#245 | The $1T Retail Opportunity, State of AI, & more
Aug 17th | The latest from Sequoia, A16Z, Foundation, Bessemer, QED, Matrix, 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
The $1T Opportunity to Build the Next Amazon in Retail (Konstantine Buhler, Partner @ Sequoia)
AI x Commerce (Justine Moore & Alex Rampell, A16Z)
Women’s Health 2.0: Beyond Fertility (Omri Drory & Anastasia Budinskaya, NFX)
How AI agents will redefine market research (Leo Lu & Joanne Chen, Foundation)
What are non-consensus bets in the AI era? (Parul Singh, Board Partner @ Initialized)
Industry Developments & Analyses
Licensed To Scale (Equal Ventures Team)
Death of the Billable Hour: Legal's $900B AI Repricing (Ethan Batraski, Partner @ Venrock)
The State of AI 2025 (Bessemer Team)
The State of Agentic Systems (Priyanka Somrah, VC @ Work-Bench)
Why Travel is the Next Big Opportunity in Sports (Jacob Westphal & Yash Gupta, Will Ventures)
Embedded fintech in 1,000 words (Matt Brown, Partner @ Matrix)
Adapt or be arbitraged: Why fintechs and banks must reinvent themselves for the age of AI agents (Nigel Morris & Nick Gasbarro, QED)
Is This AI’s Hardware Moment? A Reluctant Debate. (Bryan Kim, Partner @ A16Z)
AI is eating software, but in healthcare, is the EMR eating AI? (Alysaa Co, BCV)
State of Cybersecurity: Growth, Risk, and Resilience (Sapphire Team)
Making American Manufacturing More Productive (Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Partner @ Eclipse)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
How to use Deep Research for GTM (Kyle Poyar, Partner @ Tremont)
The Four Duties Of A Manager (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent Ventures)
Getting Started with Usage-Based Pricing (Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2)
The Story Behind Owner’s Pivots to a Billion-Dollar Business (First Round)
How Startups Can Win with Continuous Feedback (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)
AI in the applicant pool: How to overcome this new hiring risk (Insight)
Additional Reads
Earn the right (Nikunj Kothari, Partner @ FPV)
Cursor’s Problem (Chris Paik, GP @ Pace)
Free Software & The Future of Software Business Models (Eric Flaningam, VC @ Felicis)
Product won't end at chat (Yoni Rechtman, Principal @ Slow)
Revenue Is a Lagging Indicator (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV))
Can AI Exception Handling Be The Next Competitive Advantage? (Rob May, GP @ Half Court Ventures)
Superman Syndrome (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)
The Groupon Era of AI (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)
Notes:
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