Hi there,

One of my favorite hot takes from Scott Galloway is this video in which he wears a wig to impersonate and rip into former WeWork CEO, Adam Neumann. (This is what the kids call cosplay, right?)

It’s a fun evisceration of We’s elevated consciousness blather.

Galloway was an early bear on WeWork and is generally pretty down on some of the highest-flying unicorns (there are 419 of them and you can see them all here).

Whether you agree or disagree with his views on tech, he doesn’t mince words, which is refreshing given the echo chamber that tech generally lives in.  

I’m excited to hear his predictions on technology at The Collective in a few weeks (and to see if he will be wearing the wig).

Use code wig for $650 off your ticket.

Legacy capital markets tech is on average ~38 years old, but notable investment is going into innovating back office tech. 
 

BaaS: banking-as-a-service

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about big tech’s financial services ambitions in this newsletter. We covered Facebook’s bet on payments as well as Google’s payment ambitions and Apple’s shifting financial services strategy.

At the last Future of Fintech, we actually talked a lot about BaaS (here's our report on banking’s AWS moment), which we view as an enabler of these trends.

In fact, we suggested that any organization or person with a large audience might be able to launch banking and credit products, including celebrities.

One of the more provocative ideas from the keynote at the conference was a future in which we see the Bank of Beyonce.

BTW, The Future of Fintech 2020 (June 14-16) is moving to San Francisco after 4 great years in NYC. It’s gonna be yuge.

AI startups across 42 states have hauled in more than $6.5B collectively.
 

AI in everything 
 

Healthcare AI funding peaked in Q3’19, led by a virtual health assistant app’s $550M mega-round.
 

Take a look at what raked in the most dollars and deals here.

Inner beauty

Beauty comes from within — literally, in the case of these ingestible beauty startups.  

Check out 4 cos trying to beautify people from inside to out. 

Wall Street Journal. Rochelle Toplensky (@RToplensky) covers the global fintech boom and cites CB Insights' latest quarterly fintech report.

Financial Times. Joe Miller (@JoeMillerJr) writes about a German data processing co's latest raise and references CB Insights’ Q3’19 fintech report.

CNN. Sherisse Pham (@Sherisse) covers a Japanese AI co's latest raise and cites CB Insights data.

 

P.S. If you're a corporate VC and want a dealflow management solution to track your funnel, priorities, and deal activities, it’s all been integrated into CB Insights. Check it out here.

P.P.S. We're hiring a product manager. See the role here.

The New York Times
 

I swear he’s real. Some are falling in love with scripted robots. 

The Guardian

Let’s get this bread, as they say. Which college graduates make the most?

The Wall Street Journal

Et tu, Brute? The California DMV is making $50M a year selling drivers' data to data brokers, private investigators, and more.

VICE