hacking cars

Writer’s block

Hi there,

Since I’m struggling to come up with stuff to write about this week, I’m going to go to my old standby of bad graphs that folks submit. Keep the bad data viz and garbage consulting frameworks coming.

Also, for the NYT VC rankings, if you’re a seed stage fund that doesn’t take board seats, do not worry. We will tweak our algo to consider this.

If you’re a seed stage firm, submit your data here.

Deadline is Feb 16th.

Blockchanging the game

Thanks to Bitcoin, blockchain is already proving to be useful in finance, but the technology’s potential doesn’t end there. Entrepreneurs believe blockchain could transform many other industries, from infrastructure to voting.

Local TV news and graphs

It’s interesting how many folks send graphs from local news stations, which appear to be very graph challenged.

What’s “in” in insurance tech

The global insurance tech industry saw record investment activity from financial investors and re-insurers in 2017. For more on insurance tech, check out Willis Towers Watson and CB Insights’ new report.

Judgement tech

Facebook’s new patent outlines a system for guessing its users’ socioeconomic status based on data points — like whether the user owns a home — collected by the platform.

For your health

After seeing $7B invested in the industry in 2017, will digital health slow down in 2018? We looked into the healthcare trends taking off in the new year, analyzing patents, recent investments, and more.

Speechless

3D pie charts are great. This one is stupendous.

Hack this car and it’s yours

Trillium, winner of the Discovery category at Demo Day, challenged Defcon participants to hack its multi-layered Secure IoT system for connected cars.

The stakes? A new car for the person who could successfully hack Trillium’s system.

700 tried. None got past layer 1.

Congrats to Trillium for stumping the hackers and for its Demo Day win.

See the winning pitch (and other Discovery finalist pitches) here.

The Industry Standard

CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.

Reuters. Suzanne Barlyn (@suzannebarlyn) reports that global insurers are starting to offer protection against cryptocurrency theft and cites CB Insights data.

HealthcareDIVE. Jeff Byers (@jeffpbyers) writes about M&A trends in digital health and mentions CB Insights senior analyst Nikhil Krishnan (@nikillinit).

IBS Intelligence. Henry Vilar (@henryibsintel) reports that Amazon is seeking fintech startups in India and Mexico and cites CB Insights’ Fintech Trends Report.

I love you.

Anand
@asanwal

P.S. On February 6, we’re taking a look at blockchain and the future of enterprise. Register for the briefing here.