Business leader Arif Efendi has led ventures in a range of different industries, including technology, entertainment and venture capital. This article will look at shifts in the venture capital landscape throughout 2024, identifying emerging trends and disruptive influences.
The VC industry has played a leading role in the development and growth of countless innovative companies. Its origins can be traced back to post-World War II, when investors started to realise the potential of financing high-risk, high-reward projects.
American Research and Development Corporation, the world’s first VC firm, was founded by George Doriot in 1946. The company’s most notable investment, which was in Digital Equipment Corporation, provided an astronomical return that helped crystalise the potential of VC funding.
Over ensuing decades, the VC industry quickly grew and gained traction, particularly in Silicon Valley. Here it fuelled growth in the technology sector thanks to the emergence of leading VC firms like Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital funding early-stage tech titans like Cisco, Apple and Google.
Moving forward to 2024, the pandemic and various subsequent socio-political developments have created huge uncertainty in the global economy. However, Vivek Ramaswamy, a partner at Madona Venture Group, highlights an increase of deals in Series B+ stages as an indication that people are getting excited and ‘things are coming back’, suggesting that VCs are proceeding with cautious optimism. The dominance of AI in arenas such as investment is tipped to continue. In addition, largescale infrastructure projects driven by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act are predicted to spur investment in the climate tech space.
For many dealmakers, priorities shifted considerably between early 2023 and 2024, with relationships and brand trust becoming integral to fundraising and closing deals. Whereas in 2023 there was an emphasis on sourcing, the focus today is largely on strengthening existing relationships and expanding networks. According to a report by Forbes, the proportion of businesses identifying deal sourcing as a top priority fell from 39% to 30% between 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, network building rose from 19% to 33% over the same period, Forbes’ report reveals.
From an investor’s perspective, their network is their livelihood. The best firms are adept at leveraging partnerships to gain access to the right opportunities at the right time. Today, most PE and VC investors are centralising all of their real-time network data, helping them to sustain relationships by using technology to ensure teams operate efficiently without duplication or the need for manual data entry.
Meanwhile, AI is increasingly enabling VCs to conduct qualitive research and pair it with structured data to better inform investment decisions, helping investors to reach data-backed decisions and identify which deals to pursue faster than their competitors.
