Hi there, 

We've got loan data today — but first, here’s a podcast pattern I've noticed with successful folks.

They're asked about early life/school and their response is often something like,

"I was a terrible student tbh. I didn't particularly enjoy school."

And then minutes later,

"I attended Princeton where I met my co-founder."

Another podcast pattern among successful people is they often will reference if they are immigrants or children of immigrants.

It happens too often to be coincidental.

Is this media training to get folks to seem like underdogs?  

Listen for this. It happens a lot.

WDYT?

PPP loan unicorns

Last July, when the Paycheck Protection Program data was issued by the SBA, the data went live on CB Insights < 36 hours after being issued.

More than 9,600 investor-backed (VC, PE) companies received PPP loans. 

How have they fared since then? 

Here are some highlights:

• 1,762 companies (18% of the total) raised a round of financing after receiving their PPP loan

• 17 companies that took a PPP loan became unicorns ($1B+ valuation)

• 677 companies (7%) exited, with 578 M&A deals and 99 IPOs (57 of which were SPACs)

Find out how many companies died and more key financing details here. 

If you want to view and filter the data by geo, investor, total funding, etc., you can use this search.

Coverage of our PPP data is linked in the Industry Standard below.
 

Who you gonna call?
 

Corporates are increasingly focused on 5G, mentioning the tech thousands of times in earnings calls since the start of 2019. 

Learn about what 5G is and the opportunities it’s creating for industries ranging from healthcare to financial services here.

Big tech = big healthcare

Find out how Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are battling for the $8.3T healthcare market in our webinar tomorrow (August 18). 

Register here.

Bridging the skills gap

The “skills gap” in manufacturing will cost the US economy upwards of $1T, according to a recent National Association of Manufacturers study. Connected worker solutions are helping manufacturers address the gap.

From collaborative robots to training & onboarding VR, we highlight 95+ communication & connectivity companies in manufacturing in this client-only tech market map report.

Bank-funded blockchain fun

As we highlighted last week, 55 of the top 100 banks are investing in cryptocurrency and blockchain companies.

Curious which companies they are investing in? Check out Blockdata's research here.

Axios. Dan Primack (@danprimack) highlights CB Insights PPP data in Axios’ Pro Rata newsletter.

Fortune. Lucinda Shen (@ShenLucinda) digs into CB Insights PPP loan data in the Term Sheet newsletter.

Financial Times. Miles Kruppa (@MilesKruppa) looks at how venture debt lenders are offering cheaper deals and mentions CB Insights research.
 

P.S. We’re hiring for a sales enablement operations manager. Apply here. 

Up from the grave. Anonymous social media app Yik Yak has been relaunched under new ownership, 4 years after it shut down.

The Verge 

Codelifting. Attempts by employees to steal source code from their company have tripled over the last year as workers quit in record numbers.

Financial Times 

Laser eyes. More retailers are exploring the potential of crypto payments, with Walmart recently posting a job description for a crypto expert.

Bloomberg

Petal to the metal. The houseplant industry has boomed over the last few years, giving rise to large-scale farms and greenhouses.

Vox

Badreads. Scammers are targeting authors on Goodreads, threatening to “review bomb” their work if they don’t pay up. 

Time