In The Know
The Inno stories you need to read today.
Making Moves
Inside the people, companies and organizations making moves in Boston.
KG: It’s 2018, and women in tech are still being paid less than their male counterparts. Hired, a marketplace of job postings for tech companies, released its third annual wage inequality report, which collected data from its 12 U.S. markets. Hired found that, on average, women are offered salaries that are 4 percent less than men for the same exact role. However, Hired broke some of the data down further into five tech hubs: Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, which all had wider gaps. See all the data here: Hired’s 2018 Wage Inequality Report Shows Minimal Progress.
Lucy: The Harvard innovation labs, the incubator ecosystem that supports Harvard students and select alumni in their innovation and entrepreneurship efforts, is launching Launch Lab X, a 9-month accelerator program for Harvard alumni-led ventures.
KG: Now, you may remember that the labs already included in their offering the Launch Lab, an initiative to support Harvard alumni that will be soon put on pause. “As of June 2018, the physical Launch Lab space will retire until we find a new space to house our alumni ventures as progress on the Allston Enterprise District continues to flourish,” the website states. The same webpage presents the new Launch Lab X as “something new in the interim.”
Lucy: Launch Lab X will select 10 ventures from around the world for its first cohort, which will kick off in September 2018. Here are the application and program timelines.
KG: Forbes released its 2018 Midas list of top tech investors. A big congrats to Eric Paley of Founder Collective (#11 on list), Neeraj Agrawal of Battery Ventures (#21) and Joel Cutler of General Catalyst (#69).
Lucy: Marlborough, Mass.-based Boston Scientific has acquired Securus Medical Group, Xconomy reported. Boston Scientific said it paid $40M up front for the stake in Securus that it did not already own.
KG: Accomplice’s Jeff Fagnan was featured in the Term Sheet newsletter this morning. Here’s an excerpt from the Q&A.
Question: You recently announced Spearhead, a program to fund and mentor new angel investors. What was the motivation behind turning founders into angel investors?
Answer: Naval [Ravikant] and I frequently have dinner and wine and talk about what’s going on, and then one day we had an observation. The observation was: It is not the celebrity angel investor who had the best deal flow and the best access. It was founders who wanted to back their close friends and people they felt were truly talented.
A lot of them contribute personal capital and mentorship despite the fact that they don’t have a whole lot in their bank account. So we looked at it as — the best people to be angel investors may not have the capital to be an angel investor. And we formed Spearhead to build a new subset of angel investors who don’t think of themselves as angel investors today because they don’t have the net worth.
New Money
Your daily funding roundup.
Lucy: Somerville-based 3D printing firm Formlabs raised $30M in an equity offering, according to a new Form D.
KG: The warehouse automation market continues to heat up. 6 River Systems raised $25M in a Series B round led by Menlo Ventures. Previous investors like iRobot and Eclipse took part in the round.
Lucy: And speaking of robots, Franklin Robotics, the maker of the solar-powered, weed-killing Tertill, raised $1M in an equity offering, according to an SEC filing.
Player Personnel
Who’s moving where.
KG: Scott Lovett is now Akamai’s SVP of global web sales. He was previously EVP of global sales and operations at McAfee.
Lucy: The New England Venture Capital Association announced the appointment of Nicole Gilmore to director of strategy and operations for Hack.Diversity. Gilmore joins the NEVCA from Savanna Technologies.
KG: CloudHealth Technologies has announced Ed Filippine as the new chief revenue officer. Filippine was previously at Carbon Blackas their EVP of worldwide sales and operations.
In The Community
The events and happenings to know about tonight and this week.
KG: It’s National Robotics Week! See all of the events taking place in Massachusetts right here. Beep bop beep bop.
Read This Right Now
Insight and analysis from the community and beyond.
KG: Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital Partners and Jody Rose of the NEVCA wrote an OpEd in the Globe laying the groundwork for meaningful reform on noncompete agreements. Please contact Allan at noncompetereform@gmail.com if you’d like to be added to a newsletter regarding this matter in Mass.
“More competition is uncomfortable for entrenched businesses, but it leads to a healthier and more vibrant ecosystem. Pundits and policy makers often wonder why our best and brightest leave the state so frequently (looking at you, Mark Zuckerberg and Dropbox’s Drew Houston), and why so few large tech companies are created here. There hasn’t been a single tech company created in Massachusetts worth greater than $10 billion since the turn of the century. In California — where noncompetes are unenforceable — there are dozens.
We can do better in Massachusetts. Let’s not be complacent and hang on to our Nokia phones.”
Random
The fun stuff.
Lucy: Bevi, a Boston-based maker of smart water coolers that we covered recently as part of our Failure Week series, made a cameo this past Sunday in the popular HBO series Silicon Valley. Here are some screenshots of Bevi’s appearance on the company’s LinkedIn page.
 Featured Jobs
Featured startup and tech jobs on BostInno’s new Careers Directory.
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