Foundation Capital

Foundation Capital portfolio company EvolutionIQ has been acquired by CCC Intelligent Solutions for $730 million 🥳 We led EvolutionIQ's seed round in 2019, recognizing the massive opportunity to transform insurance with AI. EvolutionIQ's AI enables patient advocates to focus on high-impact cases—delivering better outcomes for workers and insurers alike. We're proud to have backed every round since seed, watching EvolutionIQ grow from idea to industry leader. Congratulations to Michael Saltzman, Jonathan L., Tomas Vykruta, and the entire team on this milestone achievement. Looking forward to watching your continued success as part of the CCC family.

Cal Students and Alumni—applications are still open for our 3rd cohort of Cal Build! We want to help more Cal founders create and scale successful enterprise companies. If you're a current Cal student or Cal grad who has started an Enterprise company in the last 6 months or is thinking of starting a company in the next 3 months, please apply! What you get: → In-person & virtual events with a tight-knit group of peer builders → Direct access to me and Foundation Capital's investment team → Free office space to build → Demo days with our VC and angel network → AWS/Azure/OpenAI/Anthropic credits Applications close December 13. Learn more and apply: https://lnkd.in/guyAagiu

Honored to see our own Jaya Gupta recognized by Business Insider as one of 2024's rising stars in venture capital. Since joining Foundation Capital in May 2023, Jaya has identified breakthrough people and companies, backing founders at their earliest stages. With a focus on AI, she’s helping drive our thesis around AI-native applications and paradigm shifts around service-as-software and systems of agents. Congratulations to Jaya and the rest of this year’s rising stars! 👏

The future of marketing is AI-driven. Our latest analysis shows how Systems of Agents will fundamentally reshape digital marketing, creating a $700B opportunity for AI startups. Key insights from General Partner Joanne Chen and Partner Leo Lu: → Two interconnected AI systems (content creation + distribution) can fully automate marketing workflows → Agent-driven solutions compete not just for software budgets, but for workforce budgets → The line between marketing and sales blurs as AI creates a seamless revenue-generation continuum 📄 Read more about how marketing's self-driving moment creates opportunities for startups: https://lnkd.in/e-AmRaSF

Advice to founders: Your AI strategy needs to evolve beyond workflow automation. Here's why. The enterprise AI market is evolving from path 1 to path 2: Path 1: Automated workflows aka traditional automation → Rule-based processes → Manual data inputs → Human oversight at every step → Limited to structured data Path 2: Systems of Agents (the future) → Networks of specialized AI workers → Real-time data capture and analysis → Continuous learning from each interaction → End-to-end business capabilities Repetitive, rule-based tasks were the low-hanging fruit 🍎 Meaningful breakthroughs happen when we build systems that enhance human teams' capabilities. This human < > AI collaboration opens up completely new categories of work—things we couldn't even attempt before. Agree? LMK in comments.

Traditional supply chain software is leaving $1.6T on the table annually. The average company loses half a year's profit over a decade to disruptions. The core problem is fractured data across three systems: → Communication tools run on unstructured data (emails, PDFs, scanned documents) → Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems from the 1960s → Multiple disconnected management systems (ERP, WMS, TMS) This fragmentation cost market leaders. → Tesla missed chip shortage warnings in emails, leading to 190,000 fewer vehicles in Q3 2021 → Walmart's legacy EDI system caused delays in their drop-shipping initiative → Unilever saw 23% more stockouts and 17% higher excess inventory from poor ERP-WMS communication Digitization efforts haven't fixed this. Solutions like project44 and FourKites aggregate data via APIs, but McKinsey reports that nearly half of the companies surveyed still lack core digital infrastructure. The supply chain software market will grow from $29B to $62B by 2028. The companies that unify these fragmented systems will capture this opportunity. My latest analysis on supply chain's future with Foundation Capital Partner Jaya Gupta: https://lnkd.in/gCJrPZ5g Thanks to Tushar Dalmia for supporting the research behind this post.

A provocative piece in the Harvard Business Review from my friend Bobby Yerramilli-Rao (Microsoft CSO) charts how AI will reshape enterprise expertise and strategy. What resonates deeply with me is their insight into AI's "triple product" return. I’ve seen firsthand how AI drives operational efficiency, elevates workforce performance, and enables sharper strategic focus by automating non-core activities. Another fascinating insight: the conventional wisdom that AI mainly benefits top performers is wrong. Studies show AI assistants boost lower-skilled workers' performance by 43% versus 17% for high performers. AI is raising the floor for everyone. This has major implications for how enterprises should think about talent and org structure. Bobby and his co-authors John Corwin, Yang Li and Karim Lakhani deliver a clear-eyed view of what it means to compete when AI puts expertise at everyone's fingertips. Well worth the read: https://lnkd.in/gy9TsVVU

The digital banking paradox: high volume, low value. Central Bank's data shows customers check their app 20-26 times monthly yet spend less than a minute per session. Digital customers bring just 1/15th of deposits compared to branch-acquired ones. Our Fintech team's latest analysis examines how banks can use generative AI to transform these transactional touchpoints into deeper relationships. Based on conversations with 20 banking executives, we identify specific opportunities for incumbents and startups. 📑 Read the full analysis: https://lnkd.in/er4DBMA3

Over 112 million Americans struggle to pay for healthcare. Over 240 million feel what they pay isn't worth the cost. We can't let this continue. Here’s how AI will help level the playing field in healthcare:

The Open Data Lakes(ide) gathering at Foundation Capital this week brought together an exceptional group of technical builders tackling massive-scale data challenges. Foundation Capital General Partner Steve Vassallo and our friends at dltHub curated an evening focused on practical solutions for solving 16B+ data problems (we counted!), with powerful demonstrations from Alexander Butler (Harness), Josh Wills (DatologyAI), and Marcin Rudolf (dltHub). Special shout out to the hardcore data enthusiasts who stayed deep in technical discussions until the cleaning crew had to kick us out! Thank you to Matthaus Krzykowski and the dltHub team, and to all who joined us!