It will be interesting to see what the corporate landscape will look like when we get to the other side of the recession.  According to a report by The McKinsey Quarterly, it will be quite different to how it looks now.

“[After analyzing] nearly 700 high-tech companies during contractions in markets around the world over the past two decades. [They] found that the turmoil accompanying downturns significantly reconfigures the high-tech landscape. About half of the companies that entered these downturns as leaders—the top 20 percent—ended up as laggards when the economy regained momentum.”

There are many ways that this could come about of course, some are:

1. The leaders were slow to react to changing economic pressures and costs dragged them down
2. The leaders saved cash and did not invest in technology to keep up with market demands
3. Entrants or non-leaders innovated around the leaders with a business model that the downturn actually strengthened

Of course, “business model” is not limited to “pricing” or “cost structure”.  It could include the channel, licensing model, support structure, etc.  Everything that goes towards how a company makes and uses money.

In a software-based industry, there is a great deal of opportunity in #3.  And if you’re interested in discussing how Xuropa can help your company take advantage of the environment, please drop me a line via Twitter (sfojames), LinkedIn, or Xuropa.

Posted under Xuropa, business, industry

There’s a lot of doom and gloom out there for those providing technologies into the electronic design supply chain.  And you hear of VC’s shying away from this field, but there are some out there that are getting funding:

• GateRocket: $3M (Today)
• Nusym Technology: $8M (Last week)
• Envivio: $25M (Last week)
• ChipX: $4M (August)

I know of one more up-and-coming EDA company that closed an undisclosed bridge round in June and is now going through a strategic-investor round B.

Many VC’s suffer from the herd mentality and are solely focused on CleanTech, BioTech and consumer internet.  But there are clearly some that understand the real challenges and opportunities in our industry and see a path to making a return on their investment.

As with other industries, we’ve been heading towards some significant changes for a while.  And for the first time in a long time, it’s not going to be solely a move to a new geometry that’s driving the new challenges.  Financial pressures are weighing on business models and geographic pressures are pushing on the way products are marketed, sold and supported.  Where there are challenges there are opportunities.

We at Xuropa are focused on resolving those business challenges - so you can be rewarded for solving the technical challenges.

If you’re looking for help in getting your technology out to a wider audience and overcoming these challenges, we’d like to hear from you.  Sign-in and click on “become an exhibitor“.

Do you know of anyone else closing funding?

Posted under industry