The Silicon Valley fallout from waging economic war against Russia

 Russian politicians and tech leaders started coming to Silicon Valley more than a decade ago to build high-tech bridges but since the Crimea annexation in 2014, venture capital deal-making within the U.S. involving Russia has been declining.

• Still U.S.-based and global VC firms face issues with investments made over the past decade alongside Russian firms and individuals.
• Russia has been angling to make its own Silicon Valley with the Skolkovo Technopark outside Moscow, but now-ended relationships with tech investors and universities including MIT were important.
• Photo: Rebecca Fannin at Moscow's tech park Skolkovo in 2018 to speak at an innovation conference
• See CNBC article on Russia by Rebecca Fannin

The 30-year-old female founder at the forefront of a billion-dollar bet on CRISPR gene editing

Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna is the most well-known co-founder of CRISPR start-up Mammoth Biosciences, but Janice Chen, the sister of U.S. figure skating champion Nathan Chen, is also one of its four co-founders and the chief technology officer.

• Mammoth has added $100 million in big pharma contracts and government grants since the pandemic began, quadrupled its employee count and is still hiring, and saw its valuation rise to $1 billion in a venture deal featuring Amazon and Apple’s Tim Cook.
• Chen has her sights set on reaching a $100 billion valuation as an independent company.
• See CNBC article on CRISPR startup by 
  Rebecca Fannin

Next to the last steel mill in town, a robotic farm grows backed by Pritzker billions

 

KEY POINTS

• Currently less than 1% of fresh produce is grown through hydroponics systems versus open-field agriculture, but this segment is forecast by Mordor Intelligence to grow by nearly 11% yearly to about $600 million by 2025 and Walmart has invested $400 million in Plenty Unlimited.
• Vertical farming start-up Fifth Season is backed by billionaire Nicholas Pritzker’s Tao Capital and planning to disrupt the $60 billion U.S. produce market through food partners include Sabra, Kroger, Shoprite and Giant Eagle.
• “The tech multiplier doesn’t lift all boats but it is spreading in the heartland,” says Congressman Ro Khanna of Silicon Valley.
• See CNBC article on Pittsburgh startup Fifth Season 
  by Rebecca Fannin