Your Top Business Predictions for 2020

Thank you to everyone who submitted their top business predictions for the upcoming year. I sorted through hundreds of emails (💀), and I have somehow narrowed them down to this nifty little list you’ll see below.

According to your predictions, 2020 will be a wild ride. You’re bullish on innovations in blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, and climate tech. But you’re not so sure about the startup mega-rounds we saw in 2019, the frothy valuations, and the traditional path to IPO.

Let’s see what the 2020 crystal ball has in store. Below is an excerpt of your predictions. (Read the full list of predictions here.)

IPOs: Founders will increasingly choose direct listings over traditional IPOs.

“In 2020, we will see more companies choose to go the direct listings route, as opposed to IPOs. The lack of dilution for cash-rich companies, the ability to get faster liquidity for VCs who have seen the time to exit lengthen, the emergence of financial institutions to shepherd companies through the process and the potential banker cost savings may prove too good to pass up — especially for the more household name tech companies.” — Arjun Chopra, partner at Floodgate

“Expect more high-profile direct listings, as the practice becomes far more common year-over-year.” —  Trinity Ventures general partner Karan Mehandru

… Profitability will prevail over growth at all costs.

“During the last year, it seems like the private markets have lost their way and the public markets have been more disciplined. The focus has been on growth at all costs, which is a shame because a lot of the mid-sized offerings, have largely come and gone. In 2020, we’ll see a return to a more balanced growth and profitability structure in the companies that do go public. In fact, I think we will see more lower-growth companies with core profitability going out than we would have historically. Ultimately, a greater number of IPOs with $5B market caps will create a much healthier, deeper market than a handful of high-flying companies with $100B caps.” — Jason Green, founder and general partner at Emergence Capital

“IPO market will remain open in 2020, especially for enterprise software companies. Wall Street investors will recognize the value of tech companies with sound business models and positive unit economics over growth at all costs.” — Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker

“With multiple failed or postponed IPOs in 2019, we’re beginning to see a major shift in the public market’s perception of many privately-funded tech startups. Public markets are shifting away from driving growth at any cost, and instead are increasingly expecting businesses to demonstrate efficiency when they go public, which will have a trickle-down effect as many businesses prepare to grow and scale.” — Sean Knapp, founder and CEO of Ascend

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: Expect a bigger focus on corporate governance, employee rights, and inclusive cultures.

“There will be an increasing understanding that ethics and corporate governance really matter.” — Megan Bent, founder and managing partner of Harbinger Ventures

“In the wake of WeWork, venture funds will focus more, and give less, on governance and appropriate board controls in even the more exciting deals.” — Ben Narasin, venture partner at NEA

“A lot of services have cropped up in the last year to capitalize on employee rights issues — in the form of technology-enabled harassment reporting tools, HR trainings, and even empathy coaching. We’ll see a portion of employees choose humane culture over name-brand in choosing where they want to work. And some progressive companies will change their policies around severance, dispute resolution, salary bands, and promotion policy in order to adapt to employee desires and also mitigate legal action or reputational issues.” — Ariella Steinhorn, founder of Lioness Strategies

“CEOs will add public policy to their job descriptions, as consumers desperate for change and frustrated by Washington’s gridlock look to business leaders for progress. Even previously apolitical big company CEOs will reluctantly oblige, determining that stepping outside the traditional boundaries of business to address popular topics like gun safety and climate change is worth the risk if it helps to stave off populist, anti-business momentum.” — Patricia Nakache, general partner at Trinity Ventures

M&A: Expect some major acquisitions in the coming year.

“Apple acquires Tesla.We’ve been hoping this happens for years. If Tesla’s Model Y, Chinese Gigafactory, or Elon’s twitter account have any issues, it could become a crisis for Tesla. That could be Apple’s opportunity to acquire Tesla for cheap, finally bringing the world the iCar.” — Jack Kramer & Nick Martell, authors of Robinhood Snacks

“Apple TV+ doesn’t end up working, while Disney+ scales rapidly. Apple decides to stop trying to figure out media and offers to buy Disney.” — Benoit Vatere, founder and CEO of Mammoth Media 

“Warby Parker, Sweetgreen and several other venture funded consumer brands go public or get bought at heady multiples, leading to an investor frenzy around investing in consumer brands.” — Jason Stoffer, partner at Maveron

“WeWork is purchased by Amazon; because they can do anything.” — Paul

“2019 was not kind to sports-related IPOs with share prices of companies such as Wanda Sports Group, Super League Gaming, and Peloton, all falling in public market debuts — not to mention the highly anticipated Endeavor offering never making it out of the gate. With public markets souring on sports, look for alternative exit strategies — namely PE — from late stage startups to dominate the conversation in 2020. Additionally, get ready for quite a bit of M&A activity in high-growth categories like home/connected fitness with names like Tonal, Mirror and Zwift being likely acquisition targets — especially on the heels of Google’s $2 billion purchase of Fitbit.” — Michael Proman, managing director at Scrum Ventures

THE WILD CARDS: Billionaire lawsuits, aliens, e-sports in the Olympics.

“John Oliver will most likely be sued by at least one billionaire and one mega corporation in 2020.” — Mike Jones, CEO of Science Inc.

 “Amazon, noting the effectiveness of print marketing, starts a delivery service to compete with the Post Office.” — Larry Kavanagh, CEO of NaviStone

“Hopefully this is not the case, but I feel at least one or two big accounting scandals are bubbling beneath the surface.” — Tom

“Billions of dollars are quickly moving to space travel, communications, exploration and ownership. Space is obviously the ultimate new land-grab. Everyone wants to put their flag into fresh soil, and perhaps when aliens land on Earth they will put their flag here.” — Bonnie Beeman

“The emergence of the first esports athlete with a bigger loyal social media fan base than any NFL player.  Esports is on the rise and this is coming … if not 2020, in the years that follow.  And the International Olympic Committee will announce esports as an event in the Olympics before the 2028 Games.” — Bracken Darrell, CEO of Logitech

“One of the following two things will be publicly revealed: that John Legere is Adam Neumann’s real biological father, or that Adam Neumann is actually Sacha Baron Cohen playing a role.” — Pedja Predin, investment manager at South Central Ventures

Read the full list of predictions here.

What do you think? If you have a tip about any of the above predictions, my inbox is always open. You can also share anonymously here.

Polina Marinova
Twitter: @polina_marinova
Email: polina.marinova@fortune.com 

VENTURE DEALS

- Bright Health, a Minneapolis-based health insurer, raised $635 million in funding. NEA led the round, and was joined by investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Cross Creek Advisors, Declaration Partners, Flare Capital Partners, Greenspring Associates, Meritech Capital, Redpoint Ventures and Town Hall Ventures. 

- Odoo, a Belgium-based open source business software, raised $90 million in funding. Summit Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including SRIW and Noshaq. 

- Gecko Robotics, a Pittsburgh-based safety and infrastructure monitoring services provider, raised $40 million in funding. Drive Capital led the round. 

- VNDLY, a Mason, Ohio-based cloud-based work management system, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including Battery Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, EPIC Ventures, Bowery Capital, the Cintrifuse Syndicate Fund, and ServiceNow.

- HqO, a Boston-based tenant experience platform for commercial real estate, raised $34.25 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including Accomplice and Navitas Capital. 

- Gloat, an Israel-based AI talent marketplace, raised $25 million in Series B funding. Eight Roads Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Intel Capital, Magma Venture Partners and PICO Partners. 

- LogicGate, a Chicago-based agile process automation platform, raised $24.75 million in funding. Jump Capital and High Alpha Capital co-led the round, and was joined by investors including Greenspring Associates and Silicon Valley Bank.

- Anyscale, a distributed programming platform company, raised $20.6 million in Series A funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, and was joined by investors including NEA, Intel Capital, Ant Financial, Amplify Partners, 11.2 Capital, and The House Fund.

- Solve, a Los Angeles-based developer of a true crime interactive digital series, raised $20 million in funding. Investors include Elisabeth Murdoch, Upfront Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Advancit Capital.

- Outsight, a Paris-based developer of a 3D semantic camera, raised $20 million. Investors include Demeter Partners, SPDG and BNP Paribas bank.

- 1366 Technologies, a Bedford, Mass.-based developer of machinery and technology for manufacturing silicon wafers, raised $18 million in Series E funding. Investors include Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

- Immuneering Corporation, a Cambridge, Mass.-based provider of genetic, genomic, and proteomic data analysis services, raised $17 million in Series A funding. Boxcar PMJ LLC led the round.

- Hugging Face, a New York-based company that aims to democratize artificial intelligence through natural language, raised $15 million in a Series A funding. Lux Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including A.Capital, Betaworks, Richard Socher, Greg Brockman, and Kevin Durant.

- ProdPerfect, a Boston-based company focused on autonomous end-to-end web application testing, raised $13 million in Series A funding. Anthos Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Fika Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, and aCrew Capital. 

- EfficientIP, a France-based network security and automation specialist, raised $11 million in Series B funding from Jolt Capital.

- Sofregen Medical, Inc, a Boston-based early stage medical device company, raised $8 million in Series B funding. Anzu Partners led the round.

- Pronto, a Lehi, Utah-based engagement platform that connects individuals via chat and video messaging, raised $7.5 million in Series B funding. Origin Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Signal Peak Ventures.  

- Ender, an Austin-based real estate company with a platform aimed at streamlining the rental property management process, raised $7 million in seed funding. The investors were not named.

- Satori Cyber, an Israel-based startup focused on data protection and governance, raised $5.25 million in seed funding. YL Ventures led the round. 

- Ryff, the AI-based digital brand advertising platform, raised $5 million in funding. Valor Siren Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including MaC Venture Capital, Moneta Ventures and Vulcan Capital.

- Arthur, a New York-based AI monitoring and explainability company, raised $3.3 million in seed funding. Work-Bench and Index Ventures led the round.

- Replica Studios, an Australia-based artificial intelligence voice technology company, raised $2.5 million seed funding. The Venture Reality Fund led the round, and was joined by investors including Carthona Capital, Techstars, and Mawson Ventures.

PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS

- Francisco Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Corporation will acquire LogMeIn, Inc. (NASDAQ: LOGM), for $86.05 per share in cash. The all-cash transaction values LogMeIn at approximately $4.3 billion.

- Jellyfish acquired Social Life, a U.K.-based social media agency for entertainment brands. Financial terms weren't disclosed. 

- FS Investments agreed to acquire Chiron Investment Management, a New York-based multi-asset investment boutique. Financial terms weren't disclosed. 

OTHER DEALS

- Jellyfish acquired Social Life, a U.K.-based social media agency for entertainment brands. Financial terms weren't disclosed. 

EXITS

- Attention Capital will acquire Girlboss, a Los Angeles-based women’s media company. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Girlboss had raised approximately $6.6 million in venture funding from investors including Initialized Capital, Slow Ventures, Jaws Ventures, BAM Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Gary Vaynerchuk. 

- Partners Group Holding agreed to acquire a majority stake in EyeCare Partners LLC, a St. Louis, Mo.-based optometry and ophthalmology services group, in a deal that values the company at $2.2 billion, including debt. The seller was FFL Partners. Read more.

- PLZ Aeroscience Corporation acquired Liquid Technologies, Inc, a Chino, Calif.-based manufacturer of hair and skin care products, from Frontenac Company. Financial terms weren't disclosed. 

PEOPLE

- Christopher Yip will join RET Ventures as a partner and managing director.

- Silver Lake Partners promoted Ryan Bone to director.

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