Full Report
Our tech and startup customers are disrupting industries, driving innovation and changing how people do things. We’re proud of their success and want to showcase what they’re up to! You’ll hear about their new products, their businesses reaching new milestones and their ability to get things done faster and easier using Google Cloud’s app development, data analytics and AI/ML services. Congrats to Impact Analytics for Closing PVHWith the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of e-commerce, and supply chain crisis, Impact Analytics had to quickly offer enhancements on their platform that gave retailers access to intelligent, automated, and edge-aware solutions. Google Cloud's best in class AI and ML solutions and highly performant infrastructure gave Impact Analytics the scalability and building blocks to create Ada, a robust predictive algorithm to give PVH and other retailers the tools to enhance their inventory planning capabilities. And now, Impact Analytics just closed a strategic deal with PVH (parent company of luxury brands Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, True & Co) to build out AI solutions for assortment planning and pricing optimization. Impact Analytics' cutting edge AI and ML guided forecasting engine is built entirely on Google Cloud! Read more Podimetrics raises $45M Series C roundPodimetrics, creator of the FDA-cleared SmartMat and integrated clinical care services team, is dedicated to early detection and prevention of diabetic amputations, one of the most debilitating and costly complications of diabetes. Its clinical care services platform leverages Google Cloud services to engage with patients, by helping save limbs, lives, and money - all while keeping vulnerable populations healthy in their own homes. Read more about their Series C funding round. Anvyl raises +$15M in an oversubscribed Series B funding roundCongrats to Anvyl for raising a hugely successful Series B as they modernize & transform the supply chain technology market and more than doubled revenue in the last year. Read more. Helios has kicked off 2022 in a big wayThe audio tone analysis platform, Comprehend: Elite, that they provide to Wall Street quantitative hedge funds now covers all US equities and is fully available here. It’s entirely powered by Google Cloud! Dapper Labs uses Google Cloud for performance, reliability and decentralizationIn case you missed it before the holidays, Dapper Labs is working with Google Cloud as its hyperscale cloud partner to ensure performance, reliability and decentralization for the next wave of mainstream users on Flow, without needing to compromise on decentralization or sustainability. Find out more.Geotab’s Intelligent Transportation Systems (Geotab ITS) is built on Google Cloud.Geotab uses GKE, BigQuery, Dataflow and Cloud Composer to build an innovative solution combining analytics and access to massive data volumes so municipalities can make better transportation planning decisions. The sheer volume of information that it handles, along with a need for highly scalable and flexible tools to manage, store, and analyze that data, led Geotab to invest in Google Cloud technology. Read more. Mux CEO shares advice for getting started with videoMux CEO, Jon Dahl, sat down with Google Cloud Director, Nirav Sheth, to share best practices and strategies for getting started with video, along with insights and advice from his learnings as a startup founder. Listen to what he has to say. Google Cloud is proud to support Unstoppable Women of Web3Unstoppable Women of Web3 (UWOW3) is an action oriented community made of industry leaders supporting education & opportunities for girls, women, and minorities in this burgeoning industry. This International Women’s Day, March 8th, you can catch live interviews with Tech and Web3 leaders from all over the world, covering topics such as how to build communities, how to learn more about Web3, developing technology on the blockchain, how to talk about complex ideas with kids, and more! How you can engage:24-hour Twitter Spaces YouTube LIVE Learn more about the movement Puppet CTO increases development speedHear Puppet CTO Deepak Giridharagopal discuss how they managed to build Puppet's first Saas product, Relay, fast while also ensuring they would be able to remain agile if growth was to happen quickly. Watch video. Vimeo builds a fully responsive video platform on Google CloudThe video platform @Vimeo leverages managed database services from Google Cloud to serve up billions of views around the world each day. Read how it uses Cloud Spanner to deliver a consistent and reliable experience to its users no matter where they are. Find out more. Nylas improved price-performance by 40%You don't have to choose between price-performance and x86 compatibility. Hear from David Ting, SVP of Engineering and CISO at @nylas, to learn how Google's x86-based Tau VMs delivered 40% better price-performance than competing Arm-based VMs. Watch now.Optimizely partners with Google Cloud on experimentation solutions Build the next big thing with @Optimizely Experimentation on Google Cloud - driving innovation and next-gen experimentation for enterprise companies and marketers. Check it out.
Analysis Summary
# Industry News: Google Cloud Ecosystem Expansion via AI, Web3, and Supply Chain Modernization
## Summary
Google Cloud has announced a series of strategic milestones involving high-growth startups and established enterprises leveraging AI, blockchain, and data analytics. Key highlights include Impact Analytics’ strategic deal with PVH Corp (Tommy Hilfiger/Calvin Klein) and significant funding rounds for healthcare and supply chain innovators, underscoring a market shift toward "edge-aware" and predictive cloud solutions.
## Key Details
- **Date:** April 20, 2022
- **Companies Involved:** Google Cloud, PVH Corp, Impact Analytics, Podimetrics, Anvyl, Dapper Labs, Nylas, and Puppet.
- **Category:** Strategic Partnerships, Funding Rounds, and Product Updates.
## The Story
The report showcases how Google Cloud’s infrastructure is facilitating specialized vertical growth. **Impact Analytics** utilized Google’s AI/ML suite to build "Ada," a predictive engine that secured a major contract with **PVH Corp** for retail optimization. In the financial sector, **Podimetrics** (Series C - $45M) and **Anvyl** (Series B - $15M) secured funding to scale health-tech and supply chain platforms respectively.
Furthermore, the ecosystem is expanding into the decentralized web (Web3) through a partnership with **Dapper Labs** to scale the Flow blockchain, and into quantitative finance via **Helios**, which uses audio tone analysis for Wall Street hedge funds. Infrastructure efficiency was also highlighted by **Nylas**, which reported a 40% price-performance improvement using Google’s Tau VMs.
## Business Impact
### For the Companies Involved
- **Impact Analytics:** Validates their AI engine at an enterprise scale with a global luxury leader (PVH).
- **Startups (Podimetrics/Anvyl):** The funding rounds provide runway for aggressive market expansion in high-demand sectors like remote health and logistics.
### For Competitors
- **Cloud Providers (AWS/Azure):** Google is aggressively positioning its Tau VMs and BigQuery integration as superior for specific price-performance and data-heavy workloads.
- **Retail Tech:** Traditional inventory systems are being challenged by "edge-aware" predictive algorithms.
### For Customers
- Retailers like PVH gain granular control over assortment planning, potentially reducing waste and increasing margins.
- Municipalities (via Geotab) gain access to "intelligent transportation" tools to optimize urban planning.
### For the Market
- There is a clear trend of "Hyperscale Cloud + Vertical Expertise," where generic cloud storage is less important than specialized AI/ML building blocks that solve industry-specific problems (e.g., diabetic amputation prevention or supply chain transparency).
## Technical Implications
- **Predictive Analytics:** Shift toward automated, edge-aware algorithms for real-time inventory management.
- **Infrastructure:** Use of Cloud Spanner for global database consistency (Vimeo) and Tau VMs for high-performance x86 computing (Nylas).
- **Blockchain:** Emphasis on "decentralization without compromise" via hyperscale cloud partnerships.
## Strategic Analysis
- **Market Positioning:** Google Cloud is positioning itself as the "Startup to Enterprise" bridge, focusing on AI-first companies.
- **Competitive Advantage:** Deep integration of BigQuery and AI/ML services (Vertex AI/GKE) provides a stickier ecosystem for data-intensive firms.
- **Challenges:** Managing the reputational risk and technical volatility associated with Web3 and blockchain decentralization.
## Industry Reactions
- **Analyst Opinions:** The market views these partnerships as evidence that Google Cloud is narrowing the gap with AWS in terms of specialized developer tools.
- **Market Response:** The oversubscription of Anvyl’s Series B suggests high investor confidence in cloud-native supply chain tools.
## Future Outlook
- **Predictions:** Expect further convergence of AI and supply chain management as global volatility persists.
- **What to watch for:** The success of Dapper Labs on Google Cloud will be a bellwether for whether Web3 can truly scale on traditional hyperscale infrastructure.
## For Security Professionals
- **Supply Chain Security:** As platforms like Anvyl modernize the supply chain, security practitioners must focus on Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) for these interconnected SaaS ecosystems.
- **CISO Perspectives:** The mention of Nylas’s CISO, David Ting, highlights a growing trend where security leadership is now directly involved in infrastructure cost-performance optimization (Tau VMs), not just threat mitigation.
- **Governance:** The shift to SaaS models (as seen with Puppet’s Relay) necessitates robust IAM (Identity and Access Management) and cloud security posture management (CSPM) to handle rapid scaling.