Hi there,

I’m trying to convince my wife that our kids shouldn’t necessarily go to college.

If you have any compelling points, please let me know.

I’m losing this argument and could use some help.

Our first coffee table book

Strategy guru Peter Drucker once said:

"Tell me what you believe, and I might believe you. But show me your calendar and your bank statement, and I'll show you what you really value."

Inspired by this, we created a coffee table book for strategy nerds.

A real understanding of a company and its competitive strategy doesn't come from listening to its senior executives rattle off carefully coached talking points.

Instead, understanding corporate strategy requires mining a company’s relationship data and seeing how its leaders actually allocate their time and money. Ask, who are their:

• Vendors?

• Investments?

• Partners?

• Acquisitions?

These are the non-BS predictors of strategy.

The Strategy Maps in this book shine a light on the strategy of some of the world's most important companies — from Amazon to Stripe to L’Oréal to John Deere.

Get the complete set of 40+ Strategy Maps here.

On sale

Black Friday discounts in tech are huge. Who is buying?

Given these public tech company discounts, it’s hard to see how the herd of 1,204 current unicorns is not in for similar pain.
 

Trials and tribulations

Clinical trials require a ton of time and money to run — but this could change in the not-so-distant future. 

Check out the technologies transforming clinical trials as we speak in this report.

Catch me if you can

The rise of retail investment platforms has empowered nonprofessional investors to manage their own portfolios.

So traditional advisors are increasingly turning to tech solutions to remain competitive.

From risk analytics to data aggregation, we identify 89 companies helping advisors evolve with the times in this market map.

Accounting & finance software spotlight

Here are 4 software-focused accounting & finance companies that recently completed a CBI Analyst Briefing:

• BankiFi offers embedded banking services and recently partnered with Axiom Bank. [Connect here.]

• By leveraging API solutions, Ayoconnect helps companies launch new financial services. [Connect here.]

• Thought Machine is currently valued at $2.7B and counts JP Morgan among its investors. [Connect here.]

• Solaris was featured as a leader in our recent crypto-as-a-service ESP ranking. [Connect here.]

Customers can click “Connect here” above if they want to speak directly to these companies, or hit the Connect button in platform to get in touch with any company with a CB Insights profile.

Want to get your startup in front of customers, investors, acquirers, and 900,000+ newsletter subscribers? Request a 100% free Analyst Briefing here. 
 

Blockchain meets trade finance

Global trade relies on trade finance, yet it remains manual and paper-based.

Blockchain tech has the potential to cut through the complexity and address these challenges.

Discover how global governments are laying the regulatory and legal groundwork for blockchain-powered trade finance in this spotlight with André Casterman of the XDC Network.

Forbes. Jonathan Burgos (@joubertburgos) covers XanPool’s recent funding round and cites CB Insights data.

Insider Intelligence. Will Paige (@WillPaige7) reports on insurtech funding activity and mentions CB Insights research.

Tearsheet. Lindi Miti covers fintech funding trends using CB Insights research.

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal

P.S. More and more of you are using our API to find better deals.

For example, Jason Mintz and the team at MVP Ventures are using the CB Insights API to find patterns of leading investors and using our predictive algorithms to find the best companies. 

Jason says, “CB Insights allows us to be far more efficient, so our 10-person team can perform the work of dozens of people.”

Interested in integrating our data into your deal-sourcing models and efforts? Let’s talk.