandra, and feline buddy of the Helixworks team (Image: Sachin Chalapati); right, Kilobaser’s new quality-control platform (Image: Briefcase Biotec) Personal Maker Kits to Build with Biology

Tools like these could be used in conjunction with a bio-maker kit, like BentoLabs and AminoLabs—or an entirely new kind. Hence, Cell-Free is breaking a billion-year-old processor out of the cell to enable anyone, anywhere to manufacture biomolecules with a cell-free machinery: a “Raspberry Pi” model for biology.

In coming years, point-of-care synthesis of products like insulin and vaccines could drastically improve the availability of medicines. For now, the startup is envisioning consumer biotech applications to enable anyone to make custom colors, smells, logic circuits—even glow-in-the-dark ink! The founders aim to bring technology and biology closer together.

Biological sensors, detectors and processors will be core to this. We are building the tools that will allow innovators from all backgrounds to engineer the materials of the future.

Dr. Thomas Meany, cofounder and CEO of Cell-Free Technologies

Figure 1-5. Right, Rapid prototyping kit to take biology from imagination to creation (Image: Cell-Free); left, a design-test-build cycle with Bio-Pixel visualization on the existing open-source maker platform (BioDesign Challenge), such that synthesis can be followed live via an app (Image: Helene Steiner, Biodesign Challenge, Royal College of Art) From Machine Learning to a “MicrobeMiner” to Unlock New Medicines

Continuing on the health theme, clinical trials and approval for new medicines are devastatingly time-consuming, costly, and risky; while the rise of antibiotic resistance poses a rising challenge to global health.

Galactica Biotech is using machine learning algorithms with multiple highly trained modules to identify potential new uses for existing medicines, from small molecules to complex plant alkaloids. The process even works backward to find new targets for these drugs, as well as identifying off-target effects for toxicology studies. This means they will offer their multiapproach A.I. as a service to pharmaceutical companies to help them unlock the full potential of their drug discovery pipeline toward a future of precision medicine. They’ve just used their algorithm successfully to identify a new anticancer lead molecule in the lab, which is already approved for another indication. The team hails from Russia, Spain, Mexico, and the UK. It brings together expertise from PhD research in computational medicinal chemistry, artificial intelligence, systems, and synthetic biology.

CyCa OncoSolutions is founded by Dr. Nusrat Jahan and curious things can happen when a chemist is doing biology. She discovered a biomolecular machinery to permeate the cell membrane. This allows for more effective and targeted delivery, for instance, of cancer drugs. The young innovator and principal investigator worked relentlessly all around the world, from the universities of Oxford, Leiden, and Kyoto to ETH Zurich, driven to find a solution to her father’s life-shattering cancer diagnosis.

Valanx Biotech, on the other hand, makes programmable designer proteins, for instance, to conjugate them to a targeting antibody. It uses versatile click-chemistry to easily dock new molecules to the protein with its patented technology “SnapIt.”

In software, we mine for bitcoins, whilst in biology, we mine for antibiotics! Prospective Research, Inc. has developed a platform that mimics stimuli in the soil to mine for novel, life-saving antibiotics from Streptomyces bacteria.

How? With what it calls the MicrobeMiner platform. Why? Because the next billion-dollar drug could be buried in your backyard. Therefore, the team also sends out the MicrobeMiner kits for sample collection to crowd-source that discovery.

About 90% of natural products remain hidden in the silent operons of the microbe’s DNA, unless the pathway is induced. The biosynthetic machinery of antibiotics can be initiated by certain stimuli in the soil matrix though. Hence, the microbes are first screened with the GeneMiner technology, which identifies the gene clusters that are silenced in the absence of these inducers.

For the second step, StimKeys comes into play: this proprietary platform launches a variety of chemical inducers with the aim to unlock these potent chemical pathways. They’ve indeed identified molecules which turn a seemingly uninteresting “dirt microbe” into a powerful factory for novel, potentially life-saving antibiotics.

Figure 1-6. The Prospective Research team has built the MicrobeMiner platform to mine novel antibiotics from soil microbes. Pictures show Streptomyces cultures used for the applications MicrobeMiner, GeneMiner, and StimKeys. (Image: Prospective Research) Growing the Circular Economy: Bio-inspired Design, High-tech Ecosystems and new Biomaterials

Urbanization is a global trend that will drastically change how we live. By 2050, up to 66% of the world’s population will live in cities, according to the United Nations. That means we need better solutions to power, feed and clean up our future megacities.

Therefore, developing a productive circular economy is imperative to make human activity more sustainable and improve the health of our planet. Biomimicry can help us unlock nature’s most resource-efficient blueprints to future-proof humanity. Hence, building smarter, zero-carbon cities with biology has already started.

For example, NuLeaf Tech is combining the technologies of engineered ecosystems with microbial plant fuel cells as part of a biologically inspired hardware module that treats wastewater to create clean water and generate energy. These were the ideas that gave rise to NuLeaf Tech in the NASA Ames Advanced Studies Lab in 2015.

The team is testing a first prototype in collaboration with local farmers, with the vision to create high-tech ecosystems and artificial, modular wetlands—even in vertical arrangement for use in the home.

Our bio-inspired technology will create purified water and clean energy solutions for industry and residential use.

Rachel Major, cofounder and CEO of NuLeaf Tech

So, bio-inspired design helps us uncover powerful engineering solutions—and even novel materials!

Examples of sustainably manufactured materials include the ability to 3D-print degradable bioplastics and make useful items from the plastic waste, in which the planet is drowning. This is an area Saphium and BioCellection are working on.

On the other hand, Pili is growing beautiful, living color pigments for print and design from bacteria at an industrial scale, and Chinova Bioworks is turning to mushrooms for new biomaterials.

Figure 1-7. Left, NuLeaf Tech; right, microbial fuel cell prototype (Images: NuLeaf Tech)

The Foods of the Future? They’re Brewed, Too!

It’s never been a more exciting time for animal lovers, because we’re entering the post-animal economy. A rapidly increasing number of animal-free products are in development around the world. Examples include allergy-free peanuts (Aranex Biotech), genome-edited plants to grow the designer foods of the future (PlantEdit), and in vitro meat at our sister program IndieBio SF (Memphis Meats).

But what about sustainable beverages?

Perfect Day (formerly Muufri) is a vegan alternative to milk which has been hitting the headlines as long-awaited animal-free dairy. At the same time, Spira is looking to lock on to the health market with a tasty, nutritious drink produced by Spirulina algae.

Afineur, is cofounded by CEO Dr. Camille Delebecque. Their Cultured Coffee, produced by microbial fermentation, is taking New York by storm. And what better alternative to sweeten your caffeine fix, but with MilisBio’s sweetener proteins?

Seeing as these plug-and-play vegan plant proteins are up to 700 times sweeter than sugar, the MilisBio team is addressing the demand for non–carbohydrate-based artificial sweeteners in a world hooked on sugar.

Figure 1-8. Afineur Cultured Coffee (Image: Afineur); Spira Spirulina-based drink (Image: Spira); and Perfect Day cow-free milk (Image: Perfect Day) Hacking the Plant Biofactory

Another major area of biotech innovation is programming microorganisms and plants to produce useful compounds and novel biomolecules.

For example, Hemoalgea is cofounded by a team of bioengineers from Costa Rica. The startup is using an optimized microalgal factory to make Hirudin, a major anticoagulant originally produced in leeches. The algae has been found to produce complex glycosylation patterns unlike other biomanufacturing platforms. Meanwhile, SwaLife Biotech is extracting novel alkaloids from plants, which have already shown promising results against DNA breakage. They could find applications in cosmetics, and later on, medicine.

Similarly, Alternative Plants is cofounded by CEO Anna Ramata-Stunda in Latvia. It’s unlocking the hidden treasures of active compounds found in plants by using plant tissue stem cells. This allows to access nature’s reservoir of compounds, while producing them sustainably at large scale, without harm to the often rare and endangered species. The team has already optimized the powerful platform for high yield and is now scaling up the production of cosmetic ingredients with industrial partners.

Canuevo is an Uruguayan-Canadian startup cofounded by Dr. Nils Rehman to launch a paradigm shift for cannabinoid medicine. Their nanoparticle-encapsulation technology can be applied to creams, pills, supplements, and later on, new medicines. Finally, Hyasynth Bio in Canada produces THC and other cannabinoids in highly efficient yeast factories as featured here and in here.

As we see, very exciting things are happening at the intersection of biology and technology. Synthetic biology startups are at the forefront of tackling diverse areas of life sciences to build a better world by programming life.

Hopes are high for astonishing consumer biotech products, delicious foods and beverages, biomaterials and sustainable living, as well as novel medicines and therapeutics—in short, to share the benefits of scientific innovation with people around the world.

Accelerating the Biorevolution

Find out more on the website or this youtube video and stay up to date by connecting on Twitter and Facebook. You can apply for next year’s cohort on the application portal.

RebelBio (previously IndieBio EU) is the world’s first and leading early-stage startup accelerator and part of SOSV, the accelerator VC. The fund has $300 million in assets under management and is the world’s most active investor in synthetic biology. SOSV is also running the leading seed-stage accelerator IndieBio SF in San Francisco.

Figure 1-9. The 2017 cohort of 15 startups from around to world with the team and the RebelBio and SOSV teams Figure 1-10. Some of the RebelBio team (from left to right): John Carrigan (chief scientist), Elsa Sotiriadis (program director), Steven O’Connell (program manager) and Bill Liao (founder and SOSV general partner)

Continue reading How synthetic biology startups are building the future at RebelBio.

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