This summer German startup Replex.io was highlighted by Gartner in one of their Cool Vendor reports.
"CIOs should assess these Cool Vendors that are disrupting the cloud market through robust multicloud implementation products."
Before the year came to a close, Replex was acquired by Cisco.
Congrats Replex.
Another real-life example how impactful Industry Analysts are in the Startup world.
Three years earlier
in 2018, researcher Suwen Chen from the Analyst Observatory at the University of Edinburgh Business School had published a study about the process how Gartner selects startups for their Cool Vendor nominations and the correlation with startup success:*
Less than 50% of b2b technology Startups survive the first five years in business.
Startups who got nominated as Cool Vendors, however, show an impressive survival of close to 80% over the same time period.
The chicken and egg question can be answered with a clear - it depends.
Startups who engage early, strategically and regularly with IAs stand a better chance of being best known and deeply understood by the analysts responsible for the startup nominations. (As startup you cannot apply for a nomination.) Also their engagement provides them with valuable insights and feedback enabling bolder decisions faster. Which attracts more and better clients as well as more and better investment = better chances of survival.
Startups who may not have engaged with IAs and who's nomination comes out of the blue, still get the benefit of enormously increased and qualified visibility against their peers. A boost for sales or partner acquisition = better chances of survival - or they become an acquisition target.
Whichever applies in the individual case, it's a positive.
Also, if Startups have taken advantage of the analyst engagement and then get the extra visibility as a bonus, what's not to like.
Again, Replex is yet another beautiful example.
Again, congrats and all the best to the team there!
* Study based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Report, US, and from the Office for National Statistics in the UK.