Harpinder Singh, managing partner of Innovation Endeavors, discusses problems to be solved and capabilities of startups to be considered before investing in this space.

Innovation Endeavors, an early-stage venture fund in Palo Alto, California, focuses on applying emerging technologies to big physical world problems, Singh says. It invests in two broad areas: supply chain and logistics, life sciences, transportation and climate on one hand, and enterprise infrastructure on other.

Singh, who teaches entrepreneurship classes at Stanford University, says Innovation Endeavors has a long history of investing in supply chain and logistics. “We like big problems,” he says. “We like teams that are thinking about having a large impact on emerging problems. We are primarily very driven by the team and what the size of their vision is. Secondly, we are looking for an opportunity to apply emerging technology to one of the big physical world problems and make a disproportionate impact. We want to meet companies at the very earliest stages and help them get going. And we want to be there as they grow.”

While managers of startups may approach Innovation Endeavors, it’s usually the other way around. Singh characterizes his company as “thesis-driven.” He and his colleagues interview the heads of supply chain “to learn the biggest problems you're trying to solve over the next 24 months.” Then they look for a company grappling with that issue. That company’s leadership team is vetted, in a sense, to ascertain if they’re creative and “right” for the problem.

Singh is personally studying the densification of supply chain networks and scenario planning. “People are pushing their nodes and their warehouses closer to the customer,” he says. “What's the implication of that?” By scenario planning, supply chain managers must be prepared for such things as trade wars, inflation, labor shortages, “COVID shock” and fuel price fluctuation. “There hasn’t been much innovation in this space.”