CB Insights - kids at airports :(

Hi there, 

Alright, we've got 3 more startup ideas for you today. All the caveats from our prior newsletters with these ideas still hold. Prior startup ideas are here and here.

#1 Group buying marketplace for B2B software: Think Meituan or Groupon for B2B software.  

The startup in this case aggregates demand from companies looking for software, e.g. CRM, BI, marketing automation, cloud storage, etc.

It then connects that demand to the supply side (vendors) and negotiates reduced rates & terms on behalf of customers in exchange for aggregate demand.

#2 SitterCity for airports: This is obviously post-Covid and helps parents with young kids while traveling by air.  

Essentially, a concierge/sitter helps parents get through security and with all the extra kid isht they gotta lug around. The sitter also watches kids at the gate when a parent needs to get food, go to the bathroom, etc. so you don’t lose your seats at the gate.

This would be particularly helpful when a parent is traveling solo with multiple kids. It could be an upsell that airlines offer to passengers or bundle with premium tickets.

#3 Automatic meeting notes for internal meetings: While there are many startups that now do Zoom call transcription, this startup auto-sends the transcripts to humans who summarize key points, to-dos, and individual follow-ups.

There is a lot of technology targeting meeting scheduling and facilitation, but most of the internal discussion and information from internal meetings is lost.

Anyone working on these?

What do you think? You’re welcome to tell me these ideas are dumb, but the most interesting conversations I’ve had with folks are those that spent time thinking about what you’d have to believe for these ideas to work.

Again, we’re not investing, building, or partnering on these ideas. So if you’re doing them or want to do them, they’re all yours.

An oxymoron

Remember Libra?

Facebook's global stablecoin project rebranded to Diem, and is expected to launch a minimum viable product by the end of March — but its ambitions have downsized the project into a USD-backed stablecoin, rather than one backed by multiple fiat currencies.  
 

Need a refresher on what stablecoins are? We've got you covered.

It’s high time for healthcare valuations

Q4'20 minted 5 new healthcare unicorns. 

Take a look at which companies hit the billion-dollar mark, and how the healthcare industry fared overall, in our State Of Healthcare report.

Coming out of their Shell

Shell’s purchase of Ubitricity, a Europe-based charging network, is only the latest in its recent moves to capture the electric vehicle infrastructure market. More could be on the way.

We look at Shell's moves into the EV charging network in this client-only post.

Digital transformation

If the below image resonates (or makes you chuckle, groan, or all of the above), then you need to attend CB Insights Tech Market: Digitizing P&C Insurance (May 13-14).

As CB Insights principal analyst and conference speaker Mike Fitzgerald says, “There has never been a more exciting, yet overwhelming time, to be involved in insurance technology... so many opportunities and options! With this conference, we are looking forward to helping attendees make sense of the space.”

Get your ticket here.

Charged up 

Renewable energy is gaining momentum, with solar and wind forecast to make up 95% of energy capacity additions through 2025. 

Power infrastructures need a digital update to handle the increasing renewable energy power load. Expert Intelligence clients can take a look at 40+ companies digitizing energy management in this market map. 

Glossy. Emma Sandler (@EmmaSandler) reports on digital-first fragrance Glossier You and quotes CB Insights analyst Kenya Watson.

Venture Beat. Chris O’Brien (@obrien) digs into quantum computing funding trends from the CB Insights 2021 tech trends report. 

Business Insider. Allison DeAngelis (@ADeAngelis_bio) covers exit options for biotech startups and quotes CB Insights intelligence analyst Kedar Karkare (@kedarkarkare).

P.S. We're hiring. If you're hardworking, helpful, humble, hungry, and have high standards, we'd love to chat.

The Blurb

Mystery repeating. A random photo of a flower on Wikimedia Commons has received 78M hits a day since India banned TikTok.

Rest of World 

You make my earth quake. Amateur seismologists have come up with machine learning models that could potentially predict when and where earthquakes will happen. 

WIRED 

Facial recon. US Customs and Border Protection scanned millions of faces at airports in 2020 — but didn’t identify a single imposter.

OneZero 

Uber jets. Smaller aircraft manufacturers and operators are tapping into the demand for business jets from executives and even middle managers.

WSJ

Cut and paste. Commonplace books, essentially word scrapbooks, have been around for centuries — here’s how to create one digitally.

NYT