BostInno
5 Predictions for the Boston Tech Ecosystem in 2019
By: Srividya Kalyanaraman & Lucia Maffei
Two local companies – PillPack and Sqrrl – acquired by Amazon; Carbon Black’s $100 million IPO; the $500 million check from SoftBank landing in the hands of Cambridge Mobile Telematics: Definitely, Boston’s innovation economy had a lot to celebrate in 2018.
And 2019 only brings more things to look forward to and keep an eye on. Chief among them are tracking the stealthy health care initiative by Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon that will call Boston its home, watching how Tim Berners-Lee’s startup Inrupt takes shape and the projects that come out of MIT’s billion-dollar bet on artificial intelligence.
And as you can imagine, this flurry of news has kept the BostInno team very busy in 2018. But as we bring you news about mega funding rounds, major exits, mergers and acquisitions and stealthy startups, we are compelled to take a step back and indulge in some crystal ball gazing about trends we are likely to see in 2019.
We reached out to experts in Boston tech to make predictions for the upcoming year and this is what we heard:
Boston Will Become a Leader in AI and Machine Learning
“Harvard recently decided that all of its AI classes will include a module on ethics and I imagine other schools will not be far behind. Boston can lead in this area as we have such a strong intellectual foundation of interdisciplinary collaboration,” said Jeff Bussgang, general partner and co-founder of Flybridge Capital.
Techlash Against Boston Startups? Not So Much
“I don’t believe it [techlash] will as our growing anchor companies (e.g., Akamai, HubSpot, TripAdvisor, Wayfair) seem to be very sensitive to being good community actors. I anticipate other local tech companies will double down on their community engagement in 2019 as it’s good for business, recruiting, and simply the right thing to do,” Bussgang added.
Legislation Supporting Female Execs
“In 2019, executive teams that don’t have any female team members will be few and far between. California’s new regulation that requires publicly traded companies within the state to have at least one woman on their board of directors by the end of 2019, two women on boards with five members or three women on boards with six members or more, by the end of July 2021 will pave the way for other states to follow suit and begin crafting legislation that will help diversify the corporate landscape,” said Danielle Sheer, vice president and general counsel of Carbonite.
Boston Startups Will Collaborate More With Corporate
“I think we’ll see more collaboration between Boston startups and the many corporates that have offices here. I think you can look at the new MassChallenge program, like the new MassChallenge fintech program that we’re part of, as an example of that… Many innovation offices in retail, financial services, biotech […] So many of those have either nascent or large and growing corporate innovation centers,” said Nick Ducoff, CEO of Edmit.
A New Wave of Companies Building Out 2nd Offices in Boston Is Coming
“2019 will be the year that we can all confidently state that Boston is an exceptional place to start and scale a company. Previously, companies went west to start and grow, as it was a way to legitimize your company but also take advantage of all the resources. Now, Boston has capital, continuing education programs, community (our sweet spot), and more to help people succeed… Also, I think we’ll see the next wave of companies build out big second offices here (like Smartsheet) and international businesses build offices and make Boston their official HQ,” said Sarah Bedrick, co-founder at Compt. Smartsheet, a maker of collaboration software based in Bellevue, Wash., recently announced they’ll be hiring 300 more folks in the Boston office. Also, Facebook could hire up to 400 employees to fill out seats at its newly-relocated Cambridge outpost.
