Nick Fury: You know how to fly this thing?
   Captain Marvel: We'll see...
   Nick Fury: That's a yes or a no question.

Hi  ,

Investors always tell founders not to worry about dilution. If you are creating value, you’d rather have 8% of a $1b company versus 80% of a $10m company. Then why do many investors work so hard to avoid dilution? In short, it depends. Funds under $50m can still work if they dilute alongside founders, but larger fund math just doesn’t work if they can’t protect against dilution with pro-rata rights. We explore the issues and tested the math and explained why we believe it’s critical for investors and founders to understand this issue. Here’s the longer discussion - welcome your questions and comments.  

Startups & Cities

Too often we meet really promising teams who are doing almost everything well, but they’ve not invested enough time to understand what they’ll need to do to successfully raise. Here's a good overview of process and leverage in fundraising.

Even in our allocation model research, there is almost nothing on what happens when a startup needs more time. And yet this is often the case - seed+ rounds might be the best evidence. Here’s what you should say if you're running out of money and time.

Citymart took a stab at sharing 10 things start-ups want city staff to think about as they do business with them. Citymart also shared a ranking of cities based on startup friendliness. Hopefully this makes it a bit easier for founders to prioritize and rewards the local gov teams for their efforts to work with startups.

Why do EVs matter? They are a big part of how we get to decarbonize cities. Rather than waiting a few more years until EV prices are similar to their dino-juice-consuming-cousins, local government and corporations are helping to drive EV adoption. Another type of EV, light electric vehicles like scooters, are facing a rough patch even as the electric bike industry continues it’s steady year over year growth.

Mobility and logistics are being improved in less obvious ways as well, including tools to reduce congestion. A Harvard study highlights, curbside pricing as a viable approach to congestion management and beyond congestion pricing, we’re beginning to see evidence that rewards might work too; The opportunity is large, especially since when it comes to software, cities are still stuck in the 80s.

Machine learning has been central to many successful urbantech firms helping us save water or energy or analyze images to navigate sidewalks or how to focus emergency response efforts. Technology Review analyzed 16,625 papers to figure out where AI is headed next and there are a lot of implications for urbantech.

Opportunities

Architizer A+ Awards deadline is in 2 weeks. It’s an ideal way to get recognition for your startup if Architects are you customers.

Citymark Bizspark: work with LA DOT to update their tech Infrastructure, if you're into intelligent transport and parking, a chance to work with Canmore, Alberta might be for you.

China stopped importing waste for recycling. NYC is offering prizes for new approaches to managing recycle trash.

Great opportunity to get your technology onto the streets of NYC with Smarter Streetscapes showcase.

Jobs

The last time there were this many opportunities to re-imagine cities, was probably more than 100 years ago.

Operations, account management, and tech at Revivn

Machine learning engineer, director of operations, and summer engineering interns at Sapient

UI/UX at Miles

Head of Marketing, Senior Mechanical Technician, and Research Scientist/Engineer at Treau 

Marketing Growth Manager Job at Borrow

Various roles in multiple departments at Urbint 

Investment Professional and Analyst at TrueBridge Capital Partners

Investment Director, MRI Research at Cambridge Associates

Founding Director, Mobility in the City of South Bend

Frontend Software Engineer at Numina

Content Marketing Manager at Vigilant

Program Manager at Clean Energy Trust

Technology, Engineering, Sales, and HR at Carbon Lighthouse

Director of Programing at Toniic

And there are 76 more jobs from 18 Urban Us portfolio companies.

Urban Us Updates

The founders we work with have been very busy.

Miles launches on Android to reward you for all the ways you move around and maybe even improve your commute. 

OneWheel released an even lighter EV, the Pint. It’s smaller and cheaper than your favorite smartphone. And yes, physics hasn’t changed - big wheels are better than little wheels when you encounter cracks and bumps in the road.

Bowery Farming made the Most Innovative Company list on Fast Company.

Does My Apartment Have to Be So Hot in the Winter? It really doesn’t and this article explains how Radiator Labs has solved this 100 year old problem.

Starcity continues to build out better living spaces - the recently secured a $14.5M Loan For Company's Largest Co-Living Project To Date.

Sapient continues to make great progress in their equity crowdfunding campaign on Republic.

RoadBotics explains how AI Could Change the Way Cities Maintain Roads in IEEE Spectrum.

BRCK now operates the Biggest Public WiFi Network In Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Come and meet our team and newest portfolio companies. URBAN-X Cohort 05 Demo Day is around the corner & we’ve posted more URBAN-X 2019 World Tour stops.

Finally there are a few more days before applications close for URBAN-X Cohort 06. If you don’t have time to intro us to founders who are reimagining cities, please forward this email and encourage them to apply.

Best,
Liz, Mark, Shaun, Anthony and Stonly