Hi there,

Last week, we played a game called M&A improv. 

I asked you to share why LinkedIn should acquire Calendly. 

And you posted your comments on LinkedIn.

A lot of you broke the rules and were disqualified, but those who could follow instructions did share some great answers. 

Here are a couple of the top responses we received on LinkedIn.

From Ajay Dawar:

From Nick Howard: 

Thanks for playing — and stay tuned for the next edition of M&A improv.

Data to predict M&A

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. A great predictor of future M&A targets is looking at partnership and vendor relationships between firms, aka business relationships.  

Case in point.

Last week, BNP Paribas acquired Kantox, a solution for currency risk management, for $116.5M.

The 2 firms had inked a partnership in 2019 as the business relationships data from Kantox’s profile highlights.

Outside of financial services, we’ve discussed how Roche’s $2.4B acquisition of Foundation Medicine was predictable if you looked at the business relationship data.

Retail bankruptcies 

Retail is in a much better place than it was in the dark days of 2020.

Bankruptcies in the space have slowed significantly over the past 2 years. 

But they haven’t gone away completely. 

We cover some of the latest retail fails in this report.

Requests for Technology

Every week, hundreds of CB Insights customers source technology vendors on our platform.

Here are a few recent RFTs we’ve received:

RFT #1 — A multinational bank is exploring potential partnerships to help improve its end-to-end collection process. 

RFT #2 — A multinational consumer beverage brand would like to pilot a mobile robot technology-based fulfillment solution for its warehouses.

RFT # 3 — An American insurance company would like to give members access to D2C consumer orthodontic care with aligner technology. 

If you’re building technology that can assist with any of this, submit an Analyst Briefing here. 

Peace

About 20% of US adults are experiencing a mental illness.

And a promising solution is starting to emerge: virtual reality treatment.

Immersing folks in environments where they can relax and meditate has proven to help:

• Improve mood

• Decrease anxiety

• And induce restfulness

We tackle the rise of immersive therapy & meditation and other AR/VR trends to watch this year in this report.

Looking out for the little guy 

Small businesses are under pressure to digitize and accelerate payments. 

But many digital payments solutions aren’t designed to address their unique challenges.

Startups are emerging to help SMBs streamline everything from cash flow and invoice payments to international invoices.

We highlight 105 of them in this market map.

Axios. Alan Neuhauser (@alneuhauser) covers the stellar performance of climate tech startups in Q3’22 using CB Insights research.

Bloomberg. Yoolim Lee (@yoolimleenews) offers survival tips for startups and mentions CB Insights research.

Retail Dive. Dani James (@DJames1264) reports on in-store tech trends and cites CB Insights data.

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal

P.S. Our State of Fintech report launched yesterday. To get the full story behind 150 pages of data, join us on November 3 @ 2pm ET.