CB Insights - 2021 game changers

Hola, 

Plenty of fancy consumer gadgets are often hailed as “game-changers,” but a lot of the “problems” they tackle are relatively minor. 

But what about tech’s promise to solve global problems like climate change? The food crisis? Gaps in healthcare? 

In our new Game Changers report, we look at 10 technologies that have world-changing potential, including: 

• Leveraging zero-emission green hydrogen to drive sustainability

• Employing ambient intelligence in healthcare settings to improve care

• Using fermentation to rethink the future of food production

• Supercharging student learning using AI

Download the full report for free to see the rest of 2021’s game-changing tech.

Rolling in the debt

Equity is expensive. Instead, some startups are going the debt route. 

We dig into what venture debt is, how it stacks up against VC, and the pros/cons in this report.

Baby, you can drive my car

Waymo just announced that it will begin testing its autonomous vehicles with passengers in San Francisco. 

Waymo is one of the biggest names in autonomous driving. But it's not the only one — take a look at the other corporations working on the tech here.

Sweet home 

Smart homes may be making a comeback, as the pandemic causes people to spend more time at home. 

In this client-only report, we take a look at some of the technologies — from connected appliances to pet monitoring to smart air filtration — that are making the home smarter, more efficient, and more flexible.

+4 unicorns: Stock trading platform Public, logistics tech company Locus Robotics, space station builder Axiom Space, and autonomous checkout developer Standard Cognition — a CB Insights AI 100 startup — became the latest unicorns after raising funding at $1B+ valuations. The global unicorn tally now stands at 546. See them all here. 
 

$74B: SpaceX raised $850M at a valuation of $74B, making it the second-most valuable unicorn in the world after ByteDance. We discuss SpaceX’s plans to build a new society on Mars in our 2021 Tech Trends report. 

9 years: Automaker Ford said that all the passenger vehicles it sells in Europe will be electric by 2030. The move follows similar announcements from companies including GM and Jaguar Land Rover as electric vehicles (EVs) gain mainstream momentum. Expert Intelligence clients can see 70+ startups working across the EV landscape, from charging infrastructure to next-gen batteries, in this market map.  
 

100 companies: The US government said that the SolarWinds hack — a wide-ranging series of breaches first identified late last year — affected 9 federal agencies and at least 100 companies. Cybersecurity is gaining more attention from companies and governments around the world. We look at recent trends in the space and highlight startups working on new cybersecurity tech in our latest Cyber Defenders report.

1M+ years: Researchers sequenced DNA from a mammoth tooth that had been preserved in permafrost for more than a million years, by far the oldest DNA yet sequenced. The study sheds new light on the evolution of woolly mammoths.

Volunteers in Texas are racing to save thousands of cold-stunned turtles. 

So far, Sea Turtle Inc. volunteers have rescued more than 3,500 sea turtles that are comatose due to the winter storm sweeping through the southern US. The group normally rescues between a few dozen to a few hundred cold-stunned turtles a year.

“It is a huge, huge community effort,” said Gina McLellan, a 71-year-old retired professor and longtime volunteer in an interview with the Washington Post. “We very often don’t even think about the [cold’s] impact on animals, because we’re so worried about our own electricity and water. With this kind of event, it’s a classic display of humanity toward animals.”

Have a great rest of the week.

Marcelo