Deeper understanding of emerging trends in foodtech, insurtech, enterprise software, and digital health
Able to spot new investment opportunities that might otherwise have been overlooked
No more information overload:
70% noise reduction, 5 hours saved per week
The Client
Leading investor startup studio Rev1 Ventures
Columbus, OH, USA
Started using Feedly: September 2018
Rev1 is an investor startup studio that combines capital and strategic services to help startups scale and corporations innovate. The company focuses on industries including enterprise software, data analytics, fintech, insurtech, digital health, and life science.
Since we track market sectors, news about the latest funding rounds, and product launches, we have been able to identify new companies worth looking at through our Feedly Feeds. Before, we could’ve easily read right past it or missed it with all of the noise.“
The Challenge
Keeping up with industry intelligence was a manual, repetitive process. “You end up with a lot of tabs saved for later.”
Keeping up with the startup ecosystem
Rev1 needs to keep up with industry trends to identify emerging market opportunities and technologies for investment. They also want to provide timely information and deep domain expertise to startups that could benefit from their years of industry knowledge. Staying on top of various industries and where they are heading takes a lot of time to research and monitor.
Sifting for contextually relevant information took up too much time
Before finding Feedly, Rev1 had a system for keeping up with industry trends. But, it involved manual processes, like jumping from website to website, opening tabs, bookmarking for later, and sifting through headlines for relevant news. Rev1’s process relied on finding news from known publications and experts in their network. They wanted to reduce blind spots and avoid missing key information on the latest trends.
Aggregating and sharing articles across the team was a clunky process
To send a weekly newsletter with relevant news and insights, Rev1 kept a system of bookmarks and email drafts to aggregate key snippets and links. It worked, but they would rather spend that time synthesizing the information than organizing it. They started looking for tools that would help consolidate their efforts, parse for relevant information, and share insights.
“It’s counterproductive because you’d rather spend time synthesizing relevant information versus looking for it. We were looking for tools that could help us streamline those efforts and consolidate sources for specific topics of interest.”
The Solution
An AI-powered intelligence hub
First, Matt and his team organized all their sources in one place
When Rev1 started using Feedly as a team, they first organized their trusted sources for industry insights into a set of Feeds relevant to their focus areas — foodtech, insurtech, and digital health to name a few. Consolidating this information brought everyone — from partners to analysts — to one central location where they could find and share industry insights.
In Rev1’s foodtech Feed, they follow:
- Industry publications like Digital Insurance and Coverager
- Insurtech blogs like Insurance Thought Leadership
- Keyword Alerts for “machine learning” and “insurance”
Then Rev1 asked Feedly AI to spot relevant insurtech topics, trends, and startups
Matt and Rev1 wanted to refine the information that showed up in their Feeds and filter out the signal from the noise. That’s where Feedly AI came in.
In their insurtech Feed, Rev1 asked Feedly AI to look for significant business events like funding rounds related to claims, underwriting, or P&C insurance. With the Business Event AI Model, Feedly AI looks for mergers & acquisitions, new product launches, or fundraising events. If an insurtech startup raised a $10 million funding round, Rev1 would know about it.
Matt created a Mute Filter to get rid of noise. Feedly AI now removes anything related to health insurance in their insurtech Feed.
“Let’s say something new happens in Singapore and has nothing to do with property and casualty insurance. Maybe it’s health insurance-related. How do you filter out those articles from the topic of focus? That’s what we try to accomplish with Mute Filters.”
Matt also used a Like Board Feed to ask Feedly AI to spot articles similar to ones they had already saved in their “Insurtech Opportunities” Board. This helps Rev1 cover blind spots if an industry-relevant article is published by an unbeknownst source.
They started sharing research findings with Team Boards
Matt created Team Boards around topics like insurtech, healthcare, foodtech, Venture Capital, and Columbus, OH startups. He used these shared spaces to save articles, add Notes and Highlights, and tag teammates that should see specific content.
We centralized our favorite sources for relevant topics and no longer have to keep 30+ different web tabs for later. Then, we asked Feedly AI to sift through the information to spot contextually relevant information based on topics we care about. Thinking about where things are at now, it’s an elegant, well-oiled machine.”
The Results
50% time saved on industry research, 70% less noise, and a closer eye on investment opportunities
Before Feedly, Rev1’s manual curation process felt like swimming upstream against a flood of information. By optimizing their information gathering process and taking advantage of Feedly AI’s ability to filter and prioritize, they cut research time by 50%.
“We were able to cut our research time in half. Time equates to cost savings, being able to spend time elsewhere, focus on our company, and spend time synthesizing the information instead of just pulling it.”
Using Feedly Feeds meant that Rev1 could follow general publications like TechCrunch and still get hyper-focused information
Before Feedly AI, the Rev1 team would also scan broad sources like TechCrunch or VentureBeat for pertinent articles. These publications cover a wide variety of industries beyond insurtech, so parsing through the information would take some time.
But by setting up AI Feeds for the specific topics they care about (for example: insurance innovation), Feedly AI will place topically relevant articles on Rev1’s feed. They can now continue to follow wide-reaching sources like TechCrunch with a keen eye for industry-specific intelligence.
Finding investment opportunities and partnerships through Feedly
Now that the Rev1 team doesn’t spend hours wading through open browser tabs and email chains full of links, they have more time to focus on the content of the news. With refined Feeds and sources, Rev1 can keep a much closer eye on who to invest in and which partnerships to pursue.
The smarter Feedly AI gets, the more Rev1 can synthesize and share information. Matt’s excited about the possibilities: “We set the foundation for something that could be highly-efficient and effective moving forward.”
We’re able to stay up to date with the latest trends. We have more actionable, up-to-date information as a result. We’ve saved time because of the quality of information that Feedly AI has prioritized for us.”
Streamline your industry research workflow
Keep up with funding events, startup trends, and innovations in your industry — without the overwhelm.
