Union Labs Ventures

It's that time of the quarter again! Take a break and grab a cup of ☕ and read the Union Express #Newsletter below! Nate Williams Annie Le Chris Kim https://lnkd.in/gztmQhAz

We are thrilled to announce that our #portco Butlr raised their #seriesB $38M round led by Foundry! Read more below on Forbes to see how @Honghao Deng and the team are creating sensors to transform buildings into safer, energy efficient, collaborative centers for working and living. Nate Williams Annie Le Chris Kim https://lnkd.in/gsXuAeCR

Amazing turnout to our quarterly Founded@ Happy Hour last night! Big shoutout to our cohosts E14 Fund and SE Ventures. Looking forward to the next! #founders #VC #entrepreneurs Nate Williams Annie Le Chris Kim Gregoire VIASNOFF Calvin Chin

> 50,000 steps? A "walking marathon"? I've seen my connections like Sean Jacobsohn do these while taking calls + meetings and decided I needed a Type II Fun (see below) activity that didn't include cycling. So as part of the team building / culture work we do for our firm Union Labs Ventures and through nudging from Regan Bach Louis Selincourt, I made a go for it yesterday. Type II fun "is an activity that may not be enjoyable while it's happening, but is enjoyable in retrospect. It's often associated with endurance activities like hiking, mountaineering, or sports, where the pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, reflecting on the experience, and feeling a sense of accomplishment." How do these things impact our daily work? In my case these challenges allow me to build the resilience and perspective to handle the high-highs and the low-lows of entrepreneurship. Whether a 100 mile gravel race, a marathon, or just making a daily yoga class, plenty of lessons to be learned. I had the chance to sit-down with the BFF Team to record a podcast (link below in comments) on the linkages between hard things, ultra endurance and our daily work. Many thanks to Adam Odoski for facilitating and my colleagues at UNION Annie Le Sri R. Chris Kim for signing up for these 😎 #Startups #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers

What’s stopping factories from ditching paper and going digital? 😱 Fear of the unknown 💰 Price To restore U.S. manufacturing as a global leader in productivity, bold changes are required. That’s why all manufacturers can use our digital work instruction suite of tools for free. Learn more in our latest blog! https://bit.ly/3ApprWH #manufacturing #DigitalTransformation

We are delighted to share that Joe Wilner has joined Derapi as our head of engineering! Joe is an expert in API infrastructure, having recently led the effort to redesign the API gateway and auth architectures for New York Times. Joe also spent five years at EnergyHub, where he was responsible for establishing and maintaining the mission-critical integrations at the core of EnergyHub’s award-winning DERMS platform. Joe’s proven track record and deep expertise in DER integrations will ensure that Derapi’s API is the highest quality, deeply functional, and most reliable way to connect to and control DERs. Welcome, Joe! #welcome #ders #energy #bestteam

Let's goooooo #TTR10

Practical #DeepTech, for the win 🙌! Love seeing our Union Labs Ventures portcos doing the work. Urban Sky Microballoon & Hotspot system 👇 over Alexander Mountain fire in Colorado (map in high-resolution / infrared). Andrew Antonio Jared Leidich, PE

We are thrilled to announce that our #portco SirenOpt has raised a 6.6M seed round led by Voyager Ventures and TOMORROW! SirenOpt’s manufacturing intelligence platform turns manufacturing blind spots into real-time insights using non-destructive cold atmospheric plasma and machine learning that evaluates material quality and improves industrial efficiency. Jared O'Leary John Busch James Carrington Looking forward to seeing the team and product grow and create a much-needed transformation in how advanced coatings, thin films and nano-scale materials are manufactured. Shoutout to a solid crew we invested alongside 💪 Climate Club Berkeley SkyDeck Wireframe Ventures Impact Science Ventures Access Industries Courtyard Ventures Climate Capital Nate Williams Chris Kim

Some major 🔑 GTM keys Nate Williams dropped re Sales, Marketing, and Business Development best practices with Alexander Shartsis on "Seed to Sequoia" last week: 1) Everyone sells, everyone! 2) Founder led sales isn't the only path to product<>market fit; not all CEOs are Sales superstars 3) Meet customer at their level, do not superimpose biz models on traditional industries 4) Beware of customer concentration at early stage 5) LOI/MOU means nada, revenue rules the day 6) Map the world of prospects, don’t narrowcast outreach when getting started 7) Traction at Series A is as important as technical risk mitigation 8) There is a difference btw a 1st Sales hire and a CRO as well as Bus Dev vs sales 9) Do not start with full quota if product is not ready 10) If CEO doesn't trust GTM lead, why should the rest of the company?