Hi there, 

In case anyone is wondering, there are 2,647 companies whose names end with the letter “z” in the CB Insights database.

Do you think companies whose names end in “z” are more successful than those that remove all the vowels from their names?

Raise the roof

Last year’s funding exuberance pushed the unicorn club to new heights. 

739 companies in our unicorn market map — nearly 2 out of 3 — have reached the $1B+ valuation mark since the start of 2021.

But market volatility has put downward pressure on these high-flying cos, threatening valuations and creating a roadblock to public debuts. 

It’s also slowed the rate of new unicorn births: 85 emerged in Q2’22 compared to 148 in Q2’21.

Get our analysis on the state of unicorns — and see all 1,170 of them — in one infographic here.

In the Prime light

Amazon has struck a deal with Grubhub. 

Prime subscribers in the US will get a free one-year membership to the food delivery service (aka no delivery fees on that burger). 

Amazon also has the option to take a 2% stake in Grubhub, which could grow to 15% if performance factors (like new signups) are met. 

The e-commerce giant is on a mission to sweeten its Prime offering, which counts more than 200M members worldwide. 

Food perks already include discounts at Whole Foods (acquired by Amazon for $13.7B), for example. 

And it isn’t stopping there. From pharma to media & entertainment, we cover how Amazon’s customer obsession is taking it into new industries in this report.

Doctoring made easier

Nobody loves doing administrative work.

Including doctors.

Which is why hospitals and health systems are doubling down on clinical workflow solutions.

Challenges like provider burnout and staffing shortages — and the need to streamline clinician workflows — are creating urgency. 

From virtual assistants to secure clinical communication solutions, we map out 118 companies helping ease the clinician administrative burden here.

Oh thank heaven

Convenience giant 7-Eleven sees 29M customers daily in Japan and North America alone. 

Beyond Slurpees, the chain is looking to engage consumers in new ways.

7-Eleven has partnered with and backed companies in banking, e-commerce, and even online gaming. 

We mined 7-Eleven’s partnership and investment activity to uncover its 4 most important strategic priorities here.

Wall Street Journal. Lori Ioannou (@LoriIoannou1) looks at the VC funding environment using CB Insights data.

Tampa Bay Business Journal. Christina Georgacopoulos (@chrisgeorge___) reports on the end of another SPAC and cites CB Insights data.

San Francisco Chronicle. Roland Li (@rolandlisf) covers how a recession could affect SF and cites CB Insights research.
 

P.S. Every other Thursday our analysts take a deep dive on the latest trends in retail & CPG innovation. Get the newsletter straight to your inbox by signing up here.

Client-Exclusive Research

Go get 'em. As customer acquisition costs soar, brands & retailers are turning to tech solutions that can help them build successful acquisition strategies. 

The price is right. Healthcare providers are shifting more of their budgets toward technologies that can help them fulfill value-based contracts with payers.

Cut through the noise. We identified 6 promising early-stage startups based in Miami.

Strategy map. Intel is undergoing a multiyear strategic shift to become the largest semiconductor firm once again by 2025.