Startup trends for 2022-2025 and types of crowfunding

Rome Business School published the study “Work in Italy: the challenges of employees, entrepreneurs and startuppers. Critical issues, opportunities and future trends.” The researchers, Giacomo Salvanelli Crime Analyst and Entrepreneur Innovation Expert, and Valerio Mancini, Director of the RBS Research Center, analyze the state of employment and precariousness in Italy in the post-pandemic context, the importance of developing new skills and competencies for the world of work 2.0, and the scenarios, challenges and opportunities of the startup world in Italy.

Gartner (2021), a multinational corporation that provides strategic consulting, research and analysis in the field of information technology with more than 15,000 clients worldwide, identifies a new set of technology initiatives each year that are expected to be influential in the new year. Below is a list of key trends for the four-year period 2022-2025:

• Services for ” widespread” enterprises – Gamification and technologies for smart working

It is predicted that by 2023, 75 percent of organizations that take advantage of the “distributed enterprise” will realize 25 percent greater revenue growth than their competitors. An interesting statistic given the growing interest of tech giants in evolutions such as the metaverse.

• Cyber Security

Global spending on cybersecurity-related products and services will reach $1.75 trillion by 2025, an impressive figure considering that in 2004 the global cybersecurity market was worth just $3.5 billion.

• Blockchain

Gartner reports that the business value added by blockchain will grow to more than $176B in 2025 to more than $3 trillion by 2030, or exponential growth (average annual growth rate of 38.4%)

• Agritech / Ag-tech

The total value of the Agtech (agricultural technology) market will reach $22.5 billion by 2025 with an average annual growth rate of 150 percent over the next five years. From agricultural sensors for crop management, GPS field mapping, and supply chain management, the ultimate goal is to increase crop profitability and reduce costs through connectivity and data insight.

Crowdfunding in Italy: types and results

To date, there are several types of crowdfunding, below is a list with specifics:

1. donation-based crowdfunding; these are collection campaigns in which no particular reward is offered, other than a simple thank-you, and thus typically targeted at goals of solidarity, culture, patronage, volunteerism, and sports;
2. reward-based crowdfunding; in which case a reward of a non-monetary nature, such as an object or service, is offered; often the reward is the product itself that is to be realized through the funding request, and in this sense the collection takes the form of a real pre-sale (pre-selling) not very different from an e-commerce transaction. It is up to the contributor to ‘trust’ with respect to the promises offered by the proposer; in the case of pre-selling, typical e-commerce regulations apply, both with respect to VAT and invoicing, and with respect to consumer protection and the right of withdrawal;
3. royalty-based crowdfunding; the reward in such a case is monetary in nature and consists of a sharing of the profits or revenues associated with the investment, but without any title to the project or repayment of capital;
4. crowdinvesting; in which case the financing is made as an investment, with a return associated with it, which can take the form of underwriting venture capital (equity) or a loan (lending). Since an investment is offered in such a case, it is crucial that the campaign is carried out according to orthodox criteria defined by laws and supervisory authorities, which also vary considerably from nation to nation.

Download and read the full report in Italian by clicking here