Venture Scanner Blog

What is a Venture Scanner scan?

Last week I wrote about why we started Venture Scanner and why it’s important. Today I want to share what a scan is.The simplest description of a scan is a one stop shop for data and insights on any emerging technology sector. It includes a dynamic map of all the companies in the sector, curated daily news, and original analyst insights. We aim to make it easy to continuously keep a pulse on sectors of interest, monitor companies, or find opportunities.Our approach is one part technology and one part analyst context. Our technology aggregates available data on companies and organizes companies into clusters. Our analysts then arrange these clusters into dynamic maps that represent a technology sector like 3D Printing, Retail Online to Offline, Financial Technology, etc. Our technology then continuously refreshes the scans while our analysts build an ongoing insights layer on top of the data.The insights layer is derived by fully immersing ourselves in the sectors we cover. Our analysts are in regular contact with the companies in a sector, derive what the drivers for success are, and spot trends as they emerge. These insights combined with the underlying data enable our customers to make informed decisions and take action.Through Venture Scanner you can answer the following questions:Who are the companies in a technology sector?How do the companies stack up against one another?What are the key drivers for success in a sector and which companies are exhibiting them?Our scans are dynamic and updated daily, so you’ll rest assured knowing you are not missing material events.Nader

Why are we working on Venture Scanner?

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A lot of people ask me why we are working on Venture Scanner.

Organizing Connected Transportation

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One of the markets we're covering at Venture Scanner is Connected Transportation. At the time of writing this post, we've been able to identify 369 companies which have collectively raised $3.15B, and organized them into 11 different categories.

The Bull Case for Beacon

Financial Technology, Marketing Technology, Retail Technology Venture Scanner 0

In the past year I’ve been hearing quite a bit about “Beacon” such as — Shopkick piloting its shopBeacon for in-store marketing, PayPal using their own beacon for hands-free check-ins and payments, and Qualcomm pushing its Gimbal SDK for developers.

The 3D Printing Startup Landscape

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A map of the 3D Printing landscape, ~185 companies organized into 9 different categories and counting.

Navigating the Retail Online to Offline Space

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I've been tracking ~350 companies so far across 18 different categories in the Retail Online to Offline (O2O) space. Here is how I've broken down the various startups:

Making sense of the FinTech Startup Ecosystem

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At this time, I am tracking 440 FinTech companies across 15 categories, with a combined funding amount of $7.47B. These are relatively new companies that either serve existing pieces of the financial system or develop alternatives to those pieces. It includes B2B and B2C companies.

A Snapshot of the Digital Health Landscape

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I currently am tracking 509 Digital Health companies across 21 categories, with combined funding of $7.05B. Digital Health is an extensive and evolving term, but simply stated, it is the application of digital technologies to enhance both personal health and the delivery of healthcare. These companies all focus on using emerging technologies to deploy solutions across the entire health ecosystem - from individual consumer to healthcare provider to employer to large hospital system, from biometric sensors to genomics to mobile connectivity to cloud computing.

Thought Experiment: Facebook’s Strategy to Dominate Payments in the Developing World

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Last week, Financial Times reported that Facebook was entering financial services. Facebook is reportedly on track to receive regulatory approval to be an ‘e-money’ institution in Ireland (by extension, Europe through a process called “passporting”). The social network is also looking at remittances, having talked to several remittance startups. “Facebook wants to become a utility in the developing world, and remittances are a gateway drug to financial inclusion,” a person familiar with the company’s strategy was quoted.

Why FinTech Startups are Difficult

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Virtual reality goggles, messaging apps, and anonymous-sharing — these spaces have been getting a lot of interest recently with mind-blowing exits and controversy. Why aren’t FinTech startups getting as much love from investors and corporates? A panel of FinTech startup founders at the SF FinTech meet-up shared additional challenges that FinTech startups have to overcome:Trust — When it comes to money, there is an additional trust barrier. Privacy and security become an order-of-magnitude more important when a request is made to directly access a user’s bank account and financial information. Trust is also a barrier between startups and financial organizations that are highly regulated, making a B2B sales/partnership model even more difficult for startups than it already is. Startups also have little room for error. For giants like Target, they will be able to survive long enough to regain consumer’s trust. For resource-constrained startups, it would be extremely difficult to rebuild a reputation once it is lost.Regulation — The financial industry is a highly regulated one, more so after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Having to deal with compliance is distracting and takes away time that could have otherwise been spent on building a great product. FinTech startups in the US have to comply with regulation at the federal level as well as the state level, with each of the 50 states having their own views on how the industry should be regulated. This also makes it time-consuming and expensive to scale to different markets. The absence of relationships with regulators makes it difficult for founders to voice their concerns.Limited Viral Effects — They way most incentive structures of venture capitalists are structured, the opportunity cost is a major consideration — they are looking for 100x or 1000x returns, not just 5x returns. The fastest way to achieve this is to grow virally and leverage network effects. When it comes to sensitive personal financial information, it is far more unlikely that users would be willing to share what they are doing with friends.Obtaining Financial Data — For FinTech startups that need to pull financial data from different sources, the key challenge is in obtaining accurate and complete data. The US government has been attempting open data initiatives, but access to data can be expensive.Doing any startup is hard enough; the additional hurdles that FinTech founders have to overcome make FinTech a difficult market to operate in. That said, the financial markets are the few markets that are worth in the trillions. The financial crisis of 2008 has resulted in a seismic shift in the industry. Pressure from regulators and shareholders are forcing banks to leave money on the table for FinTech startups to take. The hardest markets are usually the ones with the greatest opportunity — for those that are able to cross the high barrier, those would be the same barriers protecting them from competition. More importantly, FinTech founders can actually make a meaningful impact in people’s lives.

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