Arjun Patel

DemisHassabis: multi-billion dollar seed rounds in AI startups with nearly zero product or users might be a bubble. #AI #startup #vc

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Seed fundraising hasn’t gotten easier. After reviewing thousands of early-stage companies, one pattern is obvious: most founders don’t fail at seed fundraising because their idea is weak — they fail because they misunderstand how seed rounds actually get done. 👉 That’s why we put together the LvlUp Ventures Guide to Seed Fundraising. It’s not a hype piece. It’s the exact mental model we see strong founders use when they raise efficiently and get back to building. Some of the core takeaways: 🔹 Raise when you have momentum you can explain, not just a polished deck 🔹 Size your round to buy 12–18 months of real progress — not optionality theater 🔹 SAFEs and notes are tools, not shortcuts; understand how they compound dilution 🔹 One committed investor changes everything — momentum beats perfection 🔹 Speed and clarity matter more than squeezing every last point of valuation 🔹 The goal isn’t “winning the round” — it’s setting up the next phase of the company This is the guide we wish more founders read before starting outreach — not halfway through a messy raise. 👇 Question for founders raising right now: What’s been hardest for you — getting in touch with investors, structuring the round, or keeping momentum once conversations start? 👇Want the Full LvlUp Ventures Guide to Seed Fundraising? 👍 Like this Post 💬 Comment “Fundraising” ✅ I’ll DM you the guide and share next steps to get reviewed by LvlUp’s Investment Committee and our 25+ VC partners. #Fundraising #VC #Startup #Seed #EarlyStage #VentureCapital #StartupFounders #Founders #RaisingCapital #Startups #SaaS #Tech #CPG #B2B #Entrepreneurship #BuildInPublic #FundraisingTips #VCInsights

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We invest at Pre-VC and Pre-Seed, and then help our founders find a Seed round when they're ready. Here are 27 Seed investors that we *know* are active right now. Blue Moon Bonfire Ventures Chingona Ventures Flying Fish Partners Foothill Ventures Great North Ventures ground game HealthX Ventures InsurTech Venture Partners KCRise Fund Las Olas Venture Capital Leva Capital Maven Ventures Monte Carlo Capital Moonshots Capital OneSixOne Ventures Oval Park Capital Pixel Perfect Ventures Range Ventures Revolution SNAK Venture Partners Startup Capital Ventures Supernode Global Susa Ventures Trilogy Equity Partners True Ventures True Wealth Ventures

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Resale is one of the fastest-growing sectors in commerce, but scaling it is complex. Product intake, authentication, pricing, and listing are still largely manual, slowing growth and limiting margins for retailers entering the resale space. HAMMOQ Inc. solves this by automating resale operations. Their AI-powered platform handles product listing, content generation, pricing optimization, and marketplace management, enabling retailers and recommerce platforms to scale sustainably and profitably. At Silicon Road Ventures, we invested in Hammoq because they’re powering the operational backbone of the circular economy, making sustainability not just a value, but a viable business model. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gyeuJgu9 Discover the exceptional founders who are forging the future of commerce: https://lnkd.in/gyikTJ3c #PortfolioCompany #CircularEconomy #AI #RetailTech #Automation #Recommerce

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Kaira’s operator-angel program for early-stage startups, Forge, is now accepting applications for its 2026 cohort. Forge is designed for US-facing Idea, Pre-Seed, and Seed-stage companies in AI, SaaS, Marketplaces, and Productizable Services. Forge does not offer capital investment. Instead, it provides operational investment: Kaira assumes the company’s entire end-to-end marketing function, replacing a $300K–$700K/yr (on average) department, ensuring resources are allocated correctly, burn rate decreases, runway extends, and survival probability increases. In exchange, Forge operates on equity + RevShare (with a capped structure so no founder is penalized for growth). Why? Because the reason most early-stage startups fail is not capital; it's the collapse of their marketing function under structural pressure: → Capital is misallocated inside the marketing function, creating operational leakage and inconsistent ROI. → Marketing systems are fragmented, reactive, and built without a psychological or behavioral foundation. → Early-stage companies face a talent-model mismatch: an in-house team is economically unrealistic, while freelancers create executional inconsistency. → Founders experience severe operational drag, losing focus on product, sales, and business development due to over-involvement in their own marketing. Forge replaces the single hardest part of early-stage company building, the marketing function, with an operator-level team founders don’t need to hire, train, or manage. No department-building. No overhead. No execution risk. Accepted companies receive: → A full analysis of the business, product/service, market, and audience → A custom psychology-driven marketing strategy (neuromarketing, consumer behavior, cognitive psychology, social psychology) based on your business goals and limitations → End-to-end execution designed around the company’s specific needs → Long-term involvement from Kaira as an operator-partner, not a vendor The 2026 cohort will accept a maximum of 5 companies. One partnership is already signed. Criteria for applicant companies: → US-facing → Founders who are analytical, coachable, and open to operational alignment → Businesses where trust, psychology, and narrative drive market outcomes → Operating in AI, SaaS, Marketplaces, or Productizable Services To apply, send a DM/InMail or email forge@kaira.cc with a brief overview of your company and how it fits the criteria. You will be guided through the application process personally. Application window closes January 15, 2026.

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I maintain a working document on the future of apparel that I first published in 2024 and continue to update as new signals emerge. One of the most important accelerations is now unmistakable: humanoid robots are moving apparel production out of centralized factories and toward full decentralization. Recent demonstrations show humanoid robots rapidly approaching human-level dexterity for apparel tasks. This is often framed as factory labor replacement—but that misses the real disruption. The inflection point comes when humanoid robots enter households. Imagine renting a humanoid robot for roughly $500/month. During idle hours—overnight, weekends—you rent its excess capacity back to apparel platforms. Production collapses from factories to garages. Pair that with generative AI design tools, and consumers can design their own garments, then automatically match with nearby robot owners who manufacture on demand. At that point, the traditional apparel company model—centralized production, seasonal forecasting, inventory risk—no longer holds. This is not speculative. The compounding forces are already visible.

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Don't Build a Better Wheat Farm" - Why Defensibility Stakes Are Higher in Deep Tech Just published a new piece on my "Ignore the Confusion" blog, building on thoughtful insights from Eric Ver Ploeg at Tunitas Ventures about startup defensibility. Eric's core thesis: Too many startups pitch like wheat farmers - "huge TAM, slow incumbents, growing market, domain expertise" - but fail to think through long-term defensibility until it's too late. From a deep tech perspective, the stakes are even higher: ** Unlike software, deep tech founders must commit to defensibility strategies from day one - their funding depends on it ** Patent vs. trade secret decisions are often difficult to reverse and shape your entire competitive strategy ** Even "picks and shovels" providers (the tools that make industries more efficient) become commodities without proper moats The key insight that resonates: Defensibility can't be retrofitted. Whether you're building software or deep tech, your moat must be architected into the business model from the start. Thanks to Eric Ver Ploeg for sharing these insights on startup strategy and letting me build on his framework from a deep tech lens. Read the full post: https://lnkd.in/dEj_iF-Q #DeepTech #StartupStrategy #Defensibility #VentureCapital #Innovation

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