Do you want to own 100% of a grape or 10% of a watermelon?
That intriguing question was posed recently in an email forum on healthcare by ITL thought leader Dave Chase but applies broadly to the approach that incumbents take to innovation. Are they satisfied with owning all of their historic market, or will they go after a smaller share of a vastly larger market and give themselves a chance of winning big?
The latest analysis of the data from our Innovator's Edge platform, by our Paul Winston, suggests that incumbents had better think big, because startups certainly are.
As described in detail in this article, early-stage tech companies raised nearly $115 billion—that's "billion," with a "b"—in the first half of 2018.
The fund-raising covers a whopping 6,420 deals—and those are just for the companies that provided numbers. A further 3,194 companies raised money but didn't specify how much.
The funding covered a wide variety of technologies, a global focus on innovation (with a heavy representation in Asia, especially China) and attempts to innovate at certain strategic points in the value chain.
Paul's piece is the most revealing I've seen in a long time on insurtech. Please read and ponder.
Have a great week.
Paul Carroll
Editor-in-Chief
