CB Insights - 12 tech trends of 2021

Hola, 

Our 2021 Tech Trends report just dropped. It covers everything you need to know about the tech that will shape industries this year. 

We examine 12 trends including: 

• Crypto breaks into the mainstream with rewards & loyalty programs

• Chief prepper officers: Resilience becomes a part of corporate DNA

• Shoppers meet at digital storefronts in the metaverse

• Physical spaces are reimagined and repurposed

• Remote care solutions bring the hospital into the home

Read up here. 

BTW, we’ll be chatting about these trends on March 24. Submit all of your qs here for our analysts to answer during the roundtable.

Cash across the APAC 

Last year, investors poured more than $90B into nearly 5,800 deals to tech startups based in the Asia-Pacific region.

Our graphic highlights the top-funded tech startups across the APAC region, from South Korea-based e-commerce unicorn Coupang to Singapore-based super app Grab.

Teaching an old dog new tricks
 

Corporations are turning to in-house innovation labs to solve the most pressing fintech problems. 

Here’s a list of 40 fintech innovation labs and the projects they’re working on.

AI: solving bad handwriting 

AI is reshaping medical billing and insurance. For example, natural language processing (NLP) can automatically translate physician notes into billable medical codes, while researchers are developing algorithms that use historical data to predict the likelihood that a claim will be denied. 

Clients can read more about the applications of AI within the healthcare billing and insurance cycle here.

Hear ye, hear ye

We announced our newest event on Tuesday: CB Insights Tech Market: Digitizing P&C Insurance (May 13-14). 

With a focus on automation and digitization, this 2-day event will feature 25+ rapid-fire demos across 6 major tech categories shaping insurance. Insurers will hear how these technologies can drive results across their business from underwriting to claims to customer engagement.

Check out the topics here and register before prices go up on February 15.

• Lead Product Manager (AR/VR/Robotics), Lowe's Innovation Labs — Kirkland, WA
• Lead Product Manager (Emerging Technologies), Lowe's Innovation Labs — Charlotte, NC
• Lead Machine Learning Engineer, Keller Williams — Austin, TX
• Strategic Advisor, Business Development, BCBS — Durham, NC

$1.5B: Tesla said that it bought $1.5B worth of bitcoin and would eventually accept the cryptocurrency as payment for its electric vehicles. The price of a single bitcoin has recently surged to all-time highs and is currently not far off $50,000. See how the underlying blockchain technology works and where it’s being applied in our explainer.

531 unicorns: Nexthink, an IT analytics platform, raised $180M at a unicorn-minting valuation of $1.1B. There are now 531 unicorns in the world — see them all on our real-time tracker.
 

1 week: Biometric sensors on Apple Watches can help predict a case of Covid-19 up to a week before a positive test, according to a study by New York-based health system Mount Sinai. The use of wearables within medicine is picking up steam. See other emerging healthcare technology trends in this report.
 

52%: E-commerce is projected to represent 52% of all retail sales in China this year, according to eMarketer. If the forecast proves accurate, then it would be the first time that the majority of a country’s retail transactions took place online. See where investors are placing their e-commerce bets in our latest State Of Retail Tech Report. 

200 air taxis: United Airlines plans to buy 200 air taxis to shuttle passengers to airports by 2024. The battery-powered vehicles, built by California-based aviation company Archer, will need regulatory approval before they can be put to commercial use. We look at 38 ways unmanned aerial vehicles could impact society in this analysis.
 

251 micrograms: A number of US transport systems have dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a study by NYU. The researchers found that the air in New York’s subway had 251 micrograms per cubic meter of PM2.5 — a measure of small particles — more than 7x the level deemed safe by US authorities. 

Zoom bloopers aren't new. But the latest occurred when Texas lawyer Rod Ponton accidentally turned on a cat filter while in a virtual court session. 

"I'm prepared to go forward with it. I'm here live, I'm not a cat," Ponton said. 

Thankfully, the judge wasn't frazzled and the case went on. "These fun moments are a by-product of the legal profession's dedication to ensuring that the justice system continues to function in these tough times," the judge later tweeted.

Have a great rest of the week.

Marcelo