Whats the Big Data

CB Insights:

Fintech startups prominent in the millennial demographic range include “robo-advisors” offering low-cost alternatives to brokerages, to lending firms innovating in credit risk, and stock-picking and automated savings apps.

Many of the fintech startups are leveraging existing technologies already popular among young adults such as social networks and mobile messaging. Project crowdfunding sites GoFundMe and Andreessen Horowitz-backed Tilt, for example, mirror or take advantage of social networks and are largely popular among college audiences. Google Ventures and General Catalyst-backed HelloDigit transfers money directly via text message.

CB Insights:

The number of VR/AR startups is increasing as venture capital dollars continue to flood in, with investment reaching an all time high in 2015 of $658M in equity funding across 126 deals, according to CB Insights data. Even as VR/AR startups launch, larger corporates are developing VR/AR-related businesses, products, and investing in the space…

VR/AR categories

Commercial and industrial applications

The companies in this category will advance productivity in an enterprise setting through enhanced visualization. Commercial and Industrial applications of VR/AR include marketing technology, sports training, labor training, retail, interior design, real estate, transactions, aerospace/defense, security, quality testing, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and data analytics.

Content 

Pure content studios and agencies that create VR/AR content such as bonus movie or TV show content and journalistic content. This category also includes gaming and education. There are a number of companies that resemble production houses, advertising agencies or VR “work-for-hire” shops that produce VR/AR experiences for their clients. Some of these companies have started off as pure content creators and have later also become distributors.

• Education 

These companies provide learning and education for people whether it is for the classroom, corporate learning management, or certifications. The education software market will see innovation through immersive learning enabled by VR/AR.

• Gaming

Gaming is of the more obvious and near-term use cases for VR/AR. Popular first person shooters such as Wolfenstein 3D, Halo, and massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) such as Everquest and World of Warcraft were popular video games that immersed gamers in alternate visually appealing environments (for their time) and enabled interaction with bots and other players. New VR games coming out will advance that immersive experience, once confined by a screen.

Discovery & Distribution

These companies provide a destination to search and discover VR/AR content and apps. Some of them have created their own content to seed their platforms while some of the content companies have added discovery and distribution as part of their offering, as noted above.

Social

Companies in this category allow for social, collaboration and communication within the medium. I’ve seen companies here provide virtual meeting environments and chat rooms where the user is represented in a virtual environment with an avatar.

Hardware

Hardware includes head mounted displays (HMDs), mobile HMDs, other mixed reality displays, cameras and capture technology, accessories and input devices, and specialty lenses. After Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus, it is interesting to see other companies’ involvement with HMDs: Google’s investment in Magic Leap, HTC’s Vive,  Samsung’s collaboration with Oculus on the GearVR, Sony’s PlayStation VR, and Fox’s recent investment in Osterhout Design Group.

Infrastructure & Tools

This category captures a lot of different types of companies, but in essence these companies (aside from the headsets and mobile devices) provide the backbone, piping, delivery, building blocks, or creation software for VR/AR. I consider this category to encompass creation tools, dev tools, gaming engines, SDKs, gesture & motion tracking, haptic feedback technology, WebVR, encoding, and live-streaming tools. Companies in this space are solving the technology limitations for great VR/AR experiences (such as high quality delivery, VR/AR asset transfer, and the challenges of “presence”).

Funding Data

The top funded categories were hardware, followed by infrastructure and tools, commercial/industrial applications, and content. The least funded category is discovery and distribution.

CB Insights:

Digital banking startups have secured more than $10.3B in funding since 2010, as they disrupt the banking value chain, providing consumers with new alternatives for services traditionally dominated by consumer banks, including lending, bill pay, personal finance, and investment management.

The breakdown of the categories is as follows:

• Marketplace Lending: Tech startups primarily providing platforms for consumer borrowers to connect with willing lenders. These are often referred to as peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders, though institutions also provide capital on many of these marketplaces.
• Direct Lending & Underwriting: Companies primarily lending directly online and/or facilitating consumer access to credit scoring, often using machine learning technologies and other nontraditional methods to assess creditworthiness.
• Online/Mobile Banking: Startups providing digital-native banking deposit and account solutions, either online or through various mobile platforms.
• Personal Finance: Tech startups offering tools and advice to manage personal accounts, expenses, budgeting, and personal financial planning.
• Bill Pay / Money Transfer: Startups enabling individuals to transfer money to peers and pay bills, often across international borders.
• Investment Management: A broad category encompassing companies serving retail investors with automated, social, or other novel investment vehicles and advice. These startups may also offer retail investors alternative ways to access securities beyond large traditional brokerages. Some, like Personal Capital, pair algorithmically-driven advice and portfolio management with human advice.
• Robo-advisor: Investment management startups that focus exclusively on providing fully automated, algorithm-driven investments.