The 2023 B2B Trends You Should Watch
Is this the year of strategics? Our 2023 B2B outlook
Welcome to 2023! 🎊
Hi ,
We hope all our readers enjoyed some RnR over the holidays and are gearing up for what is set to be a monumental year in B2B industries. While B2C and VC counterparts pull back and brace for a downturn, the landscape for strategics and startups in the $8 trillion B2B industry has never been brighter.
Here's where we see things going in 2023 in regards to technology and distribution!
Winning in B2B will return to efficiency and innovation. During the COVID years, it was all about who has the product. Now, 2023 will return to being about providing the best price and service again. Distributors will need to innovate to keep the demand they captured during the past couple years.
2023 is the year of strategics. Innovators (tech companies) are cheap right now. It is time for strategics to strike while companies are discounted. 2023 is a year where even the best tech startups will fundraise at the same valuation they had 12-24 months ago. Compared to B2C markets, that’s actually a great scenario. Just look at Instacart. Valuations are becoming more palatable and CVC’s (corporate venture capital) are leaning in.
CVCs will continue to outperform. Funding amounts are trending down, but number of deals is trending up: CVC’s closed 100 more tech investments in 2022 than they did in 2021!
“I am extremely bullish on early-stage startups. Valuations are reasonable. Founders are focusing on their unit economics … It pays to be contrarian and to invest when everyone else is retrenching. The best startup investments of the last decade were made between 2008 and 2011 (Uber, Airbnb, Whatsapp, Instagram), and I suspect that the most interesting investments of the 2020s will be made between 2022 and 2024.”
-Fabrice Gindia, Founding Partner at FJ Labs
eProcurement Dominates. eProcurement 2.0 will be bigger than eProcurement 1.0. Thoma Bravo’s acquisition of Coupa a couple months is a strong signal of this. We’ve written about SaaS tools wanting to become marketplaces. And, in 2023, you’re going to see