Christian J. Ward

Big milestone for Firmable. We’ve raised $14m Series A led by Airtree. Sales has moved through a few big waves: intuition-led, CRM-led, data-led. We’re now entering the next one – intelligence-led sales. The opportunity isn’t just better data. It’s turning that data into clear direction and action, without adding more work for sales teams. That’s what we’re building at Firmable: a foundation of trusted external data, layered with intelligence that helps sellers know who to focus on and when. Led by Airtree, this round supports our expansion across Asia and into the US – and accelerates the build-out of AI agents that take the admin work off sales teams so they can focus on what they do best. Proud of the team, grateful to our customers and investors. We’re just getting started. Read the exclusive in the AFR. https://lnkd.in/gr66uknb Leigh Jasper | Tara Salmon | Karthik Venkatasubramanian| Chester Thompson| Chath Widanapathirana

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Every hire, product feature, and GTM experiment is a capital allocation decision, most teams just don’t call it that. I’m kicking off a 3-part series on capital allocation for founders, operators, and finance leaders with a simple question: ➡️ Will the next $1 you deploy become worth more than $1? Series overview Part 1: defines the core concept + the math Part 2: where capital goes + how to measure whether it’s working Part 3: AIMS framework for communicating allocation decisions to management teams and your board Part 1 (attached here) lays the practical foundation: 🔹 The $1 invested test and ROIIC vs. hurdle rates (scoreboard vs. decision lens) 🔹 A lightweight “investment brief” to evaluate bets (GROW / BUILD / BUY) 🔹 The small metric toolkit that translates finance into operating decisions (NPV / payback / ROIIC / incremental margin) 🔹 Early-stage proxies when DCF inputs are unknowable (burn multiple + revenue quality) 🔹 Operator “vital signs” to spot drift early (profit engine, leverage, cash conversion, optics) Series Roadmap ✔️ This series (Parts 1–3): breadth-first. shared, lightweight framework to define value creation, choose decision-grade metrics, and communicate tradeoffs clearly ✔️ Next series: depth-first. momentum drivers + operational decisions that need near real-time measurement to spot drift early and course-correct fast Read Part 1 here and Part 2 and 3 on substack. Next Series will be out next week. 💰 What’s one bet you’re funding right now, and how will you prove it’s working?

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I’ve spoken to over 2 dozen MDs at PE firms I can confidently say that the arb of figuring out how to implement Vertical AI at portfolio companies is very real right now It will fundamentally change underwriting for those who can do it predictably and unlock generational returns. Most are aware they need to act. Very few have.

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A whammy of a simile from the inimitable VC Sammy Abdullah, on the abominable phenomenon of "let's vibe-code an in-house version instead of buying the SaaS solution": "Trying to build your own enterprise class software solution is kind of like BBQ: ask any pit-master how they make their BBQ and they will tell you exactly what to do. They'll tell you the type of wood, where the get their meat, how to make and maintain the fire, etc Why? Because you either won't do it (you're talking 18+ hours of monitoring a smoker), will screw it up, or simply won't have the fortitude required to do it again and again. So, while enterprise software companies in this environment are going to receive the "we're building this in-house" refrain, it's going to be your job to explain exactly what you do, and re-pitch the value of your solution." [Blossom Street Ventures update email, 2026-03-18]

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While there has never been a more exciting time to be a founder building dev tooling or next-gen infra, it has also never been less investable at seed/pre-seed. I'm either really missing something or a lot of my peers are lost. As someone who has not just written, but also SHIPPED, about 75k lines of code in the past 6 months I can tell you that the evolution of how to build products has changed as much in the past year as it did in the entirety of 2007-2017. The complete rise and fail of frameworks, platforms, methodologies, etc... paved over and forgotten... that is of course except for the 1 company that gets a 1000x return from a wildly overvalued hyper-scaler or drunken growth stage investor obsessed with compounding at scale. Imagine a world where any seed investor in trends like Openstack, Hadoop, PaaS, etc all took a full loss on their investment. That's what we're looking at right now. I personally know of over a dozen well-funded seed-stage companies building in these spaces, with years of runway, scrambling to get acquired for a return of capital + several million personally while they're still relevant. If you're not seeing this unfold in front of you, you either aren't paying attention or you're satisfied playing the lottery instead of investing.

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I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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Seth Levine nailed it! The concentration problem isn't just a GP pain point... it's choking innovation. When capital pools around the same 20 funds, emerging managers and founders get shut out. Love that he's using his platform to call this out. Foundry has backed 50+ emerging managers. That's the diversification the ecosystem needs. This is exactly why Carta exists — making capital allocation visible and accessible. Capital Evolution hits at exactly the right moment. Thanks for having us Daniel Dart. Team Carta loves the community of FUTURE TITANS you have built 🚀

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Agents are starting to execute work autonomously. This shift breaks many of the metrics we’ve relied on for the past decade of SaaS. When humans stop logging in, clicking buttons, and reviewing dashboards, traditional signals like DAU, feature adoption, and session duration stop telling us whether a product is valuable. In the Agent Era, the right questions look different: - Are tasks completed successfully? - How often do humans need to intervene? - What outcomes are produced, and at what cost? - How much autonomy does the customer actually trust the system with? Read more for a framework comparing SaaS Era metrics vs Agent Era metrics, focused on measuring outcomes, reliability, and economic leverage rather than interaction. How are others are thinking about measuring autonomous systems? #AI #Agents #SaaS #Metrics #Startups

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Just read a piece from the team at Camber Creek portfolio company Proof on the evolving state of authentication…and it hit home. For years I’ve been thinking “passwords are dead,” but also lamenting the difficulty navigating the labyrinthine world of advanced security. This blog lays out exactly what’s replacing passwords in a way that’s practical, not just theoretical. Five methods stood out: - App-based authenticators finally killing SMS (good riddance, SIM-swap nightmares) - Continuous authentication that watches behavior during the session (the “someone stole the cookie but can’t act like you” protection we’ve all been missing) - Adaptive authentication that doesn’t treat grandma on her usual iPad the same as a login from a Tor exit node in a new country - MFA done right (and then taken further with verified digital certificates) - Biometrics with actual liveness + document tying, so it’s not just “a face” but your verified face What really resonated was the reminder that the strongest systems aren’t about piling on more factors; they’re about using the right factor at the right moment. Risk-based, context-aware, and (crucially) user-respecting. I’m biased but Proof’s angle of anchoring everything to high-assurance digital certificates feels like the missing glue. It’s one thing to authenticate someone at login; it’s another to carry that verified identity forward through the entire session, signature, or transaction. This one is worth the read. Link in comments. #venturecapital #cybersecurity #fraud

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