With the end of 2021 coming nearer, I thought it would be interesting to explore some of the key startup areas that will grow in 2022 and beyond.
This is taken from my recent Medium article but I thought I’d publish something a bit longer than my usual newsletter. If you’ve already read this on my Medium, feel free to skip it but otherwise enjoy my longer email than usual.
No/low code Era
The no-code era has just started, even though it has already been around for a decade. However, it’s only been in recent years that this trend has been treated more seriously.
Ironically a decade ago, this ‘trend’ was nothing more than a joke in the valley. VCs would turn away from no-code tools like Webflow and Bubble, and it took them years before they managed to get traction in the market and actual recognition (check out the interviews on TWIS).
Although defining the sector can be tricky, Pitchbook defines them as tools that ‘expedite the creation of new applications with minimal coding requirements and offer tools for non-programmers’. Many of these startups have raised huge rounds but are still in their early stages of growth. Webflow and Bubble are all in their Series A and B rounds, potentially signifying that they’re still in a hyper-growth phase and not yet that ‘mature’ late-stage startup.
With each no-code tool servicing a different part of the market, there is a massive opportunity for new startups to find specific niches. Even I recently launched my own application with no-code tools as a non-technical person.
Distributed Enterprises
This is my big bet of potential opportunities to arise from post-COVID-19, especially in 2022. Years ago, many businesses would simply not allow for a remote workforce, let alone a hybrid one.
Today, it’s become the norm, and some businesses are even getting backlash for forcing employees to come back into the office. Many have adopted either a remote or hybrid approach to working, and it’s still undeniable that the infrastructure to support this way of working is still relatively infant.
Noted as one of Gartner’s technology trends that will expand in 2022, I personally believe there is a massive opportunity for new startups to help adopt this new way of working.
“This requires CIOs to make major technical and service changes to deliver frictionless work experiences, but there is another side to this coin: the impact on business models,” said Groombridge (VP of Gartner).
“For every organization, from retail to education, their delivery model has to be reconfigured to embrace distributed services. The world didn’t think they’d be trying on clothes in a digital dressing room two years ago.”
Every enterprise will be slightly different from the next, and the tools to help businesses can range from retail experiences all the way to onboarding tools.
New startups like Gather.Town help gamify meetings (almost literally) through fresh approaches around distributed workforces. There are a ton of new ideas and niches that can be explored, and 2022 will only be the beginning of this.
Cybersecurity (Mesh)
This is another trend that’s coming out of Gartner. As someone who works in the cybersecurity industry and knows many others in this space, I personally know there is a huge market to develop software within this area.
From detection, analysis and other types of tools, there is a vast market that is still left to be untapped, especially with the current legacy tools running the show. These tools are often entrenched, high cost and still have major room for improvement.
Gartner has quoted a specific use case around cybersecurity mesh. Basically, since assets and users are everywhere, the traditional security perimeter no longer exists. This means it requires a ‘mesh architecture’ (CSMA) to help manage a company's security.
“By 2024, organizations adopting a CSMA to integrate security tools to work as a cooperative ecosystem will reduce the financial impact of individual security incidents by an average of 90%.”
Although this area is huge, I believe the whole cybersecurity space still has massive room for growth, especially in 2022 and beyond.
Agtech
Similar to biotech, agtech involves every human across the world. As humans continue to populate the earth at a rapid pace, resources to maintain us continue to burn at an even quicker rate.
This is why sustainability is of the utmost importance for the next few decades. However, it has to start sometime now, and many agtech startups are finally getting the recognition they deserve.
In 2018, agtech startup Antelliq made the biggest exit of any agtech startup at the time at $2.37 billion. Antelliq manufactured sensors for animals, including ear tags for dairy cows as an example.
Although we all know of bigger exits than this, this actually helps prove the worth of investing in this sector. VCs are, of course, looking for significant returns for their investments and seeing the success of a big acquisition like this will help source more money into the sector.
Biotech
I’ve had my eye on the biotech industry for a long while now. Valued at a significant amount of 299 billion dollars, it’s expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.83% from 2021 to 2028.
Biotech, however, is quite a complicated term to deconstruct when mixed with startups. On the surface level, biotech is simply a way to describe the process of using living organisms to help develop or create products. On the other hand, a startup should be a business with hypergrowth potential, so companies that don’t have this characteristic shouldn’t be mixed into this pool.
With this in mind, a biotech startup should be:
A company that focuses on developing technology that helps solve complex human challenges
A company that has a distinctive business model that allows it to scale with the technology it has
Unlike many other startup industries where initial traction is necessary, including sales or revenue, the biotech industry is slightly different. You could have raised millions with no visible sales in the sheets because most of the money is funnelled into R&D.
This is because a breakthrough could potentially mean millions or billions of value for the business in the form of a drug or a new way of solving a complex human issue. Many startups like Insilico Medicine are also using AI to help speed up these processes in specific niche cases within medicine.
In my opinion, biotech is the future, and why not invest in the future of biology. Although you probably do need a domain expert within this field, there is no doubt the growth of this industry will be insane in the next few years.
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My opinion of the top five startup trends hitting next year
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Hi all,
With the end of 2021 coming nearer, I thought it would be interesting to explore some of the key startup areas that will grow in 2022 and beyond.
This is taken from my recent Medium article but I thought I’d publish something a bit longer than my usual newsletter. If you’ve already read this on my Medium, feel free to skip it but otherwise enjoy my longer email than usual.
No/low code Era
The no-code era has just started, even though it has already been around for a decade. However, it’s only been in recent years that this trend has been treated more seriously.
Ironically a decade ago, this ‘trend’ was nothing more than a joke in the valley. VCs would turn away from no-code tools like Webflow and Bubble, and it took them years before they managed to get traction in the market and actual recognition (check out the interviews on TWIS).
Although defining the sector can be tricky, Pitchbook defines them as tools that ‘expedite the creation of new applications with minimal coding requirements and offer tools for non-programmers’. Many of these startups have raised huge rounds but are still in their early stages of growth. Webflow and Bubble are all in their Series A and B rounds, potentially signifying that they’re still in a hyper-growth phase and not yet that ‘mature’ late-stage startup.
With each no-code tool servicing a different part of the market, there is a massive opportunity for new startups to find specific niches. Even I recently launched my own application with no-code tools as a non-technical person.
Distributed Enterprises
This is my big bet of potential opportunities to arise from post-COVID-19, especially in 2022. Years ago, many businesses would simply not allow for a remote workforce, let alone a hybrid one.
Today, it’s become the norm, and some businesses are even getting backlash for forcing employees to come back into the office. Many have adopted either a remote or hybrid approach to working, and it’s still undeniable that the infrastructure to support this way of working is still relatively infant.
Noted as one of Gartner’s technology trends that will expand in 2022, I personally believe there is a massive opportunity for new startups to help adopt this new way of working.
Every enterprise will be slightly different from the next, and the tools to help businesses can range from retail experiences all the way to onboarding tools.
New startups like Gather.Town help gamify meetings (almost literally) through fresh approaches around distributed workforces. There are a ton of new ideas and niches that can be explored, and 2022 will only be the beginning of this.
Cybersecurity (Mesh)
This is another trend that’s coming out of Gartner. As someone who works in the cybersecurity industry and knows many others in this space, I personally know there is a huge market to develop software within this area.
From detection, analysis and other types of tools, there is a vast market that is still left to be untapped, especially with the current legacy tools running the show. These tools are often entrenched, high cost and still have major room for improvement.
Gartner has quoted a specific use case around cybersecurity mesh. Basically, since assets and users are everywhere, the traditional security perimeter no longer exists. This means it requires a ‘mesh architecture’ (CSMA) to help manage a company's security.
Although this area is huge, I believe the whole cybersecurity space still has massive room for growth, especially in 2022 and beyond.
Agtech
Similar to biotech, agtech involves every human across the world. As humans continue to populate the earth at a rapid pace, resources to maintain us continue to burn at an even quicker rate.
This is why sustainability is of the utmost importance for the next few decades. However, it has to start sometime now, and many agtech startups are finally getting the recognition they deserve.
In 2018, agtech startup Antelliq made the biggest exit of any agtech startup at the time at $2.37 billion. Antelliq manufactured sensors for animals, including ear tags for dairy cows as an example.
Although we all know of bigger exits than this, this actually helps prove the worth of investing in this sector. VCs are, of course, looking for significant returns for their investments and seeing the success of a big acquisition like this will help source more money into the sector.
Biotech
I’ve had my eye on the biotech industry for a long while now. Valued at a significant amount of 299 billion dollars, it’s expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.83% from 2021 to 2028.
Biotech, however, is quite a complicated term to deconstruct when mixed with startups. On the surface level, biotech is simply a way to describe the process of using living organisms to help develop or create products. On the other hand, a startup should be a business with hypergrowth potential, so companies that don’t have this characteristic shouldn’t be mixed into this pool.
With this in mind, a biotech startup should be:
A company that focuses on developing technology that helps solve complex human challenges
A company that has a distinctive business model that allows it to scale with the technology it has
Unlike many other startup industries where initial traction is necessary, including sales or revenue, the biotech industry is slightly different. You could have raised millions with no visible sales in the sheets because most of the money is funnelled into R&D.
This is because a breakthrough could potentially mean millions or billions of value for the business in the form of a drug or a new way of solving a complex human issue. Many startups like Insilico Medicine are also using AI to help speed up these processes in specific niche cases within medicine.
In my opinion, biotech is the future, and why not invest in the future of biology. Although you probably do need a domain expert within this field, there is no doubt the growth of this industry will be insane in the next few years.