Deals to unicorn startups were down dramatically in 2016, at 144 compared to 200+ deals to unicorn companies in 2015.
Only 23% of the present-day unicorn club joined in 2016, compared to 42% that joined in 2015.
Seven unicorns saw their valuations lowered in down rounds or exits in 2016. Home24 lost unicorn status altogether after seeing its valuation dip below $1B.
In fact, deals to unicorns were lower last year than in any year since 2012.
By the way, I learned this week that a group of unicorns is known as a “fondle” (go ahead, look it up). Well this fondle was handled roughly by 2016.
P.S. Spam filters got the best of us yesterday. In case you missed it, here’s yesterday’s newsletter — it talks about Unilever’s 40+ patents, mistakes made as a startup CEO, and has a survey you can take to tell us which company you would want to be founder of.
This week in data:
100: The AI 100 has been decided. Out of over 1,800 companies, we picked the 100 most promising AI companies globally, which we’ll unveil at the Innovation Summit. If you are unable to make it to Santa Barbara, livestream the event to find out who made the cut.
$140M: The amount raised by Proterra — maker of zero-emission, battery-electric buses — in Series F funding. The company raised from investors including GM Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Tao Capital Partners. We recently looked at financing to electric vehicle startups.
12: We looked at the acquisition activity of the largest US internet corporates by revenue, focusing on the 5 most acquisitive, which include Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, and Salesforce. Of the 5, Salesforce has seen the most notable increase in M&A activity, hitting a 5-year high in 2016 with 12 deals.
32: The number of M&A deals made by large media corporates in 2016, as mentioned in our research released earlier this week. Verizon Communications, AOL’s parent company, was the most active company on the list in M&As. We’ll cover more on investor activity as well as trends and key startups to watch in the digital media space in our upcoming Digital Media briefing. Join us on January 9th.
554M: The number of Jack in the Box tacos that are consumed on an annual basis, according to this report. Sometimes described as “wet cat food,” the beef-filled tortilla appears to be the most popular item on Jack in the Box’s menu. If you want to taco ’bout less successful fast food options, you can find some on our list of the 102 biggest product failures of all time.
99: Didi Chuxing announced its plan to invest in Brazil-based on-demand e-hailing service 99. This follows Didi’s acquisition of Uber’s China arm last year, a move that added another level of complexity to the already tangled web of investment in the ride-hailing space.
1: Google acquired Swedish company Limes Audio, developer of voice communication systems technology. This marks Google’s first acquisition of 2017, and follows its acquisitions of other Swedish companies, Marratech and Trendalyzer. Check out our Google Acquisitions Tracker for real-time updates.
14B: The number of WhatsApp messages exchanged in India on New Year’s Eve, including 3.1B images, 700M GIFS, and 610M videos. WhatsApp was one of the fastest $1B+ exits among US VC-backed companies, and the largest, at a $22B price tag (acquired by Facebook)
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$50M: Namely, a cloud-based HR management platform, raised a $50M Series D from investors including Sequoia Capital, True Ventures, and Matrix Partners. The company, which also focuses on insurance benefits, previously raised a second $30M tranche of a Series C (totaling $75M) last February. Both rounds rank as two of the Top Deals in Insurance Tech since the beginning of 2016.
6.5 seconds: We previously reported on Twitter’s move to shut down Vine last October. This week, Vine announced it will become Vine Camera, which will allow a user to make 6.5 second looping videos and post them to Twitter (or save them). All other Vine-related capabilities will be shut down.
