
INVESTOR OUTLOOK 6: What does your crystal ball predict for 2025?
Our panel of investors from East Tennessee offer their insights.
Today’s Question: What does your crystal ball say for the year 2025? Are you bullish on the future, cautiously optimistic, or somewhat pessimistic?
- Ken Woody, President, Innova Memphis: With the change in administration (in Washington, DC), 2025 looks pretty exciting. Not a political statement, but more that the Trump Administration is expected to make some significant changes. New start-ups will find ways to take advantage of those changes, whether in regulatory changes, or new markets.
- Brandon Bruce, Managing Partner, Market Square Ventures: I’m bullish on 2025. We’re seeing a pipeline of founders that we’re excited to back.
- Eric Dobson, Managing Partner at Community Equity Partners and Sheltowee Venture Fund II: Large families went strongly into venture capital during COVID. Money has been sitting on the sidelines for 18 months or went into real estate with the run-up in value on the heels of COVID. So, the question is, “do large family funds and institutional investors come back into private equity/venture capital despite the overhand of companies that raised money at unreasonable valuations preventing them from exiting.” In my opinion, the answer is bifurcated. If you invested in the large monetary centers and in unrealized unicorns, then it will be challenging raising new funds due to low performance in portfolios. However, if you invested in the Heartland, where valuations did not rise to this level, then showing appropriate performance will be easier and should provide for raising new funds. The question is how do the latter reach the former? For that, I do not have an answer.
- Tony Lettich, Managing Director of The Angel Roundtable: We are cautiously optimistic on the future. With the change in administrations in Washington, we expect a more “business friendly” administration which will focus the U.S. on becoming energy independent as a nation, lowering inflation, reducing regulations, and growing the economy. While we expect 2025 to be a transitional year, we believe the economy will improve gradually during the year and are cautiously optimistic about the intermediate future as it relates to startup investments and the deployment of new technologies.
- Travis Manasco, MD, Principal, Solas BioVentures: I’m with Buffett when he says, “Nothing can basically stop America. The American miracle, the American magic has always prevailed, and it will do so again.” When I reflect on the past five to 10 years—the lifespan of a typical VC fund—I’m in awe. The biopharma industry cured hepatitis C, drastically lowering the rates end-stage liver disease and liver cancer. In 11 months, we went from the first U.S. COVID 19 case to an mRNA vaccine that saved millions of lives. CRISPR gene editing brought curative treatments to devastating genetic diseases like Sickle Cell Anemia. And obesity, the single largest driver of healthcare costs and complications? Effectively cured. What’s next? Perhaps it’s time to ask why we’re still treating aging as inevitable?
- Grady Vanderhoofven, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Three Roots Capital: I would characterize my perspective as bullish … with some trepidation. From a high-level and big picture point of view, as I think about technological innovation and the opportunities that are being created, I am bullish about what is possible. 2025 could be a good year from an investment perspective. Developments in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, virtual and augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Internet of Things (IoT), advanced manufacturing and robotics, and machine-human interfacing seem to point to a future of productivity and efficiency that prior generations would not have thought possible. My trepidation is based more on a long-term perspective and comes from a lingering concern regarding the ability of people to evolve as rapidly as our technology is maturing and to adapt to the new reality of how the world can function. Humans have not demonstrated the ability and capacity to evolve as fast as our technology currently is evolving. Innovation is part of the equation, but it is not the only variable, and it may not be the most important variable.
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