October Retrospective
October Retrospective
Tackling Scope 3 Emissions, The Future of Procurement & NYC Mayor Uses Deepfakes
Hi!
This month we explore the following:
🤔 What's driving Nvidia's venture investing spree?
🔍 How to manage carbon with confidence
📣 How startups approach large enterprise sales
📚 Unilever cuts itself shaving
🎙 In conversation with Adam Brown, Procurement Strategy Lead at Maersk
🤔 WHAT’S DRIVING NVIDIA’S VENTURE INVESTING SPREE?
Last week, Nvidia (the global chip designer that’s fast becoming synonymous with Artificial Intelligence) invested in the pre-Series A round of generative AI startup Twelve Labs, their debut investment in a South Korean startup.
It was also their 26th investment this year. Where other VC funds have pulled back on their deal numbers, Nvidia is plowing ahead and spending money as if it’s going out of fashion. So what’s with the sudden flurry of deal making?
🔍 SCALEUP IN FOCUS:
Client snapshot: CBRE | Grupo Antolin | hh global | Pregis | Thrace Group
Summary: Emitwise is a carbon management platform that enables clients to measure, track, report and reduce their complete carbon footprint, especially complex Scope 3 emissions.
Their machine learning engine can process large amounts of carbon data simultaneously. In addition, carbon accountants support throughout to make sure the final emissions profile is as comprehensive and accurate as possible.
Their emission factors database is purpose-built for companies with complex supply chains. As a result, their calculation methodologies give more accurate outputs than an agnostic solution.
Customer testimonial: “We work with Emitwise to continuously track our scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions. Their software eliminates the burdensome aspects of carbon accounting, from data collection to analysis and reporting. In particular, Emitwise has enabled us to widen our lens into Scope 3, accelerating us into a position as a packaging industry leader in carbon reduction.” - Clint Smith, Senior Director, Global Sustainability at Pregis
🎙️ PODCAST
Episode #007 | Execs on the Beach with Adam Brown, Procurement Expert Transforming and Digitising Source to Pay at Maersk
Adam joined us to discuss the technologies shaping the future of procurement, including contract automation, generative AI, and AI-driven chat negotiations.
Chasing Elephants is an analogy for young businesses trying to sell into large enterprise clients. Catch an elephant and feed for a while, but the chase is fraught with risk ... and it might just kill you.
📚 WHAT WE’RE READING
MI5 Head Warns Startups About Chinese Espionage - BBC
New York’s Mayor Uses Audio Deepfakes to Call Residents in Languages He Can’t Speak - Sky News
Unilever Can't Cut it: Selling Dollar Shave Club After its $1Bn Acquisition - Inc.com
Tech Layoffs Are Back With a Vengeance - TechCrunch
Reviving The Era of “Strategic Computing” - Baxter Stein
📣 HOW TO LAND THE BIGGEST CLIENTS BY USING A TANK (SORT OF)…
On the complex nature of enterprise clients and the best methods for signing them...
There are a lot of tabs open on my screen as I’m listening to Martin Fleming talk about The AA: pages on the history of the organisation, videos from their re-brand campaign, and a page for Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn’t mean to open that last one.
In truth, this conversation was not just sober; it was sobering. It’s been my mission to excavate the theme of…
🎉 EVENTS
On 26th October, we held our ‘Future Leaders of Procurement’ event. Thank you to all who attended and to the five incredible startups who presented:
Autogen AI - Generative AI platform helping businesses write better bids and pitches.
C2 Risk - Vendor risk management, maturity assessments and project risk platform.
Kavida AI - Digitising post-order workflow, sitting between ERP systems and Warehouse Management systems.
Omnea - Platform that acts as an orchestration layer for the purchasing ecosystem, connecting all departments, like data privacy, security, legal, finance, and IT.
Trakti - Unified end-to-end platform for smart, self-executing and compliant contract negotiation and automation.
We'd also like to express our gratitude to Madeleine Joubert (CPO at BDO) for her thought-provoking keynote.
Next up:
Future Leaders of Retail, 30th November, 15:00 - 16:30 GMT - Our Innovation Scouts have been searching far and wide for the most impressive startups in retail. We’re excited to present a lineup of five up-and-comers who are developing game-changing technologies for customer personalisation and intelligence, demand forecasting, warehouse optimisation and more.
Future Leaders is a series of private sessions introducing senior leaders to rising stars in the startup ecosystem and associated cutting-edge technology.