July 11, 2024

Up, up, and away

Hi there,

Here is this week's Hot or Not.

Hot: US exit activity

39% of global exits (M&A, IPOs, etc.) in Q2'24 were of US companies — the highest mark in 2 years.

The largest US M&A exit was Hyundai's buyout of Motional at a $4.1B valuation. Motional is an autonomous driving startup.

Per the Acquisition Insights on Hyundai's CB Insights profile, Hyundai and Motional are co-developing a robotaxi service with a target release of 2024.

StateOfVenture_Q224_HyundaiAcquisitionInsights (1)

Meanwhile, US IPO exits gained some strength, with Q2 seeing blockbuster debuts from Tempus (valued at $6.1B) and Rubrik ($5.6B).

We predicted both companies would go public in our Tech IPO Pipeline report, published in late 2023.

How did exit activity fare outside of the US last quarter? Find out in our State of Venture Q2'24 Report.

Not: Koo

Social media platform Koo is calling it quits.

The India-based company had raised over $50M in funding.

It joins a long list of companies citing insufficient capital as a reason for failure, as highlighted by 1-click insights on Koo's CBI profile.

Note: insufficient capital as the reason for failing after raising $50M+ does make you scratch your head, no?

See 2024's most notable startup failures so far here.

Hot: Hydrogen

Oil and gas incumbents — like BP and Shell — are diversifying and participating in green initiatives to keep up with the renewable energy transition.

One tech area has caught their attention more than any other: hydrogen.

Hydrogen projects are playing a significant role in the energy transition, particularly in efforts to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors.

For example, Shell recently teamed up with Bloom Energy to explore green hydrogen production — a cleaner alternative to traditional production methods.

Besides hydrogen, what other technologies are drawing the eyes of oil and gas leaders? Find out in this research brief.

Not: B2C genAI

Among genAI investment deals, investors significantly favor B2B business models over B2C.

Investors apparently see enterprises as the bigger $$$ opportunity for AI startups, partly driven by a wave of big companies racing to build AI into their roadmaps.

Though some of the biggest AI vendors — like OpenAI — sell to both businesses and consumers.

CB Insights customers can dive into the data here and easily search and filter companies by their business model.

And view the full genAI landscape in our market map here.

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal

P.S. Today, our analyst went behind the scenes of our State of Venture Q2'24 Report in a live briefing. Didn't get the chance to join? Get the recording here.