Enterprises of the future: which startups do investors believe in?

E-commerce, social media, 3D printing, mobile applications – it’s no secret that the wealthiest investors willingly invest in these industries. But there are less obvious directions that attract more and more capital. For example, related to object storage or cryptocurrency. Bankchart.com.ua was interested in Polish experience.

Over the course of three years, from mid-2012 to mid-2015, investor interest in Bitcoin-related projects grew rapidly. Investments made in this industry grew by an average of 151% per year – according to research firm Mattermark.

Although interest in companies centered around the Bitcoin cryptocurrency has been the fastest growing, there is still relatively little money invested in them.

The amount of funds invested in this sector over the years is only 0.18% of the amount invested in this period by private individuals. For comparison, 6.71% of the total number of investments was invested in the tourism sector, 6.16% in transport, 0.56% in the exchange of photographs, and slightly more than 1% in the production of food and drink.

Cryptocurrencies are hot on the heels of the online photo-sharing services sector, which has seen a 150 percent annual growth in investment over the past three years. They also invested even more boldly in startups related to tourism and storage of things.

Among the sectors, the growth of investments in which does not exceed one hundred percent per year, but which have good results – production of food and beverages (97%), banking (65%) and unmanned aerial vehicles (63%).

Attention should also be paid to which sectors are losing the interest of investors. According to Mattermark, email-related startups have received 22% less support in the past year than in the previous year. The same situation with dating sites – the drop was 9%. Even worse – with discount sites. Investor interest in this type of company fell by as much as 48% in a year. There’s probably one main reason: Groupon has firmly established itself as an industry leader.

Bitcoin

Cryptocurrency, which, being a mathematical algorithm, has no physical form. In this sense, it does not exist. There is no certainty as to who created it, but one thing is certain: its potential to revolutionize the currency market is attracting a lot of interest from investors.

They invest in bitcoins for the same reasons as in gold or other valuable commodities. Considerable money is also invested in companies that are focused around their cryptocurrency business – selling it, providing safe storage or developing the ability to accept bitcoins for payment.

Average annual investment growth: 151%.

Photo services

The global trend of sharing your photos with the world (most often featuring the photographer himself) continues. The best example is the gigantic success of Instagram. The service, which is the most important platform for sharing photos, is growing faster than any other social network giants Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Figures for the last year show that Instagram is worth about 35 billion dollars. But it is not the only strong brand in the industry. Tumblr and Flickr are also extremely popular. For photos that we want not only to share, but to save – there are services that are very successful, for example, Photobucket. These needs are growing, and with them – the interest of investors in companies that serve them.

Average annual investment growth of 150%.

Storage of things

We need space not only for storing virtual resources, such as data, documents, photos. People still collect physical objects for which they often have no space. Hence the popularity of startups that allow you to store various things in specially equipped rooms.

The service consists of receiving things from the customer’s house, placing them in storage, and then cataloging them. After that, images of things are shown in any way to the owner, so that he can choose any one object for a small fee to take back home.

The same service is gaining popularity among companies that are downsizing and need to adapt to fit equipment there.

One of the most popular startups in the sector, MakeSpace, received $10 million from investors for development in two rounds.

Average annual investment growth: 145 percent.