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Technological subjects in this article: Starting trends
Startups across the Southeast have been faced with a turbulent 2024, struggling with an obstinately tight venture capital market, prolonged fundraising times and a changing dynamic on how customers and employees are engaged with AIA tools and platforms.
Before 2025, startups will undoubtedly be faced with new challenges. But industry leaders in places like Pitchbook, a Data, research and information platform for world capital marketsBelieve that there is a reason for optimism. From the long -awaited resurgence in the IPO of unicorn stock market to strategic consolidation in sectors like Fintech and Saas, the coming year could well reward the startups that resisted recent volatility.
Here are some trends that Pitchbook says that startups should be aware in 2025:
Evaluation growth
- Prediction: the growth in the evaluation of companies supported by VC will rebound in 2025.
- Trends: exit activity and the reduction of competition will lead to higher prices for solid startups, while the normalization of income multiple will support sustainable growth.
- Risks: flat towers will remain high due to the overvalued companies of previous funding booms which have trouble meeting expectations.
Capital demand imbalance
- Prediction: Late companies and the growth of the company will continue to deal with an imbalance in the demand for capital higher than the averages before 2020. This occurs after difficult years like 2023, where demand has culminated and left a limited capital availability for companies at an advanced stage.
- Prospects: A more solid exit market in 2025 could gradually approach this imbalance, but with more than 18,000 companies at an further private stage, the recovery will be slow.
Artificial intelligence and automatic learning (AI & ML)
- Prediction: A private AI company will reach an evaluation of $ 100 billion, joining Openai as “centicorne”. Companies like Anthropic and Coreweave are positioned for growth due to the progress of generative AI (GENAI) and partnerships with major players such as Amazon.
- Risks: Genai is always a small market. Growth rates can slow down and assessments could move.
Watch out for the Fintech company
- Prediction: REGTECH will remain underfunded in venture capital but will stimulate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) within Fintech company.
- Trends: Croissant accent on compliance, prevention of fraud and digital identity will make regtech startups attractive for the acquisition by companies like Visa and Mastercard.
- Risks: Economic conditions such as high interest rates and evaluation instability could remove the activity of mergers and acquisitions.
What does that mean for the Southeast?
For Southeast startups, these trends offer both opportunities and obstacles, depending on the sector and the growth stage. The growing reputation of the region as a Center for Fintech innovation positions it well to benefit from the activity of consolidation and acquisition around business startups.
Local startups by emphasizing compliance, fraud prevention or digital identity could see increased interests in business buyers, offering essential liquidity and growth possibilities. However, the persistent imbalance of the supply of capital request will force the founders to be strategic. Startups may have to focus on profitability, extend their track or explore alternative financing sources such as secondary to navigate this difficult financing environment. While evaluations stabilize and IPO activity potentially resumes, the ecosystem of the Southeast could see an increased dynamic in the scaling of companies at a later stage, provided that they are ready to adapt to the change of priorities of investors.