The tech giant has poured billions into ChatGPT maker OpenAI to become one of its largest stakeholders, while also providing computing infrastructure to power the startup’s resource-hungry operations.

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This presents a massive opportunity for big tech companies. Drug discovery technology is a $120B market, and corporate executives are beginning to notice.

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Under pressure from consumers and investors, more and more companies are announcing goals of reaching net-zero carbon output. Meanwhile, earnings call discussions mentioning sustainability topics have become much more common in the last few years.

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The same is true of understanding corporate strategy.

Understanding a company or its competitive strategy doesn’t come from listening to senior executives rattle off carefully coached talking points.

Instead, as Drucker points out, corporate strategy is visible in where companies allocate their time and money.

It is found by mining resource allocation and relationship data. Who are a company’s partners, investments, and M&A targets? These are the non-BS predictors of strategy.

Our 67-page coffee table book of strategy maps shines a light on the strategies behind some of the world’s most important companies — from Amazon and PayPal to Tesla and CVS Health.

If you’re a data and strategy nerd like us, we think you’ll enjoy this one.

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Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Oracle are all deeply involved in new healthcare-related product development, investments, M&A, and partnerships. Leveraging software development expertise, device and wearable leadership, and cloud computing expertise, each company is looking to grow market share.

With healthcare providers and patients more willing than ever to adopt new technologies and explore new models of care, expect the healthcare space to remain a strategic focus for big tech for years to come.

Download the report to find out:

• The major tailwinds fueling big tech activity in healthcare
• The competitive advantages of different tech giants in healthcare technology
• How big tech is impacting the future of healthcare

Report highlights:

• Gathering, leveraging, and monetizing data is a guiding force in big tech’s healthcare activity. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle are all competing to be the cloud platform of choice for healthcare providers, software developers, and life sciences organizations.
• Healthcare strategies are beginning to distinguish themselves. Amazon is moving into healthcare provision, with new products and major acquisitions. Microsoft is building a leading healthcare development platform. Meanwhile, Apple is planning to leverage its connected ecosystem to dominate consumer home health.
• Established competitive advantages are key. With new access to millions of healthcare records, Oracle can build its cloud, CRM, and life sciences verticals. Amazon can leverage its core of dedicated subscribers and an unparalleled logistics network to dominate employee health. And Google might secretly dominate one of the most important touchpoints in healthcare.

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Microsoft was one of the first companies to see the value in virtual worlds, leading to its $2.5B acquisition of Minecraft in 2014. Now, with over $16B in gaming-related revenue generated in 2021, it’s one of the largest gaming companies in the world. 

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Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple are leveraging their software development and cloud computing capabilities to support automakers as they increase connectivity, improve sustainability, and tackle the autonomous driving challenge.

With big tech companies looking to expand the reach of their cloud services and gain market share in the vehicle space, expect the auto and mobility space to remain a strategic focus for years to come.

Download the report to find out:

• The competitive advantages of different tech giants in auto & mobility
• Where big tech is competing in auto & mobility
• How big tech is impacting the future of auto & mobility

Report Highlights:

• Big tech companies are leveraging their strengths in software development, AI, and cloud computing to reshape the future of auto & mobility. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple’s automotive investments have centered on the in-vehicle experience, autonomous driving, vehicle electrification, and connected vehicle infrastructure since 2015.
• Big tech is doubling down on connected, autonomous vehicle technology. Since 2017, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple have collectively acquired or invested in 13 companies in autonomous driving tech and 4 companies in connected vehicles tech, which amounts to over 40% of the automotive investment activity.

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In this hot climate tech environment, big tech companies Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have stepped up their efforts in climate tech product development, investment, and partnerships.

Download the report to find out:

• How each giant intends to tackle their ambitious net-zero carbon emissions goals
• How big tech companies are adding new carbon accounting and climate risk analysis features to their platforms
• The areas of climate tech where big tech is investing
• Where each big tech company is headed in the climate tech space

Report Highlights:

• Big tech has set ambitious net-zero goals and players are working toward reducing their carbon footprint. While all 3 giants have made net-zero commitments, Microsoft is the most aggressive, with the goal to be carbon negative by 2030.
• Big tech is vying for a piece of the climate tech software market. In particular, Microsoft and Google have launched carbon accounting software offerings for subsets of their existing users.
• Climate tech investment is heating up. For all 3 incumbents, climate tech is an investment area of growing importance. Amazon and Microsoft have launched funds focused exclusively on climate tech, while Google has created an accelerator focused on climate tech startups.

The post The Big Tech in Sustainability Report: How Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are tackling emissions appeared first on CB Insights Research.

We dig into FAMGA’s acquisition and investment activity in 2021, highlighting key trends, top deals, and more.

Download the report to find out:

• Which tech giant leads investment activity
• The technologies and industries gaining traction among FAMGA
• Where big tech has placed its $1B+ bets

Report highlights:

FAMGA SLOWS ITS Funding ACTIVITY IN 2021

Big tech-backed funding dipped to $9B in 2021 from 2020’s record high, with blockbuster deals to companies like Cruise Automation, Deliveroo, and Databricks.

BIG TECH ACQUISITIONS REACH A 5-YEAR LOW

FAMGA’s acquisition activity continued its downward trend.

Microsoft leads FAMGA in acquisitions over the past 5 years and upped its acquisition pace significantly in 2021.

Download the full report to see all of FAMGA’s investments and acquisitions in 2021.

The post Big Tech’s Playbook: Where Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple are investing & acquiring — and what it signals about the future appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Against this backdrop, big tech companies Facebook (now Meta), Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are investing heavily in securing their platforms and building cybersecurity products and services.

Download the report to find out:

• How big tech companies are adding layers of security to their cloud platforms and devices
• The different areas of cybersecurity where big tech is investing
• How big tech giants are responding to privacy concerns and regulations
• Where each big tech company is headed in the cybersecurity space

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Big tech is committed to security. While each company has made investments in cybersecurity, Google and Microsoft stand out with their recent pledges to spend $10B and $20B, respectively, in this area over the next 5 years.
• There is a battle to secure the cloud. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon view cloud computing as a massive revenue opportunity and are seeking to win customers by offering superior protection. 
• Privacy is a divisive issue for big tech. While Apple is rolling out privacy protections and shaping public opinion on the topic, Facebook continues to face penalties for its use of customer data. Each big tech company must grapple with how it handles the customer data at its disposal.
• Cybersecurity represents a new revenue stream. Through recent acquisitions, several big tech companies have moved beyond protecting their own products to offering cybersecurity services to other companies.

The post The Big Tech In Cybersecurity Report: How Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, & Amazon Are Tackling Cyber Threats appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Funding to quantum tech startups soared to record levels in 2021. Media interest in the space has continued to climb. New milestones and scientific breakthroughs are being announced at a quickening pace.

Against this backdrop, big tech companies Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, and Intel are investing heavily in building their own quantum computers and developing applications around enterprise use cases.

With enormous prizes on the horizon, none of these big tech companies want to be left behind.

Download the report to find out:

• How big tech companies are looking to gain from quantum advances and their strategies for commercializing quantum computing
• The different approaches they are using to develop their own quantum computers
• How big tech giants are using partnerships to build out their quantum capabilities and stake out market positions
• Which strengths and capabilities differentiate each big tech company in quantum

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Big tech’s quantum activity is ramping up quickly. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, and Intel are all developing their own quantum computing hardware. Big tech companies have already been behind several breakthroughs in the space.
• Cloud is an early area of quantum competition for big tech. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM have all launched quantum computing services on their cloud platforms. Numerous startups have partnered with big tech companies to offer remote access to a broad range of quantum computers.
• Big tech is poised to forge ahead with quantum advances. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, and Intel all have ambitious quantum roadmaps. Expect rising qubit counts and more frequent demonstrations of commercial applications.
• Watch for quantum computing to become a hot geopolitical issue, especially for US-China relations. Expect quantum-forward big tech companies, including China-based Baidu and Alibaba, to be drawn deeper into political debates. In the US, government efforts to rein in big tech could be countered by officials nervous about keeping up with countries racing ahead with quantum technology.
  

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WHO ARE THE PARTIES TO THE DEAL?

• Ally.io – Seattle-based Ally.io’s solution enables businesses to monitor goals and manage performance. Since its inception less than 3 years ago, the startup has created over 1M OKRs. Ally.io’s client base has grown to over 1000, and it maintains operations that span 80+ countries. Its major customers include Dropbox, Slack, and Google, and the company is supported by a team of over 250 employees.
• Microsoft – Washington-based Microsoft is a software, hardware, and technology company. In addition to offering computer software, it also designs and sells consumer electronics — such as PCs, gaming consoles, tablets — and their associated accessories. Its revenue for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021 came in at $168.09B, up 18% year-over-year. The company has more than 182,268 employees globally.

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Who are the parties to the deal?

• ClipChamp: Australia-based Clipchamp provides web-enabled video creation and editing tools that integrate with Google Cloud and Google Workspace. The technology also offers screen and webcam recording. The company reported a 160% growth in its user base in 2020, registering 17M users. It added over 390,000 companies to its portfolio. Its clients are companies such as Microsoft, Google, Deloitte, Dell, Comcast, and Zendesk, among others. In the first half of 2021, it reported a 186% spike in video exports. It currently has 80 employees across offices in Australia and the US.
• Microsoft: Washington-based Microsoft offers various software and hardware products for use in homes and businesses. The company reported a 21% growth in revenue for the quarter ended June 30, 2021. As of June 2021, it employed 182,268 people across 6 continents.

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Big tech companies are leveraging their expertise in software, data, and AI to capitalize on rising opportunities in the space, from research and discovery to clinical development to patient monitoring.

Amazon, for example, is working to build out a digital pharmacy following its 2018 acquisition of PillPack. Meanwhile, Microsoft is using its AI capabilities to make the drug discovery process more efficient.

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The post The Big Tech In Pharma Report: From Digital Pharmacies, AI For Drug Discovery, & Apps For Medical Records, How Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Google Will Reimagine The Industry Value Chain appeared first on CB Insights Research.

WHO ARE THE PARTIES TO THE DEAL?

• RiskIQ: California-based RiskIQ provides enterprise security solutions beyond the firewall. Its Internet Intelligence Graph technology scans information on websites and networks, domain name records, certificates, and other data, such as WHOIS registration data, to give clients visibility into what assets, devices, and services may be accessible outside of their firewall. The company has raised total funding of $83M. It has 262 employees.
• Microsoft: Washington-based Microsoft Corporation is a software, hardware, and technology company that designs, produces, licenses, sells and supports software. It offers products such as operating systems, server applications, and commercial & consumer applications among others. The company employees more than 175,508 full-time employees globally with a Q1’21 revenue of $41.7B. Microsoft acquired another cybersecurity company, ReFirm Labs, in June for an undisclosed amount.

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The post Microsoft Acquired This Cybersecurity Intelligence Company To Bolster Enterprise Security Beyond The Firewall appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Eager to turn the ongoing fintech boom into an advantage, big tech companies (Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon) have been taking a number of strategic steps to grow their market share in financial services. From digital banking and lending to budgeting and payments, tech giants are revamping their financial services offerings through partnerships with legacy institutions and in-house solutions that fit into their wider product ecosystems. 

Download the report to find out:

• Which big tech giant leads fintech investment activity
• Which financial services verticals are gaining traction among tech giants
• How big tech’s product strategies differ across banking, payments, lending, and e-commerce
• How big tech companies leverage partnership deals with incumbents to expand their financial services offerings
• Which strengths and capabilities differentiate each tech giant from others in financial services

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Big tech funding to fintech companies dropped slightly amid the pandemic as deal activity picked up. Big tech investment in fintech companies reached $2.2B in 2020, marking a 4% drop from the previous year. In contrast, deal count increased 52% year-over-year (YoY), hitting 32 deals. 
2. Google remains the most active tech giant in fintech equity investments. Google led big tech in unique fintech investments (23) between 2020 and 2021 YTD, followed by Amazon (7). GV (Google Ventures) is the most active big tech venture arm by a wide margin, participating in 45 fintech funding rounds between 2016 to 2021 YTD.
3. Incumbent deals support big tech’s entry into financial services. Apple and Google are already partnering with banks to embed banking into their services, while Amazon is seeking out institutional lenders to expand its loan offerings. These partnerships present a win-win situation for tech giants and legacy names alike and help boost customer attraction and retention. 
4. Big tech companies pose a growing threat to legacy banks. Financial services are becoming increasingly intertwined with non-banking apps (e.g., social media, communication), giving tech giants more incentive and leverage to keep their financial offerings in-house. Tech giants already have the capacity to not only offer improved banking services, but also scale quickly within their large user bases. In big tech’s race to become the go-to app for banking, shopping, and connecting, legacy banks face the continued threat of being further pushed out of the financial system. 

The post The Big Tech In Fintech Report: How Facebook, Apple, Google, & Amazon Are Battling For The $28.2T Market appeared first on CB Insights Research.

The Gates Foundation’s annual letters offer actionable insights for anyone interested in taking on mammoth tasks that can often seem intractable.

Though the foundation focuses on global development, the way Bill and Melinda Gates approach their work holds insights on everything from driving innovation to making the right type of risky investments to transforming entire markets.

Below, we look at 5 far-reaching lessons that can be gleaned from Bill and Melinda Gates’ annual letters.

Table of contents

• Fund innovations that others are afraid to
• Invest in empowering people
• Tackling big problems requires risky bets and a clear vision
• Untapped demand is an opportunity
• Seek out diverse perspectives
• Directory of Gates Foundation annual letters

1. Fund innovations that others are afraid to

“Although innovation is unpredictable, there is a lot that governments, private companies, and foundations can do to accelerate it.”

Bill Gates, who Forbes now estimates has a net worth of about $130B, has long been a champion of innovation. As the co-founder and CEO of Microsoft, he took his vision for “a computer on every desk and in every home” and helped grow the nascent PC space — which many didn’t think had legs — into one of the biggest industries in the world.

An early personal computer running Microsoft’s software. Source: IBM

Today, he is applying that same approach of backing ideas that others are afraid to touch.

In a 2016 blog post, Gates said that innovation was responsible for the massive improvements in the lives of humans over the last century. “From electricity and cars to medicine and planes, innovation has made the world better,” he wrote. However, putting money behind an innovation for innovation’s sake is not enough, according to Gates — businesses and world leaders should fund “innovations that would not otherwise be funded,” he wrote in the 2010 Gates Foundation letter.

This thinking drove the Gates Foundation’s heavy investments in developing new vaccines. In 2000, the Foundation funded Gavi, a global vaccination alliance between public and private actors that is now playing a key role in distributing Covid-19 vaccines. At that time, rich countries and healthcare companies were not thinking as much about making vaccines accessible to poorer countries.

More broadly, the Gates’ approach here demonstrates a common feature of innovative thinking: doing something truly new means going against the tide and being willing to be seen as an outlier. Young companies looking to be the next Microsoft should take note.

2. Invest in empowering people

“Poverty is not just about a lack of money. It’s about the absence of the resources the poor need to realize their potential.”

One of the most famous ideas attributed to Bill Gates is that the leaders of tomorrow will be those who will empower others.

The belief in lifting others up and helping them be self-sufficient forms the basis of much of the Gates Foundation’s work. For example, it pledged $2B to support farming families working to boost productivity on their land. The funding often goes to improving farming practices and helping farmers with tasks like selling produce in markets.

Large organizations, from governments to corporations, can tackle huge challenges by empowering the people who are affected. This may mean investing in training, offering access to better equipment, or delegating more decision-making responsibilities.

Organizations are often tempted by the allure of control that top-down initiatives offer. However, leaders looking to achieve big, organization-wide goals may find better luck with a Gates-approved approach that starts from the bottom up.

3. Tackling big problems requires risky bets and a clear vision

“We see an opportunity and we want to make the most of it. We’re putting our credibility, time, and money behind this bet.”

The global problems that Bill and Melinda Gates aim to solve — like poverty, healthcare access, and a lack of educational resources — require them to place bets that may seem overly optimistic and even risky.

When Bill and Melinda Gates wrote in 2015 about their belief that “the lives of people in poor countries will improve faster in the next 15 years than at any other time in history,” they also talked about how “some will say we’re irrational to make this bet too. A skeptic would look at the world’s problems and conclude that things are only getting worse.”

But the Gateses aren’t shooting in the dark. They couple their ambitious bets with a clear vision and, just as importantly, a simple way to measure success.

Bill Gates detailed some of this thinking in the foundation’s 2009 letter. He wrote that one important criterion for taking a risk is the opportunity for a big breakthrough, “from discovering new vaccines that can save millions of lives to developing new seeds that will let a farming family have better productivity, improve their children’s nutrition, and sell some of the extra output.”

Gates likened his risk-taking approach to that of his friend and prominent investor Warren Buffett: picking an investment that would be “worth ten times as much down the road” and holding it for many years. “Our foundation isn’t after financial gain, but we’re aiming for similar ten-fold returns in social impact — in people living better-educated, more productive, longer and healthier lives,” Gates wrote in a 2019 blog post.

Warren Buffett, a friend of Bill Gates, pledged much of his fortune to the Gates Foundation in 2006. Source: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Solving big challenges will always involve some level of uncertainty, but that doesn’t mean that all risk is created equal. Bill and Melinda Gates’ investment approach to global development can be applied to tackling any intractable challenge: be specific with what you want to achieve, have a way to measure if you’ve been successful, and place bets which have a big upside.

See lessons from Warren Buffett’s annual letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in this report. 

4. Untapped demand is an opportunity

“The market wasn’t working for vaccines for poor kids because the families who needed them couldn’t afford them. But this gave us an opening.”

Though Bill Gates calls himself “a card-carrying member of the capitalism fan club,” he acknowledged in a 2014 blog post that “entrepreneurs and investors generally don’t sink their time, treasure, and talent into developing products for people who can’t afford to pay for them.”

For example, when the Gates Foundation wanted to improve access to vaccines for children across the world, it quickly ran into hurdles. In their 2017 annual letter, Bill and Melinda Gates wrote: “At the start, we just couldn’t understand why vaccines weren’t available to every child who needed them. We were naïve. There were no market incentives to serve people, and we had never seen that before.”

To counter this lack of market incentives in producing vaccines for poorer nations, they began aggregating demand through the Foundation. This changed the calculus for drug companies. With volume guaranteed, expanding vaccine access in a sustainable way became much more viable.

One takeaway from this is that untapped demand presents an opportunity. Beyond development work, companies looking for areas of growth may find that trying a new, more accessible business model is more lucrative than launching a new product. Companies working on everything from videogames to SaaS platforms to stock-trading apps are already showing that lowering barriers to access can generate big customer bases that support sky-high valuations.

As the Gates Foundation’s success with vaccines shows, sometimes the most impactful innovations come not from improving a product but rethinking how it reaches people.

5. Seek out diverse perspectives

“As much as we try to encourage feedback, we know that some of our critics don’t speak up because they don’t want to risk losing money. That means we need to hire well, consult experts, learn constantly, and seek out different viewpoints.”

The value of diversity for organizations has been well documented. For instance, the proportion of revenue that’s attributable to innovation is 19 percentage points higher for companies with diverse management teams than those with a low level of diversity, according to BCG.

Bill and Melinda Gates agree that diversity of voices, opinions, and people brings rewards. The Gates Foundation’s 2009 shareholder letter focused on how they “work hard to get lots of feedback” for their projects and initiatives.

“Each of our three divisions has gotten great people to participate in an advisory panel that reviews their strategies. In addition, every significant grant is reviewed by a number of outside experts…Since we are in this for the long run, we need to develop credibility by the strength of our evidence, and by not claiming to know more than we do.”

Bill and Melinda Gates view feedback as essential to making good investments. Source: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Melinda Gates is also personally working to bring more diversity to US-based technology companies. In 2019, she said she would invest $1B over the next decade to promote gender equality in the US through her venture capital company, Pivotal Ventures. A year later, she expanded that investment to include another $50M to fund a number of initiatives aimed at increasing the number of women in technology companies.

She wrote about the benefits of diversity in companies in a 2017 LinkedIn post: “The data makes clear that diversity is good for business. Companies across industries are more innovative, more profitable, and less likely to take dangerous risks when women and minorities are more equally represented in their ranks.”

All of this underscores how much one of the richest couples in the world value gaining access to other peoples’ viewpoints. When taking on far-reaching challenges, organizations sometimes need to follow audacious visions — but succumbing to groupthink and failing to challenge assumptions is a surefire way to make difficult problems even tougher.

Directory of Gates Foundation annual letters

• Gates Foundation annual letter 2021
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2020
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2019
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2018
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2017
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2016
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2015
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2014
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2013
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2012
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2011
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2010
• Gates Foundation annual letter 2009

The post 5 Innovation Lessons From Bill & Melinda Gates’ Annual Letters appeared first on CB Insights Research.

These acquirers have deep pockets, and some of their biggest checks have been written for high-profile companies such as career platform LinkedIn (acquired by Microsoft for $26.2B), chat app WhatsApp (Facebook, $22B), and video-sharing platform YouTube (Google, $1.7B).

Not all of these acquisitions have been unqualified successes. Microsoft ultimately wrote off its $7.2B Nokia deal, while Google paid $12.5B for Motorola Mobility (its largest acquisition to date) — only to sell the unit off for a quarter of its acquisition price 2 years later.

Still, other major bets have helped these tech leaders expand into new markets, product lines, and tech horizons.

Using CB Insights M&A data, we made a visual timeline showing every $1B+ acquisition made by a FAMGA company. 

Please click to enlarge. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

• Collectively, FAMGA has made 32 $1B+ acquisitions.
• Microsoft has made 12 $1B+ acquisitions, the most among these tech giants, followed by Google, with 8, then Facebook and Amazon, which tie at 5 each. 
• Apple has the least number of $1B+ acquisitions, with only its $3B acquisition of Beats Electronics and its $1B purchase of Intel’s smartphone modem business. 
• Microsoft’s $26.2B LinkedIn acquisition is the largest FAMGA buy, followed by Facebook’s $22B WhatsApp deal and Amazon’s $13.7B purchase of Whole Foods. 
• Microsoft’s acquisition of Visio Corporation in 1999 was the first $1B+ acquisition by a FAMGA company. 
• The most recent billion-dollar FAMGA acquisition was CRM platform Kustomer, acquired by Facebook for $1B in November 2020. 

The post Visualizing Tech Giants’ Billion-Dollar Acquisitions appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Autonomous driving, vehicle connectivity, shared mobility, and the digitization of automotive retail are all presenting new challenges for traditional auto players.

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Edge computing is quickly developing, driven by technical trends such as the emerging 5G wireless standard, the proliferation of devices (like sensors, wearables, and phones), and an explosion of data. With edge computing’s market opportunity valued at $500B, Big Tech is actively positioning for the changes the new model will bring.

In the Big Tech In Edge Computing report, we examine the core competencies these market leaders are leveraging in edge computing, their investments and activities in this area, and where they could go next.

The post Big Tech In Edge Computing: How Tech Giants Are Pursuing The $500B Opportunity appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple (FAMGA) stocks have all outperformed the overall market since the Covid-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic on March 11, as consumers spend more time and money online.

Below, we take a look at FAMGA’s recent investments amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and what they may mean for the future of big tech.

Funding trends for big tech companies 

FAMGA has set funding records for 2 consecutive quarters — the companies participated in 9 deals in Q2’20 totaling a record $6.1B in investments, but Q3’20 funding has already surged past that number as the firms make much larger bets amid the pandemic. 

In Q3’20, quarterly equity funding with FAMGA participation again hit a record high of $7.9B across 9 deals. 2020 annual funding has already far surpassed 2019’s total, making this a record year despite the coronavirus outbreak.

The following business social graph highlights only equity investments since the start of the pandemic (3/11/20) for each tech giant’s standalone corporate entity. It does not include venture investments from any CVC arms or investment funds. 

Please click to enlarge.

Key takeaways 

Alphabet is the most active big tech investor 

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has made the most investments of the FAMGA cohort since the start of the pandemic, participating in 6 deals since March. Most of these investments (4 rounds) occurred in Q3’20, including a massive $4.5B corporate minority investment into India’s largest telecom operator Reliance Jio. Google bought a 7.7% stake in the company, and the tech giant announced it would be working with Jio on the development of a low-cost Android phone for Jio’s 500M expected Indian customers. 

Reliance Jio also received a $5.7B round from Facebook (under its subsidiary Jaadhu Holdings) in April 2020.   

Other investments include a July $54M Series B in digital health startup Cityblock Health with Redpoint Ventures, 8VC, Thrive Capital, and others, and a $170M Series E in scooter share company Lime with Bain Capital Ventures, Uber, and Google Ventures.  

FAMGA focuses in on India 

A third of the investments made by big tech companies in the past 6 months have gone to India-based companies. 

Two of Amazon’s 2020 investments have gone to India-based companies. Since the pandemic declaration, the e-commerce giant has participated in a $3.8M Series D tranche to loan & insurance policy aggregation platform BankBazaar and a $15M Series E to SMB lender Capital Float. These India-based fintech investments highlight that Amazon is looking to further deepen its footprint in the region.

In April, Facebook invested $5.7B for a 10% stake in Reliance Jio, 3 months before Google’s investment into the company. Facebook’s investment was reportedly the largest corporate minority financing ever made by a tech company globally as well as the largest foreign direct investment in technology in India’s history.

Reliance Jio has raised more than $20B since April 2020 and is now valued at about $58B, with funding from investors like Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, KKR, and General Atlantic. 

Microsoft and Apple are the least active investors 

Excluding Apple, which has made no publicly disclosed equity investments since the pandemic began, Microsoft is the least active investor of the group. It has participated in 3 equity investments — all in July — including: 

• A $50M corporate minority round to Energy Impact Partners, a PE firm focused on low carbon investments 
• A $3M round to tech non-profit accelerator Fast Forward 
• A $1M round to coding education startup Kano 

These 2 big tech companies likely did not invest heavily in the market due to their spend elsewhere — Apple and Microsoft were the most acquisitive big tech companies across the same period. 

The post Big Tech’s Investments Surge Amid The Pandemic. Here’s Where They’re Placing Bets appeared first on CB Insights Research.

This has been a boon for startups enabling remote work and recently public companies such as Zoom and Slack, which have pushed the enterprise communication space forward with an intense product focus.

But the increase in remote work has also helped some big tech companies — namely Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Google — boost adoption for their respective collaboration tools. These tech giants are competing for the attention of enterprises by leveraging their scale to offer more unified platforms and by touting a growing range of social features, software integrations, and more. Some may even venture into HR tech and beyond. 

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Collectively, FAMGA has seen nearly $460B wiped off its market cap (as of 3/10/19) since January 30, when the WHO declared a public health emergency. Of the mix, Amazon is the only company to remain relatively unscathed. 

But the size of the impact varies from firm to firm. We dive into how the outbreak is affecting each tech giant below.

Facebook

Facebook’s stock has plunged 15% since the WHO’s announcement, the most out of its Big Tech peers. This may partly be due to declining demand in travel, retail, CPG, and entertainment, which has resulted in slashed ad budgets in these “at-risk categories,” according to a Needham analyst.

Production for its Oculus Quest virtual reality headsets has also been hit by the slowdown in Chinese manufacturing. Beyond ads and hardware, the social media platform is also battling a slew of misinformation, including conspiracy theories about the virus’ origin and fake cures.

The company also canceled the in-person component of its F8 developer conference in favor of a virtual event.

Apple

Apple’s stock has plummeted by 11.9% since the announcement. The iPhone maker warned investors in February that it would fall short of revenue guidance for Q2’20, obliterating the strong start to the year it had.

As the coronavirus cripples both demand — China accounts for 15% of sales — and hardware production, the tech company felt the impact of its reliance: it shipped fewer than 500,000 smartphones in February, a 60% year-over-year decline. 

Microsoft

Microsoft stock has dropped by 6.9% since the WHO announcement. The company followed Apple in slashing its Q3’20 sales forecast in February due to the manufacturing downturn’s impact on its Windows OEM (licensing software to PC manufacturers) and Surface (hardware) businesses. Microsoft is reportedly considering shifting production from China to Southeast Asia amid the outbreak.

Google

Google’s parent company Alphabet has seen shares sink by 12.4% since January 30. Diminishing spending on travel-related ads — the fourth-largest category of search ads — could result in lower earnings for the search giant. Meanwhile, the company also canceled Google I/O, its annual developers conference slated to take place in May. 

Amazon

Amazon is the only one to post gains since January 30, up 1.1% as of Tuesday’s close, amid a mass sell-off. Though relatively unaffected across the time frame, the e-commerce giant likely feels some of the virus-induced supply chain crunch, as more than 40% of its sellers are based in China.

In February, the company encouraged some suppliers to stock up on products from China “in anticipation of potential supply chain slowdowns,” according to Business Insider. The open marketplace has lately fallen victim to massive price gouging, with some products selling for 16x their retail price, and fraudulent coronavirus cures.

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Tech companies are leveraging their strengths in data and user-friendly platforms to create new solutions in healthcare — and the $780B pharmaceuticals industry in particular stands to be strongly impacted, as major tech players look to transform many of pharma’s traditional functions.

As a result, new synergies are emerging, and pharma companies are reacting through partnerships, investments, acquisitions, and bolstering their own in-house capabilities. For example, pharma giant Roche acquired oncology data platform Flatiron Health for $1.9B in 2018, and AstraZeneca partnered with drug discovery startup BenevolentAI in April. 

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