Although the pandemic has disrupted global supply chains, new technologies could become a game-changer, believes Aleksandr Kuraksin, a cofounder at Prospective Technologies Ventures (PTV). His fund focuses on software solutions that help manufacturing companies to become more efficient and automated.
Aleksandr Kuraksin always had the drive to grow and develop businesses. He started by managing projects at a prominent investment bank and later was responsible for providing capital to real estate companies. Kuraksin also explored angel investing as an exciting way to support innovative startups.
Recently, challenges with global supply chains have pushed him to establish his own fund, Prospective Technologies Ventures (PTV). What’s Kuraksin’s approach and which trends are shaping his investment strategy?
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Deglobalization creates opportunities to smart businesses
“We live in a world where deglobalization creates new opportunities for local manufacturing businesses,” Kuraksin said. “Although nowadays government polices and import rules often support local producers, manufacturers still need to be focused on the cost of production.”
American manufacturers have to compete with developing countries, where costs of labor are lower. Also, because of the Great Resignation, a lack of a sufficiently qualified workforce in the U.S. has led to shortages and disruptions in many industries.
“Automating manufacturing and other business processes is the way to solve these problems and compete with developing markets with their cheap labor,” Kuraksin said.
For example, PTV invested in technology helping to increase production speed and software for industrial automated drones, allowing managers to make informed decisions.
Investing in companies that proved their value
Kuraksin works with companies and founders who have already proved their value by helping clients to face market challenges. “Ideally, they should have some revenue and successful case studies,” Kuraksin said.
“We help our portfolio companies grow faster thanks to our experience in developing go-to-market strategies and connections with corporate partners. This includes product and customer development, marketing strategy, and more,” he added.
PTV is trying to contribute at every stage of the company’s growth. “Our large pool of experts can give advice on most topics to allow startups to minimize mistakes,” Kuraksin said. “We normally start with an assessment and then try to understand the customer journey and compare our findings with what the team has in mind.”
Source: myptv.com
What’s next?
For now, PTV is focusing on making new investments and starting a new fundraising campaign. “As our portfolio companies grow, we’d love to see top-tier funds as partners to lead new financing rounds,” Kuraksin said. “Currently, our role is to find great software projects and help them to build sales and reach revenues that are noticeable on the market.”
“As soon as these companies reach the next round we’ll be happy for a larger fund with the relevant expertise to take our place,” he added. “Businesses should be evolving constantly and become bigger and better if they want to succeed. I believe that constant improvement allows both companies and people to overcome all challenges.”
Market Overview
The global market for Software as a Service (SaaS) is set for rapid growth and is estimated to hit $710 billion around the end of 2028. Unleashing the economic potential of SaaS will have a huge impact across the global economy.
Compared to the $130 billion SaaS market that was reached only one year ago, we can now expect annual growth of 27.5% (compound rate). This is the forecast by tech investor Aleksandr Kuraksin, a co-founder and partner at Prospective Technologies (PTV).
Kuraksin believes that a boom in SaaS is inevitable due to a number of factors. First, the usage of cloud services, both private and public, is growing. Various businesses see SaaS as the future and are incorporating it into their infrastructure on the server level. The main goal of SaaS is to assist various companies in terms of productivity and flexibility as far as their everyday activities.
We are not talking about simple cloud services. You have heard about the likes of Azure created by Microsoft, Amazon AWS, and Cloud by Google. Yes, there are several different SaaS enterprises. It’s no wonder things are like this as areas are growing where you can drive the digital revolution onward.
Source: how2b.am
What you don’t know about this market is the following: 25,000 SaaS companies exist at the moment. Statista keeps track of this data. The purposes for which businesses can utilize SaaS are many, but they’re mostly focused on communication, both individual and team, as well as the development of software, training, and sales management.
While the market and the future of SaaS look bright, not all companies that rely on it are seeing the same benefits and advantages. Thus, Kuraksin and his cofounders at PTV are focusing on businesses with strong economic units.
According to a poll by Gartner more than 61% of all corporate competitive advantage will come through technological advancement in supply chains. This digital transformation should make supply chains more resilient, more reliable, and of course simple at their core This is where SaaS adds value to your company.
SaaS for supply chains is used in various ways. One application is the management of transportation. Add inventory and warehouse management to the mix and the number of benefits keeps on growing. Last but not least is the focus on demand, supply, operation planning, order management, and of course sourcing and procurement management (learn more).
Although this area of SaaS application still isn’t as popular as other domains, the global chain of supply that relies on this (SCM) market achieved a $6 billion profit in 2024, and according to IMARC Group it might double by 2027, reaching $14.5 billion.
If all the above wasn’t enough, let’s mention IT development automation. It all starts with the likes of testRigor, which is a SaaS company that focuses on software development. They strive to assist software testers by providing them with programming code and lessons on how to automate it. A company will be able to do testing 15x as fast, saving up to 99.5% of the time that would have been spent otherwise.
People and companies that create and use SaaS are seen as leaders in the field of digital transformation. While it offers many benefits, only those that excel both financially and technologically will reap the rewards. The SaaS market will continue to grow rapidly, and companies will have to make use of it if they want to survive on their market. Either way, it will be a part of the future of the economic and technology markets.
