2025 Triangle Tweener Times Predictions
Starting a New Tradition: Robbie and Scot's Annual Predictions - Inaugural 2025 Edition.
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To celebrate the Tweener Times’ first New Year we’re introducing a New Tradition - our first of many Annual Prediction posts. Each year Robbie Allen (CEO Bionic Health and GP Tweener Fund) and I will make 4 predictions for the new year. Then each year in late December we’ll review how we did before releasing the next set of predictions.
Some of the predictions will also be inspiration for ‘deep dives’ through the year as we see things develop - always with a Triangle-centricity!
We’ll alternate who starts with Robbie taking the pole position this year.
But, before we jump in, a word from our sponsors:
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Part I: Robbie Allen’s Predictions
Many of the trendy 2025 predictions you may see revolve around starkly opposing views. On one hand, some believe AI is on the cusp of artificial general intelligence (AGI), with breakthroughs coming at an accelerating pace. On the other, there are those who claim large language models (LLMs) have already peaked and will deliver only incremental gains in the near term. Meanwhile, the investment climate appears equally divided. Optimists look forward to a renewed surge in venture capital, M&A, and IPO deals, while skeptics warn we’re in a precarious stock market bubble that could burst at any moment. Instead of rehashing these widely discussed perspectives, I’d like to explore a more nuanced set of predictions. Let’s get started…
Robbie’s 2025 Prediction 1: AI-Driven Software Development
Despite having spent nearly three decades writing code myself, I see an inflection point in 2025 where software engineering will increasingly be outsourced to AI. By the end of the year, the need to hire human programmers will significantly diminish. Alongside these “robo-programmers,” a new breed of AI-guided programmers will arise—individuals who never studied software engineering but know how to guide an LLM to generate full blown applications. This shift won't eliminate the need for human programmers but will democratize software creation in new and exciting ways leading to a brave new world of application development.
Robbie’s 2025 Prediction 2: The Rise of the Full Stack Product Manager
While traditional software engineering roles may decline, product management will become increasingly crucial. The historical challenge in software development has been translating business requirements into technical specifications – a process that often involves costly iterations and communication overhead. In 2025, we'll see the rise of full-stack product managers who can leverage AI coding tools like Cursor and Replit to directly implement their visions. Those who can blend business know-how with AI-assisted development will dramatically accelerate product development cycles.
Robbie’s 2025 Prediction 3: Your Computer Becomes Your Co-Worker
We've all heard about the potential of AI to revolutionize productivity, but in 2025, it will start to feel genuinely tangible. The most impactful AI advancements won't be confined to chatbots or code generation. They'll manifest in the seamless integration of AI into our daily workflows. Think of your computer not as a tool, but as a collaborative partner.
Anthropic's recent "computer use" capabilities for Claude, while still nascent, provide a glimpse of this future. Imagine an AI that can not only draft emails but also schedule meetings based on your availability, research market trends, generate reports in Excel, and even navigate complex internal systems. The previously cumbersome world of low-code/no-code tools will be eclipsed by AI-powered platforms that can execute tasks across a range of applications, from web browsers to Slack to sophisticated enterprise software.
Imagine doing a screen recording while you work and then unleashing AI to replicate many of the same behaviors without you. While you are away at lunch, your computer can still be performing many of the same tasks you would be doing. Be sure to close your Instagram/X tabs before you start recording!
Robbie’s 2025 Prediction 4: The Triangle's AI-Fueled Renaissance
The Triangle is on the cusp of an AI-fueled startup boom. Despite a challenging VC environment over the past two years, the Triangle Tweener Fund has witnessed a steady increase in the quality and ambition of local startups. We're seeing a growing number of companies that are not just adopting AI as an add-on, but are building their entire business models around it.
From revolutionizing the legal profession to transforming the restaurant industry, from pushing the boundaries of robotics to reimagining home construction, AI is permeating every sector of the Triangle startup ecosystem. This trend will only accelerate in 2025, driven by a confluence of factors:
Talent Influx: The continued migration of top-tier entrepreneurs, executives, and technologists to the Triangle is providing a critical mass of human capital to fuel innovation.
VC Rebound: As the venture capital market hopefully recovers, we anticipate a surge in funding for AI-focused startups in the region, further accelerating their growth.
Ecosystem Maturity: The Triangle's startup ecosystem is reaching a new level of maturity, with a strong network of mentors, investors, and support organizations that are increasingly attuned to the unique needs of AI-driven companies. (including our own Tweener Times and Tweener Talks!)
Robbie’s 2025 Prediction Bonus: The UNC Bill Belichick Experiment Will Take Time
While I'm confident about the Triangle's tech trajectory, I'm less bullish on UNC Football's immediate prospects under new Coach Bill Belichick. While landing a legendary coach like Belichick is a coup for sure, building a championship-caliber team takes time, especially in the era of NIL and the transfer portal. Expectations are sky-high, but let's be realistic. A finish outside the top 25 in 2025 is a likely scenario while the team is being rebuilt. I’m very optimistic about UNC's potential to become a consistent contender, but patience will be key in year one. Just ask Deion Sanders.
Part II: Scot’s Predictions
Robbie and I wrote these without seeing each others, but knowing he’s neck deep in the world of AI, I avoided that topic for most of my predictions. Before jumping in, as a startup founder, you are making predictions all the time. Your startup itself is a prediction - you are predicting you can build a product to meet a need that customers will pay to license. Your annual plan - a prediction, so on and so forth.
Predictions are helpful because they help you triangulate on reality. If your model shows 10 sales reps each bringing in $1m in bookings for the year, and by July you are off by 20% or ahead or whatever, you have an important piece of new information.
Regardless of your role in the startup ecosystem, I encourage to make some predictions of your own and use that as your own personal reality triangulation system.
Scot’s 2025 Prediction 1: The Triangle is Recognized as a leader in…….Quantum Computing (You thought I was going to say AI!)
One of the most interesting frontiers of ‘step function up’ in computing outside of AI is Quantum computing. It’s a deep topic that we don’t have time for, but here’s a good starting point if you are interested.
Quantum computing sits at the intersection of high-end physics, crazy hard math,engineering of extremely sophisticated hardware (super-cooled, advanced materials, etc.) and extremely complicated programming.
In a pattern similar to AI, Quantum computing has been sputtering along for a couple decades and faced several seemingly insurmountable problems around scaling (high error rates), applications (finding real-world problems Quantum can solve, and affordability - today’s systems are custom built and extremely expensive to build, maintain and program.
But in early December, Google announced their new quantum computing chip, Willow, that achieved not only a new scale record, but they were able to figure out how to also solve the error rate problems.
Fortunately, we have several universities and companies in the Triangle that are extremely active in Quantum computing and form a growing ‘nexus of activity’.
NCSU Quantum Initiative - In addition to the IBM Quantum Hub, NCSU has an expansive Quantum Initiative.
Duke Quantum Center- Founded in 2021, the Duke Quantum Center focuses on research, education and ‘translation’ (productizing quantum to solve real-world problems).
IBM Quantum Hub - In 2018, IBM picked NCSU’s Centennial Campus for it’s IBM Quantum Hub and has continued to invest a ton in this area.
IonQ - Spun out of Duke with a continued large presence in Durham, IonQ is a $9b market cap company producing Quantum hardware.
In fact, Duke and NCSU partnered together to bring the top show in quantum computing, QIP to the Triangle in 2025.
My specific prediction is that all of this activity, led by QIP, lead to a lot of attention on the Triangle’s Quantum computing activity at a national/international level. If we’re lucky, we could have our own ‘Willow-like’ break through from the investments being made by NCSU/Duke/IBM and IonQ.
Scot’s 2025 Prediction 2: Triangle M+A heats up and generates a dozen exits over $20m
At the end of 2024, there was a big M+A with Element451. My prediction here is that Element451 is the tip of the iceberg. With many juicy B2B SaaS companies > $3-5m ARR, the Triangle’s later stage Tweeners are a juicy target for both PE firms (financial sponsors) and larger businesses (strategic sponsors) looking to add more high-quality revenue to their platforms.
One area that is going to really heat up is a knock-on effect of AI - these LLMs are going vertical and they need more and more data. Well it turns out the Triangle startup ecosystem is full of targets that meet this criteria - especially in the HealthTech space. There are many large well-funded companies that are building HealthTech LLMs+RAGs that need patient data, radiology data, CRO data, and so-on. My best guess is half of the 12 I’m predicting will come from this theme.
Scot’s 2025 Prediction 3: Pendo
There is a lot of speculation that Pendo will file to go public in 2025 or be acquired. I’m going to be contrarian here and predict: “none of the above”. That being said, I do think with the IPO markets opening that a private late stage investor focused on what’s called Mezzanine rounds, will come in and lead a large new pre-IPO round for Pendo, giving them the ability to invest in even faster accelerated growth in 26 and 27. While this will further delay the IPO, it will push Pendo well into deca-corn ($10b valuation) territory.
Scot’s 2025 Prediction 4: The Triangle's AI startups will gain national recognition
As covered in our first four-part series, from Pyron to Diveplane/HowSo to the large crop of recent application companies, the Triangle is a hotbed of interesting AI startups. In 2025, I predict as attention switches from the large model makers, to B2B revenue producing and profit potentialed startups, the Triangle’s AI startups will shine and gain national recognition. This will include some very strong funding rounds, M+A and overall press with the ‘look at this hidden gem’ type vibe. Our local AI founders desire to 'SeedStrap’ will create a supply/demand imbalance which could be very good for valuations.
Scot’s 2025 Prediction Bonus: 2025: The year of Agentic AI
Innovation is happening at a logarithmic pace in the Large Language Model (LLM) part of the AI world. ChatGPT is just 2yrs old and already LLMs have been married together with vector databases to create Retrieval-Augmented-Generation (RAG) and now the third key component in the LLM building blocks is Agent-based or Agentic systems.
While today this is happening at the design and code architecture layer (here’s a really great article from Anthropic/Claude if you want to go deeper), it’s going to quickly bubble up to the user layer.
These agents are already showing up in customer-service experiences. Today I scheduled a car appointment using an AI agent and it was faster and easier than a my previous human interactions.
In 2025, I predict we’ll have agents that:
Find and book travel trips for us and even complete complex iteneraries
Discover products for us and help us buy them all while finding the best deal
Track our task lists and calendars using a mix of voice and text assistants
Do BDR tasks for a BDR
Basically anything you can think of today that where you tell the computer to do stuff, the computer will go do it for you.
2025 Predictions Recap
To summarize:
Robbie’s predictions:
AI-Driven Software Development
The Rise of the Full Stack Product Manager
Your Computer Becomes Your Co-Worker
The Triangle's AI-Fueled Renaissance
(Bonus) The UNC Bill Belichick Experiment Will Take Time
Scot’s predictions:
The Triangle is Recognized as a leader in Quantum Computing
Triangle M+A heats up and generates a dozen exits over $20m
Pendo raises a Mezzanine round
The Triangle's AI startups will gain national recognition
(Bonus) The Year of Agentic AI
What do you think of these predictions? Do you have any of your own? Let us know in the chat→
