Technology has disrupted almost every industry over the past 10 years, but behind every transformative startup that took off during the last decade has been a steady influx of investment capital, according to a Jan. 2 Bloomberg op-ed.
The 2010s saw the emergence of various technology transformations from companies like Uber, Netflix and Tesla, but the largest impact of the decade hasn't been a specific technology. It has been the investment capital that backed these startups, wrote Shira Ovide, a Bloomberg opinion columnist who covers technology.
"Food delivered to our doorsteps, real estate and software companies that are shifting how and where companies work… — almost none of these phenomena would be financially viable without piles of investment capital at the start, and in some cases continuing to this day."
Ms. Ovide pinpoints other people's money, and lots of it, as the cause of increased growth in technology innovation. At the start of the decade in 2009, U.S. tech startups received $27.2 billion in investment dollars. That number rose to more than $143 billion in the 12 months ended last September, according to the National Venture Capital Association, Ms. Ovide wrote.
Hospitals and health systems such as NYU Langone Health and Hackensack Meridian Health have also invested innovation dollars in startups and investment funds, which aim to enhance areas including biotechnology, life sciences and precision medicine.