“You can’t throw a rock in Memphis without hitting a guitar player.” That’s how Gebre Waddell describes the music-saturated city he grew up in, which is also home to the company he founded, Sound Credit. The company, which Bee Partners invested in during the last quarter of 2020, aims to “hit” all those guitar players … Read more
Stunning, unprecedented, chaotic…relentless. At some point, each of us at Bee Partners used those–and many other colorful–words to make sense of 2020. But, we also tested our ability to pivot quickly and effectively in order to provide the support our portfolio companies needed as we all adapted to our new reality. Perhaps surprisingly, 2020 brought a … Read more
Deeptech’s scientific and tech-innovation demands bring unique challenges for early-stage companies and their investors. Bee Partners has a long-standing interest in deeptech. We all four have a little science geek in us and we’ve witnessed through our investments the world-changing power of deeply researched and singularly applied solutions that only deeptech can provide. Our deeptech … Read more
The “robots are coming” narrative has two parallel conversations. One is a dialogue over whether or not this is a good thing. Team Bee collaborated (argued, postulated, wrote, erased, and wrote again) over several months last year to develop our core thesis, Machines Will Win on that topic. Spoiler alert: Yes, they will win, and … Read more
A Consumer-Driven Stack Introduction The growth of the on-demand economy (from 41.5m to 56m U.S. consumers in 2018) is transforming supply chains globally like never before. Fast-moving consumer goods that once took days to arrive are now expected in hours or even minutes. Status visibility, product authenticity, and receipt optionality are no longer premium service … Read more
We are grateful for our event partners and sponsors: Blockchain Capital, Blockchain at Berkeley, SkyDeck, Accel, General Catalyst, Scalar Capital, Samsung Next, CryptoParency, and Run8 Patent Group. We have big news to share: Bee Partners is hosting a series of events, the Frontier Innovation Awards 2018: Blockchain, presented by CalFounders, that will culminate in recognition at … Read more
It’s pretty great around Bee HQ these days. … We’ve got a fully engaged, enthusiastic team. The pipeline of opportunities is full of new innovation and disruption. And every single day, we do the work we love with Founders we deeply respect and learn from. And, as of last week, 60 percent of companies Bee Partners invested … Read more
Moving to the Edge for Speed and Autonomy Making Decisions at the Edge WHAT IS EDGE COMPUTING? How quickly what’s new becomes commonplace. Cloud computing has been one of the biggest conduits for innovation over the past 10 years and will remain an important part of the computing infrastructure for the foreseeable future. But as … Read more
Since mid-2015, investments into Seed-stage companies have been decreasing with the reduction in transactions (40 percent drop) outpacing the reduction in dollars (24 percent drop). Early funding is critical for founders to quit their day jobs to go full-time, build out the initial product and team, and attract first customers. Without the capital at the genesis, there … Read more
Systems of Intelligence Definition and Thesis Over the past 36 months, it’s been clear that opportunities innovating around manufacturing have percolated to the top. Here we explain why we’re excited about the future of Industrial Technologies, how we look at this world, what we look for in Founders building the next generation of solutions, and … Read more