Will Web3 spell the end of the dominance of tech giants like Meta? (PA Archive)
Tech companies have thrived during the pandemic. As billions of people shifted their lives further online, myriad opportunities opened up for startups to explore.
Speedy grocery delivery apps have grown from nothing into a billion dollar industry, cybersecurity has boomed, and the development of fintech has accelerated. Tech companies have helped remote and hybrid working function, encouraged young people to invest in stocks, and helped crypto hit the mainstream. Oh, and Mark Zuckerberg got everyone talking about the metaverse.
Entrepreneurs have capitalised on these opportunities thanks to a huge influx of capital. Investment in European tech alone exceeded $100 billion in 2021. UK companies raised a collective £26 billion this year, up from £11.5 billion in 2020.
Founders Factory CEO and Lastminute.com founder Henry Lane Fox, said: “We finish 2021 in a markedly better position to how we began it — despite the ongoing challenges of the pandemic.”
After a year of growth, what will 2022 hold? Here’s what top VCs, analysts, economists and business experts are expecting:
Crypto and Web3 will be a “defining component” of 2022
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has questioned the logic of Web3 (REUTERS)
Web3 might sound like gobbledygook to many. But the idea is already so embedded in the tech ecosystem that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey caused a minor uproar by questioning the concept, saying it was in thrall to venture capital investors.
What is Web3? Think of the internet but add blockchains. Web3 will allow users to control and own assets, like data, by registering them onto the blockchain.
The aim is to realign the balance of power away from tech giants like Facebook and YouTube, and “decentralise” the world wide web. Ownership and control will be powered by cryptocurrency, so the theory runs.
(Web 1 and 2, if you were wondering, refer to the initial stages of the internet where sites like Yahoo dominated, followed by the rise of platform businesses such as Facebook and Twitter.)
Jambu Palanappian, managing partner at Canadian VC giant OMERS Ventures, said: “We believe that the intersection of these two themes will be a defining component of next year, as we see more widespread customer adoption and how regulators chose to approach the category.
“We are seeing crypto potentially emerging from being a niche part of finance and financial services to becoming a mainstream asset class, legitimised by both investors and regulators. The idea of a decentralised financial system… is becoming very much more compelling.”
Climate tech firms will be “super hot”
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg at the COP26 summit (PA)
COP26 got everyone talking about, and investing in, climate tech and “clean” tech — technologies providing eco-friendly solutions to everyday tasks or helping to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
“Anything to do with climate [tech] in the next 24 months is going to be super hot,” said Martin Davis, chief executive of recently rebranded London-listed venture capital firm Molten Ventures (formerly Draper Esprit).
David Grimm, investment director at the UCL Technology Fund, said: “We’re going to see startups developing clean transportation go from strength to strength.”
He predicts hydrogen will “finally start fulfilling its potential” in clean transport.</…….
Source: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/web3-climate-health-tech-tech-060000463.html