Predictions for 2023, a Pivotal Year In Tech

This yr we’re celebrating our twenty fifth anniversary at Thomvest Ventures. We’ve had the great fortune to be an lively investor in each the worst of occasions and the very best of occasions, together with the dot-com crash in addition to the International Monetary Disaster. This previous yr has definitely had its share of noteworthy occasions and surprises. Based mostly on what we’ve seen occur up to now quarter century and searching ahead, listed here are our six predictions for what we predict to unfold all through the course of 2023:

• The return to greater rate of interest ranges will work its means via the broader enterprise ecosystem. Valuations and different metrics will proceed to fall till the second half of the yr. We count on it will change into more and more painful on the worker, firm, and investor ranges. We also needs to notice the upper charges we see at the moment are a return to post-war norms reasonably than an exception. As we speak the 30-year treasury yields 3.6%; the typical yield over the past 50 years is 6.3%, so we’re nonetheless effectively beneath the typical within the earlier 50 years.
• This downturn will reinforce a shift to distant work for a lot of roles inside corporations. We count on layoffs within the tech sector will proceed all through the course of the yr, so the query dealing with many corporations is the place to scale back staffing. As startups employed distant staff, many additionally paired that with salaries that diversified considerably by geography. Corporations this yr face a dilemma: Ought to they preserve staff in headquarter places equivalent to San Francisco or New York that come into the workplace however are sometimes greater value, or ought to they go for lower-cost, distant employees? One of many classes of the dot-com bust was corporations within the SF Bay Space stored salaries ranges the place they have been however reduce the variety of such staff to scale back prices. This time round, corporations can do each – reduce staffing and decrease their common wage ranges – in the event that they embrace a remote-first mannequin. We count on that roles equivalent to gross sales, help, and particular person contributor roles will completely shift to distant.
• We’ll see a surge in M&A. The skyrocketing valuations within the non-public markets and the choice to go public through a SPAC over the past two years left many would-be company acquirers on the sidelines. The drop in valuations in public markets and the following drop in valuations for a lot of startups will carry pricing again in line. With this, we count on a wave of consolidation led by company growth groups and stronger startups seeking to increase their product suites. “My stability sheet is extra enduring than your app” will likely be one of many themes of 2023.
• We’ll see some stunning firm failures. Much like what we’ve seen in previous corrections, count on to be shocked by the demise of some previously well-funded corporations. As we speak now we have websites equivalent to layoffs.fyi that monitor worker layoffs. Within the dot-com bust, the go-to web site was f****dcompany.com; monitoring the “Useless Pool” checklist of presumably walking-dead corporations was one of many main (and miserable) water-cooler matters of the time. We count on to see memes created reflecting this identical zeitgeist, however with an added twist this time of integrations into websites that allow the hiring of staff.
• The no-code + generative AI period will carry the subsequent vital tech transformation. We’ve seen a bounce within the variety of low-code/no-code startups (Gartner recognized a number of hundred such startups in a report from just a few years in the past). We’ve additionally begun to see a flurry of exercise in funding for generative AI corporations. We consider that the mixture of the 2 may have large energy, enabling particular person creators to create not simply textual content or footage however web sites and workflows that optimize consumer experiences in a extra systematic means. We’ve already seen corporations equivalent to Jasper.ai that use AI to assist craft blogs, and the fast unfold of ChatGPT is testimony to the facility of such applied sciences. This has gained a lot traction that we now discover ourselves gauging whether or not content material we learn on a given web site or social media put up is actually genuine or is an ‘algo-post.’ We count on to see the subsequent iteration of such corporations that function not solely on the content material creation stage, however on the web site stage, optimizing not solely textual content and pictures but in addition the orchestration of the shopper journey itself.
• We’ll see the emergence of the subsequent large firm. Business-defining corporations equivalent to Cisco, Google, and Fb have been constructed throughout the worst financial occasions. We count on this sample will repeat itself on this downturn. Our hunch is the subsequent large factor will likely be an organization heralding the convergence of no-code and generative AI. The place the three corporations above all grew within the Valley, we’re much less sure this time across the subsequent large factor will likely be primarily based within the Valley. There’s a affordable likelihood such an organization may very well be in-built one in every of a number of geographies the place there’s a robust give attention to AI instruments, equivalent to in China, Europe, or in different elements of the US (exterior of Silicon Valley). .

The previous yr has definitely introduced its share of surprises, however the tech downturn will not be a type of – many people felt that the period of traditionally low rates of interest had run its course and have been ready for a downturn to occur. Now that the correction has begun, we count on to see an identical stage of ache and alter as we noticed after the dot-com and International Monetary Disaster. We’re additionally wanting on the above traits to see the place we needs to be investing at this level as historical past has additionally taught us that essentially the most enduring and impactful corporations come up from occasions equivalent to these, and that now could be the time to leap on such alternatives. Whether or not as an investor or entrepreneur or worker, now could be the time to be looking out for the subsequent wave of innovation to unfold and an era-defining firm to be constructed.