Startups Blog

Starting a scaling-up journey for your new business can be an exciting and intimidating experience. It represents a turning point when your vision starts to take shape and become a real growth opportunity. To achieve long-term success, it is imperative to traverse this phase with careful preparation and effective execution despite the excitement that may surround it. 

Statista data shows that just over 80% of the US population will be buying things online by 2025, and experts expect market growth of more than 13%. This article addresses the most common challenges in e-commerce and failsafe ways to overcome them and find success. 

Ivy Startups in 2023

Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business, two of the world's top business schools, produced a combined 87 startups in 2023.

Harvard graduates launched 64 startups, while Stanford graduates launched 23. Healthcare and Artificial Intelligence were the most popular sectors for Stanford and Harvard graduates respectively. Other popular sectors included sustainability and Web3 technologies.

Seattle VCS and Startup Founders

At a Seattle Tech Week panel, venture capitalists and startup founders discussed the use of AI tools and the potential hurdles that come with them.

They discussed how AI can be used internally to record, transcribe, and summarize meetings, as well as how AI can help data scientists answer questions more quickly.The panelists also discussed the potential of AI in the next five years, such as robotics taking off, deep fake content becoming more prevalent, and personalized music being created for users.

Finland Tech

Finland is the second-best funded tech ecosystem in the Nordics, according to Dealroom. To find out which startups could be set to follow in the footsteps of the 27 startups that caught the eye of Sifted, two VCs from Inventure and Maki.vc were asked to name some of their top picks. One was Ambio, a startup that uses AI to help companies reduce their carbon emissions. 

Boxed Wine Startups

Finally, boxed wine startups are looking to capitalize on the growing trend of at-home drinking during the pandemic, offering more sophisticated wines than past boxed varieties and more sustainable packaging. They are also taking advantage of lower fulfillment costs and are focusing on e-commerce and on-premise sales. With the current state of the economy, these startups have an opportunity to convert more at-home drinkers.

Mixed Gender Founding Teams 

Mixed-gender founding teams have raised $24.1 billion in 2023, which is expected to be the second-highest total ever. This 28.1% of capital raised is a significant increase from the 16.9% of capital raised in H1 2022. However, all-women founding teams have raised only $1.4 billion in the first half of 2023, which is significantly lower than the $3.1 billion raised in the first half of 2022. This demonstrates that the presence of a man on the founding team is still a major factor in raising capital.

As the world continues to grapple with the effects of the pandemic, the startup ecosystem has been no exception. While the pandemic has caused many startups to struggle, it has also created opportunities for new businesses to emerge. From Japan Post Bank investing in unicorns to Silicon Valley VCs rushing into defense technology startups, the startup world is bustling with activity.

For any startup, the ultimate dream is to establish itself as a major brand. Very few companies have been able to survive the volatility of the market. But, there are also many success stories to celebrate where a startup reached the coveted unicorn status in a matter of months. If you ask them the secret behind their growth and success, they will attribute it either to teamwork or to excellent product design.