Techstars CEO Maelle Gavet was interviewed on yesterday’s edition of Bloomberg Technology, the channel’s daily news show focused on all things tech and innovation. 

Zeroing-in on early stage technology investing in 2023, the presenters asked Maelle for her assessment of the market in the year ahead. Here are three of her predictions:  

Early stage will defy the gloom

Although 2023 looks set to be one of the trickiest years on record since the turn-of-the-century tech bubble, Maelle remains optimistic overall because of the uptick in high quality early stage ideas and entrepreneurs who are applying to our programs. With the most value to be found at pre-seed and seed, it is perhaps the best ever time to be an early stage technology investor.  

Layoffs will spark a wave of innovation 

Despite the very real pain for the individuals directly affected, the wave of layoffs seen across the technology sector is already (indirectly) sparking a wave of innovation. Many of the founders who are pitching Techstars across multiple sectors and geographies are some of the very people who’ve recently been let go by Meta or Google (or less famous tech firms), and are now ready to take the plunge and start up on their own. (And as Maelle wrote in a LinkedIn post, layoffs have also helped end the tech ‘talent war’, and make the best talent accessible – and affordable – to early stage founders.) 

The VC industry will consolidate. 

This year will also see consolidation in VC. Because Techstars is a major source of deal flow to the venture industry, we’re seeing something that isn’t yet reflected in the data – namely that an increasing number of emerging managers, with <$100M AUM, have told us privately that they are not going to raise their next fund. Because of that Maelle predicts that the number of smaller/boutique VC firms in the marketplace will decrease dramatically – perhaps as many as 50% will cease practically to function over the next few years.

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