8VC

Back by popular demand! Today we have Alex Kolicich, Founding Partner at 8VC Discussing AI & The Defense Tech Renaissance, from Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, to OpenAI We dive into: - OpenAI's Talent Exodus - Defense Tech Renaissance - "AI Capabilities Gap" - AI Investment Uncertainty & Valuation Instability & more! Alex is a serious industry leader to follow with his quarterly reports on the state of the VC market, standing out with his sharp insights from a both macro lens and a strategic vertical breakdown. Check out more, + resources, in the latest Sourcery

Integrations are one of the most frequently cited benefits of SaaS products, yet subpar integrations abound, and the good ones often require much more work than most people would guess. The hotglue team recognized this problem early on. Since their YC days, they've achieved remarkable progress with their embedded integration platform, customer base, and enlisting stellar technical talent. We are exceptionally excited to lead hotglue's seed round and help them tackle even more of this increasingly rich and relevant problem set, while helping builders at all scales enhance their craft. Congratulations to David M., Hassan Syyid, and friends! CC: Asanka Jayasuriya Bhaskar Ghosh Alex Kolicich Vivek Gopalan Kevin Niechen Nahom Yimam

A live look at a memorable fireside with Jack Dobson and Sebastian Caliri from the September edition of Chat8VC, showcasing Palantir's AIP and Foundry for Builders community!

This year marks 8 years since the founding of 8VC, so it felt appropriate to put together a little compilation of the community we've been building. Through 8VC Build, we've incubated and spun out over 25 companies since 2016, which have raised billions in follow-on investments and created several unicorns including two of the fastest growing defense companies. We've launched our Campus Associates program in the top universities across the country, our Fellowship program to activate top young talent, and recurring community builder events in partnership with Palantir Technologies, Ramp Vercel and others like Chat8VC (Engineering/AI), Pixel8 (Design), and 8by8VC (CTO dinners). Thank you to all who continue to engage with our community to build the next generation of transformational companies. And a special thanks to our founders featured here: Jacob M./Opto Investments, Andy Lowery/Epirus, Palmer Luckey/Anduril Industries, Zachary Bookman/OpenGov Inc., Jin W. Chang/Fieldguide, Dino Mavrookas/Saronic Technologies, Rebekah E. Gee MD MPH/Nest Health, Zach Rivkin/Gatsby, Michel Tricot/Airbyte, Ivan Dimov/Orca Bio, Maleka Momand/Esper, and Ray Zhou/Affinity.co

Last night, Chat8VC returned for the beginning of fall, with an appropriately crisp program headlined by our partners at Palantir Technologies. Palantir AIP Commercial lead Jack Dobson joined 8VC partner (and Palantir alum) Sebastian Caliri for a fireside chat about builder culture, finding your unique role, enabling decision-makers, and expanding Foundry/AIP from the F500 to startups. Next, Jack walked us through an AIP supply chain demo, showing how AIP’s pipelines, ontology, logic, transforms, actions, and agent-driven workflows fit together to enable global and local decisions and power many enterprise automations at once. Following Jack, two companies in Palantir’s Foundry for Builders program shared how they’re leveraging AIP to clear hurdles and accelerate their missions: - The co-founders of 8VC portfolio company Seen Health, Yang Su and Wells Wulsin, shared how they are building a senior care program they would entrust with their own grandparents. - Ryan Beck, CTO of Pray.com, shared their journey as the world’s most popular app for cultivating faith and community. As always, if you're excited about the foundation model ecosystem and want to engage in highly technical, implementation-oriented conversations, please reach out to Vivek Gopalan at vivek@8vc.com! CC: Bhaskar Ghosh Alex Kolicich Bela Becerra Jack Moshkovich Kevin Niechen Andrés Rosales Nahom Yimam Audrey Abbott Macenzie Walford Darlina Serrano Hefler Gabe Rosen

For many markets, the future has arrived ahead of schedule, but tragically, this has not been the case for public safety. Prepared exists to erase this deficiency, leveraging the full power of mobile devices (video, voice, text, imagery) to maximize situational awareness for dispatchers and first responders. Whether it's an individual or large-scale emergency, Prepared facilitates a coordinated, decisive response. Our incredible public safety professionals, and the people they serve, deserve no less. Prepared's $27 million Series B, announced this morning, reinvigorates this commitment, and will accelerate the future for more public agencies and communities. Congratulations Michael Chime and friends!

Chat8VC is back for the fall this Wednesday, with a special edition featuring Palantir Technologies and highlighting Foundry for Builders along with AIP. Jack Dobson, Commercial AIP lead, will join us for a fireside chat, followed by lightning demos of startup AIP use cases, cocktails, and conversations. Doors open at 6 with programming beginning at 6:30. RSVP: https://lnkd.in/dFybW3VJ If you would like to share discussion ideas, attend a future Chat8VC, or present your work, please reach out to Vivek Gopalan at vivek@8vc.com. CC: Alex Kolicich Bhaskar Ghosh Bela Becerra Jack Moshkovich Kevin Niechen Nahom Yimam Macenzie Walford Darlina Serrano Hefler Audrey Abbott

For private companies, especially in fast-moving emerging technologies, fiscal and performance benchmarks have long been elusive, with incomplete data and dated, inflexible reporting…until now. Building on the incredible data asset they’ve spent the past four years creating and refining, Standard Metrics has introduced Global Benchmarking, their first data product and a massive leap forward for investors and builders alike to gauge how things are really going. Standard Metrics, an 8VC Build company, was born partly from our own frustrations with the status quo of portfolio reporting and analytics, and launched in 2020 with 8VC as the first pilot customer. Since then, they’ve added over 100 top firms and 7000+ companies to the platform, and have never stopped iterating in their drive to establish a common language for private markets. With Global Benchmarking, they have reset the bar, and we are already reaping the benefits. Congratulations to John Melas-Kyriazi, Ann Demirtjis, Devin Gribbons, Brian Cloughley, Carter Brewer, and friends! For the 8VC perspective on the promise of Global Benchmarking and an early glimpse at how we’re using it, check out our new blog post from Joe Lonsdale, Alex Moore, and Gabe Rosen, featuring the inimitable design touch of Standard Metrics co-founder Deny Khoung.  https://lnkd.in/gdCfXv_U And don't miss John's official Standard Metrics blog announcement: https://lnkd.in/gpaWZCXY CC: Drew Oetting Alex Kolicich Jack Moshkovich Nahom Yimam

Global Benchmarking is a breakthrough offering that brings welcome clarity and rigor to both building and investing. Even in the short time we've had access, we've been able to derive some surprising insights. Congratulations to the entire Standard Metrics team. We look forward to further collaboration and exploration, and to applying the product broadly and deeply.

Prepared was founded to solve some of the most urgent problems in emergency response, and we couldn't be happier to see them receiving some well-deserved national recognition - especially from an institution like The Today Show. Prepared helps 911 receive previously inaccessible data, and provide situational awareness through live video, photos, and text. It also helps 911 to better process data through translation, transcription, and AI-enabled insights. As the national emergency number, 911 is an institution in its own right, and Prepared is committed to helping 911 weather modern challenges in staffing, call volume, and data processing. This kind of public-private partnership and innovation is why we invest in govtech. Congratulations Michael Chime & friends!