#258 | Marketplaces in the Age of AI, SaaS Benchmark Report, & more

Nov 16th | The latest from Accel, A16Z, Tidemark, Bain Capital, Entrepreneur First, 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.

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Investment Themes & Theses

• Marketplaces in the Age of AI: Graveyard to Greenfield (Olivia Moore, Partner @ A16Z)

• Investing in Healthcare’s Power Users (Ingeborg Investments)

• The Shifts Transforming Markets (Ali Afridi, Principal @ Equal Ventures)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• Vertical & SMB SaaS Benchmark Report (Tidemark Team)

• 2025 Globalscape: Race for Compute (Accel Team)

• Process Innovation & The AI Stack in Chemicals (Annelies Gamble, Partner @ Zetta)

• Globalization in Climate Tech (Climate Tech VC)

• Search Wars: Episode 2 (A16Z Team)

• Energy Trading: The Software Stack Behind an Evolving Market (Agustina Soriano Sergi & Elisabeth Spencer, Energize)

• The State of AI: Everyone’s Doing It, Few Are Doing It Well (Saanya Ojha, Partner @ BCV)

• Cosmetic Surgery: Cuts Like a Knife… (Michael Greeley, GP @ Flare Capital)

• Agentic Browser Automation: The Next AI Core Competency (David Talpalar, ex-VC @ Conversion)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• When it comes to AI, there’s a new pathway to “Crossing the Chasm” (Rick Zullo, MP @ Equal)

• How to Raise Like a Pro (Natalie Coletta, GTM @ BCV)

• Scaling an AI Supernova: Lessons from Anthropic, Cursor and fal (Bessemer Team)

• Ecosystem is the next big growth channel (Lenny Rachitsky)

• Culture: the ultimate form of accountability (Adams Conrad, Principal @ QED)

Additional Reads

• What’s really going on in software (Kyle Poyar, Growth Unhinged)

• The GLP-1 Generation (Brian Sugar, GP @ Sugar Capital)

• Deterministic Inference: The Latency Tax (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• Trust, Economics & AI (Dez Fleming, VC @ FirstMark)

• The Modern Growth Equity Playbook (Morgan Livermore, GP @ Supercruise)

• Jevons or Bust (A16Z Team)

• You are not a lottery ticket - you are an underpriced option (Matt Clifford, Founder @ Entrepreneur First)

• Agents Are Learning to Talk (Evan O’Donnell, GP @ Timespan)

• The Luxury of Knowing (Michael Dempsey, GP @ Compound)

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Notes:

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