CB Insights - 51,000+ Fauci baseball cards sold

Hi there,

This week in data, we've got the largest quarterly drop for US GDP, a $1.5B healthcare unicorn, and 51K+ baseball cards sold. Check it out below.

-9.5%: US GDP fell 9.5% last quarter — the biggest quarterly drop on record — as Covid-19 halted swaths of economic activity across the country. We look at 24 industries and technologies that will shape a post-Covid world here, and we've compiled all of our Covid-19 research on this regularly-updated resource page. 

$50M: Two companies featured on CB Insights’ latest AI 100 list of the most promising artificial intelligence startups in the world raised fresh funding this week. Automated financial compliance service ComplyAdvantage raised $50M while weather forecasting platform Climacell closed a $23M funding round. See all of the AI 100 companies here. 
 

+1 healthcare unicorn: Telehealth startup Ro raised $200M at a valuation of $1.5B to become a unicorn. See the rest of the billion-dollar companies in healthcare, as well as emerging trends in the quickly growing telehealth space, in our latest State Of Healthcare report. 

$50B: ByteDance's US-based investors have reportedly valued its subsidiary TikTok at $50B — about a third of ByteDance's last valuation of $140B — as part of a bid to take ownership of the video-sharing social media platform as a standalone entity. Microsoft is also reportedly interested in buying the popular app. We explain how TikTok fits into ByteDance’s sprawling portfolio of services in this report.
 

11 months: Google said that many of its employees could continue working from home until at least June 30, 2021. The move reflects the challenges companies face as they consider how to reopen offices. Some are beginning the process while also extending work from home options. We look at the tech that will influence office reopenings in this report and highlight 65+ startups enabling remote work in this market map.

30,000 people: US-based biotech company Moderna began a large-scale trial of its Covid-19 vaccine that is set to include 30,000 participants. If the trial is successful, then the vaccine is expected to move to the regulatory approval stage. There are currently at least 5 other Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including from companies like Pfizer and AstraZeneca, in large-scale Phase III trials around the world, according to the New York Times. Expert Intelligence clients can  see the tech helping to speed up clinical trials in this analysis. 
 

3+ days: Garmin — which offers products for fitness tracking, aviation navigation, and more — said that it was the victim of a cyberattack that brought down many of its online systems for more than 3 days. From anomalous behavior detection to zero-trust networking, we highlight the emerging tech, and the high-momentum startups working on it, that could improve cybersecurity in our 2020 Cyber Defenders report.

40x: Researchers from Intel, MIT, and Georgia Institute of Technology said that they had created AI software that can rewrite code to make it more efficient. The system identifies a program's functionality and then analyzes similar programs to recommend improvements. The team says it’s 40x more accurate at this approach than previous attempts. See the latest AI funding trends and spaces gaining traction in our interactive AI In Numbers report. 

17 days: Cinema chain AMC and Universal struck a deal that will allow the studio’s films to be released on demand just 17 days after being released in theaters — down from a typical period of around 3 months. Movie studios have been testing more direct-to-digital releases amid the pandemic as fears over viral transmission have kept many theaters closed.

51,512 baseball cards: A limited edition Topps baseball card featuring infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci shattered sales records for a single card after selling 51,512 copies within 24 hours — more than double the company’s previous record.   

100M years: Scientists found that microbes that had been buried beneath the South Pacific seabed for more than 100M years were still alive. The study offers new insights into the ability of some simple life forms to survive in highly inhospitable conditions — in this case with almost no food and only small amounts of oxygen.  

I love you.

P.P.S. Our managing healthcare analyst will be going over how healthcare funding bounced back in Q2'20, why telehealth exits skyrocketed, and the biggest healthcare AI deals in our upcoming webinar. Sign up here. 

Too much doomscrolling can cause excessive anxiety and stress. But if your ASMR videos aren’t cutting it, a popular Slovenian relaxation technique may help: bees. 

In Slovenia, people in high-stress jobs, like firefighters, turn to beekeeping to relieve daily stressors; kids are sent to the bee hives to calm down; and some even opt to sleep in the apiaries — surrounded by thousands of cages of bees — to fall asleep more easily. 

The country has long had a fascination with bees, with one of the highest densities of bee-keeping in the world. It also established World Bee Day (May 20).