2016’s most viewed English Wikipedia articles. The Donald just keeps winning bigly.
Starting strong
Tomorrow, we kick off The Innovation Summit with 3 killer sessions. Join the livestream as we start with a bang at 9AM PST.
Ari Levy (CNBC) talks about the interfaces of the future with Megan Quinn (Spark Capital), Arthur Johnson (Twilio Head of M&A), and Jeremy Liew (Lightspeed Venture Partners)
Nick Bilton (Vanity Fair) talks with Chamath Palihapitiya (Social Capital). Chamath and Bilton spoke at the Vanity Fair Summit about how to fix Twitter. It’s a good convo (see The Blurb)
Robin Wigglesworth (The Financial Times) sits down with Scott Kupor (A16Z) to discuss AI, healthcare, the markets, and more.
We end the day with a conversation with Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s talking Moneyball, sabermetrics, and advanced analytics. I’m really excited for this conversation as we’ve been heavily inspired by his work to bring a data-driven orientation to a trade full of pundits.
Cannabis country
We examined how the landscape of cannabis startups in the US has evolved by looking at two periods: 2011-2013 and 2014-2016. The latter saw 147 first equity rounds to private cannabis companies, up nearly 3000% from the prior period.
Hedge and mutual funds love them some HR tech
Crossover investors — i.e., hedge funds, mutual funds, asset managers, and investment banks — have participated in a record 23 deals to HR tech startups in 2016. The top deal in 2016 that included crossover investors was a $100M Series D investment in Q1’16 to SnagAJob.
Famous
In case you missed CB Insights’ talented team on TV, watch the industry’s smartest analysts talk tech financing, IPOs, and patents.
Ever meet a hedge fund or VC dude or angel investor whose investments haven’t done well?
Yeah — me neither.
I’m now adding owners of b1tc0in to the list of the prescient. Everyone I know who has bought some got in way early and is way up on it because they are super smart. #humbled
As phishing schemes become more common, startups are offering cybersecurity products and services to counter these and other email-based attacks. We identified 10 email security startups to watch. The companies on our list all obtained funding since 2016, and have raised at least $1M.
The Industry Standard
CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.
Business Insider UK. A report on Samsung’s Gear VR headsets and their performance with a reference to CB Insights’ investment data.
Chicago Tribune. Kate MacArthur (@katemacarthur) writes about Chicago’s tech climate and whether the city can support the growth of “redwoods,” or companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Salesforce, and quotes CB Insights research director Marcelo Ballve (@ballve) on the subject.
P.S. We just crossed 40k Twitter followers. @cbinsights gives good tweets. Follow us.
P.P.S. From AI to fintech to cybersecurity, and more, we put together a booklet of charts, graphs, and infographics showcasing the most important tech trends from 2016. Download it now.