alexsis de raadt st james — Merian Ventures

Put women at the heart of a post-pandemic tech boom

In a op-ed printed by The Telegraph, Merian Venture’s founder Alexsis de Raadt St James and Imperial College London President Alice Gast, together argue that supporting women in tech will be essential to recovery from the pandemic. They present arguments for business, governments, and universities to step up and do more to drive change. “Women have been disproportionately affected by the economic fallout of the pandemic. This is in part because they are underrepresented in industries that have continued to grow.”…

How Provenance’s Transparency Framework helps beauty brands communicate product impact

The beauty industry isn’t good at opening up when it comes to ingredients and impact. But the ‘values shopper’ cohort is growing, and brands need to step up to meet their expectations. Supply chain transparency is a difficult issue for brands.

Provenance, a Merian Ventures portfolio company, believes every product should come with accessible, trustworthy information about origin, journey and impact. Through Provenance’s Transparency Framework, we’re helping beauty brands deliver exactly this.

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

Can blockchain solve the beauty industry’s trust issues?

An urgent new focus for the beauty industry is transparency. Claims to be cruelty-free, clean and 100 per cent natural are rampant in beauty. Offering data to back it up could be a good start. But transparency is harder to demonstrate to the consumer than it might sound. Amid growing scrutiny, beauty brands are turning to blockchain, such as that offered by Provenance.org, a Merian Ventures portfolio company, to help boost consumer confidence

Cultivating Production Excellence

In this recorded InfoQ Live presentation, Liz Fong-Jones, principal developer advocate at Honeycomb.io, a Merian Venture portfolio on company, talks about several practices core to production excellence: giving everyone a stake in production, collaborating to ensure observability, measuring with Service Level Objectives, and prioritizing improvements using risk analysis.

New Data Suggests Female Entrepreneurs are Driving Economic Recovery

Print-Print, a nationwide leader in the provision of printed leaflets, brochures, posters, and business stationery, has published the findings of its latest COVID-19 study, highlighting a surge in orders from female entrepreneurs.

20 Asian Tech Pioneers honoured in 2020

Merian Ventures’ Venture Partner, Priya Guha, was recognized for her support of the tech ecosystem by Diversity UK in the annual Top 100 Asian Stars in the UK Tech list. The list celebrates diversity in the digital sector with a focus on disruptive technologies. Congratulations Priya!

How sustainability became big business for consumer brands

Provenance, a Merian Ventures portfolio company, empowers businesses to build brand value with supply chain and impact transparency by helping corporate leaders understand and build plans through its Transparency Programs for Brands.

Learn why transparency matters as a defining brand characteristic and how its having an increased impact on marketing communications as the expectations for sustainability and eco-friendly products continues to rise.

Silicon Valley and London: Uniting global tech hubs to solve global challenges

Last week, investors, entrepreneurs and policy makers representing some of the most profitable, game-changing companies from the UK and Silicon Valley met for the 14th Silicon Valley Comes to the UK. One consensus of the summit was that making profit does not have to come at the expense of simultaneously benefiting society. The majority of the speakers agreed – companies with a focus on profit, with a purpose, are what society needs more of right now. Read more about this impactful summit.

Merian VenturesMarta BulaichNovember 20, 2020merian ventures, alexsis de raadt st james, VC, SVC2UK

Quarterly VC funding for female founders drops to three-year low

Venture Firms invested a total of $434 million in Q3 in female founded enterprises—the lowest figure since the second quarter of 2017, according to PitchBook data. The third quarter total also amounts to a 48% drop in funding from Q2, when female founders received $841 million across 132 deals

Merian VenturesMarta BulaichNovember 16, 2020merian ventures, alexsis de raadt st james, VC, female founders

Ethical Consumer Week: How to make transparency meaningful

Jessi Baker, CEO and founder of Provenance, a Merian Ventures portfolio company, spoke at Ethical Consumer Week 2020 on what is supply chin and impact transparency and what makes it valuable. Jessi explores the line between what’s progress and what’s simply marketing. She also shared why transparency without proof is, in itself, meaningless. See the three things brands should be doing, and what we should all be looking out for…

Populus Expands Mobility Management Solution to City of San Diego

Populus, the industry-leading platform for cities to manage transportation and mobility services and Merian Ventures portfolio company, announced that it was awarded a contract by the City of San Diego to provide its robust mobility management platform through a multi-year partnership. The Populus platform is the solution of choice for cities around the world to securely receive data from shared mobility operators such as e-scooters, mopeds, and cars, and to digitally manage new mobility, curb, and street policies.

Populus Partners with U.S. DOT to Leverage Innovative Data to Improve Transportation Safety

Populus, the industry-leading platform for cities to manage transportation and mobility services and Merian Ventures portfolio company, will partner with the U.S. DOT to identify opportunities to harness data from some of the 45 million trips it has already processed from shared bikes, electric bikes, and electric scooters to facilitate micromobility management.

Leader Insights | Driving Diversity in Tech with Priya Guha, Merian Ventures

Priya Guha, Venture Partner at Merian Ventures, will be participating at Startup Summit 2020, set to be held on 28th & 29th October on a virtual conference platform. Ahead of Startup Summit 2020, DIGIT caught up with Ms. Guhu to discuss diversity in tech and VC investment for female tech entrepreneurs.

Unilever is using geolocation data and satellite imagery to check for deforestation in its supply chain

“Napolina wanted to communicate information and reassure shoppers about its canned tomatoes, especially in light of investigations into exploitation of migrant agriculture workers in Italy. It has worked with Provenance, a Merian Ventures portfolio company, to provide QR codes on cans linking to sourcing details and the product’s journey from farming co-operative to grocery store.”

Computer Weekly announces the Most Influential Women in UK Tech 2020

Computer Weekly has announced the 2020 list of the 50 Most Influential Women in UK Technology. The list makes female role models in the tech sector more visible and accessible. Selected in this year’s list is Merian Venture’s Priya Guha, a venture partner on our team since 2019.

Merian VenturesMarta BulaichOctober 1, 2020merian ventures, alexsis de raadt st james, Priya guha

Pivigo appoints Alex Willard as CEO

Pivigo, a service provider enabling organizations to connect to a community of data science freelancers, consultants and analytical PhDs to implement AI and Machine Learning solutions and Merian Ventures portfolio company, announced Alex Willard as its new CEO. Willard replaces Pivigo Founder, Dr. Kim Nilsson, whom has joined the Pivigo Board of Directors as Chairman.

PivigoMarta BulaichSeptember 22, 2020merian ventures, alexsis de raadt st james, pivigo, alex Willard, kim nilsson, ceo

Regina Clewlow, PhD, on Small Scooters and Big Data

Dr. Regina Clewlow, CEO & Co-founder of Populus.ai, a Merian Ventures portfolio company, recently spoke as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe Center’s Our New Mobility Future thought leadership series.

“We’ve really transitioned from mobility as a product that one buys, typically a car, to mobility as a service, and this is in large part due to the proliferation of these shared business models and the arrival of dockless bikes and scooters," she said.

Micromobility—small, lightweight modes of personal transportation such as scooters and bikes—and their associated data are being used to transform how individuals travel and how cities plan, according to Regina Clewlow, PhD, the CEO and co-founder of micromobility data company Populus.

How Coronavirus Is Changing the Future of Work for Women

The world is changing at a rapid pace, and the way we work, live and do business has changed along with it. Many changes have been obvious—increases in remote work, online business and flexible work schedules—while others have been subtle shifts toward what many are calling the New Normal.

For women, however, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique situation, turning the status quo on its edge. The economic uncertainty in the wake of lockdowns around the world have been labeled a ‘she-cession,’ with more women—especially women of color—being negatively impacted by the current recession. The gender pay gap alone will cost the average woman $900,000 over a 40-year career when compared to the average earnings of a man, and those numbers are much worse for minorities.

Populus Releases a New Guide on Curb and Mobility Management

Populus’ latest report, Curb and Mobility Management, is for ever-evolving cities and mobility services to dynamically manage how transportation infrastructure and determine how to allocate public space. City departments of transportation are on the frontlines of reconfiguring how our streets and sidewalks are used in light of changes such as significant growth in delivery services or requests from restaurants to access curb space for outdoor dining.

This report includes results from a survey on the mobility policies of 40 cities around the world and outlines historical as well as more recent innovative strategies for curbside management to help cities manage their mobility future.

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