Sleep tech company Shleep in August 2019 raised €1.4M to further develop its digital B2B sleep coaching platform. The VCs include Global Founders Capital, and Health Innovations. Shleep’s clients include The Huffington Post, Deloitte and Spotify. Shleep is the first science-based sleep coaching platform for companies, created by Dr. Els van der Helm and Jöran Albers, and their team of sleep PhDs, health experts and software engineers. According to

Grab, a Singapore-based competitor to Uber present also in the Philippines and in Malaysia, in January 2019 announced it would sell insurance through its smartphone app. Grab will open up its ride-hailing app as a platform for direct distribution of insurance policies. The new capability is provided by Chinese partner ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance. The first insurance carrier to join the program is Chubb, with a loss of income

European digital health insurance company Alan in April 2018 announced it has raised €23 million in Series A funding. Alan has two characteristics that sets it apart from most other insurtechs. First and foremost, it is a real, licensed insurance carrier that actually writes risks and mutualizes them. It is not acting as a broker or a services integrator or a business process outsourcer, like most insurtechs do. Second,

The OECD in October 2017 published its annual Entrepreneurship at a Glance report. The 2017 edition includes a new trends chapter, which also introduces recent developments related to the emergence of the “gig economy” and the use of digital tools by micro-enterprises. Summary In most OECD countries where data are available, numbers of new firm creations continue to recover, and in many countries are above pre‑crisis highs, suggesting that

Aon in February 2017 sold its human resources business process outsourcing (BPO) platform and operations to private equity firm and alternative asset manager Blackstone for $4.3 billion plus an additional $500 million earn-out based on future performance. Closing is expected by the end of the second quarter of 2017. The sale, according to Aon’s website, is a “natural extension of the strategy the firm has pursued over the last

Human-resources startup Zenefits may be falling short of its revenue targets and has apparently started to curb expenses, as it struggles to meet investor expectations. Zenefits had announced a target of USD 100m in annualized revenues to be reached by January 2016 but may fall short as August 2015 actuals are understood to be slightly under USD 45m, still a large increase compared to USD 20m in January 2015.

According to traditional financial theory, a firm’s value is a function of its existing net worth and of its future profits. The way in which stock markets value large, traditional, listed brokers appears to be consistent with this. The table below includes some of the largest brokerages / consulting firms in the world and was compiled on November 23, 2015. As of late November 2015, the five firms exhibit

AXA has announced in June 2015 the creation of AXA Lab Asia in Shanghai, identical to AXA Lab in the Silicon Valley. Led by Frank Desvignes, it will act as a business-focused center of expertise on data analytics and foster Research & Development. Meanwhile, AXA Strategic Ventures will open a new office in Hong Kong, so as to be in the best position to seize the numerous investment opportunities