This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio, Comcast to NBC Universal recently announcing its fourth Lift Labs Accelerator class, identifying working with companies that are innovating in the media space the connectivity space. So our next guest knows a lot about that. It's Danielle Cone, vice president of Startup Engagement at Comcast NBC Universal. She joins us on the phone
from New Jersey. Danielle, how are you? I am great, Carol, Pam, how are you today? We're doing well. How would you describe the common thread that ties together doing Okay, it's only Tuesday. When it's Wednesday and Thursday, we're doing much better. So dark. I'm not getting used to it being dark. So we're gonna be honest with you. Here's the thing. It happens every year and still I still can't get
over it. But enough about enough about us, Danielle. I'm curious, what is the common thread that ties together that the companies that participate in the Lift Labs Accelerator. Yeah, so I'm just for a little of a little contact startup engagement,
which includes list Labs and Sports Teck. At Comcast NBCU we sit within strategic development, which essentially provides an early lens for for future growth areas in our company, UM and we bring together all parts of our company, Comcast, NBCUniversal, Park, Picture, Sky, and our broader family of brands to work side by
side with strategically aligned global startups. UM and it's really to drive a startup mindset back into our already innovative business, to develop new startup partnerships at the earliest stage with companies that are inventing the future, making customers and employees lives better, and ultimately those are the people who are also making an impact in startup communities in which we
all live and work. UM. The common thread is that through these programs and collaborations, we're all kind of spotting that potential disruption, emerging technologies, the new platforms, edge opportunities, and and all together startups and our teams are gaining valuable insights and efficiencies along. So does that mean that every company that participates in the Lift Labs accelerator gets an investment from Comcast? So every company and in our accelerators,
they do get an investment. UM but beyond the investment, it's really about building the partnership with these early stage companies that are working in media, entertainment, connectivity, or sports. Some are at the earliest stage, they are steed stage companies, and then we actually have programs like lift Off there for enterprise ready startups, and our team really helps them to get enterprise ready. We help them with business development,
go to market strategy, how to pitch uh investors. In some cases it's even you know, how to deal with hr issues that they're having as they build their their teams at the earliest stage. I was reading about what
you guys are up to. It reminded me. A few years ago I did a story with Johnson and Johnson a something called j Labs out on the West Coast, and it's basically an accelerator biotech incubator, and it's just a space where companies, individuals who are creating things in the healthcare science space, medicine space come in get a little spot there, but can work with the company, really tap into the expertise and equipment of J and J. But it gives J and J a window into the
future and an ability to invest in it. And it sounds like that's what you guys are doing on the media space. I love talking about this because it gives you an idea of maybe what are going to be the trends, the technologies, UH content and so on and so forth media, how we consume it going forward? What should we be thinking about, um, Danielle when we kind of open up our eyes in terms of where this is all going. And I know that the folks that j labs and they do an amazing job and we
are we are similar in in our approach. UM. You know, the focus areas for us change all the time because they are based on trends that we're seeing both insider company and outside. UM. We've releave sly concluded our our fourth program. As you mentioned, we had a demo day a couple of weeks ago, and the two primary trends that we saw last year that led to this year's class. One was in the future of work, a reoccurring theme that everyone every listener is feeling. UM. You know, really
if you think about hybrid work collaboration tools. So we've got a bunch of companies that came through last year's class in this year's class, UH company called the Guiche from Israel as a mobile app that allows people who are deaf and hard of hearing to communicate via phone by converting speech to text and text to speech bester and more accurately than ever before. Our team's actually using them for for doing interviews with people who are hard
of hearing. Another company, Think Confluent out of Paris, as an AI assistant that can analyze free form, open ended survey questions that we've all done from employee surveys and get sentiment analysis what did someone mean by what they said? In Second and out of Philadelphia, our headquarters city Employee Cycle, which curates multiple HR tools into one dashboard, making it really easier for businesses of all sizes to understand their employees concerns and what's going well. I want to get
back to our guests. We're talking with Danielle Cone. She's vice president of startup Engagement of our Comcast NBC Universal, still with us on the phone in New Jersey. We're talking about their Lift Labs accelerator. So, Danielle, before we had to step away for a moment, you were talking about or you wanted to mention another theme that you guys have been focusing on take it Away. Yeah, absolutely, UM.
As you know, as an innovation company, we're always challenging the status quo and looking at new focus areas, and our our team is just you know, one part of the company's cross company collaborative innovation strategy. And one of the themes that came up this year that really stood
out was interactive and immersive Experiences. UM. We're really inspired by the creativity of the startups and their enthusiasm and building and launching and scaling these very novel solutions like Hello da Um, which is a fitness tech company that creates incredible VR experiences to enhance your workout at home or in the office. I tried it. It's in our fitness center at the Comcast Technology Center and it is
out of this world. And another company called zoog which makes it more engaging for grandparents and parents and their kids to stay in touch through augmented reality storytelling. And those are just two of the themes. We generally have about five themes for the year when we start to scout for startups UM. And you know, over the years we have had a real proven track record. We now have about fifty companies in our portfolio that have gone
on to to raise millions. All right, So Tim and I are dying to ask you metaverse, how is that playing in meta thanking or interest when or are some of the companies that are working uh uh in the accelerator? Yeah? Absolutely, I mean I think one of the companies that I mentioned, Helodia, is really about immersive experiences. And uh, I'm not someone who loves to work out. And I tried a rowing machine for the first time, not alone in that. I'm
just gonna tell you you're not alone. We'll try Hellodia because I worked out for thirty minutes and I did not realize I had worked out, and I was so in awe of the visual and what was happening around me. Is it a headset? You know? It's so you use a a VR headset, you'll use an oculus, but it's sort of agnostic. You can use it with any machine. But the more you row, the greater the visual experiences.
And it made me work out. That's pretty cool. I still haven't I've tried Oculus, I've tried metaverse, I haven't gotten completely immersed in it thus far. It's on my to do list. Hey, Danielle, before we before we go on, I got to ask about the I think a lot of our our listeners might be familiar with Comcast Ventures. It it was. It was the venture capital arm of of Comcast Corporation, and what is the relationship. It's it's
no longer around. It folded into another part of Comcast, but it did make investments into startups that many of our listeners are probably familiar with dot l A, for example, media companies. What's the relationship between what you're doing and what happened at Comcast Ventures. So Comcast Ventures is very much still here and is even more focused on strategic alignment with our core business. I fit right alongside Andrew Cleland, who leads Comcast Ventures, and we see ourselves as partners.
Our team works at a very early stage and oftentimes we see deal flow between our two organizations. UM. So they are very much still around and we happen to now be on the same team in strategic development. Very cool. So you'll potentially invest or at least support a company Danielle that could ultimately get an investment from Comcast Ventures down the line. Absolutely. Um. One of our companies, or Rye, has has already seen that from a previous for program
UM and we help each other every day. We see each other as again sort of this cross company collaborative innovation team and Ventures is absolutely one of our core partners. They were very involved in our program UM during the accelerator. They met with all of the companies, give feedback and whether they make an investment or not, they share other ideas with them for others out in the you know,
in their own network that that might be interested. All right, So I've gone down a rapid hall with Hellodia and I've definitely gone down UM really cool. Well, I love talking with folks like yourself because I do think, you know,
we kind of like open up our brain. As I said before earlier, I just really think about how our world is changing, and as you mentioned about, you know, work collaboration tools, because it does feel like that that that we've really gone through a significant change because of
the pandemic. Where else do we need to be you know, looking at UM and I think about investors in particular, looking for those trends that might become some of the big companies publicly held companies in the future or tag ons at have become a significant part of Comcast business like, what other trends are you seeing out there? Yeah, I mean they're there are new trends we're looking at in connected health. That is an area that is a particular
professional and personal interest. I love what Pivotal Ventures and Milindi Gates's organization is doing in the care tech care economy space UM, but a lot of trends in UM fintech that is an area that we believe will have a very positive impact on underserved communities. In fact, we just ran a really fantastic liftoff program that uncovered to fantastic fintech companies that we will be investing in UM.
And and so you know what's been interesting to me over the years and in working with founders is many of them have similar similar stories, but different problems and different challenges and and each founder and each company is
so different and we're learning every day. And the mentors we have two mentors across Comcast, NBC, Universal and Sky who roll up their sleeves every year, work side by side with these companies, are invested in them in terms of time and energy, and it goes well beyond the program and they're always learning as much as they're giving. And UM you know that part to me is always
just so exciting to learn from the companies. Um. One of the other things that I have found, UM, really, you know, I don't know if this is a trend to look at, but a reality. We have been engaged in startup communities since our start of this program six years ago, and we use every every part of our engagement in the community to learn their insights to adapt
our approach. And the two main things we've heard along the way is we're looking for access and amplification, and specifically we heard early on for founders of color and women, this was specifically very important, UM, the need to amplify and and all stories and invest in companies who are led by women and people of color. I'm sure you already know the stats. We're pretty sad on um, you know.
I think at this point the number has now dropped down to two point three of all VC funding has gone to women in that was down from two point seven, and then recent stats show that black and Latina women combined received only point six four of total investment. So our team does a lot to ensure we are intentional and inclusive in our programs. Uh feel that way, Daniel all of our founders or have identified themselves in that way. We have to run um, but glad to get so
much time with you and really appreciate it. Learned a lot. Daniel cone G's VP of Startup Engagement of our Comcast NBC Universal, joining us on the phone from New Jersey,