Sequoia have some competition?

Weed puns are the best puns

Hi there,

Today, I reveal the craziest email from a subscriber I have ever received. And we also announce another unicorn CEO/founder will be joining us for The Future of Fintech Conference.

But first, let’s take a look at a budding new industry that is growing like a weed.

Canna-bizness

We identified over 60 private companies focused on the cannabis industry and mapped them into eight main categories, from delivery to management to production, and more.

That unicorn thang

On Monday, we revealed that Mario Schlosser, CEO of Oscar Health, a fintech unicorn valued at $2.7B is joining us at The Future of Fintech Conference.

Today, we’ve got another unicorn founder joining us at Lincoln Center from June 26-28th.

I’m excited to reveal that Kabbage co-founder Kathryn Petralia (@kabbitch) is joining us. Kabbage ($1B valuation) is primarily a lender to small businesses for their working capital needs.

The company is based in Atlanta, GA which is not a common destination for fintech unicorns and so we’re excited to dig into the Kabbage business model, opportunities, and headwinds ahead in small business lending.

If you haven’t purchased your ticket yet, get it here.

Prices go up every month so if you like paying more, definitely wait.

Not the unabomber, but another crazy Ted

With 232,000+ on the newsletter, we get lots of crazya$$ emails. But this one in response to last Monday’s newsletter’s language wins in my book for being the most out there.

I’ve highlighted my favorite parts in yellow. The whole thing.

It’s that good.

A hunting we will go

We updated our analysis on which investors have backed the most unicorns.

Sequoia Capital, which shook up its leadership this week, remains in the top spot as the most active investor in unicorns. But the storied investor is now tied with PE/hedge fund investor Tiger Global Management and seed fund SV Angel.

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A newsletter we like and we think you’ll like too

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E-commerce gets hurts

We look at e-commerce financing over the past 5 years. 2016 saw a drop in deal count to its lowest level since 2012, while funding came in below 2014′s total.

The Industry Standard

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

Huffington Post UK. Reuven Cohen (@ruv) on AI in healthcare with a reference to CB Insights research on startups using machine learning in healthcare.

Silicon Republic. John Kennedy (@mrjohnfkennedy) says 2017 might be a breakthrough year for tech IPOs and cites data from the CB Insights 2016 Global Tech Exits report.

TechCrunch. Ingrid Lunden (@ingridlunden) writes about tech exits and unicorn births in 2016 with a reference to the CB Insights 2016 Global Tech Exits report.

I love you.

Anand
@asanwal

P.S. Join us tomorrow for a deep-dive on unicorns. We’ll save you a spot.