In the annual survey carried out in October and November, Global Corporate Venturing asked ‘What was the most important technology trend or trends in 2020?’ The response was so overwhelming, we have given about half the answers below. Everyone else who responded will be in the January issue speaking about 2021 trends.
“Artificial intelligence”
Ron Arnold, managing director at 11eight, formerly IAG Firemark Ventures
“Acceleration of digital transformation, the future of work and the new normal resulting from covid”
Paul Asel, managing partner at Nokia’s NGP Capital
“Sustainability – driving us to carbon neutrality”
Nichola Bates, Boeing HorizonX Global Ventures
“Delivery services”
Jean-Sébastien Beaucamps, vice-president at Sodexo Ventures
“The impact of covid has meant that collaboration and communication tools that make distance working possible have benefited hugely. It may be the pandemic has caused a permanent shift in how people work, with these technologies now meaning full time office working is no longer the norm”
Jamie Beaumont, partner at Lego Ventures
“Aside from the obvious covid inspired trends… robotics technology has exploded in 2020, generating tremendous opportunities in advanced manufacturing”
Josh Berg, director at Magna Innovation Ventures
“Work-from-home and the new era of virtual meetings”
David Biven, director of corporate development at Cirrus Logic
“Last-mile delivery, 5G, blockchain deployment, space tech – large or small launch and satellites, agrifood tech especially alternative protein and crop protection”
Eric Blumbergs, manager of Honda Xcelerator
“Acceleration of cloud adoption and AI understood for what it can do and cannot do”
Remi Bourrette, head of venture and growth investments at HSBC Global Asset Management
“AI”
Radu Bozga, BAT’s BTomorrow Ventures
“Fintech”
Rosario Cannata, head of corporate venture capital at EDP Ventures
“Human augmentation-related technologies (smart wearables and smart devices); AI getting into more fields (manufacturing…); 5G network-related technology advances; space-related technologies (Starlink…); edge computing hyperautomation – going towards autonomous; blockchain – going into more practical applications; multiexperience – virtual reality, augmented reality, XR”
René Cotting, chairman of ABB Technology Ventures
“Telecom, connections and digitalisation of healthcare and services”
Gustavo Cavenaghi, head of investments and portfolio management at Kortex Ventures
“The artificial intelligence and semiconductor innovations focused on fully homomorphic encryption”
Jack Crawford, founder at Impact Venture Capital
“Technology’s resilience in the pandemic economy”
Christophe Defert, vice-president of Centrica Innovations
“Distributed energy generation”
Heriberto Diarte, head of Schneider Electric’s SE Ventures
“Cloud, cybersecurity, insurtech”
Sophie Dingreville, director at Munich Re Ventures
“The (re-)emergence of hydrogen with a clear market pull this time”
Gina Domanig, managing partner at Emerald Technology Ventures
“Acceleration of automation and development of supply chains and logistics for the new decentralised society”
Cole Dudley, director of industry programmes at SCRA
“Artificial intelligence and cybersecurity”
Patrick Elftmann, investment partner at Eon’s Future Energy Ventures
“AI chips, including neuromorphic devices”
Enjoji Keiichi, president at Tokyo Electron’s TEL Venture Capital
“AI”
Enomoto Mizuki, president of Nissho Electronics USA
“The quick adoption of remote work; the accelerated rate of adoption of digital tools (Zoom, online ordering, instant delivery and so on)”
Amelia Gandara, principal for operations at Nationwide Ventures
“Conversational commerce, omnichannel, digital credentials, war against cash, logistics for e-commerce”
Javier García, director at Femsa Ventures
“Touchless checkout and last mile or delivery”
Jesús García Chapa, director at Arca Continental’s AC Ventures
“The impact of digital technologies to enable a low-touch society. Every human activity has moved to be done remotely or with minimal human contact”
Ignacio Gimenez, managing director at BP Ventures
“Digital transformation has been here for a while. However, during 2020 we saw dramatic acceleration in digitisation due to covid-19”
David (Dede) Goldschmidt, managing director at Samsung Catalyst Fund
“Covid and healthcare”
Gotoh Naotaka, manager of corporate venture capital at DIC Corporation
“AI in the cloud”
Jeff Hennig, senior director for corporate development at Xilinx
Environmental monitoring and shared space disinfection”
Gregory Hoffman, ventures manager for electronics and imaging at DuPont
“Companies focusing shift into vaccines and therapies development related to covid-19”
Huh Jiwon, chief investment officer at Hayan Health Networks
“Deep learning and AI”
Alicia Irurzun-Lafitte, partner at UCB Ventures
“Contactless technology”
Joo Euna, ecosystem development at Hyundai Cradle
“Artificial intelligence and machine learning, industrial 4.0 and healthcare diagnostics”
Anand Kamannavar, global head at Applied Ventures
“Social distancing technologies”
Kamikubo Yohei, business development group at Mitsui Fudosan
“AI and machine learning”
Kamimaeda Naoki, partner and Europe office representative at Global Brain
“Embedding of payments into software, neo-banking, unbundling of financial services, open banking and alternative lending”
Neal Kapur, senior director at Visa Ventures
“Technologies to enable remote everything (work, learning, health, meeting and so on)”
Kim Dong-Su, CEO at LG Technology Ventures
“Online gaming, esports”
Josie Lai, strategic investment lead at Resorts World (a Genting company)
“Healthcare and workplace solutions to address the covid-19 pandemic”
Scott Lenet, president at Touchdown Ventures
“We expect 5G to fuel a new era of innovation and have a greater impact than any previous generation cellular network. As 5G continues to roll out faster and more broadly than 4G, more than 80 operators have launched 5G networks in 40 countries. New applications and experiences will be unlocked that require massive amounts of data and uninterrupted connectivity”
Quinn Li, senior vice-president and global head of Qualcomm Ventures
“Acceleration of digital transformation driven by covid; increased consolidation (Nvidia acquiring Arm) and continued interest across sectors hungering for compute power and having software impact their verticals”
Dennis Liu, associate director for strategy and business development at Ford’s Research & Innovation Center – Palo Alto
“The reliance on digital products that support delivering services in a once-physical environment. Indoor air quality has become a major focus as property owners are seeking to ensure a comfortable and safe environment for residents and tenants in their buildings”
Blake Luse, managing director at Ferguson Ventures
“The continue uprise in alternative protein, the resurgence of interest in biopharma and the renewed focus on sustainable packaging solutions”
Mario Augusto Maia, head of investments at Novozymes
“Telemedicine”
Wayne MacGregor, Prosus Ventures
“Education and agriculture technology”
Pankaj Makkar, managing director at Bertelsmann India Investments
“Healthtech, robotics and cybersecurity”
Tommy Mazenc, investment manager at True Corporation
“Digital health and auditable AI”
Alex McCracken, managing director at SVB UK
“Technologies that support working in a covid-19 world (remote comms, collaboration, working from home, and so on) and accelerated therapeutic and vaccine development”
Brad McManus, managing director at Motorola Solutions Venture Capital
“Content delivery innovations, online commerce innovations and software-as-a-service”
Anoop Menon, principal director at Accenture Ventures
“Electrification”
Mads Møller, head of technology investments and acquisitions at Danfoss
“Remote work and education tech”
Joshua Müller, senior consultant for innovation and ventures at Lidl
“Cancer immunotherapy”
Nagano Manabu, director of funds at IQ-EQ
“Electrification”
Nerima Hiroshi, president and CEO at Nabtesco Technology Ventures
“Healthtech related to protection against infection”
Nishikawa Masa, president at Kanematsu Ventures
“For us as hard tech investors, biggest trends were AI/ML in manufacturing, additive manufacturing, agile supply chain and equipment intelligence”
Faran Nouri, managing director at Lam Capital
“Neo-banking services”
Ogasawara Natsuo, manager at Marubeni Ventures
“For commercial insurers, we saw a much greater focus on artificial intelligence and its ability to generate insight from the vast quantities of data that has otherwise
remained untouched”
James Orchard, chief executive at QBE Ventures
“AI”
Muhammed Ozhan, managing director at Turk Telekom Ventures
“The continued shift toward e-commerce driving the need for greater levels of artificial intelligence, analytics and automation”
Tony Palcheck, managing director at Zebra Ventures
“Online groceries and neo-banks”
Agustina Palmai, Mexico country lead at Mercado Libre Fund
“Greentech and cleantech very high on the agenda. Cost reduction within solar power”
Anders Prietz, head of Statkraft Ventures
“Hydrogen”
Susana Quintana-Plaza, chief operating officer at Galp
“Speed up of technologies that enabled contactless transactions – payment, remote patient monitoring, telehealth, mixed or augmented reality for enterprise use cases”
Gayathri Radhakrishnan, director of AI Fund at Micron Ventures
“Information management through automated process flows”
Jon Rains, investment director at Mott MacDonald Ventures
“Biotech and AI”
José Manuel Ramírez Rangel, director at Bimbo Ventures
“Climatetech, e-sports, insurtech”
Amar Rathor, director at Scotiabank
“Digital twin”
Carl-Luis Rieger, strategic investments at Hyundai Cradle
“Nationalisation of supply chains”
Ginger Rothrock, HG Ventures
“The arrival of mRNA as an important modality in the biopharma world along with the proliferation of ambitious startups engineering biology in potentially disruptive ways”
Ryan Scanlon, head of Lonza Corporate Venturing
“Automation, customer experience, digital products”
Matteo Scarabelli, director of insights at L Marks
“Covid impact to startups”
Reese Schroeder, investor at Allstate Strategic Ventures
“Adoption of AI and ML across many verticals to augment of automate in speeding up efficiency”
Andrew Seit, general manager at Search365
“All aspects of an electrified future”
Wade Sheffer, managing director at General Motors’ GM Ventures
“Hydrogen”
Marcos Simón Carralero, corporate venturing in the innovation department at Acciona
“E-commerce”
Vinay Solanki, head of Channel 4 Ventures
“Telecommunications enabling virtual as a service”
Eric Steager, vice-president for corporate venture capital at Anthem
“Artificial intelligence”
Gabriele Strassburger, investment manager and venture developer at Kärcher New Venture
“Design for recycling and reuse, anti-microbial and material efficiency”
Aruna Subramanian, managing director at Sabic Ventures
“Technologies that support the ability to work remotely”
Dilip Sundaram, president of Mahindra Group – Americas
“Increased pace in shift from offline to online”
Karl Swensson, investment manager at Ingka’s Ikea Venture and Growth Capital
“Digitalisation of retail”
Derek Tang, director of corporate finance at BRmalls
“Telehealth, monitoring, AI in pathology and data infrastructure”
Bill Taranto, president at Merck Global Health Innovation Fund
“Smart supply chain, smart manufacturing and industrial automation, future of retail”
Melissa Tse, senior manager at Avery Dennison
“Quantum computing”
Tsuchikawa Gen, CEO of Sony Innovation Fund
“Electrification of vehicles. The story and momentum behind this global trend exploded in 2020”
Brian Walsh, head of Copelco’s Wind Ventures
“Big data”
Blair Zhang, chairwoman at Compass Innovation Alliance