In episode 16 of the Superconnector podcast, I interviewed Aakash Shah, the Cofounder and CEO of Wyndly. Shah is a former Product Manager and Engineer at SparkGift (YC W15) and Parsley.

We cover his journey from working at a venture-backed startup to launching one of his own with his cousin, a licensed surgeon. Shah's startup helps people treat allergies by retraining their immune systems.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

00:58 The Birth of Wyndly

02:05 Navigating the Pandemic

02:43 Family Ties and Business

05:40 Y Combinator Experience

9:53 Scaling Nationwide

13:13 Fundraising Insights

18:25 Building Wyndly's Business

20:34 Challenges and Growth

28:15 Advice for Aspiring Founders

In episode 15 of the Superconnector podcast, Matt Joseph interviews Spencer Cassidy, the Cofounder and CEO of LifeLegacy. Cassidy is a Google alum who sold his first startup Balto (YC W19) to a publicly traded company.

We cover his journey from working at Google for 5 years, to the successful acquisition of his previous startup, Balto, to founding LifeLegacy, an estate planning platform inspired by personal tragedy and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

00:38 The Genesis of LifeLegacy

04:11 How LifeLegacy gets customers

05:58 Developing strategic partnerships

08:10 Why boostrapping made sense

11:07 Bootstrapping vs Venture Capital

14:48 The personal tragedy behind LifeLegacy

18:20 Raising a family as a founder

20:13 Advice for aspiring founders

22:32 Working at Google vs being a founder

23:20 Lessons from angel investing

27:51 Most rewarding part of being a founder

32:07 Sports, Startups, and the Skills That Translate

In episode 14 of the Superconnector podcast, Matt Joseph covers 10 of the most interesting startups that raised funding from VCs in the last week, focusing on startups in robotics, gaming, cleantech, alternative foods, and education.

Chapters

00:30 The Bot Company: $150m for household robots

02:47 Lucid Bots: $9m for cleaning drones

04:43 mimic: $2.5m for humanoid hands

06:26 Yellow: $5m for 3d modeling for game devs

07:28 Hysata: $111m for green hydrogen electrolyzers

9:31 Li Industries: $36m for EV battery recycling

10:32 Rainmaker: $6.3m for artificial rain clouds

12:38 Electricity Maps: $5.4m for carbon-tracking maps

15:38 Voyage Foods: $52m for allergy-safe alternative foods

17:46 Futura: $15.2m for AI private tutors

In episode 13 of the Superconnector podcast, I cover 8 interesting venture capital deals announced in the last week, focusing on startups in aerospace, food-tech, healthcare, neuroscience, ecommerce, ecommerce, and biotech.

AEROSPACE: Privateer, a space data startup co-founded by Steve Wozniak, and Xona, an alternative GPS system

FOODTECH: Meati Foods, an meat alternative startup using mushrooms

HEALTHCARE: Karius, a blood testing startup focused on immunocompromised patients

NEUROSCIENCE: Neurable, a brain-computer interface that doesn’t require surgery

ECOMMERCE: Nivoda, a B2B marketplace for diamonds

ENERGY: Zanskar, a geothermal energy startup

BIOTECH: Insempra, a startup developing eco-friendly lipids

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

00:20 Privateer: $56.5m for space data

03:24 Meati Foods: $100m for alternative meat using mushrooms

06:17 Karius: $100m for blood testing cancer patients

9:20 Neurable: $13m for a brain-computer interface

12:21 Nivoda: $30m for a B2B diamond marketplace

14:54 Zanskar: $30m for geothermal energy

17:04 Insempra: $20m for eco-friendly lipids

19:39 Xona: $19m for a new GPS system

In this episode of the Superconnector podcast, Matt Joseph presents an in-depth analysis of 7 significant funding rounds in the AI startup sector in the last month, highlighting the industry's shift from experimental to practical applications.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

00:25 Sequoia Capital: Generative AI in 2 Acts

01:49 xAI: $6b for an OpenAI Competitor

04:26 Perplexity: $250m+ to Challenge Google Search

06:47 Cognition Labs: $175m for an AI Software Engineer

10:48 CoreWeave: $1.1b for AI Cloud Services

14:50 SiMa.ai: $70m for an Edge AI Chip

18:00 Parloa: $66m for German Conversational AI

20:24 OpenAI Startup Fund: $15m for AI Investments

In this episode of the Superconnector podcast, Matt Joseph covers 8 large venture capital deals announced in the last week, focusing on startups in AI, cybersecurity, electric vehicles, real estate, media, and fintech.

AI: Augment, a coding assistant startup backed by Eric Schmidt and rival to GitHub Copilot

CYBERSECURITY: Rubrik, a newly publicly-traded platform focused on disaster recovery and ThreatLocker, a zero trust security platform for MSPs

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Chemix, an AI-powered EV battery maker

REAL ESTATE: Inhabitr, a commercial real estate furnishing platform, and Backflip, a service to help real estate investors flip houses

MEDIA: Beehiiv, a newsletter publishing platform

FINTECH: QI Tech, a banking as a service platform for midsized companies in Brazil

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

00:22 Augment: $252m for AI Coding

04:17 Beehiiv: $33m for Newsletter Publishing

06:45 Inhabitr: $27m for CRE Furnishing

09:10 Backflip: $15m for House Flipping

11:05 Chemix: $20m for EV Batteries

14:21 ThreatLocker: $115m for MSP Cybersecurity

16:11 Rubrik: $752m for Data Recovery

18:27 QI Tech: $50m for Banking in Brazil

In this episode of the Superconnector podcast, Matt Joseph covers 5 large venture capital deals announced in the last week, including startups in HR, biotech, industrials, consumer electronics, and workflow automation.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

00:21 Rippling: $870m at a $13.4b valuation

05:05 Xaira: $1b for AI drug discovery

08:50 Nominal: $27m for Industrials software

11:43 Framework: $18m for a modular laptop

12:58 Tines: $50m for workflow automation

In this episode of the Superconnector podcast, Nick Damiano discusses his robotic surgery startup Andromeda Surgical, which he leads as CEO. Previously, Nick founded medical device startup Zenflow and medtech startup Avail (fka Nurep), which was valued at over $1b. He was the first medtech founder to go through YC and has now founded 2 YC startups.

We cover Nick's long journey through the startup world and his process for building the next great medtech company with a combination of Robotics, AI, and Surgery.

Chapters

00:31 Andromeda Origins

01:57 AI & Robotic Surgery

06:21 Surgeon Partnerships

08:41 Why MedTech Is Hard

9:54 Finding Investors

16:14 Founding Team

19:15 Product Development

21:52 Industry Growth

26:10 Doing YC Twice

29:57 Best Advice