CB Insights - 1 in 5 unicorns are this

Hi there,
 

Here is this week in charts. 

The giants face off. DoorDash’s market cap briefly passed Uber’s last week, even though the food delivery company does not offer ride-hailing and only operates in North America, Australia, and Japan. It now reportedly owns 57% of the US meal delivery market compared to Uber’s 26%. On Tuesday, Uber said it is on track to report its first-ever adjusted profit this quarter, lifting the ride-hailing giant’s stock 11% by the day’s close.

Fintech leads the herd. Nearly 1 in 5 of the world’s 800+ unicorns (private companies valued at $1B+) are fintech startups. The world’s most valuable fintech startup is Stripe, with a $95B valuation. Fintech has also been topping the venture funding charts, with $1 out of every $5 going to the sector in Q2’21. 

Growing pains. Retail sales in China are growing much slower than expected, given recent lockdowns in the country. In August, retail sales grew 2.5% compared to last year, coming in below the 7% growth expected by analysts polled by Reuters. As retailers grapple with pandemic-induced changes to consumer behaviors, supply chains, and store operations, new retail AI solutions have emerged to help brands adapt and tackle issues like e-commerce fraud and fulfillment. 

Hot off the press. Over half of Twitter users say they “regularly” get news on the site, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. 2020 was a busy year for news, with both the US presidential election and the Covid-19 outbreak, explaining the slight dip in 2021 news consumption for most social media sites. Bucking the trend, TikTok has seen an increase in percentage of users who say they regularly get news on the app. The viral app has leveraged its personalization and recommendation algorithms to grow its young and highly engaged user base.

Zoom in and study this one. Ok. On the surface, this graph by the USDA doesn’t look so bad. So just humor me and study it for a bit. First, what the heck does “calories for other uses” even mean? And then calories are on both the x and y axes, and while percentages are listed, they’re not actually visualized.     

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal

P.S. We’re hiring for a VP of Sales Development to lead and strategically drive growth for our Sales Development team of 55+ people. Sound like you? Apply here.