Despite the widespread disruptions COVID-19 has caused to date, the current environment creates a moment for the technology sector and its entrepreneurs to shine, according to a new report from Bond Capital, the venture capital firm of former tech investment banker Mary Meeker. Meeker, best known for producing the eagerly awaited annual "Internet Trends" report, is the co-author of the report sent to the investors of her firm.
The 29-page report, republished by Axios, details observations about how the pandemic would affect businesses. "Our world had become increasingly porous, handing a coronavirus the perfect setup for global impact," said the report.
"In our work at BOND, we focus on technology, innovation, and the powerful role of science / engineering / data in forwarding progress. We believe the COVID-19 environment creates a moment for the technology sector and its entrepreneurs to shine," the authors wrote.
The report underlined that events of the past three-four months underscore the need for broad-scale data-driven forward planning / execution and the need for modern technology.
"In both industry and government, we fully expect a greater focus on forward planning with more scientists / engineers / domain experts who have seats at the table and relevant voices. This would be a good thing," they added.
Giving an example of the COVID-19 environment giving opportunities for technology-focused businesses, the report pointed out how video collaboration platform Zoom rose from 10 million to 200 million daily meeting participants in just three months. In comparison, Instagram secured 100 million monthly active users in about two years and Fortnite grabbed 100 million monthly active users in 18 months.
"In the wake of COVID-19, other business-focused apps (messaging & collaboration platforms) have also seen dramatic usage increases -- Slack reported more than a 2x increase in paying customer adds in Q1 plus a 20 per cent increase in average daily messages sent per user per day, while Microsoft Teams reported 44MM DAUs (daily active users), +3.7x week-over-week, for the week of March 19," the authors wrote.
With a large number of people now adopting work from home due to COVID-19 restrictions, "that will likely change the way lots of office work is done." Businesses that are likely to do well in such an environment are those with Cloud-based business functions where workers can take their computing devices and work nearly anywhere, those who have products always in demand but especially so in uncertain times, said the report.
They must have an easily discoverable online presence that seamlessly helps consumers, efficient ways to distribute products to consumers in limited-contact ways, products that make businesses more digitally efficient and have broad (or emerging) social media presence, it added.
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