Transcript
A (0:00)
Alex, welcome back for a third time. Record, third time. Good to have you back.
B (0:04)
Thanks so much. Great to be here.
A (0:06)
How are seed funds using AI to improve their businesses today?
B (0:11)
Yeah, in a lot of ways. So in sourcing they're using it, for example, like scanning their networks to identify potential future founders in diligence, like before an initial call with a founder. They're using these to score founder quality. They're using AI to learn a market, um, in operations obviously, like recording meetings, keeping notes for networking, for capturing metrics from founder updates about portfolio companies and non portfolio companies. They're certainly using it in email and investment memos, fundraising decks. And recently I'm started seeing funds where it's like AI driven sourcing, picking, winning, portfolio construction. Um, so I'm sure there will be more of that over time. And I, I guess like one of the questions here is like, you know, what's the real impact? Like, does it make GPS more efficient? Yeah. I'm not sure how much of a competitive advantage it is because it's generally available to everyone. And I think like, I still think VC is an artisanal game. It's about relationships with founders and VCs and building a brand and a flywheel in those communities. But I think everybody's using it or should be using it. I think we're like approaching a time when like maybe AI will just be doing venture power.
A (1:24)
The top seed funds using AI to improve their diligence process.
B (1:27)
Specifically some folks like use it to like score founders and they provide their thoughts on what a great founder looks like and then they kind of run founder profiles through like, like, through like an algorithm using AI. I've seen that. But I think it's a lot of like market research. Like maybe you used to read research reports and talk to industry experts and now you're more likely to just use AI to get, to get your arms around a space where you're considering investing.
A (1:56)
So in between our last couple of chats, you've, you've grown your prominence in the industry. You've gotten to some of the top C funds in the world. How would you explain your right to win and what makes a GP choose you versus the next lp?
B (2:10)
That's a great question. It's, it's a big part of what I'm doing with Slipstream. When I started this, my one observation I had was that I didn't see great, I didn't see many LPs who learned venture at like a top performing venture firm like qed. And, and I also noticed that like, our beliefs about which funds were the best didn't always correspond to other LP's opinions and, and didn't always correspond to like the GP's abilities to fundraise. And that felt like an opportunity to me. I also had developed strong opinions at QED about like, what's a good LP, what's a great LP, what are the types of LPs that we engage? Why do we engage them? Why do we, like, when do we engage them? About what? Like during a fund, while we're deploying a fund, when are the folks who are really helpful, what do we value in picking lps? And so when I started Slipstream, I had a sense for the LP landscape and the different types of LPs that invest in early stage venture funds and some ideas for how to do it. Like VCs with operating backgrounds, like venture backed operating backgrounds often say things like, I'm just the VC that I wanted to work with, as in when I was an operator. That's kind of how I feel like I, I can be the lp, I want to do work with a qed, or we wanted to work with a qed. And there's like a deference and a trust and a responsiveness and a transparency that I think helps build a brand and relationships with gps and sort of a brand in the community of gps. But there's another dimension that's really important and that's like talking to people in a constructive way, like talking to GPS in a constructive way, like from the beginning and pushing on them, almost thinking about, like, what is the best version of this fund we can come up with together. Like, one thing I observed was that some people Approach initial, some VCs approach initial calls, initial calls with founders.
