Hi there, 

In case you’d not heard, Meta is the artist formerly known as Facebook.

So what? 

Beyond capturing media interest (news mentions of “metaverse” doubled month-over-month in October), the move reflects the social media giant’s shifting focus toward building the metaverse.

It has been going on an investment, acquisition, and partnership spree to back it up. 

Facebook — sorry, Meta — has done 5 acquisitions this year, which can be seen on its CBI profile.  

100% of them have been metaverse-related.  

Additionally, it made a seed investment last week into another metaverse-related company. It also partnered with an Israel-based company as part of another metaverse-related initiative just over 2 weeks ago.
 

Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming strategy map for Meta, where we’ll dig into its investment, acquisition, and partnership activity in more detail.

Take a bite of this

ByteDance (the owner of TikTok) is reportedly on track to see 60% revenue growth this year. 

ByteDance has become an online advertising powerhouse — and the world’s most valuable unicorn — thanks in part to the effectiveness of its personalization algorithm for advertising. 

We analyze ByteDance’s rise and its bid to join the ranks of big tech here.

Where IT’s at

With $1.9B raised in Q3’21, health IT funding is up 90% compared to last year. 

And as health IT markets mature, early-stage deal share is shrinking​ — just 25% of deals in 2021 so far have been seed/Series A investments. 

We analyze the sector’s top investors and deals, which regions are capturing the most funding, and more in this client-only report.

From A to Z
 

Despite the rapid commercialization of AI since 2012, enterprises are still struggling with the complexities of sourcing data for AI models, employing AI governance best practices, and finding talent. 

We mapped out the companies developing tools designed to bring AI projects from start to finish. 

From data preparation to auditing and governance, clients can check out 100+ AI lifecycle management companies here. 

From magic mushrooms to Microsoft

The agenda for Future of Health (Dec. 8-9, online) is shaping up to be diverse, topical, and of course, super senior.
 

The companies represented range from one that completed the largest randomized, controlled, double-blind psilocybin therapy (psychedelic medicine) study ever done to Microsoft.

If you're wondering what the heck Microsoft has to do with healthcare, grab your ticket here and save $300 with code psychedelic.

Pattern recognition

Insurers like MassMutual and Nationwide are adopting predictive analytics solutions to automate and improve core business functions like underwriting, customer service, and claims management in life insurance.

We surveyed the predictive analytics players in life insurance and mapped them using our ESP vendor assessment methodology. They include:

• Atidot

• Binah.ai

• CognitiveScale

• dacadoo

• Earnix

• H2O.ai

• Lapetus

• Montoux

If you are looking to understand the landscape or initiate a vendor selection process, download the 52-page ESP Vendor Assessment report here.

TechCrunch. Alex Wilhelm (@alex) and Ryan Lawler (@ryanlawler) discuss fintech earnings and cite CB Insights data.

Business Insider. Blake Dodge (@dodgeblake) and Hugh Langley (@HughLangley) report on Verily’s clinical research ambitions and quote CB Insights principal analyst Jeffrey Becker (@BeckerJMB).

Morning Brew. Katishi Maake (@KatishiMaake) covers Heyday’s $555M raise, using CB Insights research and quoting CB Insights senior lead analyst Laura Kennedy.
 

P.S. We’re hiring a communications specialist to join our research products team. Apply here. 

Client-Exclusive Research

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[Healthcare]

State Of DTx. The digital therapeutics sector saw a moderate quarter amid a record-setting year.

[Financial Services]

Banking on it. Quantum computing is still a nascent space — but its impact on financial services could be huge.