VC jobs

Robots and kale are next

Hi there,

A tech-enabled quinoa restaurant has shuttered its NYC locations, among a few others.

The problem was not the model or the food, but over-expansion.

I thought you should know.

And now onto the data.

Are ex-startup founders the best VCs?

Is there a correlation between prior entrepreneurial experience and being a great VC?

Dan Mindus of NextGen Venture Partners and Maxwell Wessel of SAP.io dig into our data to provide an answer in this guest post.

‘If it’s not Strava, it didn’t happen’

Excited to have Mark Gainey, Chairman and cofounder of Strava, join us at A-ha! this December 12 – 13, 2017.

Since 2009, Strava has become THE app that provides athletes with a way to track their progress and interact with other athletes.  

• 1.3 billion kudos were given in 2016
• In May, it hit 1 billion activities logged
• Every 40 days, the company sees 1 million new users

There’s even a subculture of Strava artists who create images like the below by using their workout as a paintbrush:

Looking forward to talking to Mark about how Strava keeps its audience coming back for more, and what the company is doing to expand its market. (Note:70%+ of Strava’s user base is from outside of the US).

Prices for A-ha! go up November 1. Save $500 using discount code StravaDaVinci. Get your ticket here.

Jobs for you

Some of our friends are hiring:

• AmFam Ventures: Venture capital principal (Madison, WI)
• Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center: New ventures lead (Foster City, CA)
• Nationwide: Venture capital associate (Columbus, OH)

A pseudo-scientific poll

We asked folks on Twitter which of the big 4 tech companies they’d invest $100k in and hold for 10 years.

The bearishness over the long term on Apple and Facebook was surprising.

All around the world

We identified countries with 10+ private travel tech startups that have raised funding since 2016, then mapped the top 3 most well-funded startups from that list in each selected country. With $4.4B in total funding, home-sharing unicorn Airbnb is the most well-funded travel tech startup in the world. 

China’s internet giants eye insurance

We analyzed Baidu, Alibaba (including Alibaba Health/Ant Financial), and Tencent’s (BAT’s) moves in the online insurance market via their various partnerships, investments, and acquisitions in the space. Ant Financial is the only one of the three to acquire a majority stake in an insurance carrier, with its 60% stake in licensed P&C insurer Cathay Insurance China in 2015.

Edible robots

Researchers in Switzerland have created gelatin-based robots that can be eaten by humans or animals and carry out tasks within their bodies. The use cases range from using robots as food, to studying endangered species’ migration patterns, to serving as a medical device that can help heal injuries.

The Industry Standard

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

Quartz. John Detrixhe (@johndetrixhe) writes about Goldman Sachs’ shift into consumer lending and cites CB Insights data on lending totals.

Inc 42. Meha Agarwal (@meha1387) writes about Omnivore Partners’ aim to raise a $90M fund and cites CB Insights’ research on agtech’s top investors.

CNBC. Eugene Kim (@eugenekim222) reports on personal styling service Stitch Fix and refers to CB Insights investment data.

I love you.

Anand
@asanwal