Carpool Logistics was name a company to watch by Hypepotamus along with some amazing startups! You can see the full list here!
The numbers speak for themselves – B2B SaaS startups across the Southeast region were certainly busy this year scaling and helping enterprise clients navigate uncertain economic conditions.
Which startups made the biggest splash? These were the VC funding rounds that caught our attention this year:
How are people feeling out there?
No one has a crystal ball when it comes to startups. But it’s that unpredictability that keeps it interesting, right?
While we don’t know how the general economic climate will impact the startup world as a whole, we asked the startup community to tell us where the B2B SaaS ecosystem specifically is heading next. Here are some insights that stood out to us:
Tim McLoughlin – CED Executive Committee Member & Managing Partner at Cofounders Capital
As an early stage B2B investor, we think there are a lot of opportunities heading into 2023. First, there have been a lot of VC firms that have raised fresh funds and eventually will need to deploy capital in order to catch up on deals to build a sufficient portfolio within their stated investment period. That capital won’t sit on the sidelines forever.
Also, most of our investments are around workflow efficiency and helping companies do more with less. With recent layoffs reported, companies are going to have to invest in operational efficiency to keep growing and operate at healthy margins.
Finally, there are some companies with really good “bones” to them, that either miss timed the market, their valuation expectations, and/or their hiring plans that will need a bit of a reset. While it can be hard for investors to identify which deals are an opportunity versus the ones they should be running from, there will be some very attractive investments out in the market.
Kathryn O’Day – Partner at Atlanta Ventures
B2B is and will continue to be a fantastic area to build a great company. Businesses have substantial budgets and will continue to grow and spend even in changing economic conditions.
Solutions that help companies save money or grow sales are always compelling!
Economic contractions are hard but also provide new opportunities for creativity, entrepreneurship, and stress testing of ideas. Companies that grow, even modestly, during a downturn will turn into rocket ships as the economy improves.
Investors are still looking for great companies and will continue to deploy capital in 2023!
Anya Skomorokhova, co-founder and chief commercial officer at PorterLogic
A tightening of spending in B2B will force greater scrutiny of software purchases, prompting the need to build stronger business cases for any new expenditures. SaaS providers will spend more effort searching for budgets and justifying the ROI of their solutions. It’ll become ever more critical to pinpoint pains and conclusively demonstrate why the investment is worthwhile.
Keeping in line with a shift to thriftier times, B2B SaaS will look more carefully at their own marketing and re-balance in favor of channels that present stronger outcomes and/or are more flexible to vary spending.
Read the original article and full list of companies here.