We'll always have po0p tech

Hi there,

2 years and 1 day ago, we launched ChubbyBrain Ventures, the CB Insights venture fund.  

We received resumes from VCs, offers to syndicate deals, lots of congratulatory notes, and this great writeup in Fast Company.

It was magical.


Incumbents' stomachs growling 

Several major food companies have upped their private market activity in the past year, investing in and acquiring more startups, launching venture funds, or introducing new startup incubator programs. 

Big food's interest in a growing CPG ecosystem is just one of 12 trends we highlight in our Future of Food Report.




What's worse than 1 pie chart?

It takes a special level of negligence to have 8 pie charts and have not a single f'n one add up to 100%.

Thanks to Fredrik Holmgren of Kinnevik for sharing this monstrosity with us.




Getting energized 

We looked into the companies applying blockchain tech to the energy industry, doing everything from reducing transaction costs, to maintaining more efficient records, to facilitating P2P energy marketplaces, and more. 




Won't you meet my neighbor? 

We've grown a lot at CB Insights, expanding from a team of about 30 in 2015 to 180+ employees today. 

And that means that it's getting tougher to know everyone.

At our most recent Hack Day, a few of our engineers built the amazing "Know Thy Neighbor" quiz game to solve this problem. Check it out. 

Hack Days are one of my favorite traditions at CB Insights, as they highlight the creativity and smarts of our team.

Also, if you're a data scientist or data engineer and want to join a great team working on some really interesting problems, we're hiring.




Meta: phone calls about phones 

We analyzed 10 years of Apple earnings calls transcripts to see what products the company was most focused on. The ongoing winner: the iPhone, which has held strong in mentions even as other products (like the iPod, Mac, and iPad) have waned. 

This market map is better than #2

One of our most explosive market maps ever was released last year on April Fool's Day — the poop tech market map.

It's been interesting to see the poop tech space become a really solid industry over the last year. We believe there will be a lot of liquidity events soon.




The Industry Standard

The Blurb