Hi there,

CB Insights was just named to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 — a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing tech companies. We were #219, with 497% revenue growth from 2015 to 2018.

If you want to dig into all the Fast 500 companies, we've  built a Collection you can see here. You can filter by revenue growth, sector, funding, ranking, etc. There are some great companies on it, as you'll see.

We raised $10M back in 2015 when we were 66 people. We just crossed 300. All $10M (and more) sits in the bank as we've maintained our revenue-funded mindset.  

To all of our paying clients, thank you.

Dive into more trends in our latest global healthcare report.

Digital transformation is top of mind for companies in all industries.

One need not look further than McDonald’s.

But McDonald’s isn’t just talking up digital. In 2019 year-to-date, it has acquired 2 AI companies.  Yup, AI.

First, it acquired AI-driven personalization company Dynamic Yield for $300M. Imagine drive-thru menus changing based on the weather, current trending menu items, wait times at the location, etc. 
 

Dynamic Yield's CBI profile lists its top competitors — including all of the companies listed on Gartner's personalization engine magic quadrant, plus many that Gartner missed. Clients can view all the  personalization cos similar to Dynamic Yield here. 

The other company McDonald's acquired was Apprente, a conversational AI company that can reportedly handle orders via voice.

McDonald’s has also made a minority investment in another personalization company, which you can see  in the investments section of its profile.

The links above with a  next to them require a login to CB Insights. If you have one, log in here.

Set up a free trial account here if you are not already a paying client.  

If your organization is looking for an unfair advantage in your digital transformation efforts, the CB Insights platform lets you quickly and confidently discover, validate, and manage your response to emerging technologies.

Sit down, be humble

Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes famously dismissed Netflix in 2008, saying that it wasn’t “even on the radar screen in terms of competition.”  

Read more quotes from corporate execs who laughed in the face of disruption here.

Workday’s latest splurge
 

Workday's $540M acquisition of a cloud-based sourcing platform highlights its continued interest in the B2B supplier management market. Clients can check out our analysis here.

Bloomberg. Tim Culpan (@tculpan) covers SoftBank’s strategy post-WeWork and cites CB Insights’ Unicorn Tracker. 

CNBC. Jade Scipioni (@jadescipioni) writes about why Airbnb’s co-founder thought WeWork failed and references CB Insights research. 
 

P.S. Prices for The Collective (Dec. 10-11, NYC) go up Friday, 11/15. Use code BookMe for $500 off your ticket to the largest gathering of corporate strategy and growth execs this year. 

=FILTER(“friends”). Startups are selling "personal CRMs" to help people organize their friendships.
The Atlantic
 

Let the dollars talk. Corporations, take note: consumers are spending more and more on sustainability-marketed products. 

Fortune

Poor vision. The problems behind training algorithms by categorizing people as objects. 

The AI Now Institute

Laughing out loud. One in 54 Reddit comments includes “lol.” How did it become so popular? 

The Pudding