Recently, Ro has added fertility and reproductive health to its arsenal of many features through the acquisition of Modern Fertility.

What is Modern Fertility? 

Modern Fertility is a company started in 2017, offering at-home tests to women to determine fertility health.

The tests are all done at-home, with the results sent into a lab. From there, the lab offers the best diagnosis and solution for the fertility concerns the couple has. 

Modern Family’s founders Carly Leahy and Afton Vechery currently run the company and will be taking over the digital healthcare sector of the platform as well. 

Leachy plans to take the vice president position for Ro, while Vechery will take the helm as the president for the women’s-health vertical.

How Ro got into the Digital Healthcare Market

Ro began as a hair loss and erectile dysfunction medication and supplements company for men. Since then, Ro has built a telehealth platform that offers online health clinics and treatment as well as monitoring for a variety of chronic conditions.

The startup utilizes a vertical integration platform including pharmacy medications, at-home care, and telemedicine as well.

The recent venture into the home healthcare market follows the acquisition of Workpath, a healthcare software company.

Since 2017, Ro has conducted six million telehealth visits in almost every county in the US, including almost all of its primary care locations.

The co-founder and CEO of Ro, Zachariah Reitano had this to say about the acquisition, “What excited us most about Modern Fertility is their relentless focus on the customer, their unique, proactive approach to fertility and women’s health, and the fact that Afton and Carly live and breathe Modern Fertility with every ounce of their being. Together they’ve created, in our opinion, a women’s health company that is the defining feature of a generation.”

What this Means for Users

With a 105% increase in digital-healthcare startups spread over 22 different companies, the rise in digital healthcare especially for women’s health is becoming more prevalent than ever.

Plus, with 1 in 6 couples struggling to conceive but only 55 infertility clinics available in the US, with Modern Fertility couples can get the help they need to conceive.

The company offers digital tools, at-home tests backed up by research, and other information to provide insight on fertility at a fraction of the cost.

One product which is a $159 finger prick can help a woman see how many eggs they have, the ovarian reserve, and the best option for fertility treatment. They also include a quantitative ovulation test to detect when a woman ovulates, a cycle tracking app, an early detection pregnancy test, along with digital fertility tracking tools.

Vechery says this about Modern Fertility. “We started Modern Fertility to transform women’s health from reactive to proactive. We now have the opportunity to dramatically accelerate our vision of supporting women in every single step of the journey in reproductive care and beyond. With Ro, we will be able to drive better outcomes and lower costs for millions of women—and redefine women’s health as we know it.”

The platform will slowly integrate with Ro and will scale their operations while also offering new and personalized healthcare experiences.

What does this mean for users? They can get fertility tests online and determine their fertility health instantly without needing to schedule appointments. With many still against in-person doctor visits, Ro and Modern Fertility offer an alternative for people to get vital information they need at the palm of their hand. 

The acquisition of Modern Fertility will impact Ro’s current healthcare vertical integration plan. That leverage allows Ro to offer a more expansive women’s healthcare suite across its platform. 

The post Digital-Health Juggernaut, Ro, Just Bought Another Fertility Startup. Here’s What It Means for Investors. appeared first on Grit Daily News.

But as the CEO of Canva, the popular online-design platform that’s a simpler alternative to Adobe Photoshop and other design software, she managed to do just that and more.

Perkins is also one of the youngest women CEOs in the tech startup field at 32 years old, and is the second-richest woman in Australia.

Being one of the top women in startups has demonstrated there’s better ROI associated with women-based startups. 

This is her story, and how her design software Canva went from just an idea in a yearbook to one of the top design software tools for businesses. 

Her Early Inspirations

Where did she get the inspiration from?

Perkins was the daughter of an Australian teacher and Malaysian engineer. She attended Sacred Heart College located in the suburb of Sorreno, in Perth.

Initially, Perkins wanted to become a professional figure skater, but her knack for business slowly took over. By 14, she was selling scarves at shops in Perth, making it her first business. She attributes her scarf sales as her first entrepreneurial experience, where she found the love and fun of building a business.

She enrolled at the University of Western Australia, where she majored in communications, commerce, and psychology.

Her inspiration for Canva came from noticing the difficulties students had when learning Adobe Photoshop, where even after a semester of university they still struggled with the complex program. It created a business opportunity, creating a design platform that didn’t require experience.

She then began her career at Fusion Books, which allowed students to create simple yearbooks with a drag-and-drop function.

Originally, she wanted to create design software to made it easier for users, but after analyzing whether it would be viable, she decided otherwise.

But she used the information she learned to test out Canva, and in 5 years, Fusion Books became the largest yearbook company in Australia.

Forming Canva

In 2011, Bill Tai, a prominent investor, visited Perth to judge their startup competition.

There, Obrecht and Perkins pitched Canva to Tai over dinner. While they had no funding, Perkins was invited to other gatherings hosted by Tai along with other investors. He was fascinated by her idea.

Although Perkins at first said,” I thought that he didn’t really like what I had to say. He was on his phone, and I thought that meant he wasn’t really engaged in what I had to say about the future of publishing,” Tai offered her the opportunity to connect with his network.

At the gathering in Silicon Valley, Perkins Met Lars Rasmussen, who was the co-founder of Google mMaps. There, he was interested in the idea, but they had to “put it on hold” until they had the proper tech team.

Rasmussen then introduced Perkins and Obrecht to Cameron Adams, who was not interested in joining the business since he was focused on fluent.io and was in Silicon Valley to raise funds for his startup.

Perkins persisted though and sent him a follow-up email offering him a chance to join the business. Perkins soon became the CEO of one of the few successful unicorn startups.

Before long, Perkins and Obrecht were winning over plenty of investors and soon became one of the fastest growing tech teams for a startup.

Today, Canva now has almost 2 billion designs and have even been backed by Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson, and the company currently has a valuation of $15 billion. Perth plans to use the funding from Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital to build more paid services including Canva for Enterprise and Canva Pro, along with expanding their team across more and more countries.

Perkins is one of the top women in startups, and she plans to eliminate bias in hiring to provide ample female representation at the company as well.

The post By Design: The Rise of Melanie Perkins’ Canva appeared first on Grit Daily News.

The auction comes nearly a month after Aquarium of the Bay’s 25^th anniversary, which launched April 19, 1996. Located at San Francisco’s PIER 39, aquatic life enthusiasts will be able to see 24,000 animals and 200 species. Aquarium of the Bay is a Green Business, which means the aquarium has taken steps to create environmentally focused business practices. Additionally, the Aquarium of the Bay also founded and leads the San Francisco Bay area Sustainable Seafood Alliance.

Typically, the aquarium has 600,000 visitors annually to its 65,000 square feet. The tanks in the aquarium also hold over 770,000 gallons of water for the aquatic plants, fish, and mammals exhibited. The tank is big enough to hold the Giant Sea Bass, a creature well known inside of the aquarium.

The Giant Sea Bass weighs 250 lbs and is 5 feet 6 inches long. Around for 15 years, the Giant Sea Bass looks intimidating, but is known for being friendly to both guests and the staff. For those who are wondering how long a sea bass’s lifetime is, they’ve been known to live up to 75 years and potentially beyond. 

Year fifteen is when most Giant Sea Basses mature, so the aging process is similar to human’s, so the bass is hitting its teen years.

ViciNFT is the partner who is teaming up with Aquarium of the Bay. Founded by Bill Gladstone, a literary agent and an author who has worked with many celebrities over the years, ViciNFT strives to be a carbon-neutral NFT provider. All sales will have a donation to a climate charity to help the planet.

George Jacob, CEO of Bay Ecotarium and who oversees the Aquarium, said he was “excited” with the partnership. Keeping up with the aquarium theme, he called the partnership navigating “into uncharted waters.”

Gladstone also spoke about ViciNFT’s partnership. He also was hopeful of the future of other museums and aquariums following suit.

“We believe that NFTs for the common good can help museums and other institutions dedicated to education and cultural appreciation address the funding challenges they face now and in the future,” he said. “Our goal at ViciNFT is to use our technology and marketing knowledge to help the Aquarium of the Bay and similar organizations as much as possible.”

Currently, ViciNFT has many artists who are selling their works through NFTs, and the Aquarium’s partnership allows for ViciNFT to expand even further.

While some of ViciNFT’s auctions are held on websites dedicated to cryptocurrency, the Aquarium’s auction is being held on eBay.Those who want to do so can bid. The auction ends at 5 pm ET, May 20^th.

As of this article, the bid for the Giant Sea Bass is currently over $2,100, and we expect the number to rise as the auction gets closer to its end date.

The post San Francisco’s Aquarium of the Bay Auctions Crypto NFTs of Giant Sea Bass appeared first on Grit Daily News.

One person who is setting their sights on Pitch is venture capital investor Tim Draper. Draper gave some advice to startups who are trying to pitch their latest idea.

For those who are afraid to fail, Draper assured the people failure is “part of the free market” and part of “economic renewal.”

“I have failed about 600 times to date,” Draper said. He described many of these failures as difficult to walk away and learn from.

Draper is also part of the 4^th season of Meet the Drapers. For those who have not heard of it, it is a contest, and whoever wins can be funded by viewers. The winner is able to win an investment from Tim Draper itself in the form of $500k. Other Drapers include venture capitalist William Draper.

Other people who are entrepreneurs also offered their thoughts. One entrepreneur, Aladdin Ismail, said entrepreneurship is a “lonely journey” at first, but when you meet others who have the same goal, there are no limits.

For those wondering about the investment instruments, it will be through CAFE or SAFE.

CAFE, or Continuous Agreement for Future Equity, will be on Fairmint. Fairmint, a fundraising platform to help founders give more control, will make it so any investors will become their first buyer. If one does not use Fairmint, $3 million post-money will be its valuation. You can visit AIBC’s website to learn more about the details.

SAFE, or Simple Agreement for Future Equity, is for investor rights. It allows investors to have future equity, minus a specific price being determined. 

For those who are looking to pitch their startup, over 100 will be selected. If your startup is involved with AI, Blockchain, Big Data, and similar tech, you may be able to have a booth, and the booth will have investors surrounding it. A startup will be able to get their name out and possibly meet someone who will want to invest.

Since there are many companies and few booths, the competition will be fierce. Those who are interested are encouraged to have a good pitch and introduction to be noticed. Think outside the box and present yourself in a way that will get some eyes noticed on you.

If you are interested, you can contact Sophie for more information. You will be able to get more details about the event and be able to see where you can go if you want to submit your pitch.

We are interested to see who will be selected and what tech will be presented at the event.

The post Tim Draper Sets Sights on UAE for Next Startup Pitch Competition appeared first on Grit Daily News.

It’s more likely than you think.

Gary Vaynerchuk, wine critic and entrepreneur and co-founder of restaurant reservation software such as Resy and Empathy Wines, has announced VeeCon for any VeeFriends token holders.

VeeFriends is an NFT project created by Vaynerchuk that showcases his NFT collection of art. With over 10,000 VeeFriends tokens, owning one ensures you have access to VeeCon. One must have ETH to purchase VeeFriends.

VeeFriends are an indefinite token, however, they include other benefits that will expire in 2024, including admission to VeeCon.

The VeeFriends depict art showing strange characters and creatures. According to the website, these characters represent admirable traits for success and happiness, as well as pop culture references. He calls them friends due to his belief that business and friendship do not have to be mutually exclusive. There are 268 in all, each drawn by Vaynerchuk himself.

Another part of VeeFriends is that they are based on interactions with thousands of people throughout his life, making VeeFriends even more about his life and his experiences. All NFTs are resellable as well through other websites.

Each purchase will also have a contribution towards decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, to further research renewable energy. This will help offset any environmental concerns over the energy use of NFTs, which have been one criticism of them.

VeeCon itself will be a multi-day convention planning to happen annually from 2022 up to 2024.  VeeFriends holders will be able to attend all three years. The date and location is not known yet, but it is going to happen in North America some time before May 5^th, 2022. The details will be shared at least 180 days before the event has to happen.

In the event of  a COVID-19 related absence, VeeFriends also promises to support anyone who cannot make it to the convention through their customer service. As it is a year away, VeeCon hopes to be in a world where COVID-19 is less of an issue and traveling to something such as a convention is made easier.

As the con is in its early stages, attendees do not know what to expect just yet. However, VeeCon plans to host talks to educate people, panels where you can network with other entrepreneurs, and other activities and entertainment will hope to deliver on Vaynerchuk’s 25-year career as an entrepreneur.

 VeeCon also has its own Instagram page, which currently has the logo spelled out, alongside a video of Vaynerchuk hyping up the event. In the video, he said VeeCon comes from traveling across the world and seeing various events, picking up what he likes about each one to create his own.

According to Vaynerchuk, VeeCon is what he always wanted to create, and he hopes it will be an experience for everyone who is involved.

 If one wants to attend VeeCon, simply head over to VeeFriends and purchase one of them, then follow the instructions on attendance. Because the event is for three years, it will be an event that will sell out fast.

The post VeeCon Preview: Everything Gary Vaynerchuk Ever Wanted in a Conference appeared first on Grit Daily News.