‘Digital Transformation on Steroids’ – The Acceleration of Investment in Cloud Startups

The Wall Street Journal recently reported about the rise in cloud-computing funding deals, noting that they are riding a ‘wave of Pandemic-Fueled investments,’ and that cloud-related projects are being accelerated, with a focus on:

  • Application security
  • Computer networking
  • Storage; and
  • Enterprise databases

Of special note is that such activity is taking place among startups, and not just the top level entities such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google, with investors having contributed “$3 billion into those startup deals between April and June,” and this year’s total expected to exceed the $10.4 billion across 260 companies invested last year.

An area of concern here is that this growth is partially a result of companies investing in remote work capabilities and that the accelerated rate of adoption of digital technologies may exacerbate the trend of job losses. The article quotes cloud firm Snyk Inc.’s CEO as stating, “You throw Covid-19 into the mix and it’s like a digital transformation on steroids.”

Relevant to NYC is the articles mention of the following:

  • New York-based growth equity firm Stripe’s investments and related benefits in cloud firms including Snyk, Inc. (amount not clearly broken out)
  • New York-based enterprise database management firm Cockroach Lab’s raising of $86.7 million in May
  • New York-based FireHydrant Inc.’s raising of $8 million in March
  • New York-based technology venture capital firm Work-Bench’s investments in FireHydrant (amount not disclosed)
  • Nasdaq Inc’s plans to migrate its markets to the cloud



Categories: Cloud Computing, Comparative Advantage, Digital Economy, Digital Platforms

%d bloggers like this: