#238 | Call for Startups, State of Consumer AI, & more
June 29th | The latest from Felicis, Menlo, Work-Bench, Thomvest, Bessemer, 8VC and others
SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.
This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.
Investment Themes & Theses
Call for Startups (Felicis Team)
Industry Developments & Analyses
2025: The State of Consumer AI (Menlo Team)
The AI Agent Chasm (Alex Rohrbach, VC @ Thomvest)
Where does value accrue beyond Open AI? (Sophie Bakalar, VC @ Collaborative Fund)
Insurance’s AI Moment (Daniel Chesley, Principal @ Work-Bench)
Breyer Capital’s Principles for the Future of Healthcare and Life Sciences (Morgan Cheatham, VP @ Bessemer)
10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)
natty is king and don't call it a nuclear renaissance (Honour Masters, VC @ Crucible)
Dynamic Learning Pathways (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)
The Next Phase Of AI Innovation: Inference Time Scaling (Rob May, GP @ Half Court Ventures)
Teleoperations era of software (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
A Founder's Guide to the Next Platform (Annamarie Kelly & Rocky Gowni, Tidemark)
The hidden architecture of disruption: What today’s founders can learn from 50 years of data integration (Insight Team)
0-$5M: How to Go From Random Wins to Repeatable Revenue (First Round Review)
From Demos to Deals: Insights for Building in Enterprise AI (A16Z Team)
Good Design is Good Business (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)
Additional Reads
Most AI Startups Are Built to Die (Evan O'Donnell, GP @ Timespan)
Inside Collaborative Fund’s 4x DPI Fund I (Collaborative Fund)
Why Congress Should Protect AI Startups (Joe Lonsdale, GP @ 8VC)
Chicago Tech's $100m Club (Jackson Bubala, VC @ Motivate)
Choosing a VC Is Like Marriage But Pitching VCs is Not Like Dating (Rob Go, GP @ NextView VC)
Web 4.0 (Shravan Narayen, Partner @ IVP)
AI-powered R&D—vibecoding, taste, and the evolution of full-stack design (Talia Goldberg & Bhavik Nagda, Bessemer)
Capital Intensity Isn't Bad (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)
AI’s double-edged sword (Mark Gustaferro & Craig Rosenberg, Scale)
Why Data is More Valuable than Code (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Are We Building Cognitive Debt or Cognitive Leverage? (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)
Meta's AI Strategy (Eric Flaningam, VC @ Felicis)
Notes:
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