Innovation is seeing a major inflection point due to the pandemic, early growth investor finds

A powerful push in innovation is creating excitement among venture capitalists.

Early stage angel investor Nidhi Chadda of Enzo Advisors finds the coronavirus fallout is producing a seismic shift in how the world does business, and she believes much of it will be permanent. 

“Over the past several years regardless of which industry we’ve been looking at, there has been digital transformation,” the firm’s founder and CEO told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Thursday. “But it’s this pandemic that’s really accelerated that trend.”

Chadda, who’s one of the top 100 women in finance and a former RBC portfolio manager focusing on small and mid-cap stocks, highlights growth in digital health platforms, augmented reality, 3D and cybersecurity as spots best-positioned for the new wave in cutting edge technologies.

“Whether I’m on the public or private side, I’ve always looked for major inflection points,” she said. “Transformative trends from the likes of Shopify, and more broadly speaking, disrupted innovation. And, it’s been really amazing to see all these emerging technologies addressing some of the country’s biggest challenges today.”

In the case of 3D, Chadda contends it’s a key driver for the internet of things and even cybersecurity platforms because working from home is becoming our new reality.

And, she sees a hunger and plenty of available money to drive the technologies.

“As these emerging technologies come to fruition and start solving some near-term problems, the legacy companies are also very intrigued and they accelerate their own innovation cycles,” said Chadda.

She predicts the interest will spur mergers and acquisitions in the space — especially if building new technologies from scratch isn’t financially prudent.

Chadda may be enthusiastic on innovation, but her take on the broader market is more nuanced. She considers herself cautiously optimistic.

According to Chadda, the stock market feels “appropriately valued” despite risks associated the economy, upcoming presidential elections and the pandemic’s path.

“It’ll take a better half of the 2021 to really see the vaccines get distributed to Americans, if not globally,” Chadda said. “I come to 2022 as really the normalized year.”