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Good morning. This week, Ryan will be making his first pilgrimage to Chandler, AZ, the unofficial self-driving capital of the US.
For roughly 48 hours, he’ll ride in Waymo’s driverless vans (almost) nonstop. Let us know if you have any questions you’d like him to answer about the experience, and look out for dispatches from the desert.
In today’s edition:
 Unicorn frenzy
 Binance banned?
 Event recap
—Jordan McDonald, Ryan Duffy, Dan McCarthy
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Dan McCarthy
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Unicorns are supposed to be rare beasts of fables and folktales, but in the current venture capital landscape, they’re abundant.
Just five months into 2021, there were 199 new companies that reached unicorn status (a private company with a $1+ billion valuation), eclipsing the 163 companies that reached unicorn status in all of 2020, according to Crunchbase data shared with Emerging Tech Brew. And it's not just a pandemic rebound: That figure is higher than any full-year total over the last nine years.
Landscape lowdown
After a 2020 full of stagnation and uncertainty, the VC scene is making up for lost time and then some.
“Many of the concerns...that ground dealmaking to a halt have largely been alleviated in what many investors see as a new normal,” Joshua Chao, venture capital analyst at PitchBook told us. “We’re now seeing VCs invest in companies outside of their immediate networks and it’s just full steam ahead on dealmaking and fundraising.”
Deena Shakir, partner at Lux Capital, said VCs are branching out of their traditional comfort zones to chase opportunities, leading to stiff competition and unprecedented valuations.
- “Everyone [is] inching further upstream and downstream than their normal sweet spot,” Shakir said. “Hedge funds [are] now leading seed deals and seed funds [are] participating in growth deals.”
Why so exuberant? Blame the same Big Acceleration society underwent since Covid hit: the shift to digital. Tami Hutchinson, VP at Intel Capital, told us the pandemic-fueled digital transformation has now become “a critical must-have for all enterprises,” creating opportunities for startups to serve that need.
Health care, financial services, and privacy and security are the most popular sectors for new $1+ billion companies, per Crunchbase. Shakir echoed that idea, saying Lux is most excited by deals at the intersections of “clinical data and AI, hardware and software, care delivery and clinical insights, [and] physical and digital security.” More proof...
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In Q1 2021, digital health startups amassed a record $6.7 billion in funding, on pace to eclipse the $14 billion raised in all of 2020.
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On the fintech side, Webull, the Chinese-owned Robinhood rival, reached unicorn status in February after a $150 million funding round.
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Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz is an example of a fresh unicorn in the space—it was valued at $1.7 billion as of May 2021.
Looking ahead...VCs say it’s a safe bet to assume that more billion-dollar companies are on the horizon this year.
“For entrepreneurs, this is possibly one of the most founder-friendly periods we’ve seen in several years—all-time highs for valuations across the board coupled with all-time lows for deals,” Chao said.—JM
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Binance
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The UK is inching toward giving the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume the boot. On Saturday, the country’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) declared that Binance Markets Limited (BML) “is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK.” Among other things, the FCA has taken issue with Binance offering cryptoasset derivatives.
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Binance told CNBC that the order wouldn’t affect UK traders’ ability to access the Binance website.
This isn’t the only cold shoulder for the global crypto exchange
Last week, Japanese authorities said that Binance was operating in the country without permission. And in the US, Binance is facing money-laundering and tax evasion probes, Bloomberg recently reported.
Bottom line: Compared to some of its more compliance-oriented competitors, Binance has been fond of a hopscotch-like approach to regulation. As governments back more efforts to regulate crypto, that strategy may be coming back to haunt the exchange.
For example, we’d like to tell you where Binance is headquartered, but we’re not really sure. CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has said the company doesn’t have a physical HQ.—RD
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Last year, that big, beautiful boardroom with comfy chairs and fresh pastries shrunk to the size of a computer screen. So what’d you do? You adapted.
While adapting the entire function of your board to a virtual setting may not have come easy—you probably learned new lessons along the way. Nasdaq’s corporate governance team did.
They found ways to digitize the boardroom—without compromising efficiency, confidentiality, or group dynamics—to help facilitate a stronger, more engaged board.
Optimizing your next virtual board meeting is one step away with this handy guide, which has tips to help you:
- Build a virtual board table
- Mitigate meeting day glitches
- Ensure confidentiality
Nasdaq believes that with the right technology, you can break down barriers, connect with people, and engage meaningfully in new ways. It’s your boardroom, reimagined. (You won’t even miss the fresh croissants.)
Check out the guide and start optimizing your virtual board meetings today.
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Last week, Hayden talked all things automation with robotics experts Ayanna Howard, dean of Ohio State University’s College of Engineering (and former NASA roboticist), and Clara Vu, cofounder and CTO of VEO Robotics.
ICYMI, here’s a replay—scroll on for some highlights.
What can robots do? Where robots excel: repetition, strength, speed, and precision. Where they flail: judgment, flexibility, and unique “artisanal” tasks. Vu said this is why most commercially successful robots are focused on industrial applications, like agriculture, mining, and manufacturing.
“When you talk to people who spend their lives trying to make robots do stuff, they really tend to come away with a deep appreciation for how amazing people are—and how far we are from understanding how to make machines do what we do,” Vu said.
- Howard said “the three D’s”—dirty, dull, and dangerous—is an oldie-but-goodie framework for understanding what robots are good at.
- “It still is ‘dirty, dull, and dangerous,’ but our jobs have evolved, so the definition of those three things will continue to evolve,” Howard said.
Theory of mind: Vu, whose company builds products that enable robots and humans to safely work alongside one another, said a big challenge is getting humans to understand what the robot sees.
“If you’re building an automated system that’s going to interact with people...the ability of a human to have a mental model that lets them reason about what the system is going to do is absolutely critical,” Vu said. “They have to be able to predict accurately what that system is going to do next.”—DM
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Francis Scialabba
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Stat: Tesla recalled more than 285,000 cars in China because cruise control could be flipped on by accident.
Quote: “There’s starting to be a narrative that fairness by unawareness is insufficient, which is great—in other words, if I don't know something bad will happen, that's not enough of a reason to assume that I'm not responsible if it does.”—Rumman Chowdhury, Twitter’s ethical AI lead, in an Emerging Tech Brew Q&A.
Read: What we get wrong about machines taking our jobs, redux.
One-stop crypto: Bitwise equips long-term investors with the products, education and relationships they need to access crypto opportunities. Bitwise’s product suite includes the world’s largest crypto index fund (OTCQX: BITW) and the index behind the first crypto industry ETF. Risk disclosures at bitwiseinvestments.com.*
*This is sponsored advertising content
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SPONSORED BY WEBEX BY CISCO
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Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 888 Plus, a smartphone processor the company claims is 20% better at AI-driven tasks than its predecessor.
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The House Judiciary Committee approved all six of the antitrust bills that were introduced earlier in the month to rein in Big Tech.
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Virgin Galactic received FAA approval for flying customers to space.
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Cyclists in Austin will soon be sharing bike lanes with pizza delivery bots.
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Intellia Therapeutics says it has used the gene editing tech CRISPR to successfully treat disease inside the human body for the first time.
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THREE THINGS WE’RE WATCHING
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All week: Mobile World Congress, the mobile communications industry’s annual trade show. This year, some key companies have RSVP’d “no” to the Barcelona-based event, but we’ll still see plenty of updates this week.
Tuesday: Shopify Unite, the company’s annual event announcing product changes, developer tools, and more. It’s all online this year.
Friday: Signing off early for a long weekend (after we send your newsletter, of course). The Brew is off next Monday, though, so no newsletter that day.
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A group of 17 researchers across fields from biology to philosophy have released a paper arguing that studying the effects of social media should be treated as a “crisis discipline.” That means scientists work across disciplines to tackle a big, pressing issue.
The researchers ultimately argue that it’s dangerous to know as little as we presently do about the effects of social media on society. For more…
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