Global unicorn club. Verily patent. Blockchain applications.
Get in my biz hole
Hi there,
I got some bad news.
If your doc is older, your chances of dying are higher.
I’m sorry.
All the unicorns
We updated our market map of global unicorn companies valued at $1B+ and mapped them according to the primary markets in which they operate. A total of 21 companies became unicorns this year.
That cool premium – part I
Last week, there were rumors Target had been in discussions with mattress company Casper to acquire them for $1B. Those discussions broke off and now, according to Jason Del Rey of Recode, Target will be an investor in Casper’s new round (see The Blurb).
This $1B offer highlights the “cool premium” that companies can get given the zeitgeist for all things millennial. There will be staggering amounts of shareholder money that will be thrown at millennial-first companies in the coming years as legacy incumbents chase cool (BTW, as I typed “millennial-first companies,” part of me died).
What’s interesting in this case is that by objective business metrics, Casper is a fundamentally inferior company to two of its competitors – Tuft & Needle (T&N) and Saatva.
When we polled folks a couple of months ago about which of these 3 companies they’d want to be the founder of, the response was overwhelmingly not Casper, with 89% preferring T&N or Saatva. The results of the poll are below. Casper is company 1, T&N is 2, and Saatva is 3.
I know some of you who have really bought into the startup industrial complex will argue that “objective business metrics” shouldn’t be used here.
Yes I know – this time is different.
Wrist-worn cancer detection?
Using our patents search engine, we unearthed a newly granted Verily patent. The patent is for a diagnosis system centered on a wrist-mounted device for detecting any number of medical conditions including hormone imbalances, infections, and even cancer.
Sea lion feeding
Our opening reception for The Future of Fintech will be at NYC’s iconic Central Park Zoo. This place is amazing.
We’ve just added a sea lion feeding and opened the penguin exhibit for the night. So in addition to your business cards, make sure you have plenty of room on your phone to take pictures.
We’ll kick off the next morning bright and early with the CEO of insurance unicorn Oscar and our keynote on the trends to watch in fintech (as well as the most overhyped areas of fintech). See the full agenda here.
Use the code nyclife to get $1500 off today. Just go here.
That cool premium – part II
Last week, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced his return to Twitter. The company’s stock price jumped on May 16th, the date of the announcement as the chart below highlights.
The one-day cool premium went away subsequently as the vagueness of Biz’s objectives upon returning sunk in. These responsibilities, as the passage below highlights, include:
Banking and payments aren’t the only industries that could be affected by blockchain tech. We’ve updated our post on the industries that could create new use cases for blockchain tech. Law enforcement, gun ownership, and ride hailing are among them.
Industry Standard
CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.
Silicon Valley Business Journal. Luke Stangel (@luke_stangel) on Eat Club’s latest $30M round of funding with a mention of CB Insights investment data.
Entrepreneur. A piece on corporate venture capital with a mention of CB Insights data on active corporate VC funds.
P.S. Fun fact – the fintech unicorns at The Future of Fintech are worth a combined $36.6B. Come hear how their CEOs/founders are upending financial services.
