Version One

I didn’t do too badly predicting what would happen in the consumer Internet space in 2010 so I am giving it another try for 2011: Android will become the most important mobile platform to develop for – the iPhone platform will be number 2, the rest (RIM, Windows Phone) will only play a marginal role. […]

I didn’t do too badly predicting what would happen in the consumer Internet space in 2010 so I am giving it another try for 2011:

  • Android will become the most important mobile platform to develop for – the iPhone platform will be number 2, the rest (RIM, Windows Phone) will only play a marginal role. While Android has clearly been gaining market share on the iPhone in the past months, most developers still consider iOS the most important platform – this perception will change in 2011.
  • Mobile apps will start impacting offline purchasing decision in a significant way. 2010 has seen the launch of many mobile shopping app like Shopkick or Barcode Hero (a W Media portfolio company) but 2011 will be the break-through year for “local, mobile commerce”.
  • Early-stage financing will continue to be close to a bubble as there is simply too much money chasing too few deals. So if you run a start-up, think about raising that next round of financing rather earlier than later. (On a side note: the Canadian market is clearly not as hot as the US market).
  • IPO and M&A markets will finally open up. It has been long time since we have seen a major IPO in the web space and a hot M&A market – I thought that this would already happen in 2010 but hey, 2011 is good enough!

I originally wanted to come up with 5 predictions but had a hard time finding as many without either completely speculating or stating the obvious – so what do you think will happen in 2011?

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Portfolio

It’s hard to believe we’re already three quarters into the year. At V1, we’re all about finishing strong, and Q3 gave us plenty of reasons to be excited about what’s ahead. As always, we’ve rounded up a quick snapshot of the action across our portfolio from the past quarter: Funding announcements We welcomed TRIC Robotics […]