🔥 Danger in Your Pocket

🔋 Are Your Batteries Safe?

E-Bikes keep catching fire.

Lithium-ion batteries are great for storing energy in small packages, but sometimes they can malfunction and catch fire.

This has led to some deadly incidents and raised safety concerns about the batteries used in electric cars, cell phones, and other devices.

The Dutch coast guard is investigating a deadly fire aboard a car carrier that may have originated from an electric vehicle.

In New York City, four people died from a fire caused by lithium-ion batteries at an e-bike repair store. There were 74 lithium battery incidents on flights last year, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

So what’s causing these fires? It could be faulty manufacturing or thermal runaway. New York City is seeking solutions by prohibiting the sale of used reconditioned batteries and those that don’t meet safety standards.

So next time you charge your e-bike overnight, make sure it’s not a secondhand battery!

🌊 How Ocean-Spying Robots Garnered $100 Million from Silicon Valley

Saildrone, a company that makes robot sailboats for spying on the ocean, just got $100 million from Silicon Valley.

The US military is one of Saildrone's biggest customers, and the military is still looking for more. The military has a whopping $886 billion budget and not enough startups to spend it on.

Tech entrepreneurs and investors argue that the US military is dependent on commercial tech to win wars, but they are not organized to deal with it.

The Pentagon’s efforts to tap Silicon Valley’s innovation for national defense have been slow, but so far, six start-ups have become unicorns by selling AI to the military.

The Pentagon and Silicon Valley are getting along, and making war more like business.

💰 Promising Signs for SaaS Industry

Things are looking up for SaaS!

Goldman Sachs says ACVs are going up for the first time in ages. ACV, or annual contract value, is how much dough software as a service companies make from each customer per year.

Not only that, Cloud and SaaS stocks have soared 31% this year. Inflation is chilling, and interest rates are done with their tantrums.

Growth has been sluggish for most Cloud and SaaS big shots this year, but that means they can easily beat that next year.

And there are tons of awesome SaaS companies waiting to IPO, like Databricks, Gusto, and Klaviyyo. They’ll probably go public later in 2024.

So get ready for the flood of great SaaS IPO coming your way!

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