CB Insights - from cockroach to unicorn

Hola,

This week I retrieved a computer I had in storage for about a year. After logging in, a New York Times page appeared on the screen, with panicked headlines about the markets in free fall and governments racing to prevent economic collapse.

I had a moment of disorientation (as if I needed any more of those in my life) until I realized the computer had kept my browser tabs cached all that time. It was a newspaper front page from mid-March of last year.

It was a reminder of how quickly the bottom seemed to fall out of the world last spring, but also how quickly parts of it have bounced back, especially the markets.

More on this below. But first, the research.

Living on the edge of computing glory

By the year 2024, an estimated 149 zettabytes of data will be created globally every single day. Cloud computing may not be able to keep up. 

We cover the tech that could process data right at the source in our What Is Edge Computing? report here.

The numbers don’t lie

So far this year, tech companies in Latin America and the Caribbean have raised $1.3B in equity funding.

From Brazil-based Nubank to Barbados-based Bitt, our graphic visualizes the top-funded tech startups in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Signed, sealed, delivered

Dropbox is looking to capture more of the e-signature market — which is estimated to hit $9B+ by 2023 — as evidenced by its recent acquisition of DocSend.

The doctor is in

For every hour with patients, doctors spend another two doing paperwork. 

We highlight 8 virtual assistants bringing automation to the exam room in this client-only ESP Vendor Assessment Matrix.

They just won't die

Historically, big winners have emerged from cohorts of companies born under extreme duress. For example, when the markets bottomed out in 2009 following the mortgage meltdown, now-familiar names like Airbnb, Twilio, and Uber received early-stage deals, heralding new categories like on-demand lodging, transportation, and API-centered companies.
 

Does last year's comparatively short period of financial panic mean that we won't see the pattern of successful survivors repeat? A quick sifting through the seed and Series A deals in the spring 2020 dip period reveals some themes: AI in new verticals or business applications, insurtech, and blockchain/distributed ledger technology. 

40%: Digital payments company Flutterwave entered the unicorn club after raising $170M at a $1B valuation. It’s the latest successful prediction from our 2020 Future Unicorns report, which means we have a 40% hit rate so far (including private fundings and exits).
 

$200M: In its latest move into the cryptocurrencies space, PayPal acquired digital asset security company Curv for $200M. Curv will join PayPal’s recently launched, blockchain-focused business unit. Curv was selected for our inaugural Blockchain 50 list, which we created in collaboration with Blockdata.

30.6B hours: Gaming platform Roblox went public on Wednesday and closed its first trading day with a market cap of $45B. In 2020 alone, game developers and players spent a combined 30.6B hours — about 3.5M years — on Roblox. The platform aims to become a persistent, shared virtual reality known as a “metaverse.” We dig into what the metaverse could mean for brands & retailers here.
 

800+ employees: Amazon is reportedly prototyping a home robot, codenamed “Vesta.” A team of 800+ employees is working on the device, which could potentially move about the house with voice commands. But Amazon’s ambitions extend far beyond the smart home. Read about 8 other industries the tech giant could disrupt next here.

75 hours: The Covid-19 outbreak led to a significant reduction in traffic congestion in major US cities, translating to nearly 75 hours saved per driver in 2020, according to an INRIX report. The pandemic has reshaped how and where people travel. Read about the rise of bike & scooter tech, auto retail innovation, and more in our recent State Of Mobility report.

Frog ponds, where amphibians go to find their mates, are “super, super, super loud,” according to bioacoustician Valentina Caorsi.

While researchers often wear earplugs when they visit these ponds to protect their hearing from the cacophony of male calls, female frogs have a different method of cutting through the noise. 

According to a new study published in Current Biology, female frogs’ lungs can muffle the sounds of other species to better detect the calls of their own. In other words, their lungs act like a pair of species-selective noise-canceling headphones. Groovy.

Have a great rest of the week.

Marcelo

P.S. At CB Insights Tech Market: Digitizing P&C Insurance (May 13-14), you'll get to hear from P&C leaders from companies like Google and Metromile. Register here before prices go up Monday.