In the US, software startups attracted $121.2 billion in venture capital investments last year, more than triple what those in commercial products and services received, at $39.1 billion. Pharmaceuticals and biotech raised the third-highest amount, with $37.8 billion in venture capital.

Private labels are winning over consumers with good value for the money. Among US adults, 89.7% said they switched from a national label mainly because the store brand offered better value, and 47.9% said deals and/or membership rewards motivated the move. Meanwhile, 52.0% cited the private-label brand’s bigger selection of products.

US consumers pined for pre-pandemic pleasures in Q4 2021, with the delta wave receding and omicron just entering the frame—and it showed in their search behavior. Organic Google search visits to travel sites increased 41% year over year that quarter. Meanwhile, retail and consumer goods took a hit: Visits to those sites decreased 14% as the prospects of in-store shopping improved.

Telemedicine is not the way most US adults prefer to access care. For only two healthcare needs—flu or cold treatment, and prescription refills—live video visits held an edge over in-office visits in 2021, and this margin was slim. US adults were more inclined to travel to their providers for mental health services, annual checkups, and physical therapy.

With inflation on the rise and supply chains in disarray, consumers are checking their grocery lists twice. In the US, 38% of adults are cutting down on how often they buy meat, poultry, or fish, while about one-quarter are purchasing snacks, dessert foods, or prepared foods less.

While banks work to fight fraud, customers are bristling at some of their security measures. Around the world, 35% of banking customers said what irritates them most is that the authentication factors keep changing. Another 24% are most annoyed by their card being declined for legitimate purchases.

Netflix is practically synonymous with video streaming in the US, with 76% of US teens and adults surveyed using the platform. Amazon Prime Video is the next most popular service, used by 64%, while Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max round out the top five.

BetterHelp bested other US podcast advertisers in 2021 and spent $76.9 million on podcast placements that year. This was nearly triple the outlays of NBCUniversal, the second-biggest spender, at $27.7 million. All told, the top 10 podcast advertisers invested close to $300 million.

TV squeaks past online and mobile video to become the top video ad channel among US agency and marketing professionals. In October, 47% ranked TV—including connected TV (CTV) and OTT—as the No. 1 video type for achieving their advertising goals. That’s more than the 46% who put online and mobile video in first place.

HBO Max was the most downloaded US mobile entertainment app in 2021, with 46.0 million downloads and a monster growth rate of 101%. Second-place Netflix saw downloads drop by 15% year over year to 38.0 million.

For many content creators, Instagram isn’t everything. In the US, 41.0% of creators run websites or blogs to reach their audiences outside of social media. Newsletters and podcasts are also tools they use to staying connected. But perhaps most notably, 43.3% do not use anything other than social platforms.

Four of the top US streaming services spent a record-smashing total of $11.15 billion on original content in 2021 as each platform vied to draw—and keep—subscribers. Netflix laid out $6.08 billion, more than the other three services combined. Amazon Prime Video grew its spending the fastest, by 105%, in a play for Netflix’s title as the leading subscription video streamer.

Of the 10 biggest digital retailers in the US, Carvana will see by far the fastest ecommerce sales growth this year. The online car dealer is poised to increase sales by 50.0% to hit $19.11 billion in 2022. This speedy growth will blow past Target’s 22.3% bump and Apple’s 22.0% boost.

Spotify overtook Apple Podcasts as the biggest US podcast platform in 2021, when the Swedish company drew 28.3 million monthly US podcast listeners, about 200,000 more than its rival did. Come 2025, Spotify’s lead will widen to 13.2 million, while Apple’s growth in the sector will all but stagnate.

TikTok and Instagram were once again the top US social networking apps of 2021, downloaded 94.0 million and 64.0 million times that year, respectively. Snapchat took third place with a 10% jump in downloads, leapfrogging Facebook, whose downloads fell by 11%.

The vast majority of US banks have no plans to offer some basic cryptocurrency-related services. For even the most widely adopted service—crypto investing or trading—only 1% currently offer it, and 78% have no plans to support it.

Since Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, mobile apps have been scrambling to stake a claim in the metaverse—on paper at least. In November, the month after the rebrand, 29 apps worldwide added “metaverse” to their name or description, more than double the number in October. This trend hasn’t wavered: In the three months since Meta emerged, 86 more apps have featured the buzzword in their name or description.

Among US social video viewers, YouTube is the top platform for watching short-form content, with 77.9% of those ages 16 and older going there to stream videos less than 10 minutes long. The No. 2 spot goes to Facebook, which captures a 60.8% share, while TikTok takes third with 53.9%.

Apple’s 2021 privacy updates have advertisers approaching iOS with caution and accelerating their investment in Android. Last May, soon after the changes rolled out, US Meta ad spending rose at about the same pace on both types of devices. By the end of December, growth on iOS had slowed to 3% year over year, while Android’s soared to 101%.

Third-party identifiers, upon which programmatic digital display was built, have been under fire for years. Regulatory scrutiny has heightened and consumer sentiment around privacy has grown in favor of increased transparency into, and control over, where and how companies use personal data.