After a long career stalking and investing in Silicon Valley startups, David Blumberg says he used the pandemic lockdown to liberate himself, move to Miami and take up a more virtual lifestyle that more closely resembles the technology company he invests in.
In fact, the founder of Blumberg Capital told PYMNTS Karen Webster that, as a trained observer, the past 18 months have been personally and professionally eye-opening.
“The lockdowns enabled people to cut through perceptions of the way things had to be done and people were able to liberate themselves,” Blumberg said, pointing to his own seamless relocation within an increasingly hybrid world that offers people many, many more choices in terms of how — and where — they are able to live and work.
However, none of this would have been possible, said Blumberg, had it not been for an amazing array of incredible technologies that most of us take for granted, including the people who invest in them.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants that built all of this,” he said, blessed both as an investor, who had a “very good year” as well as an individual “because the technology worked.”
The Tyranny of Distance
One of the great changes to emerge from the pandemic is what Blumberg referred to as “the tyranny of distance no longer being a barrier,” because dispersed people can digitally connect and get work done with unprecedented ease.
It’s a trend that not only reshapes the idea of the workplace, but has also prompted a rethink of what’s possible for families, caregivers or anyone else who no longer has to make a daily trek to and from an office or job site, or get on a plane for a meeting.
With proximity no longer a barrier — or a competitive advantage — for businesses, a whole new worldview and realm of possibilities have emerged to fill the void at a time of peak demand for people and collaboration.
“I’d say for our startup companies, which range from tiny startups we just funded to major companies that are almost about to go public, the hardest problem for them all is finding enough great staff,” Blumberg said, calling their hiring woes “a war for talent.”
At the same time, he said, venture capitalists can also make the case for increased investment in enterprise software that enables orchestration, better process flow, better data mining and what he calls “institutional memory — ‘Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?’”
“All this stuff needs to be coordinated and that’s why collaboration is at a premium,” he said.
15 Yeses, 3,000 Noes
In a typical year, Blumberg said his company receives about 3,000 inbound pitches and only says yes to about 15 of them. The dynamics of venture capital investing have changed lately, due in part to bigger deals and higher valuations driven by a frenzy of corporate investing.
“I think it’s because they [corporates] realized … they need to be involved with the ecosystem of startups,” he said, because if they’re not looking, these disruptors and startups will catch you off guard, knock you off the road and steal your market share.
“Big corporations are, I think, increasingly starting to engage earlier, invest in startups, partner with startups and use them as vendors more than ever,” he said, noting that perennial “Dr. No CIOs” that never wanted to talk are suddenly more welcoming to venture capital opportunities.
While there is currently more demand, he said there is also more competition, creating a scenario where competitors on one deal often end up cooperating on another — a scenario Blumberg refers to as “coopetition.”
Metaverse 1.0
While the budding metaverse is still the brunt of jokes and widespread misunderstanding, Blumberg has begun taking stakes and likens the current status to the early days of cellphones or the internet, which were also dominated by gamers and entertainment.
“The biggest application will probably be huge enterprise applications for communication in a three-dimensional or four-dimensional way,” he predicts, painting a progression of phone call to Zoom call, to 3D, to the entrance of physical objects and different engines that can enhance and add value to the viewing experience.
“All of this can be done in what we’re calling the metaverse, so it’s much more than just for entertainment,” he said, noting that medical usage will likely be a big part of its future.
Rather than deriding it, Blumberg is taking a more nurturing view, with the expectation that these early days are simply a training ground for something far more sophisticated and useful.
“Technology is our friend. It’s here in biotech, helping us to stay healthier, and it’s here in FinTech and other software to help our lives just be simpler and easier,” he said. Or more liberated.
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