Selected - The Sesamers Podcast

Main takeaways:

1. Definition of deep tech: deep tech is characterized by high levels of research and development and unique intellectual property (IP). Arnaud explains that deep tech is not simply a mobile app connecting users but rather an advanced technology that requires significant time and effort to develop. These technologies can be digital, physical, or biological, and are often IP-intensive [1][2].

2. Deep tech as a long-term trend: deep tech has been building progressively over the past decade, driven by the need to transform industries such as energy production, food and agriculture, and green manufacturing [3]. The ability to prototype quickly and cheaply in various sectors, including biotech and hardware, has opened up value creation opportunities for startups [4]. Arnaud believes deep tech is here to stay, comparing its impact to the internet 20 years ago [1].

3. Corporations investing in deep tech: major corporations are increasingly investing in deep tech startups to meet their corporate social responsibility (CSR) challenges [5]. As traditional industries are disrupted, companies are seeking innovative solutions to transform their business models and continue making profits [6]. Arnaud cites examples of oil and gas companies shifting focus to hydrogen and electric cars [1].

4. Hello Tomorrow's role in the deep tech ecosystem: Hello Tomorrow connects startups, investors, and corporations to help create a thriving deep tech ecosystem [7]. The organization operates two main activities: organizing the annual Hello Tomorrow Global Summit [8] and offering consulting services [9]. These activities provide a comprehensive service for deep tech startups, helping them to grow and succeed.

5. Hello Tomorrow's future plans: Arnaud reveals plans to launch a venture capital (VC) fund focusing on early-stage deep tech startups [1]. This fund would invest in companies at the pre-revenue and pre-proof-of-concept stages, where traditional VC firms are often reluctant to invest [10]. The aim is to start with a small fund, make some initial investments, and then grow it over time.

6. Arnaud's thoughts on technology's role in sustainability: Arnaud believes that technology is both a problem and a solution when it comes to sustainability [1]. While it's important to reconsider our society and how we live, emerging technologies are necessary for producing food, energy, and goods in a sustainable manner [11]. He emphasizes that to achieve net-zero emissions and maintain a high quality of life, we must scale up new technologies [12].

Conclusion:

As deep tech continues to grow and evolve, organizations like Hello Tomorrow will play a critical role in fostering innovation and driving sustainable solutions for global challenges.

• Having worked at the World Economic Forum for fifteen years, John focused on creative communities of impact for young leaders and social entrepreneurs.
• Young Global Leaders, YGL, is a community of change-makers under forty and global shapers in their twenties from across a wide range of society. They range from CEOs to journalists, academics to entrepreneurs.
• The Schwab Foundation for entrepreneurship is joining in creating this digital community for global change.
• The one thing that has been a constant in all of this background has been the event software, which was built internally since the days of kiosks and manual ticketing.
• The magic of Davos is that you can get back to the origin of people to people without the chaperone organizing your schedule.
• Peter Gabriel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu were also part of an initiative by YGL trying to promote global dignity.
• In a typical year, there are around 2300-2500 official delegates attending the forum, with another 700-1000 people who are attending in support of those leaders. Outside of that, tens of thousands of people are coming to the city to participate in side events.
• Strategic intelligence, Uplink, and Davos are all part of the same digital ecosystem.
• Uplink is the free public side of this digital ecosystem, with over 55,000 people on the platform.
• There are two functions they are looking at on the platform for their app: end-to-end innovation sourcing and trying to inspire people to get involved in this movement for people and planet.
• 1T.org (the trillion trees movement), is looking to tackle the climate problem through a nature-based solution with the mission of getting corporate pledges for tree planting, supporting ecopreneurs, and helping countries on the ground with regional chapters.
• Making a big wave is also the First Movers Coalition. An initiative exploring how to get the technology necessary to get to a net-zero future through the aggregation of the demand side of corporate partners.

• Dragana was a finalist last year, in the annual digital Summit in Valencia.
• Beyond social media, it's extremely important to be physically present within the ecosystem at events like Slush.
• Fauna Smart Technologies is using different technologies in a smart way to empower fauna, biodiversity, and genetic diversity.
• Consisting of a team of 12 people, 8 of them having PHDs, they are focused on inspiring the new wave of scientists to make a difference with experimental design.
• They use complex innovation systems within three different projects and will become a venture-building company.
• Using satellite imagery, they go to a certain level within the ecosystem, followed by other specialized tech, furthering a deeper analysis.
• Being able to translate the findings is what creates an ecosystem for entrepreneurial scientists going into the future of the field.
• By creating a best-risk map through satellite imagery, they can inform farmers of where in the field they need to do what for crop protection.
• Over 10.5 million farmers are transitioning to a new line of products and removing chemical pesticides in favor of biological ones.
• Next year they expect to have a minimum marketable product with a plant immunity tracker.
• In the future, we will not have big labs that are consuming a lot of reagents.
• Tech companies don't go out and talk with farmers because they don't know how to, and that's normal. There needs to be a translation.
• Even in her bachelor's and previous research, Dragana was already out there talking to the farmers and learning this translation.
• We are right now in a 4th agricultural revolution with life sciences that will exactly break and make a new world.

• Towards the end of his studies, Lorrain worked first with MTV management, Unplugged Sessions, and the European Music Awards.
• Jägermeister decided to set up a CVC three years ago, now called Best Nights VC, and Lorrain has joined in the pursuit of focusing on investments and consumer tech that goes beyond just the product.
• A 6-person team based in Berlin, with open doors for open minds.
• We have to fight the stigma that people outside of the cultural space see VCs as evil capitalists when we are actually the enablers and innovators.
• Hör Berlin, a YouTube channel streaming DJ sets in a little booth, is not the classic business case that would be in our deal flow, but they are culturally relevant entrepreneurs.
• Financial return follows impact and nightlife. The number of best nights, created by their portfolio companies on an annual basis (as their main KPI), was 5.9 million in 2019 and is expected to jump to 22 million in 2022.
• Each of our startups creates best nights for our consumers, through social interactions and real-life experiences. This is our measure of the real impact on nightlife.
• After 2 years of pandemic isolation, people are now more aware of the importance of social interactions, and there is a need for high-quality experiences and intense moments.
• What was very unique and an eye-opener for me was the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE). The people I am looking for all day as a VC, targeting cultural relevance, were all under one roof.
• To founders who are listening, all entrepreneurs who are operating within nightlife or creating happiness for consumers during the nighttime, should be aware that there is Jägermesiter's CVC: Best Nights.VC

• Epidemic Sound is his 6th company as an adult with a red thread through his previous ventures of storytelling.
• There were issues with how musicians constantly lost the battle with royalties and creative rights and the issue with being able to use music in media without copyright or legal strikes.
• I don’t like being part of a discourse which idolizes launching many companies. It’s a badge of honor at places like Slush where people equate numbers with value whereas, in reality, it’s quality. Do a few things, but do them really really well.
• You need to be religiously hard on yourself when putting your band (founders) together.
• Epidemic Sound is now a unicorn. They crossed that line about 2 years ago when the value exceeded 1 billion dollars, and now the company is comprised of almost 550 people.
• Problems are not the bug, they are the feature and that’s where Epidemic comes in.
• The value of AI in music does not replace creators but shifts the nature of the relationship.
• Allowing any app developer to provide a dynamic feed of music to their users, Epidemic Sound Connect is the new API to soundtrack the world.
• If we want to soundtrack the world, we have to be serious about workflow. We insert ourselves into their workflow and we put that into an API that is completely free.
• Tip: Find something that fits into the intersection of what you are good at and what you enjoy, then double down on that. Be useful.

• During Media day at Slush, Elena and other journalists were able to see innovative companies like Biotech startup Onego, and sustainability startup Spinnova.
• I am the CEO of Dataconomy but the Founder of the Data Natives conference.
• Dataconomy, a media platform focusing on data science, machine learning, and AI, has an interesting history because originally it was part of a company builder which allowed them to incubate and part ways.
• When Google and the European Commission made a statement about AI ethics (How to make AI technology that is ethical, especially when automated without further human input), it allowed Dataconomy to boost its mission.
• Monica Rogati's, lead of data science on LinkedIn, article on the movement from people being digital natives to becoming data natives and expecting technology to work for them is the inspiration for the conference name.
• Covid-19 gave Data Natives the opportunity to create hackathons online like the EU vs Virus hackathon, comprised of 25,000 professionals online under commissioner Mariya Gabriel.
• Now, Data Natives is running the Partisia hackathon in Paris with grants of up to $350,000 which you can check out here.
• This industry is surprisingly still new, still forming, which on one side means regulations but on the other, it's things that we can improve.
• This is why I mentor new sustainability and impact-driven startups and communities like Tech2Impact, African Tech Vision, or the Green Tech Alliance.

• With a background in engineering, working for companies like General Motors and Bosch, Stephen moved to Helsinki to get his MBA at the Helsinki School of Economics.
• Why San Francisco? Our CEO worked at Nokia in San Francisco and wanted to bring that spirit of communications back to Finland.
• Where marketing is getting what you say about yourself out there, PR is about getting other people to talk about you.
• One thing San Francisco has learned is how important it is to understand the media and where journalists come from.
• Working with companies like Sulapac, trying to remove microplastics from the environment, is interesting because they're not out there talking about the product all the time. The change and the difference here is about what the purpose is.
• In addition, relevancy is added when Sulapac lines up with the Climate Summit (COP27) in Egypt going on right now.
• To break through to journalists, they need to have 4 things: Honesty (realism), originality, relevancy, and humanity. When you maximize all four of these, that's when you have the best chances.
• Recently, San Francisco got an award for an amazing campaign with VTT coffee who made a bioreactor to duplicate coffee cells and avoid the environmental destruction of rainforests.
• The most important thing I could say is to do is research the press you would like to be part of when attending conferences like Slush 2022.
• Think about what it is that people want to hear and not just what it is you want to say. It's the difference between really having someone remember you... or not.

• You don't sell, you create the environment for people to buy.
• When something very new comes along, you have to go through phases of a shock absorber, a bridge, and a springboard.
• We work with many French Founders like Nicolas Julia at Sorare, a company focused on NFT-backed football collector's cards.
• Look at Steve Jobs' keynote speech for the iPad here. There's so much to learn from that about introducing the new with the familiar.
• Check out James Vincent's podcast "Fast Company", and his episode with Brian Chesky from Airbnb here.
• Our equity is storytelling, so it's not just money. It's money with a point of view. Check out Fndr's new VC fund announced at Slush here!
• If you're a great founder and you want a great story, come to Fndr.

• We should stop there
• Everybody is busy
• Alexandre is going for the father of the year award
• No sleep 'till Paris
• Blisce
• The world has changed. How can you back the right entrepreneurs?
• We have been accepting the unacceptable
• We are voting every day. With our credit card
• Take my money, I'll go get the change jar
• Some guy named Milton
• 20% of profits are carried forward to Epic
• Epic Foundation
• What's your mission?
• How can we help you to give more, to give better, to give smarter
• A trust campaign
• The Alexandre Mars and Epic business model, as examined by Harvard University's Kennedy School
• Alexandre will present this model. You name the place and the time, he'll be there
• Blisce's two unique, and non-negotiable clauses in the term sheet

Where to Find Us:

Find Alexandre at:

Amazon: "Giving: Purpose is the New Currency"

Linkedin

Twitter

Instagram

Find Dan at:

Linktr.ee/dantaylor

• A dream of Stewart's for 23 weeks
• Dataconomy
• A week-long event
• Berlin is opening up. With different rule changes every week
• Prince
• What the hell is the Badass Empire?
• I like pretty pictures. Nice font
• Juicing
• When I'm gonna experience something, I experience
• "Beer is proof that God wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin
• Stewart's outlook on the state of events
• No feedback
• Who were the winners, who were the losers?
• Should we do this? What's the cultural impact?
• A box that squeezes a packet
• Augmented Reality
• The Lightning Round

Your message aimed at a highly targeted audience. Let's talk. [email protected]

• Mental Health in Tech
• A new personal trainer, a new therapist
• Is tech the problem?
• 2x more likely to have suicidal thoughts
• 3x more likely to have substance abuse issues
• 10x more likely to have bipolar disorder
• Any regions? Positions?
• A mental health tip from Dan Taylor
• I hope Robin isn't listening
• Mental health tips from Stewart Rogers
• BDNF
• Meditation
• Richard Wiseman
• Go out into the park, brainstorm in nature
• Stop multitasking
• Asynchronous communications
• 151
• Toboggan or Bobsleigh?
• Being an adult
• Gate G15
• Bonus material

Your message aimed at a highly targeted audience. Let's talk. [email protected]

Where to Find Us:

Find Stewart at:

Linkedin

Twitter

Find Dan at:

Linktr.ee/dantaylor