Does this mean more vegans?

Hi there,

Great data viz by Washington Post showing the harm a drug does vs its level of regulation.




Promises, promises

Fresh out of the Elon Musk hype machine: Tesla announced today that Musk will forfeit his paycheck if the company does not reach its performance goals, which add up to a $650B valuation in 10 years if all goes according to plan. 

The Tesla CEO makes a lot of promises and has his hands in pretty much everything these days. We looked at 8 industries that are being shaken up (or not) by Musk and his companies.




That's some good consulting

If you're a consultant but don't know what you're talking about, here's a good hack. 

Throw a bunch of buzzwords onto a curve.



Thanks to subscriber Shawn Hensley for sending this one in.


Elbow room

With China's alternative lending space recently being afflicted with corruption, uncertainty, and overcrowding, investors and startups are setting their sights on other areas in Asia — particularly those with large unbanked populations. Overall, China saw a 15% decline in total alt lending deals from 2016-2017.




The vegans win



For our paid clients, this Winners & Losers brief featured everything from:

• Shell
• WeWork
• Xiaomi
• Tesco
• BP
• seed VC activity
• Aldi
• Perlara
• PayActiv
• and of course, fake meat

Jazz at Lincoln Center has featured big names like US Treasury secretary Rob Rubin, Black Swan author Nassim Taleb, Credit Karma CEO Kenneth Lin, Foreigner, Talib Kwali, Steve Miller Band, and India Arie. (Disclaimer: not all have talked about fintech.)

This year, we're excited to add Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman and Affirm & PayPal co-founder Max Levchin to the lineup.

Ticket prices will go up February 1 by $1,000. Be sharp and get your ticket today.

A little ride-hailing company called Uber — you may have heard of it — raised $1.25B in a Series H funding round last week.

This week, the company's food delivery subdivision, Uber Eats, announced its acquisition of delivery-only online restaurant Ando. Uber Eats is identified in our Uber teardown as a key area of focus for the company with many job openings.

Check out our teardown for other key fields of research and analysis of Uber's investors and strategy in international markets.




A-ha! moments: we’d loooove to get into that

You’ve probably seen some of the “GPS art” Strava users have shared.  

Strava started as a favorite tool for cyclists who wanted to track their rides. The company transferred that talent for building a cult following to runners, then other sports.

Now Strava is one of the largest communities of athletes across multiple sports, allowing users to track, save, and share their workouts.

Mark Gainey, Chairman & Co-founder of Strava joined us at A-ha! for a conversation with CNBC’s Ari Levy about what’s next for the company. See the full conversation here.

Backstage, Gainey answered questions submitted by CBI clients about the company’s exit, strategy, and competitive landscape. He shared one market they’d “loooooove” to get into. See his answers here.




Mom, he's (bio)mimicking me

Mother Nature has been technology's muse for centuries. Whether it's pollinating drone bees or brain-inspired microchips, biomimicry helps technologists solve complex problems in common sense ways.

We're examining three new research initiatives spanning defense, computing, and healthcare that were directly inspired by nature.




The Industry Standard

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

Forbes. Members of the Forbes Business Development Council list nine habits they’ve incorporated into their routines to motivate their sales teams and give a shout-out to the CB Insights newsletter.

Business Insider. Stephanie Pandolph (@stephpandolph) writes about Walmart’s new 3D image patent for online grocery orders and cites CB Insights research.

Motley Fool. Jamal Carnette (@j_car_net) reports that Comcast is doubling down on blockchain technology in 2018 and references CB Insights blockchain research.

Small Business Trends. Larry Alton (@larryalton3) writes about what to do after a business failure and refers to CB Insights’ startup failure post-mortems post.


I love you.

The Blurb