It’s been a great 7+ months @ Koa as we’ve written our last checks for Fund 2 which consists of $7.5M+ invested in 40 fantastic startups & mission driven entrepreneurs. We’ve increased our commitment to investing indirectly in startups through other “affiliate” funds — we now have committed approximately $5M…

Piction Health helps you get quick, easy access to expert dermatology care within two days. We are now open in New Hampshire and Connecticut, and are now accepting new patients. If you have a hair, nail or skin concern, and don’t want to wait months to see a dermatologist, simply visit pictionhealth.com Click on “Get Care Now” Answer some simple questions Upload 3 photos of your hair, skin, or nail issue

Mike Stonebraker, PhD : “Make cleaning data everyone’s job” Guest post below by my trusted colleague, friend & Co-Founder @ Tamr & Mike Stonebraker, PhD — great advice: The cornerstone of data-driven enterprises is clean, integrated data. It’s just that simple. …

Digital transformations are more important than ever before. But as countless enterprise leaders have learned, when they do not build a data-driven culture centered on managing data as an asset, their efforts are hardly transformative. At Tamr we’ve seen companies make significant strides over the past decade, but many still…

Great post by Laura Thompson @ Sapphire Ventures here. This is pretty much the philosophy I’ve been using for the past 15+ years at Koa. I was originally inspired by evergreen private equity funds such as General Atlantic.

As an investor in mission driven startups I have the priviledge to work with some amazing entrepreneurs. One of the most remarkable people that I’ve had the privilege to work with over the past few years is Kiki Freedman @ Hey Jane. …

“Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed.” Nelson Mandela I recently had the fortune to visit Robben Island in Cape Town South Africa as part of…

Over the past year I’ve started to hear about an interesting trend. I’m calling this trend “Quiet Double Dipping”. I don’t have a ton of empirical evidence yet — but have enough anecdotal evidence to write this post and see if anyone else has experienced this trend. …

The world of odor is immense, research suggests that the human olfactory bulb may be able to distinguish more than a trillion odors. Alex Wiltschko, Richard Gerkin and the team at Google have achieved a remarkable feat by mapping the scent of molecules and digitizing the sense of smell. By doing so, the team unlocks the potential to discover new odors and molecules. The team validated their model against new molecules, linked their findings to the biological mechanisms of odor, and expanded their findings to find new approaches to global health challenges. The real world applications of this transformational research is beyond exciting. Article in Scientific American here.