We’ll publish more reports towards the end of the year that look back on topics we’ve explored in depth over the past few months and some that offer informed predictions for the year ahead.
This week, Bill Taranto, President of Merck’s Global Health Innovation Fund, wrote a TechCrunch + article dealing with six digital health trends his corporate VC fund is tracking in early 2022.
Between Q1 and Q3 2021, healthcare startups landed US $ 21.3 billion in VC, “which dwarfs the previous record of US $ 14.6 billion from 2020,” writes Taranto.
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“Companies with strong offerings, management teams and balance sheets are poised to achieve tremendous value.”
To date, Merck GHI has made 75 investments with 22 exits, including companies that cover everything from drug discovery to diabetes detection, according to Crunchbase.
Artificial intelligence, IoT and data analysis are the most important drivers of innovation, says Taranto, “especially since data is becoming the central currency in healthcare.”
We’re posting on a light schedule through New Years, but we’ll be back on Friday December 31st with another round-up to wrap up 2021.
Thank you for reading TechCrunch + and I wish you a wonderful Christmas weekend!
Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch +
@yourprotagonist
10 growth marketing experts share their predictions for 2022 and New Years resolutions
Credit: Nora Carol Photography (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
We contacted 10 growth marketers to find out how they are preparing for 2022 and to ask if they have any New Year resolutions.
The answers and advice we received were as varied as those we interviewed, but almost all of them said that learning – e.g. B. Analysis training, getting started with AI tools, etc. – was at the top of their to-do list.
Here’s who we spoke to:
- Jonathan Martinez, Founder, JMStrategy
- Kate Adams, SVP Marketing, Validity
- Richard Meyer, Growth Marketer, Tuff
- Bas Willems, Marketing Director, DataSnipper
- Gus Ferguson and Alyssa Crankshaw, co-founders of Ascendant
- Shane Hegde, Founder and CEO, Air
- Tracey Wallace, Director of Marketing, MarketerHire
- Greg Sheppard, CMO, Templafy
- Lauren Kelly, CMO, ThoughtExchange
How does former Better.com CEO Vishal Garg still get a job?
Credit: Better.com
Former Better.com CEO Vishal Garg is now taking time out after laying off 9% of the company’s workforce a few weeks before the company’s scheduled public launch.
The announcement was treated so badly that the company soon hired a crisis management firm and fired Garg from his leadership role after emails surfaced berating investors.
Better.com says it has since hired an outside firm to “conduct a leadership and culture assessment.”
Mary Ann Azevedo and Alex Wilhelm looked at the company’s structure and found that investors had enough leverage to drive the embattled founder overboard – meaning they “mustn’t agitate for Garg’s complete removal.”
Capital is a commodity
Credit: AlexLMX (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
By July 2021, startup founders had raised $ 268.7 billion from global VCs, an amount that exceeded the total for the previous year.
When cash is so abundant, “capital is a commodity,” said Charlie Graham-Brown, partner and chief investment officer at Seedstars, and Daniela Moreno, the company’s investment marketing manager.
In a post that walks founders through different VC platform styles and the value they can offer, the authors set two rules:
- No individual or VC company is good at everything.
- What a startup needs most will change over time.
Demand curve: How the Ahrefs homepage trains prospective buyers
Credit: PM images (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Homepages with high conversion rates have one thing in common: They make purchasing extremely easy for the customer.
“People have short attention spans. If your homepage is confusing, they’ll be leaving it, ”said Joey Noble, Community Manager of Demand Curve, in his latest TechCrunch + post.
In a detailed analysis of the homepage of the SEO agency Ahrefs ‘Noble explains how the site attracts readers’ attention, reduces friction and increases desire.
Bitcoin is religion; web3 is greed
Credit: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
In the final issue of The Exchange, which we will publish in 2021, Alex Wilhelm turned his attention to a recent Twitter thread in which Block CEO Jack Dorsey claimed that end users do not own web3 but “the VCs and their LPs” .
His comment did not go down well with some prominent crypto enthusiasts who insisted that the decentralized nature of web3 is one of its core features. “Is Jack wrong? No, it isn’t, ”wrote Alex.
“Although I am more than happy to nod Jack while stirring the web3 pot, I disagree with his general philosophy.”
Dear Sophie: What is allowed between a K-1 visa and a green card?
Credit: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch
Dear Sophie,
Great news! After a long COVID delay, my fiancée finally arrived in the US with her K visa.
We’re considering fleeing to Las Vegas for a quick wedding so we can start your green card application. (In Silicon Valley, we would have to wait a few months to get a marriage license.)
After we have signed up, we want to celebrate a big wedding with her family and friends in her hometown in the spring and then go on our honeymoon. Is this allowed?
– Happy in Hayward
