#206 | Intelligent Automation, Request for Startups, & more

Nov 17th | The latest from Bessemer, A16Z, Y Combinator, Scale Venture Partners, Homebrew, and others

SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

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Investment Themes, Theses, & Outlooks

• RIP to RPA: The Rise of Intelligent Automation (Kimberly Tan, Partner @ A16Z)

• Roadmap: Voice UI (Bessemer Team)

• Request for Startups (Y Combinator)

• Logistics Automation Winners Will Be Services, Not Software (Zach Fredericks & Brad Svrluga, Primary)

• Genomics and Genetic Testing: Looking at the Future of Personalized Medicine (Amit Kini, VC @ Lotus Capital)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The Post Election Surge is Unevenly Distributed (Tomasz Tunguz, MD @ Theory)

• Inflation Sparks The Off-Price Boom (Chelsea Zhang & Sophia Dodd, Equal Ventures)

• Trump 2.0 for climate tech #222 (Climate Tech VC Team)

• The Cracks In LLM Scaling And Where To Invest Next (Rob May, GP @ Half Court Ventures)

• Saving Private Practice (David Roos, Partner @ Core Innovation Capital)

• AI growing faster than SaaS (Zach DeWitt, Partner @ Wing)

• Welcome to LLMflation (Guido Appenzeller, VC @ A16Z)

• Q324 Flash update: Growth reacceleration holds steady (Chris Young & Dale Chang, Scale)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• How marketing teams are actually using AI (Craig Rosenberg & Mark Gustaferro, Scale)

• Balancing Sales and Risk in Fintech Lending (Brian Harwitt, Partner @ Treville Capital)

• Bring Your A Game to the Series B. (Caie Kelley, Partner @ Lowercarbon)

Additional Reads

• Winning at Seed Investing Isn’t Just About When to Buy, but Increasingly Also When to Sell (Hunter Walk, GP @ Homebrew)

• 3 Founder Attributes We Look For When Investing (Rob Go, GP @ NextView)

• Time-To-Value In The AI Age (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• Crypto price movements after Trump's election win. (Jamesin Seidel, VC @ Chapter One)

• Embrace The Nuance (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• The Evolution of the Creator (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

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Resources & more

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