Digital startup companies are now hot commodities for some investors, with more than 900 startups worth $1 billion according to a CB Insights report – in 2015, that number was only 80.
Instead of entrepreneurs and startup owners looking for investors, the tides have changed, with investors pitching to startups for potential investment opportunities. At the start of 2021, San Francisco-based autonomous car startup, Cruise was able to finish off the largest venture-backed funding round in the U.S., adding more than $2.75 billion to its books.
Q1 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
But these massive funding rounds are now key to the ongoing competition in development and innovation, with tech and digital startup funding deals over $100 million increasing by more than 800% since 2016.
Investors are perhaps no longer interested in global giants such as Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC), Avnet Inc. (NASDAQ:AVT), Mandiant Inc. (NASDAQ:MNDT), or CDK Global Inc. (NASDAQ:CDK) to say the least, as smaller tech companies are looking to break through the glass ceiling, acting as the key driving force behind the tech and digital industrialization.
Even with a seemingly flooded market of new startups coming to life year after year, these companies have established a culture of creative and encouraging competition. These startups are far more agile than their larger predecessors, creating a lot of room for cutting-edge ideas and concepts.
Investors are perhaps now more willing to become part of smaller companies that can provide digital solutions to traditional problems. Whether this is direct-to-consumer (D2C) or perhaps business-to-business (B2B) companies, the pace at which investors are pouring millions into these startups is helping to revolutionize the future of internal and external business strategies.
The Most Disruptive Digital Startups
Here are some of the most disruptive digital startups investors have added to their most-watched list.
Walnut
Breaking the standard for traditional B2B sales processes is an innovative startup, Walnut, who create sales experiences that mitigate the use of back-end structures and teams.
After four venture capital funding rounds, Walnut was able to raise around $56 million, completing a Series B funding round in January 2022.
Without the need for R&D, product, or design teams, Walnut offers a more modern approach to helping sales teams effectively share customized product demos with a prospective client.
Walnut hosts demos on the Cloud, ensuring zero-downtime. Additionally, sales teams can garner analytical data and insights over the product response rate and the entire demo process. For future demos, teams can access data that can help them improve their conversion rates and sales strategies.
Predictive Black
Think of Predictive Black as the fintech startup that combines both macro market and economic sector data to provide its clients with more informative forecasting financial models.
The UK-based firm has built quite a reputation in recent years, bringing transformative cash visibility and forecasting software to the front-end of financial management.
The Predictive Black platform helps businesses to have better access to the financial software services they need, opting to establish a more personalized experience that automates cash and liquidity management.
Combining hard and soft technological innovation, the use of machine learning, and deep machine learning, Predictive Black allows the establishment of predictive projections for organizations of all sizes. While these aspects were reserved for larger corporations, the upfront investment Predictive Black received helped them to develop a platform that can now serve smaller businesses.
Funnel
Globally, the software-as-a-service or SaaS market is projected to reach more than $702.19 billion by 2030, a rapid jump from the $121.33 billion market valuation of 2020.
The Stockholm-based startup, Funnel recently finished off a Series C funding round in 2021, raising more than $133.8 million in venture capital. Funnel, a software as a service (SaaS) startup helps users to have better access to accurate and consistent data.
What has made Funnel so popular among investors and users is that its software can help mitigate labor-intensive practices to funnel through advertising data and marketing insights.
Additionally, Funnel connects with platforms such as Google Sheets and Google Analytics, providing business intelligence and data visualization tools. More so, these tools can be automatically linked with marketing platforms and pre-existing datasheets.
So why is Funnel such a big deal these days? Well, for starters, some of their most recent clients include Samsung, Adidas, Skyscanner, Ubisoft, and Superdry and the list is continuously growing.
Digitally, the global demand for more innovative products and digital services has taken rapid hold of consumers, captivating venture capital investors along the way. Digital startups are fast inching towards an inflection point, but investors are more likely now than ever to invest in highly valuable startups that can provide business and consumer solutions.
