CB Insights - these aging VCs still got it

Hola,

Given all the IPOs, SPACs, and newly minted Silicon Valley fortunes — not to mention the disturbing amount of LinkedIn profiles with ”Angel Investor” in the bio — it seems tech investing is what all the cool kids are doing. 

But looking more closely, you’ll see the best firms are actually pretty long in the tooth. 

In our recently released Unicorn Investors report, we’ve published a half-dozen in-depth league tables on the investors in unicorns, privately held companies valued at $1B+.

We tell you which investor has the most unicorns, which firms are good at spotting unicorns early, and more.

Of the VC firms that show up highly ranked as early unicorn investors, only a16z and Google Ventures were founded after 2005. Both launched in 2009.

Many of the other stalwarts — NEA, Index, Sequoia, IDG, Kleiner, Insight, etc. — trace their beginnings to the 1990s, 1980s, or 1970s. Accel, with an impressive 23 early-stage unicorn bets, was started 38 years ago.

Of course, it takes time to build a reputation, a track record, and a portfolio. But that’s partly the point: for that and other reasons, the investors betting on the most innovative companies and tech haven’t seen too much disruption in their own ranks. At least not yet.

Foundational lessons

Bill Gates — with an estimated net worth of $130B — has backed ideas that others are afraid to touch not only at Microsoft but also at the Gates Foundation.  

Dig into 5 innovation lessons we gleaned from Bill and Melinda Gates’ annual foundation letters here.

Like a good neighbor, VCs are there

Insurtech investment activity reached a record high in Q1’21, with startups raising over $2.5B across 146 deals.

Check out all of the global insurance tech trends here.

The speakers don't stop
 

We're officially two weeks away from CB Insights Tech Market: Digitizing P&C Insurance (May 13-14) and we've got even more speakers to add to the lineup.

New today are:

• Angela Klett, SVP, Corporate Development, Nationwide
• Ash Shah, Global Programs Director, AXA XL

• Abel Travis, Host, The Insurance Innovators Podcast

• James Benham, Host, The InsureTech Geek

Register today and save $50 off your ticket with code morespeakers. Prices go up for the final time in just 2 days.

The future of business

Companies like Netflix and Uber are leveraging open-source software as a core component of their products and operations. 

From financial services to healthcare, we look at how open-source software is disrupting 6 industries here.

64%: Private equity firm Thoma Bravo acquired Proofpoint in a deal that values the public cybersecurity firm at $12.3B — a 64% increase over Proofpoint’s $7.5B market cap as of last Friday. Cyberattacks have proliferated amid the pandemic. We wrote about the rising importance of cybersecurity post-Covid here.

$550M: Toyota’s Woven Planet subsidiary purchased Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving unit for $550M. Given the time and money required to develop autonomous vehicles (AVs), some corporations and auto incumbents are using M&A to get a slice of the self-driving pie. See where Toyota and 40+ other corporates are making moves in the space here.

4B sq. ft.: OpenSpace, which uses AI to document construction sites, raised a $55M Series C. To date, clients have doumented over 4B square feet — comparable to one-third the size of Hong Kong — using the platform. OpenSpace was selected to our fifth annual AI 100 list.

14,000 jurisdictions: Stripe acquired tax solution TaxJar, which helps e-commerce merchants manage sales taxes in over 14,000 jurisdictions. While this is Stripe’s first acquisition of 2021, the payments processor has already inked a number of partnerships and made 10 investments this year. We dig into how Stripe is supercharging online retail here.

10 NFTs: General Mills will auction off 10 Chocolate Dunkaroos-inspired illustrations as NFTs in anticipation of relaunching the popular snack in the US this summer. Big-name brands have been getting in on NFTs, driven by FOMO and potential marketing opportunities. We look at what’s next for the blockchain-based tech here.

Male sperm whales have long been thought of as solitary creatures — but new research indicates that some actually form strong bonds with other males.

One pair of whale friends were seen together 10 times over the course of 5 years. 

According to sociobiologist Hayao Kobayashi, these types of relationships between unrelated males “are relatively rare among mammals.”

Have a great rest of the week.

Marcelo

P.S. We're hiring a director of revenue operations. Apply here.