Thomas Friedman's garbage graph - CB Insights Research

Most-watched of 2017. State of AI. Blockchain in review.

Keep it brief

Hi there,

This year, we shared lots of bad data viz (especially pie charts) on Twitter here and now increasingly on CBI Instagram.

We wanted to end the year with one that nobody on our team understands but which certainly seemed important.

The paywall

This year, we moved our Intelligence Analysts’ best work (dubbed Expert Intelligence) behind the paywall, making it available only to clients.

Here were 4 of the most popular Expert Intel briefs since launch, which as you’ll see, cover lots of ground:

A singing unicorn

2017 was a big year for CB Insights.

We grew ARR 85-90% YoY into the meaningful 8-figures (there’s a range cuz the year still ain’t over)
And we still haven’t touched any of the $10M we raised 2+ years ago
We grew the team to 170 (this is a vanity metric TBH but doing this without burning $ is not normal)
We were #9 on Glassdoor’s best places to work in the USA
And when we hit 200k on our newsletter just ahead of 2017, we had a singing unicorn come in and serenade our Intelligence Analysts

Check out our year in review for the video and more. And thanks again to our clients for enabling this. Your product ideas, feedback, referrals, etc have been the difference.

In brief

Our Intelligence Analysts did a lot of live online research briefings this year.

Here are the 10 most popular. Feel free to watch and share, as there are hundreds of thousands of $ of insights in these briefings that we make freely available (for now).

Also, don’t forget to bookmark this page to stay on top of what new briefings we’re scheduling in 2018.

10. The Growing World of Ag Tech
We look into the new technologies that are changing the agriculture industry, as well as funding, exit, and investor trends in the space.

9. Amazon Strategy Teardown
We do a data-driven deep dive into the acquisition, investment, and research strategy of units across “The Everything Store” known as Amazon.

8. Fintech Trends Q3 2017
We look at VC fintech funding trends, new fintech unicorns, the most active fintech investors, and which fintech areas are heating up (or overheated) in Q3’17.

7. Game Changing Startups 2018
We highlight 30 high-momentum startups building truly innovative technologies in areas including regenerative medicine, rocket launchers, AI chips, and more.

6. The State Of Insurance Tech
With funding to the insurtech industry exploding, we cover new partnership initiatives by (re)insurers, investment trends, and how insurance technology is developing globally.

5. Goldman Sachs Strategy Teardown
We dive into the firm’s investment and M&A history, Marcus and other product initiatives, patents and research activity, forward-looking moves, and more.

4. Apple In Healthcare
Using patents, acquisitions, interviews, job data, and more, we dig into Apple’s ambitions in the healthcare space, from the firm’s potential edge in healthcare to offerings like ResearchKit.

3. Trends In Blockchain And Digital Currency
We dig into the latest data on blockchain and bitcoin startup trends, including where early-stage companies are cropping up, the ICO landscape, where corporates are getting involved, and more.

2. The State Of Artificial Intelligence
We look at where AI stands today, startup investment trends, investor trends, the “artificial general intelligence debate,” and the road ahead for the AI sector.

1. Blockchain In Review: Trends And Opportunities
CB Insights analyst Arieh Levi and Fortune reporter Robert Hackett dive into blockchain, from the technology’s potential and current value proposition, to enterprise blockchain development, to token valuation methodology and predictions around future trends.

The bad data viz that started it all

The first bad data viz we featured was this graph from Thomas Friedman’s book which someone perfectly described as “the kind of thing you might see scrawled in f3ces in Ted Kaczynski’s prison cell.”

Since then, hundreds of you have sent terrible consulting frameworks, pie charts, and bad data viz regularly. Thank you for all the laughs.

I love you.

Anand
@asanwal

P.S. We were Glassdoor’s 9th best place to work in the USA based on employee reviews. We’re hiring in every department. If you’re great at what you do and want a great place to become even greater at it, we’re a great choice.

P.P.S. You can also make $5000 for referring someone to work at CB Insights.

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