In horse racing, probably the most dependable recommendations on which horse will seemingly win usually come from the secure boys, since they’re those closest to the supply.
So after we considered one of the best methods to search out out what’s taking place in a selected sector, we figured why not get it straight from the horse’s mouth — the buyers?
At robotechcompany.com+, we see investor surveys as a solution to dig deep and put collectively a snapshot of a sector that founders and buyers can use to know their market. We ran 30 surveys this 12 months, and the suggestions we’ve obtained has definitely helped us enhance our recreation and widen our scope.
With the top of 2022 proper across the nook, right here’s a take a look at a few of the extra attention-grabbing solutions a few of our surveys unearthed this 12 months.
10 buyers talk about the no-code and low-code panorama in Q1 2022
The place are you skeptical about no-code/low-code? Which features are overhyped?
Sri Pangulur, companion, and Paul Lee, companion, Tribe Capital
There are a couple of areas the place we’ve some issues in regards to the no-code/low-code thesis in the intervening time. First, we don’t assume that pre-coded ingredient interfaces are going to cowl each edge case, and it’s actually the sting instances that make the consumer rely upon their present particular workflow.
Second, we expect the no-code/low-code class is horizontally getting a bit bit saturated. There’s some stage of consumer confusion, the place a set of work-mates on a staff could also be pushing for collaboration to be performed in a single particular software and one other set of staff could also be pushing for a competing resolution. This could decelerate productiveness.
No-code may match nicely in verticals with well-defined use instances and an enormous pull from non-developers, or in instances the place the goal consumer can be the customer. For instance, there are a number of corporations that now make it simple for designers to show their designs into stay cellular or internet apps rapidly by way of a drag-and-drop strategy. That is extremely fascinating for designers.
Nonetheless, when serving bigger enterprise prospects that require a lot better customization, growth assets are wanted, as a drag-and-drop strategy received’t be ample.
Learn the total survey right here.
8 buyers weigh in on the state of insurtech in Q3 2022
Which insurtech enterprise fashions have probably the most in-market traction in the present day, and are these the identical fashions that enterprise buyers are investing in?
Clarisse Lam, affiliate, New Alpha Asset Administration
Embedded insurance coverage is taking off. The embedded mannequin makes much more sense in an business the place “insurance coverage is offered, not purchased.” A lot of gamers have emerged within the subject, most concentrating on the ballooning gig financial system, however embedded insurance coverage may be utilized to so many extra verticals like recruitment or mass retail. The sector has already attracted hundreds of thousands in investor cash, and it’ll proceed to take action as the worth of embedded insurance coverage is unlocked throughout all markets.
Insurance coverage remains to be a really underdigitized business. There’s a large market alternative for B2B SaaS gamers to drive innovation throughout the worth chain (e.g., by enhancing claims processing, danger administration, underwriting, pricing). Incumbents are nonetheless early of their digital transformation, and there’s a robust want for insurtech to deal with this.
We’re widening our lens, on the lookout for extra buyers to take part in robotechcompany.com surveys, the place we ballot high professionals about challenges of their business.
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Martha Notaras, basic companion, Brewer Lane Ventures
There are a number of MGAs and technology-driven, full-stack insurance coverage carriers which have constructed spectacular premium bases, together with in newer danger classes like cyber. Enterprise buyers have lately change into extra selective about investing in MGAs earlier than they obtain scale. This warning displays present public-market buying and selling, as buyers venture ahead to exit.
[Editor’s note: As David Wechsler previously noted in a guest post, “a managing general agent (MGA) is a hybrid between an insurance agency (policy sales) and insurance carrier (underwriting and assumption of the risk).”]I see investor enthusiasm for B2B insurtechs with a recurring income mannequin. Many of those startups are delivering effectivity and price financial savings to conventional insurers, and people present insurers have change into extra receptive to bringing in startups to resolve troublesome working issues.
Learn the total survey right here.
5 development tech buyers analyze 2022 traits and alternatives
The development business has been pretty reluctant on the subject of adopting bleeding-edge tech. Is that this a advertising and marketing downside or a product-market match downside?
Momei Qu, managing director, PSP Development
I feel it’s a stakeholder downside. What house owners need could also be totally different than what GCs, subs, architects or lenders need. Expertise that tries to cater to all of them could battle with a killer use case, whereas those that goal a kind of events could battle with scale and willingness to pay. When you have got an answer that each one (or many) stakeholders love, you get one thing particular and a flywheel impact.
Sungjoon Cho, basic companion, D20 Capital
Development is a sector the place “transfer quick and break issues” is a technique that doesn’t apply. There are excessive penalties for a brand new know-how “breaking issues,” and so the conservative strategy to adopting new applied sciences is smart. Nonetheless, giant development corporations usually have central innovation groups that check new applied sciences and champion the adoption of latest applied sciences.
We’re seeing the tempo of latest know-how adoption improve quickly, however as a result of conservative nature of the development sector, a attribute of development tech is low preliminary ACV (common contract worth) with robust NRR (internet income retention) as prospects deploy the know-how on a handful of initiatives and develop utilization because the know-how has an opportunity to show itself.
Learn the total survey right here.
A decade after the bubble burst, 5 local weather tech buyers clarify why they’re all in
Which rising local weather techs, reminiscent of direct air seize or hydrogen-powered industrial processes, have the most important potential for impression within the subsequent 10 years? What are three local weather techs that you simply see widespread by 2030?
Pae Wu, basic companion, SOSV and CTO of IndieBio
Course of-oriented applied sciences, like supplanting energy-intensive chemical manufacturing with scaled biology or electrically enhanced processes, will alter power dynamics of heavy business within the subsequent 10 years.
2030 isn’t very far, so widespread adoption of what some could name bridge applied sciences is the place I see actual change coming. So lots of our issues come all the way down to human-level points limiting implementation and a fundamental worry of change, so our disruptions must preserve chipping away at that worry of change.
What does that appear to be? Issues like emissions-free, drop-in replacements for petrochemicals and supplies for the constructed atmosphere that aren’t depending on a inexperienced premium. A few of these are far sufficient alongside to probably make a run at petroleum.
Arguably, electrical autos needs to be the straightforward reply to “widespread” by 2030. However look, that is nonetheless an enormous downside that touches each aspect of our lives, and 2030 is simply eight years away. In 2014, Hong Kong pro-democracy protests had been raging, Moderna was making a vaccine for Ebola and Russia annexed Crimea and ratcheted up threats to Ukraine.
Not a lot modifications in eight years. In 2030, the U.S. can have exceeded expectations if even 15% of our light-duty autos on the street are electrical by then — 15% is tiny.
I sound very gloom and doom, however all I’m saying is it’s all arms on deck, and we want numerous options to hit at this from all sides. There received’t be a silver bullet, and if we buyers are fortunate/good, we’ll get an entire bunch of local weather tech Googles and Amazons — title your favourite large disruptor — to convey to market whereas additionally efficiently staving off the worst of local weather change. We’d like everybody to be a winner.
Learn the total survey right here.
8 fintech VCs talk about the shifting investing panorama and easy methods to pitch them in Q3 2022
Many individuals are calling this a downturn. How has your funding thesis modified within the final a number of months, and are you continue to closing offers on the identical velocity?
Addie Lerner, founder and managing companion, Avid Ventures
We began slowing our funding tempo in early Q3 2021, whereas many different companies had been persevering with to deploy quickly, given the exacerbation within the disconnect we had been seeing between valuations and traction achieved by early-stage corporations. Now we have been measured in our deployment since our first funding in February 2020, and Avid Fund I’ll even have a four-year deployment interval given our distinctive funding technique.
We imagine our funding strategy is uniquely suited to the present market atmosphere. Our technique is to get to know one of the best founders nicely forward of their Collection A, again them earlier than or on the Collection A with a versatile “toehold” test alongside top-tier lead and/or insider buyers, after which add significant worth as a “strategic finance adviser” post-investment. This permits us to earn the power to write down a a lot bigger “double down” test within the subsequent spherical, as soon as we’ve constructed conviction over time. In a market atmosphere with extra time between rounds, in addition to founder and insider openness to spherical “extensions” and “in-between” rounds, our versatile and affected person funding technique will allow us to pursue distinctive alternatives. So, we’re actively making new investments on the identical measured tempo.
Learn the total survey right here.
7 first-time fund managers element how they’re getting ready to thrive in the course of the downturn
We’ve heard that first-time fund managers will battle to boost a second fund now that the enterprise cycle has turned. Do you agree with that perspective? If not, why not?
Giuseppe Stuto, co-founder and managing director, 186 Ventures
It definitely is probably not as simple to boost a second fund in the present day as it could have been over the past two years. We don’t take a look at it as binary or within the sense that will probably be an absolute battle for companies which have developed an awesome platform and differentiated strategy to attracting early-stage founders to work with them.
It’s a multidimensional query that components in lots of variables. Finally, skilled LPs perceive that though we’ve entered a market the place property, notably different property, could also be priced decrease, having significant entry to the enterprise asset class is extremely vital over the following few a long time.
Moreover, we’ll seemingly see (and already are seeing) unbelievable pricing and phrases within the months and years forward. You would miss out on publicity to investor-friendly valuations should you aren’t deploying into companies which have developed a strong basis.
In fact, LP commit sizes will naturally lower, they usually could instinctually favor managers who’ve been at it for an extended time. However we’re in a multidecade area, the place having access to newer managers will proceed to be a precedence for a lot of skilled LPs wanting into different property.
Learn the total survey right here.
7 buyers talk about why edtech startups should return to fundamentals to outlive
What sectors are you discovering edtech crossing over with today? What’s the most recent overlap that has you amped up?
Jan Lynn-Matern, founder and companion, Emerge Training
We’re seeing some actually attention-grabbing new gamers throughout fintech and edtech. Our newest funding, mattilda, is a Mexico Metropolis-based startup providing monetary providers to varsities. Its core product is a assured income SaaS platform by which colleges obtain a month-to-month fastened fee, and mattilda streamlines their invoicing and assortment processes.
We’re additionally excited to see what’s taking place on the intersection of well being tech and edtech, leisure and edtech, and productiveness instruments and edtech.
Ashley Bittner and Kate Ballinger, Firework Ventures
We’re seeing edtech intersect with so many alternative verticals. Inside our present portfolio, there are examples of companies that function on the intersection of edtech and fintech, HR tech, variety, fairness and inclusion, and plenty of extra. Proper now, we’re particularly enthusiastic about edtech’s overlap with local weather motion and web3.
Local weather motion: We imagine that local weather motion and financial mobility are the 2 most urgent challenges of our time. Addressing local weather change not solely requires the invention of latest know-how, discovery of latest sources of power, and variations to how we stay and function every day, however it’ll additionally create hundreds of thousands of latest jobs.
The half lifetime of most technical abilities in the present day is lower than three years. Speedy innovation and the shift to a inexperienced financial system is simply reducing the half lifetime of abilities additional. It’s estimated that 85% of all jobs in 2030 haven’t even been invented but. Making ready folks to achieve these new inexperienced jobs is vital to addressing each the necessity for local weather motion and improved financial mobility.
Web3: There was a fast proliferation of web3 functions up to now few years. We’re particularly on the lookout for web3 functions that additional our thesis (creating entry and alternative, and driving financial and social mobility). Particularly inside our concentrate on ability constructing, we’re taking a look at learn-to-earn fashions, metaverse studying (tangentially thought of web3) and studying DAOs.
Learn the total survey right here.
5 cloud buyers illustrate the assorted paths forward for startups
How large is the marketplace for cloud suppliers to offer additional providers past their core providing?
Shomik Ghosh, companion, Boldstart Ventures
I’m not being facetious once I say infinite. For proof, simply go to AWS and take a look at its product catalog for all the assorted providers listed. It might take years to totally comprehend all that it provides.
And if we develop the terminology of “cloud suppliers” past the compute and storage layer, just about each private and non-private firm delivering a cloud service has a number of product choices at scale.
Liran Grinberg, co-founder and managing companion, Team8
It begins to decrease. Cloud suppliers get superb at most issues they do, however they will’t construct one of the best of all the things. Increasingly non-cloud-provider distributors get an enormous market share of parts that historically was once a part of the cloud suppliers — Snowflake is a good instance of this. I feel this development will proceed given the rising complexity of recent know-how and the speed of innovation.
Learn the total survey right here.
