Boom! is doing a ton of things right.....

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I’ve been sick for about eight weeks now – I’ve a virus that is causing post-nasal drip, leading me to a wet hacking wheezing cough that just won’t go. I don’t really have other symptoms: I am not feverish, it’s staying (stubbornly!) confined to my throat, I’m not otherwise weak – but this malaise just won’t leave my body. I’ve seen multiple professionals, I’m taking both western meds, as well as stuff suggested by an acupuncturist, but the main thing that everyone says is “You pretty much have to wait it out”.

That’s pretty much how I feel about the Direct Market portion of the comics industry right now: we’re sick, it clearly isn’t getting any better, the people who are supposed to be able to help aren’t doing anything useful about it, and I guess we just have to ride it out.

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Boom! is doing a ton of things right from my point-of-view. They have a solid, if unspectacular, creative slate that features a solid mix of work-for-hire licensed properties, a reasonably focused young readers line (that also skews “hipster” so some adults are buying in as well), and a pretty good line-up of creator-owned books.

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MomentFeed Ranked as One of the Fastest Growing Companies in North America on Deloitte’s 2018 Technology Fast 500™

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SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MomentFeed, the leader in mobile consumer experience management for multi-location brands, announces it ranked for the 2nd year in a row on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America.

MomentFeed’s chief executive officer, Robert Blatt, credits its innovative platform, which helps improve both paid and organic location-based consumer engagement as well as boost the visibility and drive increased traffic to individual store locations, with the company’s rapid growth. He said, "We give multi-location brands a unique toolset that enables them to influence consumers throughout their entire mobile journey. MomentFeed succeeds by helping multi-location brands win in the mobile consumer revolution by connecting brands and specific business locations with target consumers based on where they like to shop and eat at that very moment, and beyond.”

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WhiteFox Impresses U.S. DoD At World’s Largest Counter-drone Testing Event

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WhiteFox Defense Technologies, Inc., a drone airspace defense and security company, had their flagship product, DroneFox, participate as selected equipment by the U.S. Government for the prestigious Black Dart counter-UAS and Red Teaming exercise last month. It was the first time WhiteFox had performed testing at Black Dart, the largest counter-drone testing exercise in the world. After only a brief training, military personnel were able to operate DroneFox to effortlessly detect, identify and mitigate drone threats that were sent by a contracted Red Team. WhiteFox participated alongside several Department of Defense organizations and civilian companies after passing the rigorous nine-month down-selection process. As UAS pose a unique and complex threat that requires multiple layers of defense to comprehensively protect, public and private entities were encouraged to work together.

Representatives of the U.S. Government saw how WhiteFox engaged with the entities and helped evolve security modeling along with techniques, tactics and procedures. Through the DroneFox user interface, operators were able to perform threat assessments of individual unknown or hostile drones and “whitelist” their own “friendly” drones. The military personnel operating DroneFox then relayed this information to remote personnel performing various ground operations at the exercise.

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Schneider Electric Ups Innovation Drive Via $565M Venture Capital Funding Outfit (QMerit)

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Global energy management and automation solutions provider Schneider Electric (EPA:SU) has formally launched its own dedicated venture capital funding outfit.

Initial noises about the move appeared on investors' and analysts' radars in October when the Rueil-Malmaison, France-headquartered company led a $18 million financing for Sense, a developer of home energy monitoring systems.

Announcing the move at its Innovation Summit in Atlanta, U.S. on Tuesday (November 13), Schneider Electric said the dedicated VC funding unit will boost its innovation ecosystem and nurture "tomorrow’s transformational and disruptive innovations."

The unit – 'Schneider Electric Ventures' – will have up to €500 million ($565 million) of dry powder to invest in incubation projects, partnerships with entrepreneurs, and specialized funds, and would "welcome ideas" from innovators and entrepreneurs eager to turn their concepts into reality.

The Sense equity raise might well have caught the public's eye, but Schneider Electric's Chairman and CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire told your correspondent that his company's VC foray is already well underway with five other equity investments.

These include – Element Analytics (industrial big data analytics firm), Habiteo (3D specialist for new residential housing), QMerit (dubbed the "Uber" for contractors and Maintenance, Repair and Operating spend), KGS, (predictive engine for "just-in-time" maintenance) and Claroty (Cybersecurity company for industrial operational technology networks).

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