Venture Backed Search Vendors Face Exciting 2016
February 12, 2016
I read “The State of Venture Capital.” I thought, “Oh, ho, here comes the tightening of the thumbscrews. The idea is simple. Insert fingers and turn the crank. My hunch is that the device will focus the attention of person whose fingers are in the business end of the gizmo.
In the write up, I learned that in the next two years, folks should expect:
- Increased loss ratios
- Most flat rounds
- More down rounds
- More structured rounds
- Relatively harder to raise capital
- VCs marking-to-market showing some movements south
I like the reference to the movement south.
How does this relate to the search and content processing outfits which have sucked in tens of millions in venture funding? Three items for which I will be watching:
- More market repositioning. Think predictive analytics, data lakes, cloud solutions, and artificial intelligence. Talk is cheap. If talk generates a license deal, that’s the upside.
- Downsizing. I know that growth is all the rage, but I think that some vendors will have no choice except cutting back on expenses. Full time hires become contract workers. Trade show participation becomes a webinar which is archived and the promoted as a resource.
- Dance card shuffling. In an effort to generate leads and from the leads some real license deals, companies will join up. Others will departner and find another entity with which to dance.
Which search vendors will survive? The last big shake out winnowed the likes of Convera, Delphes, Entopia, and Siderean. The acquisition boomlet moved Autonomy, Exalead, ISYS Search, and Vivisimo into the safe havens of larger organization. Who will buy today’s market leaders? Other vendors will have no choice but go quiet. The last time I checked Dieselpoint it was still in business. Sophia Search? Intrafind? X1?
Which company is the next Autonomy? Elastic, Recommind, IBM Watson?
My view is that 2016 will be exciting for some folks.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2016
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
