They say you are what you eat — now foods and supplements like marine collagen and “brain dust” are popping up, promising “beauty from within.” But is it all just marketing?
Industrial markets offer some of the most promising applications for 3D printing tech. For example, 3D printed parts continue to make their way into working use on planes, cars, oil & gas equipment, and more.
North America, China, and the UK established themselves as the heavyweights of the fintech world from 2014 to 2017 — but that’s starting to change.
The majority of fintech growth in 2018 was located in South America, Australia, Africa, and parts of Asia beyond China. We take a closer look here.
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Pharma companies use M&A to bolster their pipelines. They’re also using investments to gain insights into startups’ technologies, which sometimes lead to partnerships or acquisitions.
We take a look at which big pharmaceutical companies acquired targets after first investing in or partnering with them. Clients can read about it here.
Supply (chain) and demand
Innovation in supply chain tech is on the rise, and it’s getting more media attention — especially when it comes to retail and CPG.
One trend that’s picking up steam in the space is micro-fulfillment centers, tiny urban warehouses that are helping retailers cut last-mile delivery costs. We take a closer look here.
P.P.S. We’ve received over 400 speaker nominations for the Future of Health conference taking place October 2-3. If you want a chance to speak on stage, submit your nomination by April 1.
This week in data:
3: Three cos became unicorns this week, tallying up a combined value of $3.3B. Glossier joined after raising a $100M round that valued the D2C beauty company at $1.2B. Glossier was featured in our 50 Future Unicorns list for 2019, compiled in partnership with the New York Times. Doctolib, a France-based medical appointment booking app, was the second new unicorn, raising a $170M Series E at a $1.1B valuation. Clothes subscription service Rent the Runway received a $1B valuation after raising $125M in Series F funding from Bain Capital and Franklin Templeton. See 327 other $1B+ private companies on our real-time unicron tracker.
1 exaflop: Intel and Cray have been contracted by the US Department of Energy to build a $500M supercomputer, dubbed Aurora, which is set to be among the fastest in the world. With plans to reach a processing speed of 1 exaflop, Aurora would be capable of completing the same number of calculations in a single second as a typical personal computer could manage in around 100 days. Though the touted computing speed is staggeringly quick, it may pale in comparison to what a quantum computer could one day offer, as discussed in our What Is Quantum Computing explainer.
12 years: This week Myspace revealed that it had lost all the files uploaded to the site before 2015. The company blamed a “server migration project” for the loss of 12 years of seemingly non backed-up data. We discussed storing data safely in our report on the future of data centers. Check it out here.
16x: UK-based Worldpay has been acquired by FIS in a deal worth $43B, 16x the payments company’s value 9 years ago. Worldpay has changed hands multiple times over the last decade. It was acquired by Bain Capital from RBS in 2010 in a $2.7B deal, then went public in 2015 before being acquired by Vantiv in 2017 for around $10B. Expert Intelligence clients can read about 125+ other cos disrupting payments here.
$1.25B: OneWeb raised $1.25B from investors including SoftBank, the Government of Rwanda, and Qualcomm. This latest round brings total disclosed funding to almost $3.5B. Working with Airbus, the London-based startup aims to launch 650 satellites by 2021 with the aim of providing internet access around the world. Expert Intelligence clients can read about other companies seeking to provide rural broadband in our recent report.
< $100/ton: Canada-based Carbon Engineering completed a $68M funding round this week, in what it says is the largest private financing round into a company commercializing carbon capture technology. The Bill Gates-backed company claims to be able to pull carbon dioxide directly from the air at a cost of less than $100 per ton. We recently discussed the carbon capture space in a client-only note.
30.8M: Lyft is reportedly planning to offer 30.8M shares priced at between $62–$68. This would value the ride-hailing company in the range of $18.5B–$23B as it seeks to raise $2.1B in its upcoming IPO. Lyft’s IPO valuation is expected to be the largest since Snap’s $24.8B valuation in 2017, but could be dwarfed by Uber’s rumored $120B IPO later this year. Clients were given a heads up on Lyft’s likely IPO valuation in our analysis from the beginning of March.
60+ hours: The FDA approved the first treatment specifically for postpartum depression, a condition which is estimated to affect 1 in 9 mothers in the US. The intravenous treatment is administered continuously for around 60 hours. The price of the treatment is estimated to cost up to $34K without insurance. Expert Intelligence clients can see 40+ companies which are using tech to reduce the price of drugs.
$10B: Google was fined for the third time in less than 2 years by the EU for anti-competitive behavior, this time related to its ad business. The latest $1.7B fine brings the EU’s total anti-competitive penalties against the tech giant up to nearly $10B. Previous fines were connected to pre-installed Android apps and skewed shopping search results.
5’11’’: April the giraffe was watched online by a reported 300K viewers as she gave birth to a 5’11’’ male calf weighing 139Ibs. April shot to fame in 2017 after the much anticipated birth of her last calf was live streamed on YouTube. Giraffes give birth standing up, meaning a new calf often free falls over 5 feet when entering the world after a 15 month gestation period.
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