SoftBank to invest $500 million in Sam Altman's OpenAI: Report – Hindustan Times
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Founder/CEO @ Gateway X: Bootstrapping a venture studio to $1B. Previously, Founder/CEO of Ampush (exited).
Welcome to my board Masa Son!!!
Founder/CEO @ Gateway X: Bootstrapping a venture studio to $1B. Previously, Founder/CEO of Ampush (exited).
I am BEYOND thrilled to announce that Gateway X has raised $500 MILLION at a $5 BILLION valuation. Softbank led the round with participation from Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sergey & Larry plus my parents. Here’s the story: It all started with a domain. I bought Gateway dot AI about 2 months ago. It was only $15k but I had a feeling it would be special. Then, I got the fateful email from a Softbank Associate: “Jesse, we noticed you’re building Gateway AI, we can see it’s a special AI company and so if you’d ever consider raising capital, please keep us in mind.” Normally, I delete these but this one told me I was special. I thought about my stance on Bootstrapping: For over a decade, all I’ve talked about was building profitable and sustainable businesses. Companies that stand for customers and employees, not investors. Companies that create value and generate profits to prove it. I have dedicated my life to these businesses so we can create thriving cultures and control our destiny. But as they say, it all changes in an instant. And here was the key thing: Jeff Bezos says great leaders are RIGHT a lot. And to be RIGHT a lot you have to CHANGE YOUR MIND. So, I changed my mind. The $100M in secondary also helped me drop my convictions around bootstrapping (thanks Masa!). He asked for a 10x Liq Pref btw and a participating preferred but its all upside for me, so I gave it. What’s next for Gateway X you ask? We are now building the IT GENAI LLM ML Driven Venture STUDIO! We will use the money to offer ANY entrepreneur with ANY idea about AI a REALLY good valuation as long as they have a badass logo. I’m particularly interested in AI use cases for sanitation. As a part of this investment, Sam Altman is moving home to St. Louis so we can do AI together in Busch Stadium. Thanks for this amazing community’s support and follow me now as I light this money on fire!
Partner at Dentons
Sorry to hear about the valuation coming in so light. I’m sure you will do better next time!
Co-Founder & GP at A*, Co-Founder of Eventbrite (NYSE: EB)
U got me!
Senior analyst at dentsu
Waittt!!! I almost fell for this 😂
Founder of Punjabi Era • Portrait and Newborn Photographer • Cultural Preservationist • Tech Addict & Investor
Rofl nice one!
Congratulations!!
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NameGulf.com Domain Marketplace 🛒| Buy,Sell,Lease Domains| Engineering Leader
🔥 He registered a AI domain and ended up raising $500 million at a whopping $5 billion in valuation! #domains #ai What’s interesting is, it is just a bootstrapping ai project idea. First time ever a bootstrapping ai domain gets $500 million instantly without even asking for a pitch, wow! He also plans to fund any company with any idea as long as they have badass logo, more details in the post below. How is it even possible? Well on April 1st anything is possible! #aprilfool
Founder/CEO @ Gateway X: Bootstrapping a venture studio to $1B. Previously, Founder/CEO of Ampush (exited).
I am BEYOND thrilled to announce that Gateway X has raised $500 MILLION at a $5 BILLION valuation. Softbank led the round with participation from Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sergey & Larry plus my parents. Here’s the story: It all started with a domain. I bought Gateway dot AI about 2 months ago. It was only $15k but I had a feeling it would be special. Then, I got the fateful email from a Softbank Associate: “Jesse, we noticed you’re building Gateway AI, we can see it’s a special AI company and so if you’d ever consider raising capital, please keep us in mind.” Normally, I delete these but this one told me I was special. I thought about my stance on Bootstrapping: For over a decade, all I’ve talked about was building profitable and sustainable businesses. Companies that stand for customers and employees, not investors. Companies that create value and generate profits to prove it. I have dedicated my life to these businesses so we can create thriving cultures and control our destiny. But as they say, it all changes in an instant. And here was the key thing: Jeff Bezos says great leaders are RIGHT a lot. And to be RIGHT a lot you have to CHANGE YOUR MIND. So, I changed my mind. The $100M in secondary also helped me drop my convictions around bootstrapping (thanks Masa!). He asked for a 10x Liq Pref btw and a participating preferred but its all upside for me, so I gave it. What’s next for Gateway X you ask? We are now building the IT GENAI LLM ML Driven Venture STUDIO! We will use the money to offer ANY entrepreneur with ANY idea about AI a REALLY good valuation as long as they have a badass logo. I’m particularly interested in AI use cases for sanitation. As a part of this investment, Sam Altman is moving home to St. Louis so we can do AI together in Busch Stadium. Thanks for this amazing community’s support and follow me now as I light this money on fire!
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Founder/CEO @ Gateway X: Bootstrapping a venture studio to $1B. Previously, Founder/CEO of Ampush (exited).
I am BEYOND thrilled to announce that Gateway X has raised $500 MILLION at a $5 BILLION valuation. Softbank led the round with participation from Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sergey & Larry plus my parents. Here’s the story: It all started with a domain. I bought Gateway dot AI about 2 months ago. It was only $15k but I had a feeling it would be special. Then, I got the fateful email from a Softbank Associate: “Jesse, we noticed you’re building Gateway AI, we can see it’s a special AI company and so if you’d ever consider raising capital, please keep us in mind.” Normally, I delete these but this one told me I was special. I thought about my stance on Bootstrapping: For over a decade, all I’ve talked about was building profitable and sustainable businesses. Companies that stand for customers and employees, not investors. Companies that create value and generate profits to prove it. I have dedicated my life to these businesses so we can create thriving cultures and control our destiny. But as they say, it all changes in an instant. And here was the key thing: Jeff Bezos says great leaders are RIGHT a lot. And to be RIGHT a lot you have to CHANGE YOUR MIND. So, I changed my mind. The $100M in secondary also helped me drop my convictions around bootstrapping (thanks Masa!). He asked for a 10x Liq Pref btw and a participating preferred but its all upside for me, so I gave it. What’s next for Gateway X you ask? We are now building the IT GENAI LLM ML Driven Venture STUDIO! We will use the money to offer ANY entrepreneur with ANY idea about AI a REALLY good valuation as long as they have a badass logo. I’m particularly interested in AI use cases for sanitation. As a part of this investment, Sam Altman is moving home to St. Louis so we can do AI together in Busch Stadium. Thanks for this amazing community’s support and follow me now as I light this money on fire!
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Venture Capital at DOMO.VC
High valuation isn’t always the best scenario as people usually think 😑 I’m currently looking deep into AI startups and the whole sector. Let’s get the case of Perplexity, one of the biggest AI-chatbot firms that was founded in 2022 with ~10M monthly active users (as of Jan 2024). In January, the company raised nearly $74 million at a valuation of $540 million. In April, sources said that Perplexity is raising at least $250 million more at a valuation of between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. We are talking about at least a +463% valuation growth in 3 months. When a startup that has a valuation of US$200k goes up to US$600k in 3 months we go like ‘Ok, big growth but not crazy’. But when you have a +US$500M valuation and you have this growth, I start to be more concerned. But why it can be bad to have a disproportional valuation? Here is an explanation from Fast Company: “The first, and probably most important, is the impact on the company’s ability to attract quality talent… most people in the startup world join startups for the equity upside in a liquidity event or IPO. When a highly-priced round is completed, guess what–the strike price of the options also goes up. In effect, the hurdle for the options to be “in the money” has gone up and the value of the options has decreased.” “Another difficulty in raising a highly-priced round is the set of expectations from the new investors…When you next need to raise capital, you may be faced with a down round, or in extreme circumstances, a complete recap or non-funding.” Thus, investors and founders need to have all this in mind to not commit themselves to future problems ☠
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Venture Capital | Private Equity | Capital Markets | Growth-Stage Entrepreneurs | Financial Writer
Still, after 30+ years in capital markets, investor behavior continues to fascinate me. Even in the midst of a capital market environment characterized by tight funding and down rounds – there remains sectors that are white hot. To that point, Crunchbase has an interesting article detailing investor behavior in AI. From the article: “Dogfighting among VCs vying to access premier founders and the hottest AI rocketships is common. A combination of AI exuberance, fear of missing out and shiny new mega-funds have created an environment where pre-revenue AI companies can almost set the price.” I am not taking a stand on valuations on AI. I just find it interesting, that even in this market, there are areas in which venture investors must fight tooth and nail to get into deals, and make hard decisions on holding the line (or not) on deal terms. Capital markets are rarely as binary as portrayed in the press. Even in challenging funding markets there are sectors pushing to new heights… Endeavor Colorado Zeb King Tegan Stanbach Kathryn Dickson #privateequity #venturecapital #investing #innovation #entrepreneurship #founders #startups https://lnkd.in/gmfseNNz
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Founder | Full Stack.Net Developer | MIS Manager
Investing at the earliest stages in AI startups can be risky but the rewards can be huge. Array Ventures’ founder, Shruti Gandhi, discusses the potential highs and lows. Remember, not all glitter is gold! #InvestmentInsights #AIStartUps #ArrayVentures
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Building the next generation of accelerated computing infrastructure | GM, VP, Director | Business Development, Sales and Marketing
Good summary of the AI investment madness happening currently. Massive dollars, massive valuations, can it continue? When raising $7B in one year, can you still be called a “start up”? #ai #gpu #investing #startup https://lnkd.in/drnhaWj4
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Tech Founder | Executive Search – Connecting Quants | Researchers | Engineers | Data Scientists | AI experts & Tech Leaders | Digital Transformation
𝐀𝐈 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐁𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐨𝐧? As we examine PitchBook’s Q1 2024 US VC Valuations Report, one trend becomes evident: AI startups are doing exceptionally well, with both early-stage and late-stage valuations skyrocketing! While other industries are struggling with valuation, early-stage AI companies are enjoying a median valuation of over $70M, and late-stage AI companies are not far behind with a median valuation of $100M. That’s quite an achievement! As an example, Perplexity raised $62.7M at a unicorn-level $1.04B valuation, while Lambda raised an impressive $320M Series C at $1.5B. 🦄 However, some VCs, like Giuseppe Stuto of 186 Ventures, are cautioning against these high valuations. They warn that it may be too much, too soon and that we may be in the midst of an ongoing ‘land grab’ frenzy, where the foundational understanding of the business is lost in the dazzle of AI’s allure. But there is a silver lining: With AI startups taking centre stage, other sectors like fintech are now less crowded, which could provide more opportunities for smart investors. While the AI investment scene is hotter than ever, seasoned voices like Tim Guleri of Sierra Ventures remind us not to get blinded by the generative AI glow. They advise us to diversify and focus on long-term sustainability rather than just high-stakes poker. The VC landscape is changing, and AI is introducing new rules. It’s an exciting time, but let’s stay sharp and strategic when it comes to investments. #VC #VentureCapital #ArtificialIntelligence #InvestmentTrends #StartupValuations #Innovation
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1,229 followers
From an Investor side at Collision Conf, many of the chats focused on understanding how to navigate this new world of #AI. Many of the chats focused on trying to understand the value capture and potential upside as an #investor, although some of the details into how many of these #GenAI companies will provide outsized returns remain murky. One of the more interesting talks was the “New trends in Early Stage investing” with partners from 7am Ventures, Blank Ventures and Maven Ventures, where lot of the focus was on the new current climate of early stage #investing. As the velocity of money has greatly slowed down in the venture world, the mentality of investors is much more strict and prudent, and as such investors are looking for new things out of #startups, such as stability, momentum and a clear path to profitability. Another interesting chat was the “What’s the new normal for seed investing”, where partners from Torch Capital and Everywhere Ventures discussed the inflated sizes of seed round, which is somewhat counter intuitive to the current climate of prudent, fundamentals based investing that investors are looking to execute on. Overall, the venture investors seemed to be accepting of the new valuations of their asset class (which has lost about half its value since 2023), because this indicates that now the asset class is more stable and both investors and entrepreneurs can now plan better and execute more methodically, without all the turmoil and hype we’ve been experiencing the last few years.
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Empowering Start-Ups through AI-powered Fund Raising
Mayfield Fund just announced a $100M initiative to back the next wave of AI startups, focusing on what they call “AI teammates.” Think about it—AI that doesn’t just assist you, but works with you on complex tasks. Like having a digital partner helping with customer support, sales, or even engineering. Mayfield Fund’s new AI Garage is modeled after their Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, meaning founders will get hands-on support to bring their AI ideas to life—without capital right away, but with up to $5M as soon as the business plan is ready. It’s not about copying others. It’s about leading. P.S. Would you want an AI teammate? Navin Chaddha Vaneeta Varma Gamiel Gran Kamini Ramani #AIFuture #Innovation #VentureCapital
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Founder | AI Financial Companion App
Best time to be an early stage founder 🤝 investor. Startups require less capital, can get to revenue quickly and scale with intelligent automations like never before. Customers will net a benefit as well, they will be able to start replacing expensive subscriptions with technology that provides them more value.
Venture Partner at Social Leverage
This could be the most exciting time to be a seed/early stage investor Start up founders today are now able to use AI to accomplish many of the tasks that were either impossible early on, or would require human resource spend that was unavailable Older companies have become bloated by comparison and are having a hard time retrofitting AI into their ecosystem vs. being AI native from the start The delta can close quickly on these startups vs. their older competitors There has never been a better time to start a company and/or invest in start ups in my opinion Very excited to be able to invest in these firms and work with these founders… More to come Exciting times!!
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Founder/CEO @ Gateway X: Bootstrapping a venture studio to $1B. Previously, Founder/CEO of Ampush (exited).
Welcome to my board Masa Son!!!
Founder/CEO @ Gateway X: Bootstrapping a venture studio to $1B. Previously, Founder/CEO of Ampush (exited).
I am BEYOND thrilled to announce that Gateway X has raised $500 MILLION at a $5 BILLION valuation. Softbank led the round with participation from Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sergey & Larry plus my parents. Here’s the story: It all started with a domain. I bought Gateway dot AI about 2 months ago. It was only $15k but I had a feeling it would be special. Then, I got the fateful email from a Softbank Associate: “Jesse, we noticed you’re building Gateway AI, we can see it’s a special AI company and so if you’d ever consider raising capital, please keep us in mind.” Normally, I delete these but this one told me I was special. I thought about my stance on Bootstrapping: For over a decade, all I’ve talked about was building profitable and sustainable businesses. Companies that stand for customers and employees, not investors. Companies that create value and generate profits to prove it. I have dedicated my life to these businesses so we can create thriving cultures and control our destiny. But as they say, it all changes in an instant. And here was the key thing: Jeff Bezos says great leaders are RIGHT a lot. And to be RIGHT a lot you have to CHANGE YOUR MIND. So, I changed my mind. The $100M in secondary also helped me drop my convictions around bootstrapping (thanks Masa!). He asked for a 10x Liq Pref btw and a participating preferred but its all upside for me, so I gave it. What’s next for Gateway X you ask? We are now building the IT GENAI LLM ML Driven Venture STUDIO! We will use the money to offer ANY entrepreneur with ANY idea about AI a REALLY good valuation as long as they have a badass logo. I’m particularly interested in AI use cases for sanitation. As a part of this investment, Sam Altman is moving home to St. Louis so we can do AI together in Busch Stadium. Thanks for this amazing community’s support and follow me now as I light this money on fire!
Partner at Dentons
Sorry to hear about the valuation coming in so light. I’m sure you will do better next time!
Co-Founder & GP at A*, Co-Founder of Eventbrite (NYSE: EB)
U got me!
Senior analyst at dentsu
Waittt!!! I almost fell for this 😂
Founder of Punjabi Era • Portrait and Newborn Photographer • Cultural Preservationist • Tech Addict & Investor
Rofl nice one!
Congratulations!!
To view or add a comment, sign in
NameGulf.com Domain Marketplace 🛒| Buy,Sell,Lease Domains| Engineering Leader
🔥 He registered a AI domain and ended up raising $500 million at a whopping $5 billion in valuation! #domains #ai What’s interesting is, it is just a bootstrapping ai project idea. First time ever a bootstrapping ai domain gets $500 million instantly without even asking for a pitch, wow! He also plans to fund any company with any idea as long as they have badass logo, more details in the post below. How is it even possible? Well on April 1st anything is possible! #aprilfool
Founder/CEO @ Gateway X: Bootstrapping a venture studio to $1B. Previously, Founder/CEO of Ampush (exited).
I am BEYOND thrilled to announce that Gateway X has raised $500 MILLION at a $5 BILLION valuation. Softbank led the round with participation from Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sergey & Larry plus my parents. Here’s the story: It all started with a domain. I bought Gateway dot AI about 2 months ago. It was only $15k but I had a feeling it would be special. Then, I got the fateful email from a Softbank Associate: “Jesse, we noticed you’re building Gateway AI, we can see it’s a special AI company and so if you’d ever consider raising capital, please keep us in mind.” Normally, I delete these but this one told me I was special. I thought about my stance on Bootstrapping: For over a decade, all I’ve talked about was building profitable and sustainable businesses. Companies that stand for customers and employees, not investors. Companies that create value and generate profits to prove it. I have dedicated my life to these businesses so we can create thriving cultures and control our destiny. But as they say, it all changes in an instant. And here was the key thing: Jeff Bezos says great leaders are RIGHT a lot. And to be RIGHT a lot you have to CHANGE YOUR MIND. So, I changed my mind. The $100M in secondary also helped me drop my convictions around bootstrapping (thanks Masa!). He asked for a 10x Liq Pref btw and a participating preferred but its all upside for me, so I gave it. What’s next for Gateway X you ask? We are now building the IT GENAI LLM ML Driven Venture STUDIO! We will use the money to offer ANY entrepreneur with ANY idea about AI a REALLY good valuation as long as they have a badass logo. I’m particularly interested in AI use cases for sanitation. As a part of this investment, Sam Altman is moving home to St. Louis so we can do AI together in Busch Stadium. Thanks for this amazing community’s support and follow me now as I light this money on fire!
To view or add a comment, sign in
Founder/CEO @ Gateway X: Bootstrapping a venture studio to $1B. Previously, Founder/CEO of Ampush (exited).
I am BEYOND thrilled to announce that Gateway X has raised $500 MILLION at a $5 BILLION valuation. Softbank led the round with participation from Sam Altman, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sergey & Larry plus my parents. Here’s the story: It all started with a domain. I bought Gateway dot AI about 2 months ago. It was only $15k but I had a feeling it would be special. Then, I got the fateful email from a Softbank Associate: “Jesse, we noticed you’re building Gateway AI, we can see it’s a special AI company and so if you’d ever consider raising capital, please keep us in mind.” Normally, I delete these but this one told me I was special. I thought about my stance on Bootstrapping: For over a decade, all I’ve talked about was building profitable and sustainable businesses. Companies that stand for customers and employees, not investors. Companies that create value and generate profits to prove it. I have dedicated my life to these businesses so we can create thriving cultures and control our destiny. But as they say, it all changes in an instant. And here was the key thing: Jeff Bezos says great leaders are RIGHT a lot. And to be RIGHT a lot you have to CHANGE YOUR MIND. So, I changed my mind. The $100M in secondary also helped me drop my convictions around bootstrapping (thanks Masa!). He asked for a 10x Liq Pref btw and a participating preferred but its all upside for me, so I gave it. What’s next for Gateway X you ask? We are now building the IT GENAI LLM ML Driven Venture STUDIO! We will use the money to offer ANY entrepreneur with ANY idea about AI a REALLY good valuation as long as they have a badass logo. I’m particularly interested in AI use cases for sanitation. As a part of this investment, Sam Altman is moving home to St. Louis so we can do AI together in Busch Stadium. Thanks for this amazing community’s support and follow me now as I light this money on fire!
To view or add a comment, sign in
Venture Capital at DOMO.VC
High valuation isn’t always the best scenario as people usually think 😑 I’m currently looking deep into AI startups and the whole sector. Let’s get the case of Perplexity, one of the biggest AI-chatbot firms that was founded in 2022 with ~10M monthly active users (as of Jan 2024). In January, the company raised nearly $74 million at a valuation of $540 million. In April, sources said that Perplexity is raising at least $250 million more at a valuation of between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. We are talking about at least a +463% valuation growth in 3 months. When a startup that has a valuation of US$200k goes up to US$600k in 3 months we go like ‘Ok, big growth but not crazy’. But when you have a +US$500M valuation and you have this growth, I start to be more concerned. But why it can be bad to have a disproportional valuation? Here is an explanation from Fast Company: “The first, and probably most important, is the impact on the company’s ability to attract quality talent… most people in the startup world join startups for the equity upside in a liquidity event or IPO. When a highly-priced round is completed, guess what–the strike price of the options also goes up. In effect, the hurdle for the options to be “in the money” has gone up and the value of the options has decreased.” “Another difficulty in raising a highly-priced round is the set of expectations from the new investors…When you next need to raise capital, you may be faced with a down round, or in extreme circumstances, a complete recap or non-funding.” Thus, investors and founders need to have all this in mind to not commit themselves to future problems ☠
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Venture Capital | Private Equity | Capital Markets | Growth-Stage Entrepreneurs | Financial Writer
Still, after 30+ years in capital markets, investor behavior continues to fascinate me. Even in the midst of a capital market environment characterized by tight funding and down rounds – there remains sectors that are white hot. To that point, Crunchbase has an interesting article detailing investor behavior in AI. From the article: “Dogfighting among VCs vying to access premier founders and the hottest AI rocketships is common. A combination of AI exuberance, fear of missing out and shiny new mega-funds have created an environment where pre-revenue AI companies can almost set the price.” I am not taking a stand on valuations on AI. I just find it interesting, that even in this market, there are areas in which venture investors must fight tooth and nail to get into deals, and make hard decisions on holding the line (or not) on deal terms. Capital markets are rarely as binary as portrayed in the press. Even in challenging funding markets there are sectors pushing to new heights… Endeavor Colorado Zeb King Tegan Stanbach Kathryn Dickson #privateequity #venturecapital #investing #innovation #entrepreneurship #founders #startups https://lnkd.in/gmfseNNz
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Founder | Full Stack.Net Developer | MIS Manager
Investing at the earliest stages in AI startups can be risky but the rewards can be huge. Array Ventures’ founder, Shruti Gandhi, discusses the potential highs and lows. Remember, not all glitter is gold! #InvestmentInsights #AIStartUps #ArrayVentures
To view or add a comment, sign in
Building the next generation of accelerated computing infrastructure | GM, VP, Director | Business Development, Sales and Marketing
Good summary of the AI investment madness happening currently. Massive dollars, massive valuations, can it continue? When raising $7B in one year, can you still be called a “start up”? #ai #gpu #investing #startup https://lnkd.in/drnhaWj4
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Tech Founder | Executive Search – Connecting Quants | Researchers | Engineers | Data Scientists | AI experts & Tech Leaders | Digital Transformation
𝐀𝐈 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐁𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐨𝐧? As we examine PitchBook’s Q1 2024 US VC Valuations Report, one trend becomes evident: AI startups are doing exceptionally well, with both early-stage and late-stage valuations skyrocketing! While other industries are struggling with valuation, early-stage AI companies are enjoying a median valuation of over $70M, and late-stage AI companies are not far behind with a median valuation of $100M. That’s quite an achievement! As an example, Perplexity raised $62.7M at a unicorn-level $1.04B valuation, while Lambda raised an impressive $320M Series C at $1.5B. 🦄 However, some VCs, like Giuseppe Stuto of 186 Ventures, are cautioning against these high valuations. They warn that it may be too much, too soon and that we may be in the midst of an ongoing ‘land grab’ frenzy, where the foundational understanding of the business is lost in the dazzle of AI’s allure. But there is a silver lining: With AI startups taking centre stage, other sectors like fintech are now less crowded, which could provide more opportunities for smart investors. While the AI investment scene is hotter than ever, seasoned voices like Tim Guleri of Sierra Ventures remind us not to get blinded by the generative AI glow. They advise us to diversify and focus on long-term sustainability rather than just high-stakes poker. The VC landscape is changing, and AI is introducing new rules. It’s an exciting time, but let’s stay sharp and strategic when it comes to investments. #VC #VentureCapital #ArtificialIntelligence #InvestmentTrends #StartupValuations #Innovation
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1,229 followers
From an Investor side at Collision Conf, many of the chats focused on understanding how to navigate this new world of #AI. Many of the chats focused on trying to understand the value capture and potential upside as an #investor, although some of the details into how many of these #GenAI companies will provide outsized returns remain murky. One of the more interesting talks was the “New trends in Early Stage investing” with partners from 7am Ventures, Blank Ventures and Maven Ventures, where lot of the focus was on the new current climate of early stage #investing. As the velocity of money has greatly slowed down in the venture world, the mentality of investors is much more strict and prudent, and as such investors are looking for new things out of #startups, such as stability, momentum and a clear path to profitability. Another interesting chat was the “What’s the new normal for seed investing”, where partners from Torch Capital and Everywhere Ventures discussed the inflated sizes of seed round, which is somewhat counter intuitive to the current climate of prudent, fundamentals based investing that investors are looking to execute on. Overall, the venture investors seemed to be accepting of the new valuations of their asset class (which has lost about half its value since 2023), because this indicates that now the asset class is more stable and both investors and entrepreneurs can now plan better and execute more methodically, without all the turmoil and hype we’ve been experiencing the last few years.
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Empowering Start-Ups through AI-powered Fund Raising
Mayfield Fund just announced a $100M initiative to back the next wave of AI startups, focusing on what they call “AI teammates.” Think about it—AI that doesn’t just assist you, but works with you on complex tasks. Like having a digital partner helping with customer support, sales, or even engineering. Mayfield Fund’s new AI Garage is modeled after their Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, meaning founders will get hands-on support to bring their AI ideas to life—without capital right away, but with up to $5M as soon as the business plan is ready. It’s not about copying others. It’s about leading. P.S. Would you want an AI teammate? Navin Chaddha Vaneeta Varma Gamiel Gran Kamini Ramani #AIFuture #Innovation #VentureCapital
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Founder | AI Financial Companion App
Best time to be an early stage founder 🤝 investor. Startups require less capital, can get to revenue quickly and scale with intelligent automations like never before. Customers will net a benefit as well, they will be able to start replacing expensive subscriptions with technology that provides them more value.
Venture Partner at Social Leverage
This could be the most exciting time to be a seed/early stage investor Start up founders today are now able to use AI to accomplish many of the tasks that were either impossible early on, or would require human resource spend that was unavailable Older companies have become bloated by comparison and are having a hard time retrofitting AI into their ecosystem vs. being AI native from the start The delta can close quickly on these startups vs. their older competitors There has never been a better time to start a company and/or invest in start ups in my opinion Very excited to be able to invest in these firms and work with these founders… More to come Exciting times!!
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