PART I: A NEED FOR DIFFERENTIATION IN VENTURE CAPITAL If your only impression of Venture Capital (VC) came from what you read or saw in the news, you’d think that VC is a guaranteed way to make money. With “Unicorn” ...
Some believe that AI alone will solve age old problems – that enthusiast who watches every single show Netflix recommends. Others trust their own judgement over the recommendation of machines – that cab driver that takes a “secret shortcut” even ...
Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to work with a top tier investment bank and leading quant hedge fund. I had the chance to build mathematical models for multi-million dollar private investments at Goldman Sachs, and manage a billion ...
What do zucchini, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and peas have in common? These vegetables have taken on new forms, from baby food to pizza, pasta, and burgers, to make this year’s list of CircleUp25 winners for the innovative ways they bring ...
PART I: A NEED FOR DIFFERENTIATION IN VENTURE CAPITAL If your only impression of Venture Capital (VC) came from what you read or saw in the news, you’d think that VC is a guaranteed way to make money. With “Unicorn” becoming a household term, celebrities like Kobe Bryant and others making millions on their early-stage ...
Some believe that AI alone will solve age old problems – that enthusiast who watches every single show Netflix recommends. Others trust their own judgement over the recommendation of machines – that cab driver that takes a “secret shortcut” even though Google Maps tells him/her it’s slower. At CircleUp, we believe that it’s the combination ...
After spending 15 years focused on investing in consumer and retail companies in the public markets, I was struck with the feeling that there must be something more. Don’t get me wrong, it felt great investing in a stock and watching it go from $10 to $14 a share and reaping that 40% return. ...
Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to work with a top tier investment bank and leading quant hedge fund. I had the chance to build mathematical models for multi-million dollar private investments at Goldman Sachs, and manage a billion dollar systematic macro fund at AQR Capital. Two absolutely amazing firms, with world class people ...
What do zucchini, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and peas have in common? These vegetables have taken on new forms, from baby food to pizza, pasta, and burgers, to make this year’s list of CircleUp25 winners for the innovative ways they bring fresh produce and vegetables to commonplace family staples. As plant-based products have continued to capture ...
The beauty of Helio, our proprietary machine learning platform, is its versatility in generating valuable findings at the company and category levels which we can use to source the next breakout brand or key strategic insight. Sometimes that approach can be very nuanced and granular, but sometimes we simply ask Helio for a shortlist of ...
In 2012, when CircleUp’s founders were raising a seed round, many VCs scoffed at the idea of a consumer-focused (food, beverage, personal care, pet, etc.) investment play. One tech VC even said “I don’t even know what consumer is, I literally can’t think of a single CPG product.” Another well known VC scoffed at our ...
This post originally appeared in Forbes. This marks the sixth year of CircleUp25, our awards recognizing some of the most innovative consumer and retail brands of the year. CircleUp25 is decided on by our expert judges and Helio, our machine learning platform that identifies, classifies, and evaluates 1.4 million brands. This year saw fierce competition ...
By Amanda Wood and Jessica Kwok At CircleUp Credit Advisors we are obsessively focused on financing working capital for great consumer companies to help them grow their businesses and build out their products. To date, we’ve issued more than 400 loans. Our machine learning platform Helio gives us a data-driven view of the consumer landscape ...
Part of building a new way of approaching private investing with data science is studying how others have succeeded in disrupting their own industries. Lately for me that’s been a fascination of learning from public market investors, brought about by Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s podcast Invest Like The Best. Earlier this year, Patrick interviewed Jason Karp, Founder and CEO ...
