CB Insights

Investors remain highly selective with their dealmaking. And they’re reserving their dry powder for fewer, bigger deals in areas with strong growth potential like AI. Around the world, the most active venture investor right now is SOSV. The firm, which primarily backs early-stage startups, invested in 35 unique companies in Q2’24, placing it ahead of a16z (33 companies), General Catalyst (31), and Lightspeed (28).

Where do the most active accelerators invest? From 2020 to 2022, roughly 3 in 5 accelerator deals from YC (58%) and Techstars (63%) went to US-based companies vs. 41% for Plug and Play. A similar trend played out among big tech companies. At Amazon, 54% of its accelerator deals went to US-based startups from 2020 to 2022, and 22% went to Asia-based companies. This aligns with Amazon’s limited footprint in Asia, relative to North America. Microsoft’s accelerator activity reflects the opposite approach. Sixty-two percent of its deals went to Asia-based startups during that period, while just 11% went to US-based companies. Microsoft offers sizable programs outside of the US, including the Microsoft for Startups Middle East GrowthX Accelerator, launched in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office. While the US has historically attracted a significant amount of deals from the top 50 accelerator cohort, its dominance is waning. The country’s share of deals hit 32% in 2022, down 7 percentage points from 2020. At the same time, top accelerator deal share has grown in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. In 2022, Europe followed the US closely with 31% of accelerator deals from these investors.

The number of new fintech unicorns (startups valued at $1B+) has slowed to a crawl. Last quarter saw just 2. In Q2’21 for comparison, 49 new fintech unicorns were birthed. Get the data in our State of Fintech Report: https://cbi.team/3YaKUg2

Big tech companies are pulling back from launching their own financial products. For example: ▪️ Google scrapped its plans to offer bank accounts in 2021 ▪️ Amazon closed most of its cashierless checkout stores last year ▪️ This past June, Apple discontinued its Pay Later installment payments service (just one year post-launch) They’ve pivoted to embedding themselves in financial transactions on others’ platforms and supporting financial infrastructure in other ways. Dive deeper into the strategic shift in our big tech in fintech report: https://cbi.team/3yAqoLb

The factory of tomorrow will look very different from the factory of today. In these future factories: ▪️ Robots coordinate in unison, completing work automatically — without breaks, every hour of the day ▪️Intelligent AI systems oversee the entire manufacturing value chain, from the output at mines to the stock at retailers ▪️Supercomputers and quantum computing bring unprecedented processing power And all of this is coming sooner than you think. Discover the technologies turning this vision into a reality in our Future of the Factory Report: https://cbi.team/3WWksFG

Large language models by companies like OpenAI are hungry for training data. But they’re running out of high-quality text data for training purposes. Researchers estimate that we will exhaust the high-quality data supply very soon and that this data drought could significantly slow down the continued development of LLMs. Learn more about the potential shortage in our Tech Trends 2024 Report: https://cbi.team/3A4gJwK

IQT (In-Q-Tel) invests in tech relevant to national security and defense — and one of its key priorities is biotech. Within this space, it’s focusing on some pretty trippy tools. For example, it has invested multiple times in Colossal Biosciences — a startup that aims to bring to life versions of extinct species, like the woolly mammoth. Now, why would an investor like IQT be interested in these long-lost creatures? Well, we can’t say for certain. But it’s likely less focused on woolly mammoths and more interested in the broader implications of de-extinction tech for areas like healthcare, conservation, and food security. Download the full IQT investment map here: https://cbi.team/3WFehV8

#Insurtech funding increased 44% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) to hit $1.3B in Q2’24. Most of the increase was attributable to P&C insurtech, which saw funding grow 50% QoQ to $0.9B. Funding to life & health insurtechs also increased, from $0.3B in Q1’24 to $0.4B in Q2’24. Download our newest report for 70+ pages of charts and data detailing the latest venture trends in insurtech: https://cbi.team/4ddksqq

Behind the scenes, Sam Altman is a remarkably active investor. Several of the companies Altman has invested in also have relationships with OpenAI. For instance, OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $51M on AI chips from Rain in 2019. Altman had previously invested in the company’s seed round. Meanwhile, Speak, whose Series A round Altman backed in 2022, has since raised successive rounds from OpenAI’s Startup Fund. Explore Altman’s investment web: https://cbi.team/3yo2Qcm

AI agents are set to revolutionize enterprise work. As they become more prevalent across businesses, their impact on the workforce will be profound. In this webinar, our expert breaks down the AI agent landscape, emerging companies in the space, and key trends to watch. You’ll want to hear this: https://cbi.team/3Ako3V2