The article presents a collection of opinions from experts in the venture capital and startup industry on what they expect to happen in 2025. Here are some key points:
Trends that will continue:
- The perceived short list of winners in the AI space will continue to command significant investor attention at premium valuations.
- VCs, especially seed stage, will struggle to raise new funds due to rough performing 2020 or 2021 vintages.
- Hard technology (bio, tech, hardware, etc.) will become more prominent as software becomes commoditized.
Trends that will fade:
- The spray-and-pray investment approach will decline in favor of greater diligence and meaningful value-add from investors.
- Consumer applications will regain popularity as AI creates new possibilities for consumer-facing products.
- The deep shift to backing enterprise SaaS companies will reverse, with more investors focusing on consumer applications.
Unexpected events:
- Mergers or closures of big-name unicorns due to insufficient growth.
- A significant climate-related disaster, geopolitical conflict, or economic shock that fundamentally reshapes the startup and VC landscape.
- OpenAI could convert to a for-profit entity just for Microsoft to acquire it in the largest acquisition ever.
Key themes:
- AI will continue to be a dominant theme in 2025, with investors flocking to companies with strong AI capabilities.
- VCs will prioritize paths to profitability and sustainable business models over growth-at-all-costs mentality.
- The industry is preparing for potential disruptions caused by climate-related disasters or economic shocks.
