The Big One

A breakdown on the day’s biggest Inno story.

Lucy: Less than two weeks after Formlabs announced its $30M Series C round, another local 3D-printing startup made a huge move.

KG: We’re talking about MarkForged, which took home not money, but a key executive.

Lucy: Kevin Rhodes, CFO of Boston-based Brightcove, is leaving the company to join the Watertown-based 3D-printing startup. Robert Noreck, who worked under Rhodes for the past four years, will take over the CFO role at Brightcove.

“I’ve never seen technology at this level and I’ve never seen people at the company as smart as MarkForged has,” Rhodes told BBJ. “I think they will make a great ‘mark’ on the market.”

KG: BBJ has the whole story here.

In The Know

The Inno stories you need to read today.

Elsewhere in Inno

Stories from around the Inno network we think you’ll dig.

– Made at Mayo: How Lifting a Startup Ban at One of the Nation’s Top Health Systems Ushered in a Wave of Innovation in Rochester [Minne Inno]
– Bird Launches Its Dockless Electric Scooters in Atlanta [Atlanta Inno]
– Electric Boat to Hire 1.3K Employees After State Investment [Rhode Island Inno]

Making Moves

Inside the people, companies and organizations making moves in Boston.

KG: Three days after Amazon announced 2,000 new tech jobs in the Seaport, Akamai CEO Tom Leighton said on Thursday that his company would probably hire “several hundred more” employees this year, BBJ reported.

Lucy: Speaking of new jobs, here’s a number to remember: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that in April, the unemployment rate edged down to 3.9 percent – “the lowest rate since 2000 and a sign that the job market has become even more competitive,” according to the NYT. As of Massachusetts, the state’s total unemployment rate was at 3.5 percent in March.

KG: Back to the local tech and innovation scene, it’s time to give a round of applause to a few student entrepreneurs, this time from Emerson College. In a recent pitch competition, Victoria Iskiyaeva emerged from Emerson Experience in Entrepreneurship (E3) program as its 2018 E3 Expo winner with Legalian, a media platform designed to deliver news to international students in the U.S. Runner-up of the competition is Reed Pake with FoodLabelBuddy, a mobile app built to help people with food allergies discover potentially harmful ingredients in food items at the grocery store. More on the winners here.

Lucy: Shearwater, an education tech startup with offices in Downtown Crossing, shared more details about the $600K in series Seed-1 funding that we reported about in April thanks to a regulatory filing. In a press release, the company said the new funding will allow Shearwater to expand its team as it implements tech-enabled peer mentorship programs at campuses nationwide. Primary investor is Rethink Education, a VC fund that invests in early- and growth-stage edtech startups (which is among the backers of another local edtech company, Edmit). “As a mission-driven company, we have worked hard to ensure that our underlying model delivers outcomes to both institutions and learners,” said Jackson Boyar, CEO and co-founder of Shearwater, in a statement. “In this next phase of growth, we aspire to bring personalized supports to all students and were thrilled to find a like-minded partner in Rethink.”

KG: A quick word of wisdom for you, Beat readers. Did you change your Twitter password recently? Well, do it again. Like, right now: the company itself is urging all its users to change their passwords after a bug exposed them in plain text, The Verge reported.

New Money

Your daily funding roundup.

KG: Boston-based Yobe, which developed an A.I.-powered software that identifies and enhances audio while allowing a decrease in file size, raised almost $2.6M in an equity offering (with almost $800K purchased through convertible debt and securities), according to a new Form D.

Lucy: And ScholarJet, a company we profiled in October last year, raised $10K, according to another Form D.

In The Community

The events and happenings to know about tonight and this week.

KG: Time to learn some Python, folks. Girls In Tech Boston is presenting a free two-day workshop on the coding language from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 5th and Sunday, May 6th at District Hall. There will be hands-on projects and group work to help cover the basics. Read more: BostInno Approved: May’s Top Tech & Startup Events in Boston

Random

The fun stuff.

Lucy: It’s May the Fourth, so we can’t miss a Star Wars reference. Neither can Lovepop, which today announced a collaboration with Disney and Lucasfilm, unveiling a series of five officially licensed Star Wars paper art designs. The first two releases – the Chewbacca RARRRGGHH! design and the Imperial Stormtrooper design – can be seen here.