Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) has released their findings from extensive research into the importance of design in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in their first-ever, aptly titled #DesignInTech Report. Spearheaded by KPCB’s own Design Partner, former RISD President John Maeda, the report draws upon Maeda’s conversations with hundreds of designers to take a closer look at the intersection of design, business, and technology, from design-led startups and the record amounts of funding they’re receiving, to M&A activity with major tech corporations. As KPCB notes in their introduction, “For all of us who use a computer or mobile device, great design is changing how we live and work.”

Among the findings detailed in the report is the notion that tech companies have altered the way they view design, as evidenced by the acquisition of creative firms by tech companies, including Google’s acquisition of Mike & Maaike and Gecko Design, and Facebook’s acquisition of Hot Studio, Sofa and Teehan+Lax. Additionally, 27 startups co-founded by designers have been acquired since 2010 by major tech players like Google, Yahoo!, Facebook and Adobe. According to KPCB, this suggests that both tech companies and investors are increasingly seeing the value of designers who understand how to work within the constraints of the tech industry, replacing the previously widely-held idea that, as Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky noted in the report, designers are “people that worked for people that ran companies.”

Additionally, the report finds that five – or a full 20% – of the “top cumulative-funded VC-backed ventures that have raised additional capital since 2013 have designer co-founders.” The billions of dollars of capital raised by businesses started by designers, and the billions of capital they’ve generated, have increasingly encouraged VC firms to recognize the importance of design.

In practical terms, the #DesignInTech report delves into how these findings can be applied to tech startups. First and foremost, KPCB recommends that design has a place at the beginning of the development process, so that it’s, as they say, “baked in,” rather than applied at the end cosmetically. In this way, design is a key investment that goes hand-in-hand with engineering and business-minded thinking for a full-picture view that can ensure top performance.

If all of this evidence wasn’t enough to convince naysayers of the importance of #DesignInTech, Maeda and KPCB drive the point home with the very clear argument that since the smartphone revolution, design is at the forefront of tech, with more consumers than ever before seeking good design.

“User experience matters so much,” the report states, “because we are experiencing so much.”

To put it succinctly, as Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, is quoted in the report as saying, “Capital is being superseded by creativity and the ability to innovate — and therefore by human talents — as the most important factors of production. If talent is becoming the decisive competitive factor, we can be confident in stating that capitalism is being replaced by ‘talentism’ …”

The full #DesignInTech report – including Maeda’s thoughts on how to become a designer in tech – can be found here.