MGMT Boston - W13, Q1 24 - Q1 Rewind & Recap
Q1 2024 Rewind & Recap
Welcome to MGMT Boston where we try to help 840+ of you manage your awareness of top Boston startups and local up & coming operators putting in the work. Glad to have you here!
TLDR:
Q1 Companies Highlighted - Merlin, BlueTrace, Osmo, Boswell, Tomorrow.io, Vizit, Centaur Labs, Verve Motion, Duckbill, Circle, OneScreen, Causal Labs
Q1 Operators Highlighted - Parker Lawrence / Herald, Aaron Whittemore / Humatics, Lauren Viscariello / Candex, Joe Kiernan / Perch, Micah Lanier / Jump, Craig Minoff / Kasa, Dean Walsh / TiE Boston, Kelly Peters / Tomorrow.io, Annie Lindseth / Connie Health, Henry Gleason / iRobot
Thank you to Sophie Panarese at 186 Ventures for hosting our 2024 Kickoff, Kristen Craft @ Fidelity Private Shares for hosting our Q1 breakfast, Jenni Goodman at Underscore for including us in your Q1 Core Coffee Shop, and Vickrum Nabar, Eduardo Canet, Jesse Bardo & team from JP Morgan for putting together an awesome March 26th event (I will be writing about next week!) with Tommy Vailas at York IE
Other Resources:
MGMT Boston Operators Club - helping up & coming operators grow beyond their day to day
2024 Boston Tech Big Board - updated snapshot of 2024 companies to watch. The comprehensive funding list needs work. If anyone knows an easy way to capture this holistic view (ex-biotech), reach out!
The Endeca Effect: Overview / Markets / People / Products / Conclusion / Bonus - Steve Papa Alumni Learnings
Q1 Startups Highlighted: Merlin, BlueTrace, Osmo, Boswell, Tomorrow.io, Vizit, Centaur Labs, Verve Motion, Duckbill, Circle, OneScreen, Causal Labs
Q1 Operators Highlighted: Parker Lawrence / Herald, Aaron Whittemore / Humatics, Lauren Viscariello / Candex, Joe Kiernan / Perch, Micah Lanier / Jump, Craig Minoff / Kasa, Dean Walsh / TiE Boston, Kelly Peters / Tomorrow.io, Annie Lindseth / Connie Health, Henry Gleason / iRobot
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Tech Superpowers. Onboarding or offboarding employees this quarter? What’s your process? TSP has operated in Boston as an IT provider on behalf of startups for the past 30 years for rapidly growing companies & premier clients like the Celtics, Accel, Matrix Partners, etc.
Q1 2024 Company Rewind
Q1 Startups Highlighted (sequentially): Merlin, BlueTrace, Osmo, Boswell, Tomorrow.io, Vizit, Centaur Labs, Verve Motion, Duckbill, Circle, OneScreen, Causal Labs
AI: Merlin, Osmo
Vertical & Horizontal SaaS: BlueTrace, Causal Labs, OneScreen, Tomorrow.io, Vizit
FinTech: Circle
Consumer: Duckbill
Robotics: Verve Motion
HealthTech: Centaur Labs, Boswell
Seed Stage: BlueTrace, Boswell, Causal Labs, OneScreen
Growth Stage (A-C): Centaur Labs, Duckbill, Merlin, Osmo, Verve Motion, Vizit
Late Stage (>C): Circle, Tomorrow.io
Merlin - building an integrated hardware and software solution, the Merlin Pilot, to create an advanced automation system for aircraft with 500+ systems-on missions completed to date
BlueTrace- B2B verticalized software to empower seafood distributors and producers, helping these underserved businesses simplify their operations and comply with increasingly complex regulations while growing their bottom line
Osmo - building a first-of-its-kind technology to digitize smell. This team is tackling a solution to a challenging question: if you could capture and define smell, then play it back, what are the applications?
Boswell - building software at the intersection of healthcare & social services to drive better outcomes for the healthcare system and our most at-risk patient population
Tomorrow.io - a weather intelligence and climate adaptation software platform for enterprises and governments, on a mission to build the world’s first commercial weather radar satellite constellation
Vizit - the world’s leading content effectiveness platform, enabling digital leaders, designers, and marketers around the world to view and optimize their digital content through their audience’s eyes in real time
Centaur Labs - the leading healthcare data annotation platform - helping AI developers build, monitor, and validate their models at scale
Verve Motion - building an industrial wearables robotics & software platform for hardworking humans
Duckbill - a personal assistant for everyone, combining a consumer AI driven software platform with real life expert humans in the loop, delivering a direct to consumer execution engine to help manage your daily life
Circle - a late stage web3 startup determined to build a new internet financial system behind their flagship product, a digital dollar stablecoin - USDC (USD Coin)
OneScreen - an end to end analytics platform to help brands select, purchase, and measure OOH (out of home) advertising. Because life is better in the real world!
Causal Labs - an AI workflow automation platform for marketers, empowering teams with AI-Driven copy optimization
Q1 2024 Operator Rewind
Q1 Startups Highlighted (sequentially): Parker Lawrence / Herald, Aaron Whittemore / Humatics, Lauren Viscariello / Candex, Joe Kiernan / Perch, Micah Lanier / Jump, Craig Minoff / Kasa, Dean Walsh / TiE Boston, Kelly Peters / Tomorrow.io, Annie Lindseth / Connie Health, Henry Gleason / iRobot
Product & Engineering: Joe Kiernan, Micah Lanier, Parker Lawrence, Craig Minoff, Aaron Whittemore, Henry Gleason
Growth & Marketing: Kelly Peters
Operations, Finance, G&A: Annie Lindseth, Dean Walsh, Lauren Viscariello
Parker Lawrence, Software Engineer @ Herald - a full-stack early stage founding engineer helping to scale the infrastructure of the easiest API for commercial insurance at Boston based insurtech Herald
Aaron Whittemore, GM, Mobility @ Humatics - a business & product leader whose career spans the public & private sector, delivering hardtech solutions that matter for customers, technologists, taxpayers, and busy consumers on the move
Lauren Viscariello, Associate General Counsel @ Candex - a legal leader who has leveraged her expertise to balance legal risks with the business objectives to help her startups succeed
Joe Kiernan, VP Product @ Perch - a mindfully trained consultant turned strategic product thinker building a career around re-envisioning how great consumer products operate
Micah Lanier, Principal Product Manager @ Jump - the childhood Founder of “Micahsoft”, an analytical Product leader who serves as a Principal Product Manager at Jump, a fan experience platform for live sporting events
Craig Minoff, VP Product Management & Company Operations @ Kasa - an adventurer, startup leader, and strategic consultant turned product thinker who has paired a high horsepower intellect with mentorship to shape his thinking around the future of on-demand living
Dean Walsh, Senior Program Manager @ TiE ScaleUp, TiE Boston - traveled across ecosystems and hierarchies as a bridge between eras, one of the last paperboys, who rode his bike and mind on a path from neighborhood streets into the world of high growth startups
Kelly Peters, Director of Marketing @ Tomorrow.io - a storyteller, communicator, and marketing powerhouse who is helping tell the stories of tomorrow, today, as the Director of Marketing at Boston-based, late-stage weather intelligence company Tomorrow.io
Annie Lindseth, Chief of Staff @ Connie Health - building a career in startups by teaching others how to fly, using her experience managing stakeholders and aptitude for operational rigor as the Chief of Staff at growth stage healthtech startup Connie Health
Henry Gleason, Technical Project Manager iRobot - drawn to the physical world, building products with mass appeal to consumers who can share feedback, and allow him to view the forest without getting stuck among the trees
Some other quarterly highlights if you’ve made it this far..
Thank you to Sophie Panarese at 186 Ventures for hosting our 2024 Kickoff
Thank you to Kristen Craft @ Fidelity Private Shares for hosting our Q1 breakfast at High Street Place. Be on the lookout for a Q2 get together in June!
Thank you to Jenni Goodman at Underscore for including us in your Q1 Core Coffee Shop
Thank you to Vickrum Nabar, Eduardo Canet, Jesse Bardo & team from JP Morgan for putting together an awesome March 26th event (I will be writing about next week!) with Tommy Vailas at York IE and local SaaS founders
Write Ups
Dana Wensberg, Senior Engineer @ Paperless Parts - 4 Pieces of Advice for the next Manufacturing SaaS Startup: competing with a mighty incumbent in Excel, integrations are table stakes, customer references are critical, and scaling means deliberate & methodical choices
Sean Smith, VP Product Denim - how a self-described “product guy” spent roughly six months quasi-leading a revenue function (moonlighting in revenue), having never done it before, and the lessons learned along the way
Dillon McDermott, Head of Sales @ Zowie - this one’s for the job hunters out there. A report from the front
Events
186 Ventures 2024 Kickoff - assembled 60+ operators for some great discussion on 2024 trends - capital efficiency / oppty in unsexy tech / generational transfers / investor & founder alignment
Underscore Q1 Core Coffee Shop - Underscore focuses on investing in early stage (Pre-Seed & Seed) B2B Enterprise Software. Thank you to Brian, Lily, Claire, Devin, Jenni, Jimmy, Richard, and the rest of the Underscore team for hosting 100+ Core & MGMT Boston leaders
B2B SaaS Q1 Breakfast, Co-hosted by Fidelity for Startups - We hosted a group to talk B2B SaaS and make connections before starting their work day with talented institutional investors, growth stage operating leaders, and some founders from soon to be household names in attendance
March Event with York IE & JP Morgan - write up next week!
We’ll leave it there for now. On to Q2!
Any feedback for me? One thing you liked? One thing you didn’t? Local startups or operators to highlight? Just reply to this e-mail!
See you next week!
-Matt
What a great Q1 - can't wait to see what the rest of 2024 has in store!