Category: UNCATEGORIZED

FarmWise wants robots to do the dirty part of farming: weeding. With that thought, the San Francisco-based startup enlisted the help of Michigan-based manufacturing and automotive company Roush to build prototypes of the self-driving robots. An early prototype is pictured above.

Financial details of the collaboration were not released.

The idea is these autonomous weeders will replace herbicides and save the grower on labor. By using high-precision weeding, the robotic farm hands can increase the yield of the crops by working day and night to remove unwanted plants and weeds. After all, herbicides are in part because weeding is a terrible job.

With Roush, FarmWise will build a dozen prototypes win 2019 with the intention of scaling to additional units in 2020. But why Michigan?

“Michigan is well-known throughout the world for its manufacturing and automotive industries, the advanced technology expertise and state-of-the-art manufacturing practices,” Thomas Palomares, FarmWise co-founder and CTO said. “These are many of the key ingredients we need to manufacture and test our machines. We were connected to Roush through support from PlanetM, and as a technology startup, joining forces with a large and well-respected legacy automaker is critical to support the scale of our manufacturing plan.”
Roush has a long history in Michigan as a leading manufacturing of high performance auto parts. More recently, the company has expanded its focus to using its manufacturing expertise elsewhere including robotics and alternative fuel system design.

“This collaboration showcases the opportunities that result from connecting startups like FarmWise with Michigan-based companies like Roush that bring their manufacturing know-how to making these concepts a reality,” said Trevor Pawl, group vice president of PlanetM, Pure Michigan Business Connect and International Trade at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. “We are excited to see this collaboration come to fruition. It is a great example of how Michigan can bring together emerging companies globally seeking prototype and production support with our qualified manufacturing base in the state.”

FarmWise was founded in 2016 and has raised $5.7 million through a seed-stage investment including an investment from Playground Global. TechCrunch first saw FarmWise during Alchemist Accelerator’s batch 15 demo day.

For $181 per night, Airbnb guests can stay in a castle in Galway, Ireland.

Many have taken the home-sharing business up on this offer with the company sharing today the castle supplies its most-booked private room. Along with that fun datapoint, Airbnb shared a slew of other stats indicating an upward trajectory for the 12-year-old company.

Most notably, Airbnb has just recorded its 500 millionth guest arrival across one of its 6 million homes, yurts, tree houses, boats and more. 

Airbnb crossing the half-billion mark isn’t surprising given recent aggressive expansion strategies. Valued at $31 billion, the San Francisco-headquartered business recently announced it would acquire HotelTonight in a deal reported to be worth roughly $465 million.

Airbnb’s long-term goal is to build an end-to-end travel platform complete with home sharing, hotel booking, business travel arrangements, experiences and more. Folding in HotelTonight, a mobile app that lets travelers arrange last-minute accommodations, accelerates its path toward owning the peer-to-peer rental market and more. Already amongst the most acquisitive unicorns, per Crunchbase News, Airbnb is also in said to be considering purchasing a stake in Oyo, an Indian hotel startup.

According to the analytics platform Second Measure, Airbnb is rapidly surpassing hospitality incumbents. Since 2016, Airbnb has tripled sales, while larger hotel chains have observed sales growth of just 11 percent. Airbnb’s annual sales have overtaken IHG and Hilton, and are well on their way to exceeding Marriott, which has dominated the industry since acquiring Starwood Hotels in 2016.

All of this bodes well for Airbnb, which is said to be considering a 2019 or 2020 initial public offering. The company has to date raised $4.4 billion in a combination of debt and equity funding from venture capital investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. In January, Airbnb said it was profitable for the second consecutive year on an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) basis.

In addition to the 500 million milestone, Airbnb has shared that its hosts have earned $65 billion from renting out space on the platform. That number is expected to swell, quick, as Airbnb says it saw 152 percent growth in the number of rooms available on its platform. The geographic distribution of guests has expanded, too, with outlying markets increasing their share of arrivals.

Finally, the age of hosts has become more diverse. Seniors are now the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S. while 70 percent of bookings in the last three years were made by guests under the age of 40. Millennials around the world have spent over $31 billion booking travel on Airbnb.

Airbnb currently dominates the peer-to-peer rental industry, but with Expedia gaining market share via its subsidiary HomeAway and Bookings Holdings doing its best to compete through Bookings.com, Kayak and Priceline, Airbnb may not be able to sustain this growth rate.

It’s Qualcomm 1, Apple 1 in the latest instalment of the pair’s bitter patent bust-up — the litigious IP infringement claim saga that also combines a billion dollar royalties suit filed by Cupertino alleging that the mobile chipmaker’s licensing terms are unfair.

The iPhone maker filed against Qualcomm on the latter front two years ago and the trial is due to kick off next month. But a U.S. federal court judge issued a bracing sharpener earlier this month, in the form of a preliminary ruling — finding Qualcomm owes Apple nearly $1BN in patent royalty rebate payments. So that courtroom looks like one to watch for sure.

Yesterday’s incremental, two-fold development in the overarching saga relates to patent charges filed by Qualcomm against Apple back in 2017, via complaints to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in which it sought to block domestic imports of iPhones.

In an initial determination on one of these patent complaints published yesterday, an ITC administrative law judge found Apple violated one of Qualcomm’s patents — and recommended an import ban.

Though Apple could (and likely will) request a review of that non-binding decision.

Related: A different ITC judge found last year that Apple had violated another Qualcomm patent but did not order a ban on imports — on “public interest” grounds.

ITC staff also previously found no infringement of the very same patent, which likely bolsters the case for a review. (The patent in question, U.S. Patent No. 8,063,674, relates to “multiple supply-voltage power-up/down detectors”.)

Then, later yesterday, the ITC issued a final determination on a second Qualcomm v Apple patent complaint — finding no patent violations on the three claims that remained at issue (namely: U.S. Patent No. 9,535,490; U.S. Patent No. 8,698,558; and U.S. Patent No. 8,633,936), terminating its investigation.

Though Qualcomm has said it intends to appeal.

The mixed bag of developments sit in the relatively ‘minor battle’ category of this slow-motion high-tech global legal war (though, of the two, the ITC’s final decision looks more significant); along with the outcome of a jury trial in San Diego earlier this month, which found in Qualcomm’s favor over some of the same patents the ITC cleared Apple of infringing.

Reuters reports the chipmaker has cited the contradictory outcome of the earlier jury trial as grounds to push for a “reconsideration” of the ITC’s decision.

“The Commission’s decision is inconsistent with the recent unanimous jury verdict finding infringement of the same patent after Apple abandoned its invalidity defense at the end of trial,” Qualcomm said in a statement. “We will seek reconsideration by the Commission in view of the jury verdict.”

Albeit, given the extreme complexities of chipset component patent suits it’s not really surprising a jury might reach a different outcome to an ITC judge.

In the other corner, Apple issued its now customary punchy response statement to the latest developments, swinging in with: “Qualcomm is using these cases to distract from having to answer for the real issues, their monopolistic business practices.”

Safe to say, the litigious saga continues. And iPhones continue being sold in the U.S.

Other notable (but still only partial) wins for Qualcomm include a court decision in China last year ordering a ban on iPhone sales in the market — which Apple filed an appeal to overturn. So no China iPhone ban yet.

And an injunction ordered by a court in Germany which forced Apple to briefly pull certain iPhone models from sale in its own stores in January. By February the models were back on its shelves — albeit now with Qualcomm not Intel chips inside.

But it’s not all been going Qualcomm’s way in Germany. Also in January, another court in the country dismissed a separate patent claim as groundless.

A decision is also still pending in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against Qualcomm.

In that suit the chipmaker is accused of operating a monopoly and forcing exclusivity from Apple while charging “excessive” licensing fees for standards-essential patents. The trial wrapped up in January and is pending a verdict.

SparkLabs Group, the network of accelerators and venture funds that has now worked with more than 200 startups around the world, wants to foster the next generation of entrepreneurs with a new program for universities. Called SparkLabs Frontier, the program’s first accelerator will launch at Arizona State University this summer.

SparkLabs Frontier-ASU is open to participants from the university’s programs, including the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, W.P. Carey School of Business and the Thunderbird School of Global Management, as well as alumni. It will begin taking applications on May 13, with the accelerator program starting in July 2019.

Unlike SparkLabs’ other accelerators, SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will have a three to four-month-long pre-accelerator component with training (provided in partnership with the Global Scaling Academy) to help students and other potential applicants develop startup ideas and connect with possible co-founders This is intended to ready them to apply for the main accelerator program, which will accept six to eight startups at a time. SparkLabs Frontier-ASU also entails the creation of a 30 percent stock option versus the standard 10 to 20 percent for seed-stage startups.

In an email, SparkLabs Group co-founder Frank Meehan said that the network wanted to work with ASU because of its achievements under university president Michael Crow (who as Columbia University executive vice provost taught another SparkLabs co-founder, Bernard Moon).

“ASU has grown into the most innovative school in the U.S., risen quickly up the national research rankings, leading a deep-space NASA mission for the first time and has heavily integrated entrepreneurship throughout its campus and schools,” he said. With Arizona’s relationship to the automotive and space industries, SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will focus on the “broad arena of frontier tech, or deep tech as some call it,” Meehan added. “So we will be looking into AI, autonomous driving, materials science, space, augmented reality, genomics, drones and other cutting-edge areas of innovation.”

While SparkLabs’ recent classes in other accelerators are now more often attracting later stage seed or Series A companies, SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will “be more raw, early and bootstrapped,” said Meehan. “The pre-accelerator program will be to develop ideas, talent and teams, so we don’t even expect these individuals to have co-founders or colleagues at this stage.”

SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will launch with an advisory board that has a roster of recognizable names, including science author Steven Johnson, M.C. Hammer, Barry Munitz, chancellor emeritus of California State University, and Mozilla chief innovation officer Katharina Borchert. Its venture partners include Chris Yeh, Jimmy Lin, Jen Millard, and Jared Carney.

SparkLabs Frontier has also began discussions with major research universities in the U.S., China and South Korea for future programs.

In a prepared statement, ASU president Michael Crow said “Entrepreneurial for ASU means partnerships and alliances, and it means driving ideas, technologies and inventions that matter, that will have real impact. Partnerships like this one with SparkLabs Group will move innovation and entrepreneurialism forward, which is necessary for the continuation of the success of the state, the country and the world.”

SparkLabs Group, the network of accelerators and venture funds that has now worked with more than 200 startups around the world, wants to foster the next generation of entrepreneurs with a new program for universities. Called SparkLabs Frontier, the program’s first accelerator will launch at Arizona State University this summer.

SparkLabs Frontier-ASU is open to participants from the university’s programs, including the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, W.P. Carey School of Business and the Thunderbird School of Global Management, as well as alumni. It will begin taking applications on May 13, with the accelerator program starting in July 2019.

Unlike SparkLabs’ other accelerators, SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will have a three to four-month-long pre-accelerator component with training (provided in partnership with the Global Scaling Academy) to help students and other potential applicants develop startup ideas and connect with possible co-founders This is intended to ready them to apply for the main accelerator program, which will accept six to eight startups at a time. SparkLabs Frontier-ASU also entails the creation of a 30 percent stock option versus the standard 10 to 20 percent for seed-stage startups.

In an email, SparkLabs Group co-founder Frank Meehan said that the network wanted to work with ASU because of its achievements under university president Michael Crow (who as Columbia University executive vice provost taught another SparkLabs co-founder, Bernard Moon).

“ASU has grown into the most innovative school in the U.S., risen quickly up the national research rankings, leading a deep-space NASA mission for the first time and has heavily integrated entrepreneurship throughout its campus and schools,” he said. With Arizona’s relationship to the automotive and space industries, SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will focus on the “broad arena of frontier tech, or deep tech as some call it,” Meehan added. “So we will be looking into AI, autonomous driving, materials science, space, augmented reality, genomics, drones and other cutting-edge areas of innovation.”

While SparkLabs’ recent classes in other accelerators are now more often attracting later stage seed or Series A companies, SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will “be more raw, early and bootstrapped,” said Meehan. “The pre-accelerator program will be to develop ideas, talent and teams, so we don’t even expect these individuals to have co-founders or colleagues at this stage.”

SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will launch with an advisory board that has a roster of recognizable names, including science author Steven Johnson, M.C. Hammer, Barry Munitz, chancellor emeritus of California State University, and Mozilla chief innovation officer Katharina Borchert. Its venture partners include Chris Yeh, Jimmy Lin, Jen Millard, and Jared Carney.

SparkLabs Frontier has also began discussions with major research universities in the U.S., China and South Korea for future programs.

In a prepared statement, ASU president Michael Crow said “Entrepreneurial for ASU means partnerships and alliances, and it means driving ideas, technologies and inventions that matter, that will have real impact. Partnerships like this one with SparkLabs Group will move innovation and entrepreneurialism forward, which is necessary for the continuation of the success of the state, the country and the world.”

For the last two years, Didi has been the dominant car-hailing force in China and its success has spawned a handful of competitors initiated by both internet firms and old-school carmakers. Just last week, another notable challenger has stepped up.

T3, which is short for “top 3”, officially launched after a dozen entities, including three major automakers, agreed to lay out a total of 9.76 billion yuan ($1.45 billion) for the joint venture following an initial agreement in July, according to an announcement released last week.

The big pile of cash will go towards “car-sharing services powered by renewable energy,” an offering that nicely aligns with Beijing’s push to electrify the transportation sector. T3’s investor list is also stellar, with the participation of three state-owned Chinese carmakers and the country’s largest internet companies, Alibaba and Tencent.

The marriage of private and state-owned players comes as China works to attract more private money into the clunky state sector to breathe innovation and efficiency into the latter, an effort dubbed the “mixed reform”. T3 will be purely-market driven, with a mission to build what it calls a “smart mobility ecosystem” by combining the data capability of its technology partners with the manufacturing know-how of its automakers, said the announcement.

China’s ecommerce giant Alibaba and social media leader Tencent lock horns on many fronts and it’s rare to see them co-invest. They are both Didi’s investors, although that bond came in a more roundabout way through the merger of Tencent-backed Didi and Alibaba-backed Kuaidi in 2015.

At T3 this time, the pair’s roles remain secondary as home appliance retailer Suning is set to be the largest shareholder by acquiring 17.42 percent equity. Suning’s leadership also explains why T3 debuted in Nanjing, the eastern Chinese city where it’s headquartered. Automakers FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor, and Changan Automobile will each pick up 16.39 percent of the new entity as the second-largest holders. Tencent, Alibaba and the rest of the affiliates will divide the remaining shares between them.

T3 didn’t go to lengths at its launch regarding how its ride-hailing venture will take shape, though it did mention a fleet 5,000 cars will start running on the streets of Nanjing in late May or early June. The assault comes at a critical time for Didi, which has been recovering from two controversial passenger murders by doubling down on security measures.

T3 isn’t the first time old-school carmakers have moved into car-hailing. Indeed, manufacturers are flocking to the red-hot industry as a series of new regulations give companies with car assets an edge to play. Didi, too, has been busy partnering with automakers to secure access to vehicle fleets.

Some of Didi’s foremost challengers from the carmaking sector include Caocao, a chauffeur ride-hailing app backed by Geely, and Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur, which is started by state-owned Shouqi. BWM also became the first foreign automaker to join the race.

There is also intense rivalry from the internet camp. Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Financial has backed one of Didi’s most serious competitors, Hello TransTech (formerly Hellobike). Tencent-backed food delivery and hotel booking giant Meituan also drove into ride-hailing although that segment has yet to make a dent amid ruthless competition.

For the last two years, Didi has been the dominant car-hailing force in China and its success has spawned a handful of competitors initiated by both internet firms and old-school carmakers. Just last week, another notable challenger has stepped up.

T3, which is short for “top 3”, officially launched after a dozen entities, including three major automakers, agreed to lay out a total of 9.76 billion yuan ($1.45 billion) for the joint venture following an initial agreement in July, according to an announcement released last week.

The big pile of cash will go towards “car-sharing services powered by renewable energy,” an offering that nicely aligns with Beijing’s push to electrify the transportation sector. T3’s investor list is also stellar, with the participation of three state-owned Chinese carmakers and the country’s largest internet companies, Alibaba and Tencent.

The marriage of private and state-owned players comes as China works to attract more private money into the clunky state sector to breathe innovation and efficiency into the latter, an effort dubbed the “mixed reform”. T3 will be purely-market driven, with a mission to build what it calls a “smart mobility ecosystem” by combining the data capability of its technology partners with the manufacturing know-how of its automakers, said the announcement.

China’s ecommerce giant Alibaba and social media leader Tencent lock horns on many fronts and it’s rare to see them co-invest. They are both Didi’s investors, although that bond came in a more roundabout way through the merger of Tencent-backed Didi and Alibaba-backed Kuaidi in 2015.

At T3 this time, the pair’s roles remain secondary as home appliance retailer Suning is set to be the largest shareholder by acquiring 17.42 percent equity. Suning’s leadership also explains why T3 debuted in Nanjing, the eastern Chinese city where it’s headquartered. Automakers FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor, and Changan Automobile will each pick up 16.39 percent of the new entity as the second-largest holders. Tencent, Alibaba and the rest of the affiliates will divide the remaining shares between them.

T3 didn’t go to lengths at its launch regarding how its ride-hailing venture will take shape, though it did mention a fleet 5,000 cars will start running on the streets of Nanjing in late May or early June. The assault comes at a critical time for Didi, which has been recovering from two controversial passenger murders by doubling down on security measures.

T3 isn’t the first time old-school carmakers have moved into car-hailing. Indeed, manufacturers are flocking to the red-hot industry as a series of new regulations give companies with car assets an edge to play. Didi, too, has been busy partnering with automakers to secure access to vehicle fleets.

Some of Didi’s foremost challengers from the carmaking sector include Caocao, a chauffeur ride-hailing app backed by Geely, and Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur, which is started by state-owned Shouqi. BWM also became the first foreign automaker to join the race.

There is also intense rivalry from the internet camp. Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Financial has backed one of Didi’s most serious competitors, Hello TransTech (formerly Hellobike). Tencent-backed food delivery and hotel booking giant Meituan also drove into ride-hailing although that segment has yet to make a dent amid ruthless competition.

Qupital, a fintech startup that bills itself as Hong Kong’s largest trade financing platform for SMEs, has closed a $15 million Series A led by CreditEase FinTech Investment Fund (CEFIF), with participation from returning investors Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund and MindWorks Ventures, both participants in its seed round. To date, Qupital has raised $17 million, including a seed round two years ago, and will use its latest funding to expand its supply chain financing products, launch in mainland Chinese cities and hire more people for its tech development and risk management teams.

CreditEase, which provides loans and other financial services for SMEs in China, will act as a strategic investor, aiding with Qupital’s geographic expansion. Existing investor Alibaba has already helped Qupital reach small businesses on its platform. Qupital will open branches in Chinese cities including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, along with setting up a new technology center in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area for talent and tech development. In total, it will hire about 100 people for its Hong Kong office this year.

Founded in 2016, Qupital offers lending for SMEs that frequently have cash flow issues because they are in a cycle of waiting for invoices to be paid. Qupital’s loans cover most of the value of an invoice, then matches that with investors and funders who cover the cash with the expectation of a return. The company makes money by charging SMEs a service fee that is a fixed percentage of the total invoice value and then a discount fee, and taking a percentage of net gains made by investors.

Qupital has now processed 8,000 trades, totaling HKD $2 billion in value. It won’t disclose how many SMEs it has worked with, but co-founder and chairman Andy Chan says that number is in the hundreds.

Chan tells TechCrunch that in China, Qupital will not compete directly against traditional financial institutions, because it focuses on financing the Hong Kong business entities of Chinese companies in U.S. and Hong Kong currency, instead of onshore renminbi. It will also target SMEs underserved by traditional lenders, by using alternative data sources to determine their creditworthiness.

In a prepared statement, CEFIF managing director Dennis Cong said “The growing volume of SME and cross-border trading drives a huge demand for alternative financing for SME’s who are underserved in the market and opportunities for investors to earn a decent risk-adjusted return. We look forward to working with Qupital to broaden its source of capital base and create unparalleled investment opportunities for CreditEase.”

Glassdoor has released its latest gender pay gap data analysis. In the U.S., the unadjusted pay gap comes in at 21.4 percent, meaning women make just $0.79 for every $1 men earn.

But, when controlling for variables like age, education, location, experience, occupation and industry, the pay gap is 4.9 percent. That’s a slight improvement from three years ago, when Glassdoor did its first analysis. That means, women make about $0.95 cents for every $1 men make.

In the tech industry, there is an adjusted wage gap of 5.4 percent, meaning, men generally make 5.4 percent more than women. On an adjusted basis, men make 11.8 percent more money than women.

In technical roles, while the wage gap is shrinking, it’s still quite large. Across the U.S., 79 percent of all computer programmers are male, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The wage gap between men and women is 11.3 percent, which comes out to about $0.88 for every $1 men make. In the tech industry, referred to as information technology, the wage gap is 5.4 percent (about $0.95 for every $1).

The wage gap among computer programmers represents the largest pay gap shrink (among the 15 job occupations with the highest wage gaps) since 2016, where the wage gap was 28.3 percent and women made about $0.72 for every $1 men made.

Other jobs with high pay gaps include pilot (number 1), professor, branch manager, C-suite and chef. Perhaps the tech industry is getting slightly better with equal pay, but it’s rather disconcerting that the computer programmer role is still among the top 15 jobs with the largest pay gaps.

“Knowing the facts about the gender pay gap is critical to helping close the gap,” Glassdoor senior vice president and head of product and UX/design Annie Pearl said in a statement. “Combining knowledge with leveraging valuable resources is the next step to ensuring equal pay for equal work everywhere… We all have a part to play to close the pay gap.”

The industries with the widest wage gap (6.4 percent) are retail and media. That means women make $0.93 for every $1 men earn. With that, I’m signing off.

Jon Sakoda needed to decompress, he says. The founder-turned-venture investor had logged a dozen years with the investing heavyweight New Enterprise Associates after selling his last startup to Symantec in 2006, and what he wanted by last summer was more time with his kids, and less time with his phone, which he turned off for three weeks.

“I can’t recommend it enough,” says Sakoda, who has since returned to work and is today taking the wraps off his new venture firm, Decibel, a term sometimes used to describe exponential changes in the power of sounds or signals sent through a network and which speaks to the “exponential power” of the firm’s network, says its new website.

While it’s tempting to poke fun at this claim, it appears from the outside to be true. Though Sakoda is the sole founding partner of Decibel — he says he’s looking to add investing professionals right now — not only does Decibel have the benefit of his extensive connections in Silicon Valley; it’s also majority backed by Cisco, the network gear maker that’s aggressively transforming itself into more of a software-focused company.

Though Sakoda says he doesn’t know exactly what percentage of the fund that Cisco’s dollars comprise, partly because the vehicle isn’t yet closed, he tells us he’s working very collaboratively with the company, including its corporate venture team, Cisco Investments.

He’s also working with some of the many founders to be swept into Cisco over the years via its brisk M&A strategy. For example, one of these, Jon Oberheide, a founder who sold his company, Duo Security, to Cisco for more than $2 billion last year, is currently working with one of Decibel’s portfolio companies already as an advisor.

Put into context, Oberheide is helping with half of Decibel’s portfolio, which includes the three-year-old, Vancouver-based cybersecurity startup CMD, which last month closed on $15 million in funding led by GV. (It’s this team that Oberheide is helping.) Decibel has also backed Blameless, a developer of software for site reliability engineers that announced $20 million in funding just last week led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Sakoda says more deals are in the works, and explains that what he’s shopping for has little to do with Cisco today, but could eventually be a strategic fit for the corporate giant. For example, though Sakoda was involved in funding Snap on behalf of NEA, he says it’s not so likely he’ll be shopping for e-commerce or media startups for Decibel.

Absent these areas, though Sakoda suggests that anything goes as long as the company isn’t too far along.  “We’re really going to be looking for startups trying to find product market fit and help with how to grow,” he explains. “If a company has lots of revenue and is already scaling, it’s probably too late for us.”

It makes a kind of sense, considering that Decibel itself has a ways to go to establish itself. Though an earlier SEC filing suggests the fund is targeting $500 million, a pool that will be structured like a traditional venture fund (“investments, personnel, and fund governance is all independent” from Cisco, says Sakoda),  and though Decibel already has firm plans to write initial checks of up to $5 million to seed- and Series A-stage companies, ask Sakoda where the firm is based, and he’ll laughingly tell you he doesn’t quite know.

“I haven’t quite figured that out — yet. I’m working on it.”