FAANG and beyond: Game-changing tech innovations that are capturing investors' attention

Companies are already working on technologies the planet will need if we’re to enjoy a stable, sustainable future. Getting those ideas off the ground and into the mainstream will require mountains of investor capital, which can open the door to an entirely new world of returns.

Wrapping your head around the details may require neural gymnastics, but Len Zapalowski, partner at Vancouver-based boutique business bank Strategic Exits, says the relevant information is fairly accessible.

“A lot of the future-forward, big technologies that people are considering are well documented in certain types of magazines — Wired, for instance,” he says, adding that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s semi-regular Tech Tracker is also a good roundup of developing technologies.

And never underestimate the power of a web search. “If you type in ‘top 10 future technologies,’ they all more or less overlap with similar ideas,” Zapalowski says. “So you go from the near-field and the tangible to the over-the-horizon, maybe crazy ideas, like hot dog vending machines on Mars when SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gets there.”

Some game-changers still in the works

Several technologies already in development could become game-changers in the coming years, Zapalowski says.

1. Asteroid mining

It seems like everyone has heard of Psyche 16 and its out-of-this-world monetary potential.

Hefty sums have already been spent to explore financial opportunity and establish the legal framework for mining rare earth metals from flying rocks in space.

The government of Luxembourg, for example, has poured hundreds of millions of euros into creating legal clarity around the mining and trading of space materials, and attracted the attention of pioneering space mining companies, such as Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries.

The United Kingdom's Asteroid Mining Corp. — which is accepting requests from investors — says mining the asteroid belt could generate “many thousands of times the Earth’s entire GDP” and “expand the Earth’s economy exponentially.”

2. Hyperloop

Imagine taking a train from Maine to New York in an hour. That’s the kind of hyperspeed, low-carbon traveling promised by hyperloop. You hop in a pod and a combination of electric propulsion and magnetic levitation hurls you through a tube at fantastic speeds.

Hyperloop technology is far closer to reality than space mining. Several companies, Elon Musk’s The Boring Company, are set to full-scale tests of their systems this year.

The convenience and positive environmental impact hyperloop could provide “will fundamentally change our lives," Zapalowski says.

3. Semiconductors

Semiconductors already play major roles in a variety of industries: wireless communication, automobiles, cloud storage, consumer electronics and more.

But they’re expected to play an increasingly important part in the future of health care as part of emerging technologies such as "lab on a chip," which will allow clinics and labs around the world to perform diagnostic analysis without the need for trained staff or expensive equipment.

Companies are also exploring "organ on a chip."

“Instead of using lab animals,” Zapalowski says, “you can use a chip to replicate the metabolic behavior of an organ,” which should allow for faster, more efficient and humane development of medical treatments.

Getting exposure to future-forward tech

The challenge for future tech investing is that many of the companies involved are at the institutional money stage, which leaves retail investors on the outside looking in. But there are several funds you can buy to gain exposure to technologies that are loaded with potential.

Robotics companies

There are about three million industrial robots in operation worldwide, according to a February release from the International Federation of Robotics. Zapalowski says that’s “the thin edge of the wedge in terms of what robotics can do.”

Robotics companies are already smashing revenue targets, and demand for their products is expected to grow in multiple industries, from manufacturing and logistics to food and beverage.

Zapalowski says two exchange-traded funds to follow are the ROBO Global Robotics & Automation ETF (ROBO) and the Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ).

“That’s one space that is particularly ripe for technology that has proven itself in the present but is also innovating rapidly into the future,” he says.

And all the heavy hitters

And then there's FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google.) But funds that track performance of today’s tech goliaths are a bit of a gamble: Can those companies emerge from government scrutiny and create futures for themselves beyond selling phones and subscriptions or raking in ad revenue?