##Our revenue growth is ten times what it was in 2012, ##Meeker says.####We might get lucky
##Even though we re only in the second month of trying different ideas for revenue, it s getting close to profitability on its own.##
##We re partnering with pet insurance companies that will cover the policy holders for visits.####Although he s reluctant to make comparisons,
so they don t have to leave 200-pound Hugo behind. Meeker admits the idea is a stretch,
Which money can buy. Expect countries to spend a lot on this and other Big brother technology.
proceeds from the prize money will no doubt go into the commercial realization of the device. Via Dvice Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati swfobject. embedswf (http://www. youtube. com/v/Mv6sbuwzlhk&
##Giving no consideration to prices, 49.3 percent and 46.6 percent of the customers may purchase smart bracelets and smart watches, two main categories of wearable devices, respectively,
Video)##If these numbers haven t raised the attention of institutional investors, perhaps this will: half the planet s population may be served best with pay-as-you-go solar technology, not grid services.
##and to make investors a whole lot of money. Ted s thesis is simple: poverty and profit tend not to mix##except
when it comes to solar power for the poor. The best way to understand this is to consider the case of a villager in Tanzania.
and you can see just how compelling the economics are for this market. But here s Ted s most important point:
That money is spent currently on costly and polluting energy sources like kerosene (or even worse, candles).
That s because people still need financing to cover the upfront costs. That s where business model and financial innovation comes in.
From mobile money to scratch cards, pay-as-you-go solar service models are unlocking this market
just as third-party ownership did for residential and commercial solar in the U s. Another enabling factor is the use of mobile money:
money loaded onto cell phones that the poor can use to pay for services like energy.
Mobile money platforms are still nascent, but#M-Pesa in Kenya#has enabled already over 15 million people to access the financial system, accounting for $12. 3 billion in transactions.
An exciting example of this model in practice ism-KOPA, #which uses mobile money to enable solar home system financing for solar lighting products.
Clearly, mobile phones are important to this story. In 1998 mobile phone penetration in developing countries was just 1 percent.
The answer boils down to finance. Right now, the space is cash-starved and entrepreneurs are spending the vast majority of their time cobbling together financing,
rather than serving their customers. To rectify the situation, a large group of entrepreneurs is calling for a#$500 million fund from the World bank#for these small-scale projects.
Solving the finance problem is the top priority. Ted Hesser believes the problem is a mislabeling of the space.
He doesn t call it##impact investing##or##social entrepreneurial activity###instead, he sees it as a pure profit play.
Once investors realize the opportunity and develop the viable business models to harness it, the money will flow more readily into this vital market.
The only question is which investor will be smart enough to move first. For more on this topic, listen to#last week s episode#of the Energy Gang podcast.
Or you can watch Ted Hesser s presentation here: http://www. vimeo. com/76662317 Photo credit:
Aspen Electric Via Green Tech Media Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati swfobject. embedswf (http://www. vimeo. com/moogaloop. swf, vvq-113593
who already have a somewhat similar venture, Organovo, to their credit. This June#Businessweek#did a fairly comprehensive story on the company.
#The Economist#did a story on that event of a kind. A cursory look, including a view from PETA,
That#Economist#story also mentions that the##world s appetite for meat is forecast to rise by 70%by 2050.
but you can find companies that are profiting from our increasingly global economy, and they re doing it in your own backyard.
The Motley Fool s free report##3 American Companies Set to Dominate the World##shows you how to profit.#
and the price is now#1, 06o,000 (around US$12, 700) without tax. Changing how we think
Financier J. Morgan backed the Wardenclyffe Tower. The project failed, and Tesla ended up broke.
was an early investor, as was Toyota, which is reported to have plans to test a wireless charging station for plug-in cars.
##Selling this collection of information is an attempt at recouping all or a portion of my investment of time, effort, personal monies,
But as we explained in our first letter to shareholders, there tremendous potential for technology more generally to improve people lives.
And please remember that new investments like this are very small by comparison to our core business.
and limitless ambition sees itself as the only company willing to take big risks like this. not proposing that we spend all of our money on those kinds of speculative things,
Arthur D. Levinson, Chairman and former CEO of Genentech and Chairman of Apple, will be Chief executive officer and a founding investor.
Announcing this new investment, Larry page, Google CEO said: llness and aging affect all our families.
But as we explained in our first letter to shareholders, there tremendous potential for technology more generally to improve people lives.
And please remember that new investments like this are very small by comparison to our core business.
It hard for many companies to make long term investments. So I tremendously excited about the innovative new way wee funding this project.
With a French venture capital investment, Parent moved the company to Sainte Tulle France. After many years of development and testing, the WMS1000 (shown above) became the world first wind turbine able to produce 1, 000 liters of water a day from air condensation.
Farmers and the environment profit. Yet the central technology in this effortariable rate irrigation (VRI) asn a commercial endeavor delivered directly to farmers clamoring for the technology.
Yet the promise of precision agriculture is to find the right mix of profit and environmental protection. e are also seeing a changing of the guard,
With continued government funding and research we could see this thing functional in 10 to 15 years.
the Facebook mogul pointed out (on a conference call to investors) that privacy would be key to the company s growth.
Yet, with online banking and email, can one really be forgotten if they wish to stay current?
a focus on shareholder positioning will help us better understand where we are in the Iot cycle
when long-term tech investors place their respective bets. By integrating a basket of public Iot semiconductor companies (highlighted by Goldman sachs;
note: Making S-E-N-s-E of the next mega-trend) with Google Trends data containing the phraseiot,
Public Market Not Ready for Iot Though still in its early stages, Iot remains a tough space for public investors to gain exposure, especially to
Further highlighting the early-cycle Iot thesis, Goldman sachs describes it well in their Internet of things Volume 2 note:
demonstrating that these investors see potential in Iot. What Iot says about broader technology market trends The Iot market is young in two senses of the word:
These limits to gaining exposure drive a broader shift in technology investing. We believe that Iot acts as a microcosm for a larger market themetraditional investors are now looking beyond the public markets to play technology trends.
Looking at private market funding for Gartner s high value layers, we see that investors are flooding into the Iot private company ecosystem with $1. 1b deployed into relevant startups in 2013.
It is with this understanding that we arrive at our original point: public investors are venturing beyond the confines of public markets.
As we have seen in recent late stage funding rounds by Uber, Snapchat, and Dropbox, private companies are able to stay private longer.
This trend is likely to continue as brand name mutual fund managers, as well as hedge funds, blur the lines of public and private markets.
Effects on Communication with Investors By examining the Internet of things investment landscape, we collide directly with a market phenomenon currently under way traditional, public capital crossing over from public to private markets.
This shift is forcing investors to make a difficult choice: invest in the publicly available hardware layers, wait for public investable options,
or venture into the private markets. Irrespective of public or private monikers, many investors can now go anywhere they d like,
a shift that has broad implications for companies. Managers are adapting to the times, and as a company, understanding this
and prepping your story to benefit from the macro tailwind is crucial. The number of competitors for Iot investable dollars just grew exponentially,
and as such, getting ahead of the pack just became ever more important. Via Venture Bea a
We looked closely at other device pricing plans, Abram added. The use case of cars is different than phones.
which is backed by three angel investors, is now looking to raise an additional $4 million to $5 million to market its products,
He declined to disclose the names of angel investors or the amount they invested. Ducere is also tying up with nonprofit organizations
and eye institutes to sell Lechal products to the visually challenged at a more affordable price.
It s also worth noting that these professions generate about $3. 5 billion dollars in annual income,
much cheaper than human-therapywill also vanish from the economy.)But the second issue is philosophical,
Nine of the 13 states increased their minimum wages automatically in line with inflation: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
Economists who support a higher minimum say the figures are encouraging, though they acknowledge they don t establish a cause and effect.
said John Schmitt, a senior economist at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research.
There are competing schools of thought among economists on the impact of raising the minimum wage. As#The Washington post notes:
Some studies, notably those lead by UMASS Amherst economist Arin Dube, argue that there are no adverse employment effects from small increases in the minimum wage.
Other studies, notably those lead by University of California Irvine economist David Neumark, argue there is an adverse effect.
The Economist#says: America s minimum wage has long been low by international standards, equaling just 38%of the median wage in 2011,
and in the interim inflation eats away its value. The wage was last raised, to $7. 25 per hour, in 2009.
The company recently secured $6 million in funding from Phoenix Venture Partners, as well as AME Cloud Ventures, the venture fund of Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang, to further develop its proprietary chemistry and finance the batteries commercial launch.
Previous investors have included CIA-backed venture firm In-Q-Tel and Dow chemical. The batteries are based on research that company cofounder Christine Ho began as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley,
where she collaborated with a researcher in Japan to produce microscopic zinc batteries using a 3-D printer.
and even a lot of businesses end up having to sit on the sidelines only dreaming that one day these prices will fall.
the prices probably won t be coming down all that soon. Even as some of the older patents expire,
That s what makes the Mcor line of 3d printers both unique and refreshing to those tired of the tremendous expenses associated with 3d printing in general.
a price that is pennies in comparison to some of the other industrial level printers on the market today.
by basically price gouging their materials, due to the fact that many of them are only obtainable through the manufacturer themselves, Mcor printers use simple A4 business paper.
this will both save money, as well as the environment. Our mission is to make professional-quality 3d printing accessible to to everyone,
These are just the two latest innovations from a company that has put a lot of money into research and development.
Free from family-related expenses, their disposable income buoys Canada s growing pet industry, valued at $6. 6-billion in 2013 and expected to reach $8. 3-billion by 2018, the report states.
At this point, proposals don t even require any money from the applicants. That step will come only after a first-phase study to determine the costs of individual projects.
Magline further improves on system economics by utilizing apacket switching model that enables offline stops without slowing traffic on the mainline.
but the Southern European countries struggling with debt, like Spain. Spain is expected to build 3, 010 kilometers of new HSR by 2022 (1, 308 kilometers currently under construction and 1,
China is expected to become a world leader in the rail industry by investing, constructing, supplying material,
the industry has undergone a dramatic and traumatic contraction, losing#nearly half of its print readership and#more than a third of its revenues.
With the pre-tax profits of the publicly held publishers cut by 39%since 2003, newsroom staffing has dropped to a historically low level.
Combined print and digital advertising revenues at the 1 300-plus newspapers in the nation tumbled 55%from $46. 2 billion in 2003 to $20. 7 billion in 2013, according to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA.
While the industry s collective digital ad revenues rose 181%from $1. 2 billion in 2003 to $3. 4 billion in 2013
and audience revenues across all categories shrank 35%in the last decade, wilting from $57. 4 billion in 2003 to $37. 6 billion in 2013.
and circulation volume by boosting prices for their print products and/or putting paywalls on their digital media.
Despite the heavy emphasis most publishers have put on increasing audience revenues, even this category slipped by 3%from $11. 2 billion in 2003 to $10. 9 billion in 2013.
In spite of effusive efforts by the industry to reduce expenses in the face of plummeting revenues,
pre-tax profits of the publicly held newspaper companies fell by 37%in the last 10 years.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization slid from an average of 25.8%in 2003 to 16.3%in the last 12 months,
which still compares favorably to the pre-tax margins of#4. 9%#at Amazon and#9. 4%at Walmart.
I compiled the current data at Yahoo Finance. One major consequence of the industry-wide contraction is that newsroom staffing dived by 31%from 54,700 journalists in 2002 to 38,000 in 2012,
#Department of education shuts down for-profit Corinthian Colleges Federal regulations are designed to make sure that colleges that don t offer a good value to students,
don t get student aid money. Corinthian Colleges will put 85 of its U s. campuses up for sale and close the remaining dozen under an agreement with the U s. Department of education.
The for-profit college chain operates campuses under the names Heald, Everest and Wyotech. It has more than 70,000 students across North america.
don t get student aid money. When Corinthian didn t fully respond, in June, the Department of education placed a three-week hold on financial aid payments to Corinthian.
The cash freeze was a big problem for the college, which had underlying financial difficulties.
with both enrollment and revenue slumping. We are pleased to have reached an agreement with ED that helps protect the interests of our students, employees and other stakeholders, Jack Massimino,
Corinthian Chairman and Chief executive officer, said in a company press release. This agreement allows our students to continue their education
the Department of education will release enough money to allow the college toteach out or enable them to finish their degrees.
and their loans may be discharged. The problems in the for-profit college sector are wider than Corinthian.
They come both from market forces and the government. For example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is suing ITT Educational Services, a chain with 135 campuses and 55,000 students in 40 states.
The CFPB s allegations include predatory lending and misleading students about their job prospects. ITT has filed a motion to dismiss this lawsuit.
but he could not yet estimate a price. The potential market includes some of the 11.2 million people in the United states with vision impairment, according to U s. Census bureau estimates.
Berrier said affordable pricing could make the Fingerreader a key tool to help people with vision impairment integrate into the modern information economy.
#Lawrence Lessig s Mayday smashes $5m crowdfunding goal Lawrence Lessig s#Mayday. us#just raised a lot of money to help get the money out of politics by campaigning to#elect five politicians
who will enact campaign finance reform. Last week, the Super PAC hit its $5 million grassroots fundraising goal thanks to 47,000 supporters,
and Union square Ventures Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham brings Mayday to it full $12 million funding goal before this year s mid-term elections.
to big money campaign donors. People can still#donate here. In a#Letter To Everyone#upon reaching the goal,
and start thinking about how to get the most out of not only the money we ve collected but more importantly the great community we ve built.
We have no protection for network neutrality because of the enormous influence of cable company s money in the political system
if it successfully gets candidates elected in its 2014 pilot campaign it plans to raise orders of magnitude more money to elect an an more pro-campaign finance reform congress in 2016,
and with its NASA campus headquarters and#Space Act Agreement#funding, it could actually go places.
#Banking with startups a growing trend Majority of the people in the U s. could bebanking with startups in the next three to five years.
For investors and entrepreneurs, when looking for opportunity in the financial industry where technology can have the greatest impact,
banks. However, while critical to our economy, banks are generally inefficient, have fixed high costs and don t exactly elicit happy thoughts from the average consumer.
It s for these reasons, among others, that the biggest opportunities in the financial world revolve around the disintermediation of these banks and core financial services.##
##Given this backdrop, it s not hard to imagine that a majority of the people in the U s. could bebanking with startups, in one form or another, in the next three to five years.
but the pace and volume of business taken away from banks by startups in the last few years have been significant
Disintermediation of Consumer credit For starters, we have to look no further for evidence of the inefficiency of our banking system than during our most recent recession.
and it was practically impossible to get a loan, even for prime borrowers. Interest rates were low,
with consumers receiving 0. 25 percent on a savings account and prime borrowers paying upwards of 18#percent annual percentage rate.
The spread was huge, and so was the opportunity. The credit crisis showed the tech industry that one of the biggest areas of opportunity for startups was in re-imagining consumer lending.
People were looking to alternative forms of lending for answers and thanks to the problems above,
interest in solutions like peer-to-peer lending were on the rise. Not surprisingly a cohort of companies emerged to take advantage of these trends, beginning with Prosper,
which was followed soon by Lending Club and a litany of others. At the core of this emerging market was the desire to take banks out of the equation
and connect investors directly with those in need of capital. In other words, disintermediation. Furthermore, investors looking for options in a down economy wanted stability, transparency, shorter duration and less credit risk,
while maintaining solid returns. Compared to traditional options like high-yield bonds, peer-to-peer lending had appeal.
Today, companies like Prosper and Lending Club continue to thrive. Prosper has#raised$145 million to date from a host of investors
including Sequoia and DFJ, and projects that it will hit $2 billion in loans originated this year.
Lending Club had issued $4 billion in loans by the end of March 2014, and became cashflow positive in 2012.
Of course, it wasn t an easy road for either company. Both had to survive significant regulatory scrutiny and approval by the SEC,
and investors were understandably wary of newer lending models, like peer-to-peer. As a result, it took Lending Club five years to issue $1 billion in loans (2007-2012),
but once it passed regulatory scrutiny and both consumers and investors alike came around, these companies grew quickly.
It then#took the company only one year to top $2 billion (2013. By the end of the first quarter, Lending Club had reached $4 billion,
and part of the reason that both it and Prosper have continued to see steady growth is made that they peace with taking their time and built measured growth into their DNA.
In Lending Club s case, it took time to set the table to register with the SEC,
earn real trust with consumers and lenders, and achieve growth while avoiding sub-prime borrowers.
They had to be measured in their growth strategy and each step had to be completed and in place before they could move on to the next.
The other factor that has led to Lending Club s success and plays into the theme of disintermediation we ve been seeing over the last five years is that it has looked to differentiate itself from traditional lenders
(and other startups) by adopting a model that has been used by many other successful tech companies, like#ebay#and#Amazon, for example.
Few have talked about it, but Lending Club and Prosper s key differentiator is that they are marketplaces.
Most other lenders aren t. They have to borrow money either by going after warehouse lines of credit
or they loan out equity capital. Lending Club and Prosper, however, connect buyers and sellers through peer-to-peer lending marketplaces.#
#And as a result, and this is key, it doesn t have the same balance sheet risk as other traditional lenders might have.
Mobile and the Disintermediation of Bill Pay, Processing & More Of course, the opportunities for disruption at the hands of disintermediation extend beyond lending.
The smartphone and increasing mobility of our world is changing the game. The consumerization of the enterprise and thebyod (bring your own device) trend within businesses mean that phones
and tablets are entrenched becoming features within the corporate and consumer worlds. Companies like Intuit, ebay/Paypal,
Mint. com started the ball rolling when it comes to disintermediation, and today a new generation of companies like Square, Braintree, Dwolla, Simple, Venmo, Indinero and Check are taking it to the next level.
But it s not just startups#alone. Consumer brand giants are leveraging both startups and the reach of the new mobile phone network to edge into territory that has traditionally been controlled by banks.#
#Starbucks partnering with Square#to be the main processor at thousands of locations is just one of many notable examples.
While banks have owned traditionally the small business space platforms like Square, Intuit and Paypal and even Amazon and Groupon are playing thedisintermediator
and are putting credit card processing in the hands of SMBS (small and medium businesses) and consumers.
Not only that, they re bundling in other services with processing and targeting them at SMBS.
The growing mobility of the average consumer has allowed businesses to spring up and grow by assuming roles traditionally reserved for banks.
Check is one of these businesses trying to do anend-around on banks by giving consumers the ability to aggregate
and manage all of their critical banking information and bills in one place on their smartphones.
Rather than consumers being forced to go to their banks websites, their utility company s website and so on,
it put all of these services in one place. And again, the first generation of financial technology companies (and banks) have taken notice,
and one doesn t have to look far for examples:##BBVA acquired Simple#in February for $117 million;#
#Braintree acquired Venmo#in 2012 for $26. 2 million;##Paypal acquired Braintree#last September for $800 million;
and#Intuit acquired Check in May for $360 million. Disintermediation of the Second Tier With a loss of faith in the banking system, mobility on the rise and SMBS beginning to take back some control,
we ve also begun to see an increasing number of people not only turning away from traditional banks,
but begin to embrace virtual marketplaces. Just as Lending Club and Prosper took advantage of the limited access to banking capital that begin during the Credit crisis, marketplaces like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Venmo, Crowdtilt,
and Fundly are giving people and businesses an easier way to test, build and fund their products, invest in businesses,
pool money, pay friends and facilitate microtransactions. Disintermediation is also beginning to seep into otherolder financial services markets, like wealth advisory.
Not unlike banks, wealth advisory is an inefficient cottage industry that traditionally comes loaded with fees and a total lack of transparency.
Companies like Wealthfront, Betterment, Sigfig, Futureadvisor and more are looking to help consumers minimize fees
and maximize returns. As people start to rely less and less on the institutions that have acted traditionally as sole providers of those services
and have maintained a viselike grip on market share, we ve begun to see disintermediation arrive in complementary financial services to the second tier,
if you will. And if the last five years is any indication, it won t stop at second-tier services.
What s Next##in the Wake of Bitcoin? So, as we look forward, at all the possibilities inherent in crowdfunding, microfinance and microlending,
we re seeing new potential for companies to provide the next generation of those payment rail systems the kind for which people have relied traditionally on from banks.
As we all know, money transfer is far from instantaneous and even further from being free.
That s why bitcoin and the latest forms of cryptocurrency are so exciting. Digital currencies like bitcoin have the potential to drive down transaction fees in a big way.
Say, for example, you sell electronics or operate a business where profit margins are slim, say under 5 percent.
In this case, the traditional 2. 5 percent payment fees eat up half of your margins. But with bitcoin, companies could see a significant reduction in transaction fees and,
as a result, a boost to their bottom line. What s more, many small businesses struggle with accepting international payments,
but with a distributed, decentralized digital currency, international borders and monetary systems decrease in importance and relevance.
It also could be hugely beneficial for micropayments, especially on mobile platforms, and a digital currency of record could become the micropayment system for the web,
allowing publications, for example, to accept fractions of a cent for every article a reader consumes.
It opens up a whole new set of monetization options and alternatives to the traditional paywall.
Of course, while the prospect of a digital currency becoming a sort of free rails for moving money is exciting,
interchange fees still exist today with bitcoin, and regulation, true anonymity and volatility still remain question marks.
But the world of digital currency remains an exciting area of opportunity. Other areas that are prime for disruption by startups include underwriting
and risk scoring; both areas are being reinvented today through the availability and abundance of new data types.
From the rise of peer-to-peer lending models, mobile wallets, digital investment advisory, to the bitcoin revolution, today s digital disintermediation comes in many forms##all of
which challenge banks to innovate. To those startups that aim to fundamentally change the way we transact for the better,
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