Today, we’ve got dead horses, one dumb startup’s mistakes, and a black swan.
Let’s go.
Om nom nom
We created a timeline of food delivery startup M&A activity between 2012 and 2016. Last year saw the acquisitions of two of the most well-funded startups in the space, foodpanda and RedMart.
The highly improbable
I’m excited to announce that Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of The Black Swan, will be joining us at The Future of Fintech Conference.
For those not familiar, The Black Swan “examines the influence of highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact.”
Taleb is a statistician, former trader and risk analyst who has been critical of the risk management practices of financial services for some time.
For those who’ve read his work, heard him on TV, or followed him on Twitter, you know that he is smart and not shy to speak his mind so it should be a fascinating conversation.
Prices went up last Friday but if you sign up by tomorrow and use the code “blackswan17,” you’ll get $1000 off.
The CRISPR economy
We looked at 7 of the most promising private companies working with CRISPR genomic editing technologies. Synthego, featured below, offers CRISPR gene editing kits and custom-built synthetic RNA in order to increase the speed and decrease the cost of genetic research.
Reminder #1 – Don’t be dumb like us
Back in the day, our team used to obsess about getting our posts onto page 1 of Hacker News. And we wasted so much time on this.
We examined financing trends to the legal tech category as well as which regions around the world are seeing the most investment. On an annual basis, deal count increased by 12% in 2016 to 67 deals, while funding declined by 46% to $155M.
Reminder #2 – we don’t do briefings with VCs/startups
If you want to get in front of our research team, don’t email or call the office asking to do a briefing with our team.
P.S. If you’re involved in startups and are ignoring corporate VCs, you’re being foolish. Here’s a history of corporate venture capital you should grab a cup of coffee and get familiar with.