What’s NXT: Understanding the blockchain startup landscape using AI

What if you could read the minds of a thousand entrepreneurs and see what their visions for the future are? What insights could you gain? What if you could also know who is receiving investments from leading venture capital firms? In this article, we describe how you can use startup landscapes to better prepare for the future, with blockchain startups as an example.

A startup landscape is an overview of what startups in an area are focusing on. It shows what offerings they have and what their visions are. It is an aggregate picture of what they believe to be the future of their industry. By analyzing a startup landscape, one can understand what the current trends are, where money is being invested, and what might be the next big disruption. It is an invaluable tool for any company who wants to understand and prepare for the future of their industry.

In this article, we show how to generate a startup landscape using AI and how it can be used to gain insights. We use a dataset of thousands of blockchain startups from Crunchbase, containing information about what they do, when and where they were founded, how many employees they have and how much investments they have received. We analyze this dataset with Dcipher Analytics, a world leading AI text analysis platform. With Dcipher, we generate different visualizations that help depict themes and connections in the dataset.

Blockchain startup landscape (2022)
The heatmap above shows different clusters of blockchain startups. To the far left, we have startups that use blockchain technology for security and data security. In the bottom of the heatmap, we see several clusters focusing on financial services, payments and loans. In the top right corner, we find the recently hyped non-fungible tokens (NFTs), closely connected to gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi). There, we can also see a small cluster of startups centered around sport fans. Maybe NFT sport memorabilia will be the next big thing? 

Diving deeper into each cluster, one can learn more about the ideas and offerings of these startups. One can understand their business models, strategies and ambitions. With the additional filter of funding, one can also understand what investors believe to be the next big thing. This can help your company better understand where your industry might be heading, who could be your next disruptive competitor, or identify which trends are just hypes and which receive funding. It might even help you identify targets for acquisition. If you are interested in an analysis of this kind, tailored for your industry and your needs – reach out to us and we can help you. 

Kairos Future is an international consulting and research company that assists companies, organizations and leaders to understand and shape their futures. We work as consultants for strategic futures, providing our clients with trend analysis and scenario planning, strategy and innovation, strategic change and capability development. Our aim is to make complexity actionable. Our vision is a world where everybody puts future first.

If you are interested in an analysis of this kind, tailored to your industry and your needs, please contact Mats Lindgren.

By Johannes Larsson