In the US, checks and cash have already declined from representing half of all B2B payments in 2019 to a projection of less than a third (32%) in 2024, according to eMarketer. In emerging markets, paper’s share of B2B transactions is likely higher, but coming down thanks to the rise of digital commerce and digital operating systems for merchants.

Companies offering B2B payments solutions are digitizing and automating formerly manual processes like creating invoices, processing payments, and analyzing payments data. Many are building platforms that consolidate the steps in the B2B payments value chain in one place, enabling faster and more transparent payments and financing between businesses. 

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The post The B2B payments tech market map appeared first on CB Insights Research.

In 2024 so far, a16z has backed more than 20 AI startups working within disruptive categories. For example, this year, it has invested in several AI-driven copilots and agents designed to automate key workflows in big industries like healthcare and finance. It has also turned its attention to multimedia generation startups expediting the creation of a wide variety of content, from images to videos to audio.

While championing AI’s advancement, the firm also acknowledges associated risks — its founders are proponents of open-source models, arguing that their transparency and accessibility will help ensure that AI is developed in a secure and ethical way. So far this year, the two largest a16z-backed AI deals have gone to open-source large language model (LLM) developers xAI and Mistral AI.

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The post Analyzing a16z’s AI investment strategy: Where the firm sees opportunity amid the genAI rush appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Humans will still play a crucial role — but instead of assembling parts or operating machinery, they will maintain robots and keep them running.

In these future factories, robots coordinate in unison, completing work automatically — without breaks, every hour of the day — to get products out the door. 

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The post Future of the factory: The emerging technologies defining next-generation manufacturing appeared first on CB Insights Research.

That future isn’t too far off. 

The idea of autonomous AI agents — LLM-powered bots that can independently reason and execute tasks — caught on like wildfire in 2023, marking an important evolution beyond chatbots and copilots. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has described agents as “AI’s killer function” as recently as May 2024.  

While much of the tech remains limited in its ability to execute tasks reliably, use cases are gaining traction in horizontal enterprise applications like customer support, sales, and engineering.

We mined CB Insights startup, financing, business model, and buyer interview data to map the evolving landscape and analyze its future. 

In the 28-page report, we cover: 

• The state of AI agents: Investment is surging to companies in the space, but limitations — most notably, agent reliability — remain. 
• Leading horizontal applications and impacts: The landscape of VC-backed agent startups is dominated by a focus on horizontal applications — across sales, customer support, and other enterprise and general productivity workflows.
• Emerging industry applications and opportunities: While few agentic companies focus on single industries, companies are emerging to target workflows across financial services, industrials, and more. 

Download the full report to get all of the data and analysis.

The post Future of the workforce: How AI agents will transform enterprise workflows appeared first on CB Insights Research.

In the last 2 years, it has backed more than 20 AI startups — mostly via its OpenAI Startup Fund (which has LPs including Microsoft and other OpenAI investors) — many of which are building on OpenAI’s own infrastructure. The company itself also doles out occasional grants and has acquired 3 startups in the last year.

OpenAI’s recent investments point to potential growth opportunities for the firm, especially as it faces pressure to earn its eye-watering $80B valuation and stay ahead of competitors in the fast-moving generative AI market. 

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The post Analyzing OpenAI’s investment strategy: Where the ChatGPT maker is betting on AI disruption appeared first on CB Insights Research.

While Nvidia initially developed its graphics processing units (GPUs) for gaming, these chips turned out to be ideal for powering AI tasks. Now, the company is focusing its efforts on providing the computing hardware — notably its A100 and H100 GPUs — and the software infrastructure required for developing generative AI applications.

Amid the generative AI rush, Nvidia has grown rapidly. In fact, it recently surpassed Microsoft and Apple to become the world’s most valuable company. To bolster its leadership position and keep ahead of AI computing competitors like AMD and Intel, Nvidia has forged relationships with companies across the AI landscape.

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The post Analyzing Nvidia’s growth strategy: How the chipmaker plans to usher in the next wave of AI appeared first on CB Insights Research.

The industry is built around encoding information in quantum entities called “qubits” — which have a probability of being either 1 or 0, as opposed to traditional bits that can only be one or the other — to open up new computational approaches and ways of handling data that are not possible on conventional devices.

For example, quantum computing could allow entirely new algorithms that are much more efficient at some key tasks — like complex optimization problems, sorting through large datasets, and running simulations. Though the tech is not yet mature, companies are already working to apply quantum computing to commercial applications like drug discovery, finance, materials discovery, and logistics. Investors are excited — startups in the space saw equity funding surge to $1.3B in 2023, a rare bright spot for venture last year. As quantum computers become more capable in the coming years, expect commercial interest to rise quickly.

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The post The quantum information market map: The companies working on quantum computing, post-quantum cryptography, and more appeared first on CB Insights Research.

The company has faced multiple high-profile incidents over the past 6 years — including crashes involving its planes and a fuselage blowout. This series of events has resulted in a decline in consumer trust, aggravated airlines, and lost sales to rival Airbus.

Amid these challenges, Boeing has shaken up its corporate leadership and moved to improve its manufacturing quality. For instance, the company is exploring a reintegration with Spirit AeroSystems to help address production flaws.

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The post Analyzing Boeing’s high-stakes bets to recover from crisis and reimagine aviation with emerging tech appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Funding to the space set a new record in 2023 — bucking the broader decrease in venture funding for the second year in a row.  

While still a nascent technology, startups are pursuing a broad range of potential use cases for quantum computing (which process information in a fundamentally different way to typical computers) across numerous industries — from training AI models more efficiently to simulating otherwise hard-to-model chemical reactions to quickly solving complex logistics problems, among many others.

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The post Quantum computing is a venture bright spot — we break down its recent funding surge in 5 charts appeared first on CB Insights Research.

In addition to these larger factors at play, procurement teams must work cross-functionally to ensure other parts of the business have the tools and supplies they need. This requires that they maintain relationships with suppliers, ensure legal compliance, and analyze data across their organization to evaluate how current vendors are supporting workflows. 

Tech companies are helping procurement teams more efficiently source and compare new vendors, maintain supplier relationships, assess renewals, and more. In the market map below, we identify 82 tech vendors addressing critical aspects of procurement across 9 categories. 

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The post The procurement tech market map appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Wiz landed a $10B valuation in February just 3 years after its founding. Orca was last valued at $1.8B in 2021. 

Both are part of a group of cybersecurity startups — like Aqua Security and Lacework — that have grown rapidly with the cloud computing wave. 

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The post How are enterprises making cloud security purchasing decisions? appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Microsoft is betting that generative AI could tip the competitive scales in its favor for decades to come.

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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The post Analyzing Microsoft’s generative AI strategy: How Microsoft is expanding past OpenAI to transform the way we work appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Get up to speed with our explainer video — and read on for the full report.

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The company’s portfolio includes some of the most iconic and successful companies in the world, like SolarWinds, Blue Coat, Stamps.com, and SailPoint.

Thoma Bravo has participated in 27 transactions since 2022. The firm also invested in 5 mega-round ($100M+) deals and took multiple companies private at billion-dollar valuations during that time frame.

Using CB Insights data, we mapped how Thoma Bravo spread its investments and acquisitions since 2022 across categories like cybersecurity, financial services, enterprise software, and more.

CB Insights clients can dig deeper into all 27 deals listed above using this CB Insights platform search.

The post Analyzing Thoma Bravo’s investment strategy: Where the PE firm is betting big across key industries appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Fintech was Sequoia Capital’s top investment category in 2022, representing nearly a quarter of the firm’s deals.

Using CB Insights data, we mapped how Sequoia Capital spread its 2022 fintech investments across categories like capital markets, personal finance, real estate, and more.

CB Insights clients can dig deeper into all 25 deals listed above as well as explore Sequoia Capital’s bets beyond fintech using this CB Insights platform search.

The post Analyzing Sequoia Capital’s investment strategy: How the VC is keeping its faith in fintech appeared first on CB Insights Research.

New technology is not only helping companies navigate the aftermath of these shifts, it’s changing the way they hire, manage, and provide for their employees. Investors are taking notice — funding to the HR tech space more than tripled from $5.1B in 2020 to $18.7B in 2021.

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The post 125 companies using tech to transform human resources appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Download the buyer’s guide to see our overview of this software category, including the key considerations, buyer thought processes, and the questions you should be asking. Questions like:

• What is the vendor’s global reach?
• What level of customization does the vendor support?
• What is the vendor’s global reach?

“The critical thing is to find a partner that has the global reach that matches not just your global reach, but your ambition for future global reach.” — SVP of People & Culture, global apparel & footwear group

Buyers interviewed for this report include:

• Head of FP&A, technology company with $1B+ valuation
• Director of Talent Intelligence, software company with $1B+ market cap
• COO, fintech with $100M+ funding

The post 7 questions to help you choose the right vendor for managing a global workforce appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Download our scorecard to quickly compare the below vendors. To read the interview transcripts for each solution, reserve your Yardstiq subscription here.

• Deel
• Oyster
• Papaya Global
• Remote
• Velocity Global

Other platforms for distributed teams mentioned by buyers include:

• ADP Streamline
• Atlas (fka Elements Global Services)
• Globalization Partners
• Gusto

The post Top global employment & payroll companies — and why customers chose them appeared first on CB Insights Research.

If you missed last week’s, you can read it here.

We’re mining Yardstiq’s analyst-led interview transcripts to reveal what software buyers had to say about specific companies or markets.

Today, we’ll dig into: 

• Cloud security solutions like Orca Security, Lacework, and Wiz
• MessageBird’s innovation speed
• Where Ramp wins vs. American Express
• How spend management vendors (Brex, Ramp, Spendesk, Payhawk, etc.) stack up

What other companies would you like to see profiled? Keep sending us their names. 

And now, on with the show. 

Cloud security competition heats up

See how Orca Security, Aqua Security, and Lacework compare in our Cloud Security Vendor Scorecard. 

Speed is king: MessageBird vs. the competition

When Ramp’s customer experience beats American Express

Speaking of corporate cards

Brex vs. Ramp. Spendesk vs. Payhawk. 

How do spend management & corporate card solutions compare?

We spoke to customers who recently evaluated these vendors and analyzed and synthesized the insights from these interviews into this scorecard.

Get the 1-pager here.

Love to eavesdrop? Reserve your early-access subscription to Yardstiq here, and see what real buyers have to say about the software they’ve purchased and are using.

The post The Transcript from Yardstiq: Ramp vs. Brex appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Emerging and established vendors are now branding — or rebranding — themselves as “intelligent process automation” (IPA) solution providers. IPA supplements traditional RPA software with AI tools like computer vision, natural language processing, and smarter workflow automation. 

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The post Finch, an API builder connecting corporate HR systems, raises $15M from investors including Menlo Ventures, General Catalyst, and Y Combinator. Finch competitors are Merge, Argyle, Atomic, Pinwheel, Check, and Modulus Data’s Flexspring. appeared first on CB Insights Research.

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The post Assembled, a workforce management tool for customer support teams, raises $51M from investors including NEA and Emergence Capital. Assembled competitors are Calabrio, Playvox, Teleopti, Tymeshift, and When I Work. appeared first on CB Insights Research.

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The post Velocity Global, an HR platform for remote teams, raises $400M from Norwest and Eldridge. Velocity Global competitors are Globalization Partners, Multiplier, Omnipresent, Oyster, Panther, Papaya Global, Remote, and Skuad. appeared first on CB Insights Research.

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The post Sales community Bravado raises $26M in Tiger Global-backed round. Bravado’s primary competitor is Pavilion, formerly Revenue Collective. appeared first on CB Insights Research.

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The post Fetcher, a candidate sourcing technology, raises $27M in debt and equity from investors including Tola Capital and Accomplice. Fetcher competitors are Findem, Gem, and SeekOut. appeared first on CB Insights Research.