Brent Leary’s Post

For the longest time, I would advise startups that the path to success is to be a system of record. I don't advise that anymore. Every startup I work with has an AI component. Most of them focus on GenAI capabilities and a bit of automation. If you're building #SaaS now, pay close attention to what Ed Sim says here about "agentic workflow". Systems of record are the commodity now. The future is about interfaces.

Harj Taggar of Y Combinator on the parallels between the early days of SaaS and the early days of #LLMs When Salesforce was launched, many doubted that you could build an enterprise platform that existed in the browser. Today, most of the technologies you probably use on a daily basis are SaaS. There’s much discussion about how #generativeai could disrupt the SaaS business model, not least coming from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, which I shared recently. Whether you think it’s unlikely or not, what’s for sure is that we’re at the very beginning of end-to-end generative applications. Who knows what we’ll see in 2025? #genai #saas #innovation #startup

Over the past 15 years, our team has invested in many new technologies, from the emergence of the cloud in the late 2000s to agentic AI today. These major platform shifts unlock transformative opportunities that redefine entire industries and create outlier value. We believe AI is the next platform shift, which is why we’ve committed $1B to AI companies developing responsible AI solutions. Platform shifts like agentic AI embody the potential we seek in our investments to revolutionize businesses and empower customers in ways that create a better tomorrow. “Of the large tech companies, we saw Salesforce and Salesforce Ventures moving faster than all the others. From Marc [Benioff] all the way down, it was clear their team saw AI coming and shifted their focus more quickly than others, and that impressed us.” – Neerav Kingsland, Head of Business Development, Anthropic For more on our journey over the last 15 years, download our latest report:  https://lnkd.in/eSt9tpXf

Want to stay ahead of the curve? We’ve identified all the movers and shakers in #AI and #SaaS so you don’t have to 🤖 Discover which scale-ups in these industries have made the biggest impact in Q2 – and why they matter 👇 #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology #VentureCapital #Capsule #NextLevelThinking

🔮What a few VCs predict for 2025 - and my comments ➡️ After several years of financial discipline and a more relaxed M&A regulation, startups are ready to go public this year. And next year. Here are a few predictions from VCs like TDK Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Scrum Ventures, Cathay Innovation. More big deals specially in #AI. For instance, what will Databricks do with its $10bn funding? More IPOs from the third quarter AI is moving to agents and reasoning, with companies finally embedding AI in their workflows. More specialized, verticalized AI applications. I see many applications around customer service, sales and developers/engineers tooling #investing

Salesforce snatches up Zoomin, a tool for organizing company knowledge: Salesforce is on a buying spree. After snatching up data management firm Own earlier in the month, Salesforce today announced its plans to buy Zoomin, an enterprise knowledge platform. Zoomin — which we’ve covered a handful of times before — unifies a company’s docs, like product user guides and tutorials, in one portal. The terms […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. https://lnkd.in/dAiKBSfb #AI #Enterprise #MergersandAcquisitions #Salesforce #startup

Wonderful advice from Ramsri Goutham Golla on AI startups! Not only for founders actually - even hobbyists and professionals can benefit from this. 💡Tip: Do not miss the last 7 mins https://lnkd.in/dy_PBhEm

This week we marked the end of Y Combinator by onboarding our first set of enterprise companies! They’re consolidating their outbound sales workflow into our platform and augmenting their human teams with Ava, our AI BDR! Like many startups before, we recently realized our ICP is actually enterprise, not startups. Our product is unique in that our users need to know who their ICP is and have some semblance of product-market fit. When we’re working with enterprise SaaS companies, the results Ava can get are insane. I can confidently say that we’ve created the best outbound automation platform and AI BDR, but even the best human BDRs can’t sell bad products 😶 The only downside of this focus shift is the painfully long enterprise sales cycle…

Excited to assist companies in transforming how they serve their customers by streamlining operations and communications across Customer Support, Product, Engineering, Customer Success, and Sales teams. Reach out to learn how we can help you jump past your competition. #DevRev #AI #Support #Product #Engineering #CustomerSuccess

DevRev is literally lifting the AI adoption curve! 🚀 This milestone isn’t just about funding; it’s about the transformative power of AI in helping tech and SaaS companies embrace customer centricity like never before. By embedding AI-driven solutions into their operations, DevRev equips businesses to create more personalized, efficient, and impactful customer experiences. 🌍✨ #AI #platform #SaaS #CustomerCentricity #ArtificialIntelligence #BusinessGrowth #DevRev #AIForBusiness #CustomerExperience