7 Technology and Venture Capital Trends to Watch New firms require financial aid to start up, produce new products, do research, and bring new products to the market. Venture capital plays a crucial role in financing high-technology entrepreneurship. Below is a list of venture capital and technology trends to watch.
1. The Squeezed Middle
It refers to middle-income families and the middle capital structure funded by Series A funds. Additional funds are chasing after companies with tangible signs of product-market fit and early revenues, indicating the possibility of exponential upwards pricing pressure. Brad Kern says that the approach is an excellent market for entrepreneurs but may need to be revised for investors.
2. Interest Rates
Bull runs seem unstoppable most of the time until they aren’t. Venture capital is a beneficiary of ultra-loose monetary policies that boost the supply of available capital. Inflation is gathering pace, which may mark an end to incredibly cheap cash if there are higher interest rates. The influence on entrepreneurs wishing to raise an investment may only be felt once funds have a sizeable dry powder. You should, however, keep an eye on the duration taken to close the new funds and their size to obtain a health assessment regarding the industry’s future direction.
3. Education
Most investors and entrepreneurs have struggled with EdTech over the years, despite some celebrating a handful of big wins. Most educational institutions and schools need more resources to cater to up-to-date tech solutions. Education, however, has a second coming in the form of retaining and upskilling existing workers or ongoing education for freelancers. Most entrepreneurs are seeking additional ways to make literacy pay again.
2017 was the first year EdTech went into the education industry since 2010. Considering it has been around for over 25 years and in education for over a decade and a half, that’s a sizable chunk of EdTech that the sector has had to deal with in a relatively short time span.
The rising cost of higher education was one of the big factors behind the widespread adoption of EdTech. New technologies seemed like the one place where tech was benefiting students more than it did parents.
But what has really been the main driver of EdTech, especially in the education sector, has been demand from investors. In most of the EdTech companies, investors took on a majority of the risk. Investors believed that they could make money from EdTech if the investing firms behind the companies believed they were heading in the right direction.
Those investors also believe the EdTech market has far more opportunity than it has actually delivered on in the past. It’s an opportunity that EdTech has barely tapped into.
Smartphones have done so much for consumers. If the same type of mobile device could be implemented in education, then students could be accessing their textbooks on the go and taking notes without the need for a laptop.
There are a lot of investors that believe the early applications of EdTech have been focused on business, but if that were to change, the potential for education to adopt mobile devices would go up significantly.
EdTech has been seen as one of the sectors investors can reap the rewards of investing in.
The emergence of mobile devices, specifically smartphones, has forced educators to rethink their teaching methods. It has also made it far easier for students to access their textbooks and study.
4. Automation
The utilization of technology to minimize human dependency is essential. We are in an instance where technology can replicate numerous human activities. Despite being decades away from Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), machines can now reliably perform industrial processes and businesses. There was once an argument that automation would lead to job losses in the long run, but most companies nowadays require technology to maintain their day-to-day operations.
Automation technology has become essential to our economic progress. As a society, we must ensure that all workers in these fields continue to be trained for employment in these fields. Otherwise, workers will be displaced, jeopardizing our continued economic growth. The key is to realize the potential of automation technology to increase economic efficiency while minimizing the loss of human jobs and abilities.
Currently, many employers are automating processes such as hiring, timekeeping and payroll. It is clear that some of these practices may initially make a worker redundant. In the long-term, however, automation has the potential to increase our economic efficiency while minimizing the human interference in many manual jobs. And it is certainly important to realize this technology’s value.
Ultimately, technology will continue to improve over time, but we have an opportunity to determine how this technology is being used to maximize economic efficiencies while minimizing the human impact on our economic growth. By implementing a simple strategy of hiring locally, utilizing local technology and minimizing the dependency on technology we can maximize the quality of employment for our community while minimizing our dependency on technology.
Ron Lewis is president of the Washington Technology Industry Association.
Read or Share this story: http://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/09/12/column-ron-lewis-use-automation-affordable-taxes/651039001/
5. Climate
Most politicians can limit the number of industries emitting harmful greenhouse emissions to reach the net zero target worldwide. Most investment communities work closely with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies to secure additional investment dollars from climate tech companies. Most investors have dedicated their energy to a sustainable transition to achieve the ambitious net-zero targets.
Also read about technology
6. Supply Chain
The post-pandemic period has revealed the mess surrounding the world’s supply chain. The mess opens up an excellent potential for entrepreneurs, who can utilize up-to-date technology in solving tasks that slower-moving and big companies need help with. Whether using actionable insights from real-time data analysis or new transportation technologies, startups will always have significant budgets to get the commodities moving again.
7. HealthCare
Supportive trends resulting from the pandemic may continue as national health services focus on pandemic treatment and prevention. Similar to the work environment, the pandemic has impacted the provision of health services. Startups focusing on areas including remote patient management for individuals with chronic diseases work closely to get rid of frictions for drug recovery and research to secure additional funding and minimal inertia from the target clients. Securing venture capital is a challenging and risky endeavor, but it can also be an excellent way of financing high-growth businesses. Technology firms should beware of the challenges and risks
Healthcare workers are confronting new challenges as well. During a home visit to a patient, a doctor tells her about a drug that helps keep her from falling into depression. The drug is approved for other indications. But she refuses to take it. She doesn’t want to use a drug to deal with depression.
It’s a trend that surprises both the doctors and their patients. “Everybody’s depression has been cured by this,” says Lisa Johnson, a pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston. She isn’t surprised because doctors are used to the trend. “Nursing and nursing education has been very supportive of allowing people to not treat a nursing person like they’re sick,” she says.
And the trend has changed health insurance, too. After decades of trying to get insurers to pay for depression, some now say, “No, we are going to treat the person as a patient.” Some companies are paying for depression medications.
