Daniel Shapero

When most people hear "solid-state," they think storage. But in Santa Clara, xMEMS Labs just gave that term new resonance, literally. The company just raised $21M in Series D funding led by Boardman Bay Capital Management, with Cloudview Capital, CDIB-TEN Capital, Harbinger Ventures, Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, and other strategic investors tuning in. This isn't another round of capital, it's an #amplifier for a company turning silicon into a new language of #sound and #cooling for the AI era. Founded in 2018 by Joseph Jiang and Jemm Liang, xMEMS spun out of piezoelectric R&D at TSMC and turned what was once wafer-level theory into commercial hardware. Joseph Jiang, a veteran of Knowles, Fortemedia, and InvenSense, leads with precision and swagger, while Jemm Liang, who built Ultrachip from the ground up, drives the engineering with surgical focus. Co-Founder & CLO Wei-Fu Hsu, the former MediaTek exec and IP expert, ensures xMEMS' innovation is as protected as it is disruptive. Their play? A monolithic MEMS platform that transforms voltage into vibration, silicon into sound. Unlike legacy coil speakers and fans, xMEMS tech doesn't move parts, it moves markets. Over 500K MEMS speakers shipped in 1H'24, backed by >250 global patents. The Cypress & Sycamore lines redefine what "small" can do: 1mm-thin, full-range, and capable of sub-bass response once thought impossible in earbuds. Their XMC-2400 µCooling chip, 1mm-thin, fan-on-a-chip, inaudible, moves 39cc/sec of air at just 30mW. That's not cooling, that's choreography at a molecular level. Dr. Chester Hwang, named CTO on Oct 15, 2025, joins to push that curve further. Alongside veterans Mike Housholder (VP Marketing & Biz Dev), Jim Wargnier (VP N.A. & EU Sales), James Lee (VP & Korea GM), Steven P. Bentley (VP Sales), and Martin Lim (VP MEMS Tech), xMEMS is scaling at semiconductor speed. They're already in BleeqUp's AI sports glasses and teamed with Dongguan Rayking Electronics for TWS modules. When OEMs talk "next-gen," they're talking xMEMS-level integration. For investors like Boardman Bay's Will Graves, this isn't just sound engineering, it's signal intelligence. With AI pushing devices thinner, faster, and hotter, xMEMS' piezoMEMS platform sits at the intersection of #acoustics and #thermals, where every millimeter matters. Backing them is a bet that the next wave of #sensorytech won't just compute, it'll feel alive. So what's next? Scaling production, expanding capacity, and embedding xMEMS' silicon pulse into everything from earbuds to AI #datacenters. In a world chasing speed, silence, and fidelity, xMEMS isn't following the beat, they're building the frequency the future will hum to. #Startups #StartupFunding #VentureCapital #SeriesD #AI #Sound #SoundEngineering #Semiconductors #Data #DataDriven #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosystem #StartupEcosystem #Hiring #TechHiring If software engineering peace of mind is what you crave, Vention is your zen.

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Are any SMBs actually using Workday Go? Workday is highly respected in the enterprise, but it has long been viewed as too complex for small and mid-sized organizations—especially those with fewer than 2,000 employees. In a recent informal poll of HR leaders, only 10% felt Workday was a fit for their SMB. Enter Workday Go, positioned as a mid-market solution—potentially for companies with just a few hundred employees. The idea of “Workday functionality for smaller businesses” sounds great, right? I talk with HR leaders constantly, and I genuinely believe there would be strong interest in a Workday offering designed for SMBs. But as I’ve tried to learn more about Workday Go, I keep running into roadblocks. Here’s what I’ve found so far: - I reached out to Workday to learn more. (No response.) - I searched for customer reviews of Workday Go. (I can’t find any.) - I looked for industry chatter. (Very little discussion.) - I attended a Workday Go webinar. (Some insights, but not a lot.) During the webinar, three customer examples were highlighted—which I assumed were Workday Go customers, given the context: - Snowflake – 10,000 employees - Databricks – 14,000 employees - Celonis – 3,000 employees Not exactly SMBs. Workday did include a live Workday Go customer with about 100 employees on the webinar. While it’s always good to hear from a happy customer, the insights were fairly high-level: “It’s great” and “We were live in 60 days.” What I didn’t hear was how they were actually using Workday Go, whether they were able to use the full Workday functionality, or how it was impacting their business in a meaningful way. What I did learn is that Workday Go isn’t a new solution offering, but appears to be Workday HCM, positioned with preconfigured “activation” to speed implementation. That raises a few questions. Preconfiguration often means a more cookie-cutter approach—maybe better than what an SMB is using today, but potentially limiting when it comes to fully leveraging what makes Workday powerful in the first place. And beyond implementation, there’s the ongoing reality: Workday typically requires significant internal expertise. Even with a streamlined deployment, does Workday Go truly eliminate the need for specialized internal resources—something many SMBs simply don’t have or can’t afford? There’s also pricing. Workday Go is positioned as a flat-fee model rather than per-employee-per-month, which sounds interesting. But to get that pricing, you’re required to commit to a 3–5 year contract. For SMBs, where needs and plans can change quickly, that can feel like a lifetime. Many vendors in this space require no contracts or 1- year contracts are the standard. If you are using Workday GO I’d love to hear real-world experiences—what’s working, what’s not, and whether it’s living up to the promise. If Workday GO is ready for the SMB....I feel like it's being kept a secret.

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AT LEAST 5 HOURS of IN-PERSON GenAI training is what Boston Consulting Groups recommends for employees to drive digital and cultural transformation with AI We agree 100% and have been providing and supporting instructure lead GenAI employee training at may companies, including WEX, Gemline and others. This BCG article was rated "Essential" by our AI analysts on our daily AI news show (article link below) Companies continue to standardize on OpenAI ChatGPT Enterprise/Teams or Microsoft Copilot John Sviokla Michael Davis Max Auger Karen Beck Stroup Kate Reichenbach Jonathan Isaacson Adam Rappaport Shauna Conway Michael Hayes Naveed Asem Lenny Grossi Kent Fitzpatrick, AIFA®, GFS®, MSCTA Lucinda Linde Vinciane Beauchene Sylvain Duranton David Martin

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Exciting news to share from the ELB Learning team! We’ve kicked off a five-year partnership with the Defense Acquisition University to help modernize and scale its learning ecosystem. ���� Our flagship eLearning authoring tool, Lectora™, will play a key role in powering world-class acquisition training, and our team will assist faculty in creating engaging and compliant digital training across DAU’s global network. We’ll also provide onboarding implementation and technical support, including LMS migration assistance, train-the-trainer programs, and expert services for course, game, and simulation design. I’m proud of the work our team is doing. Shout-out to our Government Services division, led by Peter Banfield and Ray Resendez IV, MBA, and our partners at DAU for believing in the transformation ahead.

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Just Launched: VP & SVP Talent Trends 👉 Our latest PE talent report details how this critical leadership tier is evolving, with analysis of compensation, equity, turnover, and market dynamics across 2025. The VP & SVP layer has become the backbone of operational execution in private equity-backed software and SaaS. Download the full report to see how sponsors are securing the right functional leaders to execute value creation plans: https://lnkd.in/eMEdZqHq #executivesearch #privateequity #leadership #VP #SVP #software #SaaS

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Wondering what Forward Deployed Engineers actually are and when it makes sense to use them? I recently had a great conversation with CJ Gustafson on FDEs, and how we use them at Invisible Technologies. We spoke specifically about FDEs as a GTM choice, how the economics change when engineering is pulled forward into the sales motion, pricing models, metrics to measure health of business and lots of other things. Check out more on the latest Mostly Media newsletter. If you're not subscribed, highly recommend subscribing. Link in comments.

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You're debating whether to use AI for recruiting while your competitors already hired your best candidate with it. 58% of TA leaders call AI a game-changer for hiring, but most teams are stuck in the "sounds awesome" phase without real implementation. Where does your team fall on the AI adoption spectrum? → AI-resistant: Skeptical of any automation → AI-curious: Experimenting with basic tools → AI-enabled: Using multiple AI solutions → AI-first: Building comprehensive strategies around AI In our latest blog, we spoke with recruiting leaders from Dinaaz Tawileh from Airbnb, Jeremy A. Lyons from RecOps Collective, and Michael Adair from Growth by Design Talent to uncover what it really takes to go from AI-resistant or curious to AI-first. Here's what they shared: 💎 A concrete 3-step roadmap for any TA team looking to begin their AI journey 💎 Reality checks on the top 4 AI concerns your team probably has right now 💎 How to measure and communicate the ROI of AI to executive leadership 💎 Why teams that wait to adopt AI will soon lose the talent race entirely "The end state where we are all looking to get to is talking to more humans, talking to more candidates" - Michael Adair, Managing partner at Growth by Design Talent Ready to move from 'AI-curious' to 'AI-first'? Read the full post: https://lnkd.in/e3afqijn

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How Smart Enterprises Scale Innovation, Without Scaling Headcount Innovation doesn’t wait for hiring cycles. That’s why enterprises are ditching bloated org charts and tapping into on-demand talent to test, build, and ship at speed. From innovation accelerators to AI-matched pods, here’s how forward-thinking leaders are scaling outcomes, not just teams. Read More: https://hubs.ly/Q03wDG300 #InnovationAtScale #OnDemandTalent #DigitalTransformation #EnterpriseGrowth #StaffAugmentation #AgileInnovation #ISHIR

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The contingent workforce industry is at an inflection point and the inflection is caused by rapid adoption of AI based Freelance Management systems transforming how companies think about both their contingent and total talent strategies. Staffing Industry Analysts just released their 2025 FMS Global Landscape Report, and the data tells a story about fundamental industry transformation, not just technology adoption. For decades, managing contractors meant navigating fragmented systems, compliance headaches, and limited visibility into spend and performance. Organizations paid the price in time, risk, and missed opportunities. Freelancers dealt with payment delays and administrative friction that got in the way of doing great work. Freelancer Management Systems are fundamentally changing this equation. The value creation is profound: Risk mitigation at scale: Companies are moving from reactive compliance management to proactive risk mitigation across multiple jurisdictions. The cost of getting this wrong has never been higher. Data becomes intelligence: Real-time visibility into contractor spend, performance, and workforce composition is enabling strategic decisions that were simply impossible before. CFOs and procurement teams finally have the data they need. Speed creates advantage: What used to take weeks (sourcing, onboarding, contracting, payments) now happens in days or hours. In fast-moving markets, this operational speed translates directly to competitive advantage. Integration multiplies value: When FMS platforms connect seamlessly with existing HR, finance, and procurement systems, organizations multiply the value of their entire tech stack rather than adding another disconnected tool. What the SIA research makes clear: the organizations winning with contingent talent aren’t simply using better software. They’re fundamentally rethinking their approach to workforce agility, unlocking talent pools they couldn’t access before, and building operational capabilities that become genuine competitive advantages. The spreadsheet era of contractor management isn’t just outdated. It’s leaving measurable value on the table: slower time to hire, elevated compliance risk, limited workforce intelligence, and constrained access to specialized talent. The question isn’t whether to adopt FMS technology. It’s how quickly your organization can capture the value it creates. In the link in the comments or just DM me to get the SIA’s YunoJuno showcase report to understand what leading organizations look for when evaluating an FMS and how YunoJuno supports modern contingent workforce strategies. ‍ #ContingentWorkforce #FreelanceManagement #FutureOfWork #Procurement YunoJuno

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Manual, inconsistent interviews are still the norm in a $500B global recruiting market. That’s about to change with lizzyAI - AI interviews. Made human. The NYC-based team is building an AI-native platform that transforms interviews into dynamic, structured conversations designed to replicate the intelligence, nuance, and fairness of a great human interviewer. Our Partner, Jeroen Arts, says: “Hiring is the backbone of every great company, yet the interview remains one of the most flawed steps in the process. LizzyAI brings structure, intelligence, and scale to interviews in a long-overdue way.” We’re proud to back Yannis Niebelschuetz again in this $5M Seed round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), as LizzyAI transforms how interviews are run, bringing clarity, consistency, and depth to one of the most decisive moments in the hiring journey.

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Human capital is not a cost center. It’s a strategic lever. In scaling organizations, the majority of the spend is tied to people. Yet too many businesses still treat human capital as a compliance function rather than a strategic advantage. What happens when Finance and HR operate in silos? You get rushed hiring, bloated payrolls, misaligned leadership, and missed opportunities. But when those two functions are aligned? You gain clarity, speed, and resilience. This new article explores why strategic human capital management is a growth imperative–and how to build the foundations before you're forced to retrofit them. #humancapitalmanagement #peoplemanagement #growthstrategies https://lnkd.in/egC6n863

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