Hi there,

This week in data, we've got a 924% surge in share price, a mammoth $2.5B funding round, and a $3.2B solar energy acquisition. Check it out below.

$2.65B: Uber announced that it had acquired delivery startup Postmates in a deal worth $2.65B. The ride-hailing giant said that it will run Postmates alongside its UberEats food delivery service. We dig into the company's business model and revenue drivers in this report on how Uber makes money.

60,000 cases: New daily cases of Covid-19 in the US surpassed 60,000 for the first time this week. We compiled our research on how the pandemic is affecting a broad range of industries — including healthcare, fintech, and retail — on this resource page. 
 

$2.5B: Palantir, a data analytics startup co-founded by Peter Thiel, said that it had filed to go public. The company has raised about $2.5B in disclosed funding and was last valued at $20B. 
 

924%: QuantumCTek, a China-based quantum communication company, saw its share price increase by 924% on the day of its IPO — a record first-day increase for a stock exchange in China. We dig into the quickening pace of quantum tech commercialization in our 2020 Tech Trends To Watch report.   

$98/year: Walmart may launch an Amazon Prime competitor this month. The membership service is reported to cost $98 per year, undercutting the price of Prime by about $20, and will tout perks like same-day delivery and discounts on fuel. We look at some of Walmart’s recent efforts to improve its delivery capabilities — including moves in areas like IoT fleet management, autonomous trucking, and robotic fulfillment — in our  client-exclusive report on supply chain and logistics tech trends to watch. 
 

700,000 people: A group of pharmaceutical companies — including Pfizer, Merck, GSK, and many more — committed $1B to a fund that aims to help develop 2-4 new antibiotics within this decade by investing in biotech companies. The initiative is a response to rising levels of infections caused by bacteria which are resistant to current antibiotics, an issue that is estimated to cause 700,000 deaths per year. See all of our healthcare research, covering emerging trends and startup activity, here.  
 

$2.5B: Electric car startup Rivian raised $2.5B, bringing its total disclosed equity funding to nearly $6B. The company is aiming to be among the first companies to launch an electric pickup truck next year. We look at the electric vehicle landscape — including how incumbents are looking to head off disruption from startups — in this report. 

$3.2B: Solar energy company Sunrun acquired Vivant Solar for $3.2B. The former rivals say that the merger will allow them to save an estimated $90M in annual costs. The move could also help the companies challenge Tesla, which has gone after the residential solar market with products like energy-generating roof tiles and in-home electricity storage devices.
 

2.2B tons: Researchers found that sprinkling crushed rocks over cropland could help remove up to 2.2B tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year, comparable to the combined emissions from shipping and aviation, according to a paper published in Nature. The approach, called enhanced silicate rock weathering, is one of many potential ways to directly remove carbon from the air. We look at the opportunities and perils of different types of geoengineering in this report and highlight 3 high-momentum startups working on carbon capture tech in our 2020 Game Changers report. 

I love you.

P.S. We'll be going over how insurtech can help insurers build resiliency in our upcoming webinar. Sign up here. 

Tired of doomscrolling? Some people are quelling quarantine boredom by “randonauting,” or following a set of randomly generated coordinates to explore new places.

The Randonautica app, self-described as the “the world's first quantumly generated Choose Your Own Adventure reality game,” has helped some people stumble upon strange objects or locations, ranging from abandoned houses to quirky murals to... human remains.

Though the app was launched in early 2020, it wasn’t until June that it really took off, when YouTuber Emma Chamberlain posted about her experience and it became a TikTok trend.