2024 Investment & Technology Prediction Evaluation

At the dawn of 2024, the Vation Ventures Research & Insights (R&I) team set forth a series of predictions aimed at navigating the rapidly evolving technology and investment landscape. Our focus spanned critical areas such as infrastructure modernization, AI hardware integration, biotech and air mobility advancements, and the dynamics of M&A and IPO markets. As the year unfolded, we diligently assessed these forecasts, measuring their alignment with real-world developments to gauge the accuracy of our insights. With 2024 now in the rearview, we can now clearly determine how the R&I team’s crystal ball forecasts stack up with reality.  

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Across our top 10 investment and technology predictions for 2024, we generated an average score of 2.3 and an impressive aggregate score of 80%. This reflects a strong alignment with actual technology trends, particularly in critical and emerging technologies such as modern infrastructure, AI, and advanced air mobility solutions, as well as market trends, including aggressive regulatory posturing, where significant progress mirrored our expectations. However, certain technology segments and market dynamics, such as biotech, M&A, and the web3 ecosystem, encountered challenges that tempered their anticipated growth relative to expectations.  

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Rebound in M&A and Exit Market Activity

Score: 2  

A notable recovery in M&A activity has been driven by narrowing valuation gaps and easing macroeconomic concerns, though muted exit activity limits the overall rebound.

Through the first nine months of 2024, global M&A deal value and count has risen 28% and 13%, respectively, compared to last year. The double-digit growth resurgence in corporate-led deals and PE buyouts has been fueled by narrowing valuation gaps and easing macro headwinds, particularly around U.S. elections and interest rates. However, exit market activity has remained relatively constrained compared to expectations, partially offsetting the activity realized in M&A markets.  

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Thawing of IPO Markets

Score: 2  

IPO activity has improved, particularly for large deals & cross-border listings, but persistent timing, pricing, and market challenges hinder a full resurgence.

The IPO market has exhibited notable signs of recovery in 2024; 146 IPOs in North America generated $27.3 billion in proceeds, a 24% and 37% increase compared to the same period last year. Activity has largely been driven by the larger end of the market, with 17 deals exceeding $500 million in proceeds this year compared to just seven last year and a notable ramp-up in international cross-border listings. Despite the rebound, IPO markets have continued to face timing, pricing, and market challenges that have led to a promising initial thaw but not yet a full spring.  

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Biotech Builds on 2023 Momentum

Score: 1

Biotech has made moderate progress with advancements in AI drug discovery & therapies, though certain funding & regulatory challenges have tempered growth.

The biotech sector has shown signs of building on its 2023 momentum, but progress has been more moderate than initially predicted. While there have been advancements in areas like AI-driven drug discovery and continued interest in innovative therapies, the sector has faced challenges related to certain funding outside of outsized headline funding events, heightened regulatory uncertainties, and tapering in novel drug approvals.  

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Infrastructure Modernization

Score: 3  

Massive investments by big tech & federal programs, alongside evolving resource, energy, and sustainable tech dynamics, signal strong momentum in infrastructure modernization efforts.

With nearly 95% of executives highlighting tech modernization as a high priority this past year, investments in infrastructure modernization soared in 2024, with over $180 billion allocated by big tech for data center development this year alone, driven largely by the demands of AI model training. Federal initiatives like the Biden Administration’s grid modernization program and the bipartisan infrastructure law’s Airport Terminal Program have further bolstered this trend and highlighted a federal push for greater modernization, funding projects that enhance energy efficiency and expand critical facilities. Meanwhile, alternative energy solutions, including nuclear and geothermal, are being aggressively explored by tech giants to sustain the growing demand for computational power.

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Aggressive Regulatory Posturing

Score: 3

Intensified scrutiny of tech platforms, AI, and M&A activity reflects a growing & more proactive governmental & regulatory role in shaping the evolving technology, market, and enterprise landscape.  

Governments worldwide have intensified regulatory scrutiny, targeting dominant technology platforms and addressing the implications of emerging technologies like AI. The FTC has been particularly aggressive over the past year, exhibiting hawkish scrutiny over M&A activity, just recently scoring a win in the rejection of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger, and targeting big tech companies with antitrust investigations, including a recently announced Microsoft investigation and a landmark ruling against Google earlier in the year. Alongside further global regulatory scrutiny and pressure across emerging and critical technology segments, such as semiconductors, AI, and telecommunication equipment, the evolution and emergence of global and locally fragmented regulatory frameworks have exerted notable pressure and influence across markets, industries, and technologies, a trend that is anticipated to accelerate moving ahead.  

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Sustain Supply Chain Disruptions

Score: 2

Global supply chains have faced a continuation of significant disruptions from labor strikes, geopolitical tensions, environmental challenges, and cybersecurity incidents.

The global supply chain continued to exhibit notable disruption through 2024, driven by a confluence of dynamics and challenges, including geopolitical tensions, labor disputes, and physical and digital environmental risks. Labor strikes across various sectors, such as the healthcare, automotive, and maritime shipping industries, and at major corporations, including Amazon and Boeing, led to delays in production and distribution, impacting the timely delivery of goods and services. Additionally, restricted transit in the critical Panama Canal region from severe drought conditions alongside the global IT and internet outage caused by a defective CrowdStrike security update further served to generate significant and lingering supply chain disruption.  

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Vertical Liftoff

Score: 3  

Drones, eVTOLs, and space technologies are advancing with strong funding & regulatory milestones, driving meaningful & foundational progress in aerial & space mobility.

Although still in its nascent stages, the drone, eVTOL, and space verticals have all continued to soar to new heights. Drone technology has continued to advance and gain consumer (for better or worse), military, and commercial support, with Amazon notably receiving FAA permission for longer-distance and beyond-visual line-of-sight drones (BVOLS), leveraging proprietary detect-and-avoid technology to advance its goal of 500 million annual drone deliveries by 2029. Joby Aviation, Archer, and MightFly have all achieved significant milestones over 2024, ranging from regulatory approvals, expanded military application partnerships, sustainable hydrogen-powered aircrafts, and expanded public-private airport infrastructure modernization. Additionally, with air mobility funding growing from less than $600 million in 2017 to $5 billion in 2023 and space industry revenue forecast to rise more than 3x from $300 billion in 2022 to $960 billion in 2040, both industries are poised to continue to reach new heights in the ascent to infinity and beyond.  

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Web3 Signs of Life

Score: 2

Renewed marginal advancement & development across XR applications & hardware, particularly from industry leaders, alongside a crypto-related resurgence underscore incremental, but not transformative, advancements in Web3 technologies.

The Web3 landscape, including blockchain, metaverse, and extended reality (XR), has shown signs of stabilization and marginal advancement through 2024, driven by a series of notable events. Apple’s release of the Vision Pro XR headset, the company’s first major new product since the Apple Watch in 2014, sparked renewed consumer interest in metaverse-focused technology, driving Meta to ramp up competitive positioning with the release of affordability-focused XR headsets and a series of meaningful developments announced during the Meta Connect conference. Meanwhile, metaverse interoperability and development efforts across platforms like Roblox, which launched a metaverse experience with Six Flags and a metaverse shopping program with Shopify, Roblox, and Minecraft, have highlighted the incremental steps toward a cohesive metaverse ecosystem, with Epic Games’ ambitious interconnected metaverse Unreal Engine 6 platform vision. And, without getting into the mess of it, there’s also the end-of-year crypto resurgence (for better or worse).  

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AI Hardware Integration

Score: 3

Despite continued market & hardware challenges, there has been a significant rise & notable prioritization of AI hardware integrations, driven by the accelerating emergence of new consumer products, robotics initiatives, and innovations in device-specific AI functionality.

AI hardware integration gained significant momentum in 2024, with market leader OpenAI’s establishment of a consumer hardware division led by a former Meta AR executive, and its expanded robotics initiatives signal a growing focus on bridging AI software with physical interfaces. Innovations in device-specific AI capabilities, such as Microsoft’s integration of AI into PC keyboards, the announced AI hardware partnership between Halio and Raspberry Pi, or even the disastrous launch of consumer AI-integrated wearables like Rabbit and Humane, have highlighted growing momentum behind on-device AI functionality. Nvidia-powered humanoid robots and Apple’s rumored development of tabletop and mobile robots further illustrate the integration of AI with cutting-edge hardware.

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Advancing Autonomous Agents

Score: 3

AI agents are emerging as the next transformative focus within immediate AI use cases, backed by robust development platforms and venture funding driving growing functionality, maturity, and adoption.

The acceleration in AI advancement and adoption has spurred a surge in the proliferation and capabilities of autonomous AI agents across industries and use cases. AI agents have emerged as a primary focus among leading solution providers, illustrated by copilots unveiled by Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Salesforce, and many other established and emerging AI developers. At the same time, we’ve seen a continued expansion in AI development platforms specifically designed to enable AI agent deployment, including AWS’ Amazon Q Developer offering and NVIDIA’s recent Accenture partnership for agent development (more below). Supported by an estimated $2.6 billion in annual global venture funding, AI agents are emerging as the next frontier of focus within the enterprise AI landscape.  

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Conclusion

2024 marked a pivotal year of technological evolution, market resilience, and regulatory transformation, underscoring the dynamic interplay between emerging trends and global challenges. The Vation Ventures R&I team demonstrated notable foresight and accuracy in predicting major developments across market and technology areas, achieving an aggregate score of 80% across its top 10 forecasts. Key advancements included robust momentum in AI hardware integration and autonomous agents, infrastructure modernization, and vertical mobility technologies bolstered by significant investments and regulatory milestones. However, challenges in areas such as biotech funding, IPO and exit market resurgences, and Web3 adoption tempered some forecast expectations.

While the year showcased clear progress in technology and market trends, it also highlighted the growing unpredictable nature of external factors, such as supply chain disruptions, rapidly evolving dynamics, and geopolitical tensions, which continue to shape outcomes. Further, existing and emerging disruptions, dynamics, and tensions are anticipated to accelerate in the coming year.  

In this increasingly competitive, complex, and transformative market, technology, and enterprise landscape, maintaining foresight and balancing innovation and optimization will become crucial to survival, success, and growth. Get in touch today to learn more about how our team can help you navigate the coming year with actionable research and insights.