CB Insights - Web3 skeptics

Hi there,

Here is this week in charts.

No pain, no gain? Tech’s sell-off has hit insurtech particularly hard. Companies like Lemonade, Root, and Hippo — which all went public in the last 2 years — have seen their stock prices tank as investors become increasingly wary of high-growth (and money-losing) businesses. As public insurtechs seek to tamp down their losses, consolidation has accelerated in the private market. Insurtech M&A deals shot up in Q1 while IPOs sputtered.

Room for seconds. Share prices of some top-valued private companies — like Klarna and Stripe — have taken a dive in private market trades since the start of 2022, according to data aggregated by ApeVue. As startup employees look to offload shares amid a slow IPO market and potential down rounds to come, not all are finding buyers. One secondary market exchange (which helps connect buyers and sellers of private shares) saw trading activity dip 61% in Q1'22 compared to last year, as some buyers are holding out for prices to drop further.

Prime time. Ad dollars are increasingly flowing away from traditional TV to streaming platforms. The US connected-TV ad market — which refers to advertising that appears on smart TVs as well as on streaming devices connected to TVs like Roku and Hulu — is expected to hit around $19B this year. More broadly, advertisers are looking to rising digital channels to reach consumers. We outline how retailers & brands can take advantage here.

To infinity and beyond. The NFT game Axie Infinity (by a16z-backed studio Sky Mavis) has seen a steep decline in users and revenue since last year. Axie pioneered the “play-to-earn” model, where users can earn “Smooth Love Potion” crypto tokens that can be exchanged for money. But as a result of the game’s economy design, as more SLP entered into circulation when players cashed out, the value of Axie tokens started to drop — dissuading new players from joining. Considered by some as a key example of Web3’s potential to put more power in the hands of users, Axie’s current decline has given fuel to crypto skeptics. 

Gary — where art thou? The name Gary is on the brink of extinction. Just 450 boys born in 2013 were named Gary vs. over 38,000 in 1952, according to Our Baby Namer. In the UK, just 28 British boys born in 2013 were named Gary.

If Armageddon was a Venn diagram. Another pretty but wildly useless graphic.

I love you.

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