Inside the Mind of a New York VC: Scott Birnbaum of Red Sea Ventures

Scott was interviewed by AlleyWatch as part of the new series, Inside the Mind of an NYC VC.

He provides insight into the way we think about the world here at Red Sea Ventures, and how that informs our investment focus and decision-making. Core to this worldview is our belief that the social contract between employer and worker is breaking down. We are moving from a hub and spoke society in which workers demonstrated loyalty to large corporations, to a networked model where individuals and entrepreneurs connect to work through marketplaces and platforms.

"Large companies were previously organized under a social contract promising to deliver employment and income security, training, identity, pensions, and also an implicit promise to continue to hire and absorb new incoming groups of workers. But that isn’t happening anymore and Automation and AI will only accelerate that disintegration.

Now, the Internet has flattened everything. It’s given the edges of the network access to production capacity, to information, to the fundamental resources that were previously only the province of large organizations. Because of this flattening, and the capacity to produce and push power out to the network edges, there is a major shift happening in how our society is organized and is going to be organized."

Scott goes on to talk about the importance of community in successfully building a consumer brand and how millennials have escaped Plato's proverbial Allegory of the Cave and seen the shadows on the wall.

Read the full interview here.

Millennial Job Search Platform WayUp Raises $18.5 Million Series B

Congratulations to Liz, JJ and the WayUp team on the latest funding round led by Trinity Ventures. This brings WayUp's total funding to $27.5 million since it was founded in July 2014, which they plan to use to build out their engineering and product teams. Currently, the team is over 50 employees.

Casetext raises $12 million for legal research assistant CARA

Casetext raises a $12M Series B on the back of their successful new product release, CARA.

CARA is an AI-powered legal research assistant that uses Casetext’s wikipedia-like database of over 10mm court cases and annotations, as well as sophisticated natural language analysis and AI, to understand the brief and recommend related cases.

CARA is an invaluable, innovative research tool,” Quinn Emanuel partner David Eiseman said in a statement. “With CARA, we can upload a brief and within seconds receive additional case law suggestions and relevant information on how cases have been used in the past, all in a user-friendly interface.

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, who led Casetext's previous round, wrote in his blog A VC, "the legal business is ripe for AI-driven innovation. Much of legal research can and will be automated with tools like CARA."

Fabric raises $2.5 million to simplify life insurance

Brooklyn-based Fabric, an insurance-tech startup, has launched and raised a seed round of $2.5 million. The funding was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and included Red Sea Ventures. Fabric, which is licensed as an insurance agency, has built an entirely digital process through which customers can purchase life insurance from providers in two minutes without having to deal with a pushy agent.

The company that made 'the world's most comfortable shoes' is releasing a brand-new style

Allbirds' new Wool Lounger

After the very successful launch of the Wool Runner last year, Allbirds is now launching its second design, the Wool Lounger. We've had the privilege of testing these out and can confirm they are as comfortable as they look.

The Wool Loungers use the same proprietary blend of super-soft natural merino wool from New Zealand that the Runners use; however, Allbirds has incorporated many learnings into the second model from their first year in-market. In fact, the Wool Runner itself "underwent 17 small changes and improvements in the last year."

The Wool Lounger is available in both women's and men's sizes in green, gray, blue, and yellow. The price is the same as the Wool Runner: $95.

Read more, or Buy a Pair.
www.allbirds.com/

#FashionFWD

Scott moderated a panel at #FASHIONFWD on the future of commerce and the importance of "building a community around your brand." #FashionFWD

Check out the Red Sea Ventures job board on Monday to see open opportunities across the portfolio.

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Karan Singh of JanusVR published a Medium post on the design philosophy behind JanusVR and "The Immersive Internet".

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