Have the tech and economic forecasts for 2022 came true — opinion

Viktoriya Tigipko, Founder and Managing Partner at Ukrainian venture capital firm TA Ventures, shares the financial and technological predictions for 2022, which were published by the financial media service Finimize, and reflects on whether became true.  AIN.Capital publishes her LinkedIn post.

At the beginning of 2022, the financial media service Finimize conducted a survey among its community. Participants were asked to give predictions for this year. After the discussion, an arbitrary list of prophecies came out. Some of them looked a bit eccentric. Now we can see if they came true. 

Forecast №1: inflation will reach double digits by the end of 2022.

Of course, there was talk of rising prices at the beginning of the year. However, in the summer, the implementation of this forecast seemed unlikely to many. October inflation rates reached a historic high of 10.6% in Europe and a 40-year high of 11% in the UK. 

Forecast №2: tech companies will do great, and the meta world will take off.

It still did not come true. Let’s look at Meta. Mark Zuckerberg’s doubling of spending on the metasphere led to a sharp drop in the company’s shares in October. AR/VR technologies are still on the rise. However, we will have to wait many years, if not decades, before their introduction into everyday life.

As for the rest of the technology giants, their main problem is a significant slowdown in revenue growth. This may be partly due to short-term economic weakness, but investors also suspect that the aging of the companies. We will probably have to wait until at least the middle of next year before we know if this is actually the case. 

On the other hand, the slow growth of tech giants does not mean that technology is standing still. In recent days, probably everyone has tried ChatGPT to see the progress of AI technologies with their own eyes. Other technologies continue to develop, such as ClimateTech or bioinformatics. Every day, more and more progressive startups appear. In order to reduce the risk associated with investing in startups and increase the chances of success, you can join ICLUB Global / ICLUB Online, where you can invest together with TA Ventures, exclusively in companies selected by us.

Forecast №3: rising energy prices will hit the volume of cryptocurrency mining, which will increase the value of available digital coins. 

Unfortunately, no one could have predicted the collapse of Luna or FTX. Energy prices did rise. However, the cryptocurrency rate was falling. Perhaps there is a positive side to what happened. Regulators are likely to be forced to act more actively in this market. It seems that this is exactly what is needed now.

Forecast #4: global warming will lead to a powerful monsoon in South Asia.

Regional markets will collapse, long-term problems with supply chains will begin. India will start negotiations with Russia to buy land in Siberia. Extreme weather events are unfortunately becoming more frequent. It is not known whether this has already led to global supply chain problems. But it certainly hasn’t helped them.

The part that global warming will hurt regional stock indices has not yet been confirmed. The same Indian stock index has been a bright spot. Especially against the background of the dim Chinese one.

About TA Ventures

TA Ventures is an early-stage venture fund, backing companies in Europe and North America at Seed and Series A, alongside high-profile co-investors, across a wide range of tech sectors. Its typical ticket range is between $250,000 and $1 million. It also provides follow-on investments.

In December 2022, TA Ventures Ukrainian and Hypra, together with iClub participated in $5 million round of investment in Utorg, an Estonian crypto startup.