Pausing to Reflect: What Google’s Environmental Disclosure on Gemini Means for AI’s Growing Appetite

TL;DR FAQ: What does Google’s Gemini disclosure mean for AI’s environmental impact? When we published our blog The Growing Appetite of Artificial Intelligence: Impacts on U.S. Infrastructure & Resources, we focused on how the rapid rise of generative AI was already stretching electricity grids, water supplies, and material supply chains. Our point was that the…

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2025 Startup Funding: A Temp Check on Hot Sectors, Investor Moods, and the IPO Thaw

Remember the rollercoaster of SaaS funding? The dizzying highs, the sudden drops? Well, grab your thermometer – it’s 2025, and we’re taking the temperature of the startup funding scene. Is it a feverish boom again, or a lingering chill? The answer, as you’ll see, is a bit more nuanced, a careful warming trend with some…

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Founder Friday: What Does CB Insights’ Tech Valuations Report 2022 Recap Tell Us?

Have you seen the CB Insights Tech Valuations Report recapping 2022? If not, you need to (it is free to download). Here were some things we took away from it… If anything, the CB Insights report shows there is no universal truth on valuations and available capital. There are subsets in every series that are…

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Founder Friday: Sam Altman, OpenAI, & ChatGPT

ChatGPT launched in November 2022, and it already seems like every other headline talks about this OpenAI chatbot. But what do you really know about it and its creator, Sam Altman?  But what is it, and why has it skyrocketed in valuation so quickly?  The best summary we found of what ChatGPT is from Hackernoon’s…

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Founder Friday: How Is The Recession Impacting Tech Startup M&A?

If you take the generally accepted definition of a recession being two consecutive quarters of negative GDP, the US has been in a recession since the summer. That got us thinking, how is the recession impacting tech startup M&A? While global M&A activity is down, M&A activity is heating up in the tech arena. Just…

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Founder Friday: The 16 Software Female Founders that made Inc.’s Female Founders 100

Inc. is one of our favorite publications. We love how they celebrate startups, and their various lists are fantastic. Recently they named their 2022 Female Founders 100. You won’t want to miss checking out the entire list, but we thought we’d further highlight the 16 founders and companies whose industry is listed as “software.” Sandeep…

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NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing

In the tech world, we often hear about the US tech talent shortage, the lack of diversity in tech, the lack of diverse founders and funding for diverse founders, and a lack of diverse VCs. In reality, many of the problems we face here in the US are due to not tackling the problem at…

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Founder Friday: Serena Ventures

In August, at 40 years young (and just shy of her birthday), Serena Williams retired from tennis as arguably the most dominant career the women’s sport had ever seen. Yes, she might not have been quite as dominant as years past, but she was still a force to be reckoned with on the court. With so much…

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Founder Friday: Southern Logistics & Supply Chain Startups

Greenville and the state of South Carolina are heavily focused on manufacturing, especially manufacturing tied to the automotive industry. In addition, while our state only ranks 23rd in size, South Carolina Ports ranks 9th in container volume (and the bordering Port of Savannah, which also feeds SC manufacturing, ranks 4th). Really, as a region, the…

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Founder Friday: The Startups Recognized in CB Insights Top 12 Tech Trends of 2022 Report

In January, CB Insights produced an amazing 70-page report on tech trends titled “12 Tech Trends To Watch Closely In 2022.” It has tons of great insights and is free to download.  And a belated congratulations to the startups highlighted by CB Insights… Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)/Telehealth Huma Element Science Biofourmis Qure4u Somatix Crypto Security BitMart…

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