Canadian VC trends. Disrupting supermodels. AppDynamics gets acquired.
O Canada
Hi there,
We just released our first-ever 33-page Canadian MoneyTree Report with our friends at PwC. It provides a data-driven look at the latest trends in venture capital funding in Canada. Investment to VC-backed companies based in Canada closed the year with a strong finish, as deals and dollars rose in the final quarter of 2016.
Check out a few highlights scattered below.
But first.
Most useful venn diagram ever
A super handy guide on how to spot a Theranos investor.
h/t Will Alden (@williamalden) of Buzzfeed for one of the greatest startup related venn diagrams of all time
Canada shines in Q4
Unlike other regions such as the US and Asia, which saw quarterly deal and dollar declines, Canada saw a 27% increase in Q4’16 deals and a 49% spike in total funding from the prior quarter.
Liking these acquisition multiples
Per CB Insights, Trello was acquired by Atlassian for a forward revenue multiple of 106.25x.
Yes, you read that right.
And then yesterday, Cisco bought AppDynamics for a 24.6x trailing revenue multiple.
Also, the Founder and Chairman of AppDynamics is Jyoti Bansal who grew up in India and attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT, Delhi). AppDynamics has 1,273 employees per LinkedIn.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We need to stop these immigrants from coming to the USA.
Robots on the runway
Our new patents search engine revealed that Amazon received approval for a patent for an automated fashion model on January 24th. The patent describes a robotic mannequin that can expand, contract, and strike a variety of poses for its connected, automated photographer.
Your M&A team better get to work
Microsoft already acquired one of the Artificial Intelligence 100 (AI100) companies we revealed at The Innovation Summit. That was quick.
99 companies are left so tell your M&A team to get cracking.
If they want to view all the companies, leave notes on them, or filter them by whether they are focused on healthcare, finance, core AI, or other technology/market tags, they can do that by cloning the AI100 Collection on CB Insights.
On a related note, Microsoft’s AI patent activity has also stepped up as we highlighted in Monday’s newsletter. It even outstrips Google.
Kind of a big deal
The top five Canadian deals of the year amounted to a total of $419M. The largest deal went to Thalmic Labs which raised $120M from investors including Intel Capital, Alexa Fund, and iNovia Capital.
Make America manufacture again
An interesting graphic on where cars are still made and where they used to be made in the USA.
The Industry Standard
CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.
Fortune. A conversation between Erin Griffith (@eringriffith) and John Somorjai (@jsomorjai) of Salesforce on a number of topics including AI startups and valuations, with a reference to CB Insights acquisitions data.
