be careful of unicorns

New retail & consumer unicorns.  $132B in fintech funding. Danone's strategy map. VIEW IN BROWSER

January 25, 2022

Tech’s obsession

Hi there,   The State Of Fintech report is out today.    But before we get to that, applications are now open for our sixth annual AI 100 awards.   If you’re building a stupendous AI company, tell us about it. It takes less than 3 minutes (seriously) to fill out the initial application.   Now, let’s talk fintech.    As you may have guessed, fintech stole the show in 2021.    Global fintech funding reached a record $132B in 2021, more than 2x the 2020 mark.    To put that into perspective, $1 out of every $5 went to fintech last year.   Every major fintech category — from payments to insurtech — saw record funding in 2021, signaling that the fintech boom is being driven by broad interest in the space.

The rush of investor money has also made it easier to raise at higher valuations. 2021 saw 157 fintech unicorn births, more than doubling the size of the herd YoY.    That’s not all.    Find out which region saw the highest funding growth, the sector’s #1 investor, exit trends, and more in our just-released State Of Fintech 2021 report.

AND NOW, THE RESEARCH

Big-ticket items   2021 saw the birth of 70+ retail & consumer unicorns across categories like food & meal delivery, fashion, and fitness.    We break down what they signal about the future of personalization, wellness, and speed here.

I got options. Bad options.    The tweet below is a great warning for employees joining unicorn companies.    If you think your options will make you wealthy... ...the odds are not great.   Why?     A handful of reasons: Execution risk — When you raise at a high valuation really early on, you need to grow into that valuation, i.e, you have to deliver. If you don’t, uh oh. Multiple compression — If you have $10M in revenue and raise at 100x, your valuation is $1B. If multiples in your space compress to 20x, you can be a $50M company and still be worth $1B. The above is oversimplified, but you hopefully get the idea.   Be careful out there.

Source: Twitter

State of fintech live   At the moment, fintech is it.    $1 out of every $5 of funding is headed its way.   Get a live breakdown of the market and extra analysis from CB Insights senior intelligence analyst Anisha Kothapa in our webinar on March 3.  Save your spot here.

CLIENT-EXCLUSIVE RESEARCH

Food for thought   In 2017, Danone refreshed its logo with the motto “One planet. One health.” It's been honing its strategy for supporting a more sustainable food system since then.   We mined Danone’s acquisitions, investments, and partnerships to discern the CPG giant’s 4 most important strategic priorities here.

CORE INTELLIGENCE

The Industry Standard

Bloomberg. Ivan Levingston (@IvanLevingston), Benoit Berthelot (@BenoitBerthelot), and Lizette Chapman (@lizette_chapman) report on the market downturn and its impact on venture, citing CB Insights research.   Healthcare Dive. Rebecca Pifer (@RebeccaMPifer) discusses the digital health landscape with CB Insights senior director of research Marc Albanese (@marcjalbanese) and intelligence analyst Amanda DiTrolio (@DitrolioAmanda). Fortune. Jessica Mathews (@jessicakmathews) discusses buy now, pay later startup Klarna and mentions CB Insights data.   I love you. Anand @asanwal   P.S. Want to get up to speed on venture’s biggest year ever? Sign up here as our analysts will break it all down this Thursday (January 27).

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