PitchBook Data Inc., the go-to company for data and research concerning technology companies, today released some interesting emerging technology predictions for 2022 — led, perhaps surprisingly, with agriculture.

For the year ahead, PitchBook predicts, the agtech sector will experience record merger and acquisition activity. The reason: Precision agriculture sector is maturing, with software providers coalescing around models that combine various farm management tools into unified software suites that are less complex to manage and can unlock synergies by tapping into diverse datasets. Over the past decade, M&A activity in the sector has been on the rise and a funding shift to fewer larger deals is concentrating capital among key providers, thus priming the industry for increased acquisition activity.

The next on its prediction list is that venture capital funding for artificial intelligence and machine learning companies will exceed model development tools. In 2021, the AI and machine learning industry accepted the need for data-centric AI processes, PitchBook notes.

Historically, platforms enabling model selection and training have led venture capital funding. Bundled AI-as-a-service platforms led funding in 2019 and 2020, and model development tools have led funding in 2021. Given the lack of quality training data and the commoditized nature of leading model architectures, data-focused solutions are growing in demand, so PitchBook believes the category will surge in 2022.

Climate tech, including carbon negative technologies and food tech, also gets a mention as increasing in VC volume in the year ahead.

After two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, PitchBook also predicts that enterprise healthtech, particularly personalized medicine startups, will receive a record level of VC investment in 2022.

In addition, Pitchbook predicts that insurance technology M&A activity will see a strong increase, driven by incumbent acquisitions. “Internet of things” and operational technology security startups will also not miss out, with PitchBook predicting that 2022 will produce an IoT/OT security billion-dollar public listing.

Mobility tech is predicted to have a strong year as well, as mobility sector-focused VC and private equity firms raise outsized funds in 2022.

Wrapping thing up, retail healthtech startups are predicted to focus on building technology that can increase the frequency of low-touch interactions between patients and providers. On the supply chain side, commercial delivery vehicles are predicted to shift to electric in 2022.

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