the great thing about working with yet2.com is that we get to see so many interesting new technologies. Thousands of them. A few really impress us. One is ZetrOZ and their revolutionary ultrasound therapy technology. They took first place in yet2.com’s recent Step2Change Technology Competition last month.
Join us 19 July 2011, 11:00am EDT for a Webinar on ZetrOZ.
Register here for the webinar: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/812392706
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Clean Tech, future trends, open innovation, Uncategorized, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: innovation, medical device, open innovation, Pain Management, ultrasound, ultrasound pain therapy device, yet2.com, ZeterOZ | 
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Posted by bendupont
I had the pleasure of speaking at a forum for consumer product entrepreneurs 2 weeks ago in Radnor PA. It was hosted by Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz LLP, who did a great job connecting a rooms full of entrepreneurs with venture capitalists – tough to do in this climate. It was great to see a law firm take such a leadership role in facilitating these kinds of connections.
A few key learnings?:
Here is a edited summary:
Leave a Comment » | future trends, open innovation, Venture capital, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: Ben duPont, Consumer Products, DSM, Ganeden Biotech, open innovation, P&G, technology scouting, Watermark Medical, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
We hosted our 11th annual Open Innovation conference in Boston 2 weeks ago. It was a huge success. We talked about; trends in innovation and best practices. A few large companies presented their learnings and plans, a few small companies presented their breakthrough technologies and we had a few case studies…..and a personal favorite – we ate lobster.
In total, we had executives from 3 Continents, with a large group from Japan. Some of the companies participating included; Canon, P&G, Agfa, AirProducts, Applied Materials, AveryDennison, Baxter, Bayer, Clorox, Colgate, DuPont, Ecolab, GSK, Kimberly-Clark, J&J, Kisco, Mellon, Nissan, Panasonic, Parker Hannifin, P&G, Ricoh, Sony, DSM, Invista and NASA! Add to this, we had 2 dozen selected small companies, with breakthrough technologies.
I liked the robust Q&A after each presentation. When Canon’s CTO, Dr. Ikoma-san, presented, 4 other CTOs asked questions. You cant beat that. Some themes that emerged
We spent a lot of time discussing how to optimize deals between large and small companies. This has been a reoccurring theme are our events. Even when there is a great technology fit, deals take more time than both parties would like. Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Clean Tech, future trends, open innovation, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: Canon, Clorox, Colgate Palmolive, DSM, Ecolab, future trends, lobster, NASA, Nissan, open innovation, P&G, technology scouting, Wikinomics, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
Delaware has an impressive Chancery court, that has written most modern US corporation case law. Last year, 76% of the IPOs were incorporated in Delaware. Which is a key reason why 63% of the Fortune 500 are registered here.
I spent some time poking around the Delaware Division of Corporations website. What I did not expect to find is leading indicators of economic recovery in the Annual Report. LLC filings are up to 82,000, from 70,000 in ’09 and 81,923 in ’08. This has good to be good news for economic recovery?
Leave a Comment » | future trends, open innovation, Venture capital, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: Delaware, innovation, LLC, open innovation, patent litigation, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
This is an excellent article from VenturBeat and written by Anthony Ha. It ties into a blog I wrote on the New Now. A key mega-trend is wireless speed.
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman presented his vision today for “Web 3.0” at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin.
Hoffman, who is now a partner at Greylock Partners, sounded dismissive of most of the buzzwords that have been tied to Web 3.0 — bandwidth, “appification”, video, location, real-time, and mobile. (He said mobile is probably the most significant trend of the bunch, but it’s “kind of boring”.) Instead, he said that the next big trend in the evolution of the Web, and the next big opportunity for entrepreneurs, is data.
Leave a Comment » | commentary, future trends, open innovation, Uncategorized, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: Ben duPont, Data Mining, Linkedin, open innovation, Reid Hoffman, South by Southwest, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
I love thought provoking renditions of what the future might be like. This is a good example of how material science (and Corning) will likely play a role in our future – Ben
Leave a Comment » | future trends, open innovation, Venture capital, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: Corning, future trends, glass, open innovation, technology scouting, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
Over the past 10 years, yet2 has facilitated hundreds of transactions with the Fortune 500, on 3 continents. Most of these have been between successful start ups and a large multinationals, and they cover a wide range of technology. While each transactions is different, I thought I’d share a few navigational insights to help successful start-ups drive an exit or form a partnership.
The first thing to understand is that large companies rarely act with one voice. While they try to, they don’t. They are a collection of individuals each with motivations and fears. Most of employees of these firms have 3 questions in mind, 1) How can I represent my company well? 2) Will this help get me promoted? 3) Will this minimize the chance for me to get fired?
Usually, it’s in the best interest of the LargeCo to delay and do more diligence or testing. Unless they are about to lose the opportunity, they have every motivation to ‘do one more test’. More testing and diligence helps prevent the decision-makers from getting fired. In this sense, Large companies may be price agnostic, meaning they would much rather pay $200 million for a technology they know works, than $5 million for one that ‘needs fixing’. This is how to get promoted, and not fired. Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | open innovation, Venture capital, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: open innovation, technology scouting, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
For over ten years I have been going to Japan frequently. I’m going again in 2 weeks. Their; technology, discipline and focus have always amazed me. This was sent to me by a friend and I thought is was worth sharing.
Don’t underestimated Japan’s capability and resolve. The below picture is a good example. The left is the state of a highway right after the earthquake. The right is the same highway four days later. Message? The Japanese economy and people will rebound from this crisis, and be stronger and better then ever.
Leave a Comment » | commentary, future trends, open innovation, yet2.com | Tagged: Ben duPont, Earthquake, efficiency, Japan, open innovation, technology, technology licensing, technology transfer, Tokyo | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
By Anil Das of International Business Times
Search engine behemoth Google has been working long and hard on a ‘secret’ project towards making cars that can drive themselves. At this week’s TED conference, Google presented extremely rare demos of its much-awaited self-driving cars and the videos of the demos have hit the internet.
“Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain,” Google had said in an earlier blog post.
The automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles, it added.
The internet gaint stressed safety has been the first priority in this project and the cars are never unmanned. The company has a trained software operator in the passenger seat to monitor the software. Any test begins by sending out a driver in a conventionally driven car to map the route and road conditions. By mapping features like lane markers and traffic signs, the software in the car becomes familiar with the environment and its characteristics in advance.
The company informed, citing the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1.2 million lives are lost every year in road traffic accidents and technology of this kind has the potential to cut the accident rate by half.
Furthermore, this technology is expexted to reduce the time of commuting and make it time efficient. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates people spend an average 52 minutes everyday commuting to the office.
Search Engine Land has posted a video of one of Google’s self-driving cars racing around a closed course. Take a look at the video to catch a brief glimpse of the future:
4 Comments | Clean Tech, future trends, open innovation, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: Ben duPont, Cars, Google, open innovation, Prius, self driving car | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
A Trip of a Lifetime
August 5, 20113 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ….into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films…..
= a trip of a lifetime.
move, eat, learn
Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing
Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound
Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover