Global drone map. India tech exits. Deals to beauty startups spike.
Millennial paper
Hi there,
Buzzfeed’s Ryan Mac has an interesting essay on the travails at SoundCloud. Beyond an epic correction at the end of the essay, it’s quite interesting. Article link below in The Blurb.
The article details the challenges of working with music labels, how a bad hire didn’t execute and also hurt culture, and how the CEO started drinking his own kool-aid, as the passage below illustrates.
I’m hoping we can put some data behind this, but for right now, here is some anecdata. As far as we can recall, whenever we’ve seen a company founder start to get distracted by celebrity or start to engage very actively in side projects (angel investing, new ventures, book writing, etc), it never seems to go well.
Curious if you can think of any counter examples?
Now some data.
Drone planet
Using CB Insights data, we mapped the global distribution of drone companies. US-based drone companies have received approximately 65% of the global deal share since 2012, while China took second with 5%, followed by Australia, Canada, and the UK with 4% each.
And the winner is…
The microbrew capital of the USA is Santa Rosa, CA.
Also, a friendly reminder that micro-VC deal-making is growing at a similar rate to microbreweries.
Based on Spotify’s top 50 playlists by country, it looks like folks in the USA most frequently prefer explicit songs.
Healthy glow
Deals to beauty and grooming startups are racing toward an all-time high in 2017. Early-stage deals are on the rise, as new growth in plant-based ingredients and customized products drives momentum in the industry.
The Industry Standard
CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.
