Rebellion Ventures

?? Big news in AI software development: OpenHands has just released the world’s strongest AI software development agent as open source, earning the # 1 spot on the AI software engineering leaderboard (SWE-bench). ?? It’s the first AI engineer to score over 50%, making it the highest-performing AI software developer to date. What makes this even more impressive? It’s fully open source, reproducible, and available for anyone to use. Topping this benchmark is huge for an open-source project, especially in a field characterized by proprietary AI software backed by big funding. The open-source approach of OpenHands brings greater transparency, accessibility, and extensibility, building better trust in AI software development agents. All Hands AI, a Rebellion Ventures portfolio company, is the pioneering startup backing the OpenHands project. They’ll soon offer an online version of OpenHands to make it easier for everyone to access and benefit from AI software development agents. Visit their website to learn more and join the waitlist. https://lnkd.in/gyCTgppr #AI #OpenSource #SoftwareDevelopment #AIAgents

Are you focusing too much on a product feature battle while missing the bigger strategic picture? I see too many entrepreneurs fighting a tactical battle over features, while losing sight of developing a more fundamental competitive advantage. Entrepreneurs often view their competitive advantage through a matrix of their product features vs. those of their competitors. This approach is typically too tactical and narrow. This isn’t a new problem. Abernathy and Clark highlighted this back in 1985 in their classic paper on innovation: ?“?????????????? ???????????????? ???????????????????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ?????????????????????? ???????????? ???? ?????????????????????? ??????????????????. ???????? ?????? ?????? ?????????????? ?????????????????????????? ???? ????????????, ???????????????? ???????????????????????? ???????? ???? ???????????????? ??????????????????, ?????????? ???????????? ?????? ??????????????????????????, ?????? ??????????????????.” ? Many successful entrepreneurs take a more fundamental, strategic approach to developing their competitive advantage. They: 1. Develop deep insights into customer needs and gaps in the market to serve the market differently than existing players. 2. Pioneer new strategic dimensions of value, creating new ways to compete (new “axes of competition”). 3. Target underserved segments or expand into new types of customers. 4. Bring in unique competencies others lack or overlook. 5. Exploit the limitations of existing players, such as legacy business models and architectures. How are you thinking about developing a competitive advantage beyond feature-level battles?? Know someone for whom this post would be helpful? Share it or comment and tag. Reference: Abernathy, W. J., & Clark, K. B. (1985). Innovation: Mapping the winds of creative destruction.?Research Policy,?14(1), 3-22.

We are hiring for a VP of Engineering at Quandri. We're Series A and will be raising a Series B next year, we're growing fast (4x ARR growth over last 12 months), and are focused on an industry and space that is in big need of a product like ours (insurance brokers & agents). Our platform is interesting and combines elements of RPA, OCR, ML, data engineering, and a beautifully designed front-end web app. We need an engineering leader who can be a strong voice at our leadership table, and take our engineering team to the next level as we prepare for the next phase of growth to scale our platform across North America. If you or someone you know is interested and think you're the right person for the job, you can reach out to me directly.

"Rebellion looks beyond conventional AI systems." This is a well-written article by Venture Capital Journal (by David Bogoslaw) about our Rebellion Ventures announcement last week. It reviews artificial super capability (ASC) and our debut fund focused on autonomous operations and AI agents, leveraging a community of 70+ unicorn founders, operators, and industry experts in AI and automation. Check out VCJ's article below - worth taking a look. https://lnkd.in/g6HDmZ8P

Excited to publicly announce today that?Rebellion Ventures?emerges to build the future of AI super capability, generating 10-100x productivity gains. We've been partnering with entrepreneurs for some time and oversubscribed and closed our debut fund but haven't publicly disclosed it until now. We announced today our inaugural fund, which is dedicated to partnering with entrepreneurs to build what we coined the era of artificial super capability (ASC) through autonomous operations and AI agents that have the power to revolutionize business models and unleash the greatest productivity boost in human history. We foresee the shift from passive, intelligence-focused AI to action-oriented artificial super capability that drives business outcomes autonomously. In the real world, it is the context-specific ability to act that delivers results, rather than general intelligence.?AI capabilities will evolve to be superior to humans in areas such as speed, cost, and accuracy. This shift will create an era of artificial super capability (ASC), with the potential to increase productivity by 10-100x. We see the emergence of a diverse AI workforce across industries, including AI workers, digital humans, autopilots, and autonomous agents. These will continuously learn, observe, think, and act 24/7 to proactively achieve business goals and elevate human work. Through the fund's companies, we target to collectively create at least $100 billion in annual productivity value for customers by 2030 based on initial ROI metrics. Our fund brings an operating track record of building companies to multi-billion dollar IPO and M&A exits and an advisor network of over 70 unicorn founders, operating executives, and industry experts in AI and automation who are LPs in the fund. We'll provide access to industry relationships, operating playbooks, and critical expertise that entrepreneurs need to build and scale disruptive startups. Our fund has thus far partnered with 12 pre-seed/seed startups creating or enabling autonomous operations and AI agents in areas such as engineering, sales, financial services, insurance, and healthcare (over half of these have already raised more capital at higher valuations). We'll partner with 25+ additional startups over the next 18 months. Recognizing our responsibility in this new era, we seek to be a force for good by elevating human work, committing to ethical practices in AI and automation, and contributing positively to societal and economic development (including pledging 1% of our profits to give back to the community). More details are in the announcement below. https://lnkd.in/gBbnAr3p

Entrepreneurs (especially first-time) may be surprised by how much investor/VC pipeline is needed to close a Seed round. Often, entrepreneurs need more “top of the funnel” than they’d think. A successful Seed raise may require targeting 100 VCs or more due to conversion rates at each stage of the process. An illustrative, simplified example of potential conversion rates at each stage: ??100 “qualified” VC prospects whose thesis/sector, stage, and geo fit your startup, and your pitch gets introduced to them by connectors (existing investors, friends, etc.), and/or you directly connect with them (note: indiscriminately spamming investors that aren't a fit doesn't help). ??40 of them take the 1st meeting. ??20 of them proceed to the 2nd meeting. ??10 engage in due diligence. ??5 invest (e.g., a larger lead and a few others). Individual mileage varies a lot based on the entrepreneur, the strength of the network/relationships, and the nature of the opportunity and startup. Some entrepreneurs may need outreach to much more than 100 prospective investors, whereas, more rarely, just a handful of conversations is enough (perhaps a successful repeat entrepreneur coming from a big exit with strong existing VC relationships). Conversion requires not just a strong pitch, a great entrepreneur, and a fit with the VC’s thesis but also factors largely outside the entrepreneur’s control. These outside factors can include, e.g., alignment with the VC’s near-term focus, how the VC prioritizes his/her pipeline of potential deals, bandwidth, timing, capital availability, etc. ???????????? ????????: Build a big enough qualified top of the funnel when raising a Seed round. Even if you don’t need all of it to raise the round, it’ll help you find, prioritize, and select the right investors you want to partner with. #entrepreneurs #startups #seed #fundraising #VC

What do successful Seed round pitch decks convey to investors? ?? While each story is unique, see below the archetypal contents and messages of successful Seed decks. ?? Note: Crafting a compelling, insightful, and unique story isn't a template-filling exercise. The order and flow of these contents vary, and each topic may be covered over one or more slides, depending on how to tell the story. These archetypal contents can serve as a directional guide and a checklist of topics for a Seed deck. ??????????????????????? ???????????????? ???? ???????????????????? ???????? ?????????? ??????????: ? Powerful, inspiring ???????????? ? Significant, pressing ???????????????? ?????????????? ? Compelling ???????????????? to the customer problem, creating significant ?????????? ?????? ?????????????????? ? Possibly an ???????????????????????? ???? ?????? ???????????????? ??????/???? ?? ???????? to make it easy for investors to understand ? ???????????????? ?????????? ???????????? ?????? ???????????????? ???? ???????????????? ???????????? ??????????????-???????????? ?????? (customer validation is highly valuable, although the level of adoption and revenue vary greatly at Seed) ? Clarity on the ?????????? ???????????????? ?????????????? ?????? ?????? ???? ???????????? ?????? ???????? ???? ???????? (a thoughtful initial customer focus and GTM approach) ? Large ???????????? ?????????????????????? (implies potential to build a large business) ? Possibly clarity on '?????? ??????' if not already evident from the problem, solution, and market opportunity ? ?????????????? ???? ?????? ???? ?????? ???????????? ????. ?????? ??????????????????????: a clear understanding of the landscape and well-justified advantages or reasons to succeed ? Sound ????????????????/?????????????? ?????????? describing how the company will make money ? ???????? that's positioned to succeed; brings valuable insights, talent, and expertise?to solve the problem and build a business ? Promising ???????????????? ?????? ?????????????? with projections, metrics, and/or milestones for growth ? ?????????????????????? that makes sense for the opportunity and stage with clarity on where this round will take you (including Series A) ?????? While ?????? ???????? looks like just one topic in the pitch deck, it’s disproportionately important. Further, the team's capabilities are reflected across the story, showing special insights into the customer problem, deep understanding of the market, creation of a novel solution, clarity of the story, progress made thus far, etc. Decks for later rounds share many of these same contents but with a progressively greater focus on growth, scaling, metrics, and financials and a higher bar for evidence, especially for product-market fit, demand, customer acquisition, and unit economics. #startups #entrepreneurs #seed #fundraising #VC

Sharing takeaways from attending Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote yesterday at Nvidia GTC: 1. Generative AI continues to drive the need for ever bigger computing scale and acceleration. In turn, those new computing advancements enable significant improvements in Generative AI, i.e., it’s a symbiotic loop. ? 2. Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture enables bigger AI models (up to 10 trillion parameters) with much faster throughput (claimed “up to a 30x” performance, e.g., tokens per second) and “up to 25x” reduction in energy consumption. This can support more capable models (e.g., multimodal) with a faster user experience. ? 3. While many still think of Nvidia as a semiconductor company, it continues to expand as a broader platform and infrastructure systems vendor. The size and complexity of those systems has increased significantly. The latest system weighs 3,000 lbs. ? 4. The innovations in these systems, particularly in the new Blackwell platform, go well beyond the traditional semiconductor innovations. For instance, Nvidia has made major strides in networking with their NVLink Switch (1.8TB/s), which is important for overall AI infrastructure performance. ? 5. Jensen repeatedly said that Nvidia is working on “the full stack.” Software investments are a big part. Besides embedding software in its systems, Nvidia is broadening its software platform. For instance, Nvidia launched NIM - Nvidia inference microservices built on its CUDA platform - to make deploying pre-trained, packaged generative AI models in applications and co-pilots easier and faster. ? BTW - Nvidia’s software/services revenue crossed the $1B annualized run rate last year (though still a small % of the total). Today, Nvidia mostly monetizes S/W indirectly through differentiation, ecosystem building, demand for its systems, and customer/developer retention for the platform.?? ? 6. These new computing advancements, system-wide innovations, and platform & ecosystem developments are a key part of Nvidia’s strategy to defend its moat vs. competitors and new entrants, protect its lucrative share of the industry profit pool, and position the company at the core of GenAI. ? 7. Jensen also highlighted opportunities in robotics (announced Project GR00T, a foundation model for humanoid robots), digital twins, and “omniverse” (announced Omniverse Cloud APIs for industrial digital twin software tools), particularly for industrial, manufacturing, and logistics. AI is a key enabler for these, too. ? 8. While the keynote covered a lot of ground, one notable topic it didn’t discuss was responsible & ethical AI and AI security & governance, beyond Jensen briefly mentioning that the Blackwell platform has improved encryption to protect AI models and user data. ? Overall, as “a developer conference,” Nvidia GTC has significantly broadened its audience, and the keynote at the SAP Center was packed. Some people compared it to a rock concert (and Jensen wore a new leather jacket).