#239 | Shopify for B2B, AI Bankers, Vertical AI Playbooks & more
July 6th | The latest from Lightspeed, Scale, Bowery, SignalFire, Altimeter, 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
Why “Shopify for B2B” Might Finally Work — Thanks to AI (Commerce Ventures Team)
Why I Disagree With Sequoia's Thesis on AI (Rob May, GP @ Half Court Ventures)
Industry Developments & Analyses
Where’s my AI banker? Why financial services is lagging on AI adoption (Noah Gross, Principal @ Scale)
Agentic Commerce is Here (Commerce Ventures Team)
The Vertical Review: Voice AI in Healthcare (Euclid Ventures Team)
Capital stacking up for energy security & resilience (Climate Tech VC)
The State Of MCP (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)
Mapping Cascadian Dynamism (Ascend Team)
A Mid-Year Review of the AI Competitive Landscape (Sapphire Ventures Team)
Turning Lifespan into Healthspan: The Future of Longevity (7wire Ventures)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
You should be playing with AI agents for marketing (Kyle Poyar, Partner @ Tremont)
The Pricing Iceberg for Startups (Megan Maloney, MP @ Dria Ventures)
From Demos to Deals: Insights for Building in Enterprise AI (A16Z Team)
How CFOs are navigating growth, pricing, and forecasting in an AI world (Ivan Makarov & James da Costa, A16Z)
The AI Content Trap: When Easy Creation Kills Retention (Sameer Singh, Venture Partner @ Breadcrumb)
Additional Reads
Emerging Playbooks For The Vertical AI Era (Pat McGovern, Principal @ Bowery)
Apple’s AI Reasoning Paper: Good Questions, Few Answers (Nnamdi Iregbulem, Partner @ Lightspeed)
Figma - Benchmarking the S1 Data (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital)
Advancing Open Source AI Through Benchmarks and Bold Experimentation (Rajko Radovanovic & Matt Bornstein, A16Z)
Canada Day: A Celebration of Good Enough (Kasra Khadem, VC @ Pathlight)
Backing in builders, not researchers (Kenneth Auchenberg, Partner @ AlleyCorp)
Why Networked Saas is the new AI business model replacing per-seat pricing (Wayne Hu, Partner @ SignalFire)
The New Fundraising Playbook: Seed-Strapping (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)
The Great Differentiation (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)
Notes:
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