Jesse Proudman

Two articles I've been thinking about together this week: Amir Kabir at Overlook VC on "the defining tension of 2026: extraordinary concentration at the infrastructure layer, extraordinary democratization at the application layer" Take a read: https://lnkd.in/gyaFg-nB And Isaac Arnold's framework for what actually makes an application layer company durable: workflow entanglement, domain specific knowledge, and data that compounds from usage rather than just intelligence. Take a read for yourself: https://lnkd.in/gSDXA-vH Amir identifies where the opportunity is, Isaac identifies why most companies building there won't capture it durably and what separates the ones that will.

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We rebuilt Alpaca VC with AI. From the ground up. In production. Not talking about it. Not planning it. Actually running our entire firm on infrastructure we built ourselves. Private MCP server. RAG deployed. Knowledge base living in Supabase. Custom agents covering more surface area than our team ever could alone. Ryan Freedman internally talks about it as "riding on the back of the wave" - implementing tools as they ship, breaking things, rebuilding better. We're former builders. We know how to move fast without waiting for permission. Most VCs use AI to write memos faster. We use it to find founders others miss. Our agents don't just summarize pitch decks - they identify patterns across thousands of data points, surface non-obvious connections, track founder momentum in real-time. They're doing the work that used to take analysts weeks in minutes. But more importantly, they're freeing us to do what only humans can: build trust, make judgment calls, spot that spark in a founder's eye during a tough conversation. The real goal? Not just efficiency... Alpha generation through better sourcing, winning, and supporting. And in our humble opinion, this isn't about being cutting-edge. It's about accepting that the firms still doing venture the old way are already obsolete. They just don't know it yet. Alex Konrad did a deep dive into who is doing this best, and identified the folks alongside us at Union Square Ventures (Rebecca Kaden), Thrive Capital, Topology Ventures (Casey Caruso), DVC (Nick Davidov) + more. Which other VC firms are building with AI? 🙋‍♀️ https://lnkd.in/gDRBvaBz

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Nvidia just released nemoclaw Link in comments. Their toolkit of enterprise safe claw bots. I will take a look and have a review, isolated sandboxes, NVIDIA compute, security policies. You can do most of this in docker and docker compose, but the benefit here is one click install. Enterprise level AI employees are not ready for prime time, but soon they might be. And when they are ready? 24/7 always on AI Employees.

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If you haven’t been following Pixxel's incredible few weeks, here’s our latest blog to help get you up to speed: https://lnkd.in/eb3Xikvb TL;DR 👇 Pixxel has doubled its Firefly constellation to six operational satellites following its latest SpaceX launch. The Firefly satellites deliver hyperspectral imagery that turns the invisible into actionable intelligence. Use cases range from preventing illegal mining to strengthening climate resilience. This milestone cements Pixxel, a Seraphim portfolio company, as a leader in space-based Earth intelligence. With daily hyperspectral looks at any point on the planet, Pixxel is making the invisible visible, and in doing so, unlocking both commercial opportunity and societal value. #SeraphimSpace #DualUse #SpaceTech #EarthObservation #ClimateTech #Hyperspectral #SpaceEconomy #Satellites

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CRV Security: Request for Startups I never know if this actually works for our friends over at YC but figured we'd try. Here's what we want to fund in 2026! 1. Golden Artifacts: Think Chainguard but more broad. Artifact attestation exists for open source. Almost nothing exists for internal software — especially the vibe-coded tooling now running in production. We want the company building cryptographic proof of secure software delivered from secure artifacts: who built it, how, and whether it was reviewed. If more things are being yeeted into the world via Claude Code (myself included), this feels like an issue. 2. MCP & Agentic Security: Agents are getting real credentials and taking real actions. The security posture of most orgs around this is basically zero. That changes fast. You'd never give an employee hardcoded API keys or write access to your email without supervision/trust. Why give it to agents? 3. AI Governance: Boards are asking CISOs to account for AI risk. CISOs have no good answer other than "Palo has a module" 4. Next-Gen Endpoint: CrowdStrike was built for a world of static binaries and human operators. AI workloads, cloud-native infra, and AI-assisted attackers need a new architecture. The category is ready to be reinvented. 5. Networking in the AI Era: Zero trust was designed for humans. What does network security look like when the entity requesting access is an agent? Nobody's really solved this. 6. Email Security + Next-Gen Phishing: LLMs have made spear phishing infinitely scalable. I've never truly understood why Abnormal and KnowBe4 aren't one company. Maybe this time it's different. 7. Frontier Security Lab: We'd back a credible, well-staffed lab focused entirely on red-teaming models and setting the evidentiary standard the industry needs as LLM built apps become the norm. 8. Dependency Security: That Actually Remediates Malicious and vulnerable dependencies are a top attack vector. The tooling is mostly noise — scanners that don't close the loop. The winner here ships fixes, not just alerts. 9. Critical Infrastructure Cyber: Data centers, satellites, power grids, undersea cables. The physical backbone of the internet is increasingly exposed and wildly under-defended. We have data centers in space, for God's sake. Surely we need better cyber for critical infrastructure? 10. PAM for the Modern Era Legacy: PAM was built for static roles, human users, on-prem directories. Cyberark was founded in 1999.....Agents, ephemeral workloads, and cloud-native infra have broken all of those assumptions. Is anyone rebuilding this from scratch? If you're building in any of these areas — or something we haven't thought of — reach out. james@crv.com

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🚀 Thrilled to celebrate Astronomer’s new $93 M Series D! 🚀 Huge congrats to Andy Byron and the entire Astronomer team on its $93 million Series  D led by Bain Capital Ventures.  This round really underscores the growing demand for unified DataOps platforms that are able to orchestrate, observe, and optimize data pipelines at enterprise scale — all on the open‑source backbone of Apache Airflow.  Back in 2017, Grand Ventures had the privilege of leading Astronomer’s seed round, betting early on their vision on modern data orchestration. Watching the Astronomer evolve from a nimble Airflow‑as‑a‑Service startup to today’s end‑to‑end DataOps platform powering 700+ enterprises has been nothing short of inspiring. What stands out from this raise: * Orchestration is king for AI infrastructure — Astronomer’s Astro platform now layers lineage, quality, dbt workflows, and cost optimization directly into Airflow, giving data teams the control plane they need for modern AI workloads.  * Astronomer is a shining example of how to successfully build on a open‑source foundation while also adding enterprise polish — by doubling down on the Airflow community, Astronomer drives innovation upstream while delivering the reliability Fortune 500s demand. To the Astronomer crew: thank you for proving that Midwest‑rooted startups can reshape the modern data stack. We’re honored to back you on this journey to make every company an Astro‑powered AI company. 🌟 If you’re building the next game‑changing #OSS platform in #DataOps, #DevOps, #DevTools, or #AIInfrastructure, let’s talk — Grand is actively investing.

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Breaking: Composite Raises $5.6M to Make Browser Automation Accessible to All Professionals Exciting news in the AI productivity space! Composite just secured $5.6M in seed funding to build a cross-browser AI agent that automates tedious browser-based tasks for professionals. Unlike browser-specific AI tools, Composite works across any browser you prefer. Why this matters: Most professionals spend hours on repetitive browser tasks - from recruiters screening candidates to security engineers managing vulnerabilities. Composite's solution lets non-technical users automate these workflows without switching browsers or writing code. The most impressive part? The tool learns from your patterns and can handle complex multi-step tasks across different websites where you're already logged in. This could be a game-changer for enterprise productivity. What are your thoughts on AI automation tools? Would you trust an AI assistant to handle your routine browser tasks? Read more: https://lnkd.in/guQyyByJ #ArtificialIntelligence #ProductivityTools #WorkplaceAutomation #TechStartups #AIFunding #FutureOfWork #EnterpriseAI #BrowserTechnology

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Trying something new this week - a studio industry roundup with my take on what matters. The studio model is no longer an experiment being run in a handful of places. It is infrastructure being built across geographies, sectors, and institutional types. 5️⃣ stories from the past seven days:  1️⃣ OSS Ventures hit a EUR 40M first close on a EUR 75M follow-on fund -- capital raised specifically to back the 30 companies their studio created since 2019. The "build then fund" lifecycle is maturing. B'More Venture Studio with a similar thesis: studio operations first, then dedicated capital to scale what's working.  2️⃣ Delta40 raised $20M from 54 investors across 13 countries to launch Africa's first integrated venture studio and fund. The LP base is almost entirely DFIs and foundations. Impact capital is discovering the studio model as a deployment vehicle, something I seeing across geographies (conversations with Michael Bob Starr and Damias McDonald this week alone) 3️⃣ Start Holdings launched Start.vc out of NYC and Barcelona after a $200M EV infrastructure exit. Another operator-turned-studio-founder. This is the pattern we see quite often in our work at 9point8 -- experienced operators like Jason Goldsmith who've built and exited deciding the studio model is how they want to build next.  4️⃣ UBC HATCH admitted 10 new deep-tech spinouts for Winter 2026 -- mostly climate tech. University venture builders are quietly becoming one of the fastest-growing segments. Follow Evan Allen and Jaimie Testai to keep track of its rapid evolution.  5️⃣ The INVEST Act is advancing through the Senate. If passed, it expands qualifying VC fund size from $10M to $50M and loosens general solicitation rules for accelerator and university events. For studio-funds -- and for folks in the The Venture Studio Forum community tracking policy -- this could be the most significant capital formation legislation since the JOBS Act. If this roundup format is useful, I'll keep it going. What other noteworthy news hit your desk this week, and what stood out to you?

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Thrilled for OVNI Capital to be backing RIFT in a pre-seed round led by AlleyCorp (Luc Ryan-Schreiber). Rift is building the first real-time aerial intelligence network, a new layer of infrastructure for persistent, on-demand visibility where it matters most. This funding will scale production of their autonomous stations, accelerate deployment in high-stakes environments, and expand the team leading the next phase. 🗞️ Explore the full story: - StartupMafia: https://lnkd.in/dARrg25N - BFM Business (FR): https://lnkd.in/eADSUsn7 - Les Échos (FR): https://lnkd.in/eFG3zAy5 👨‍🚀 Join the mission → https://lnkd.in/erm_SrTG

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