Highlights of the Week (Mar 19, 2021)

Notwithstanding the celebrations surrounding St. Patrick’s Day, this week we were saddened by the news of the eight victims killed in an apparent attack against Asian-Americans in the Atlanta spa shootings. This tragedy comes after a sharp increase in attacks and racism against Asian-Americans during the pandemic. We want to take a moment to urge our readers to look into resources like this one compiled by Playbill on how to support the AAPI community and take a stand against racism.

• This week saw a number of $300MM+ funding rounds raised by Stripe, Squarespace, Weee, ElevateBio, and Insitro. Notably, Stripe is now the most valuable startup in the US and only second to TikTok’s parent company Bytedance globally. For a deeper dive into Stripe’s business, view our detailed report. 
• Autonomous trucks are taking to the roads, with demand driven by increased e-commerce and the growth of logistics. Even Amazon is testing them now. Read more.
• Meanwhile, mobility is also taking to the air. More and more air taxi startups are gaining the attention of SPACs and other investors. One air taxi company says it will be operational in NYC by 2025, shortening a 1 hr+ long nightmare ride from Manhattan to JFK to just 6 minutes. Read more.
• Cannabis has seen a lot of growth recently, with new legislation after a breakthrough during the 2020 elections. But there’s another developing drug that has seen more doors open for new drug therapy, especially depression. Dive deeper.
• Despite the SEC issuing a warning about celebrity-backed SPACs and the dangers of investing in them, the SPAC bubble only seems to be getting bigger. KKR is the latest to join the SPAC IPO with the newly IPOed KKR Acquisition Holdings I Corp. Review the SPAC trend.