A Mini Masterclass in Efficient Growth and GTM, How Startups Benefit from Big Tech's AI Spend, and MVL Launches 'Saturday at the Park'
Monday, we released our latest episode of Founded & Funded, which is chock full of tips and tricks for founders navigating GTM and scaling. Madrona's Matt McIlwain is out with his latest blog about how Big Tech's massive AI spend is powering the next generation of startups. Shannon Anderson landed the list of who's who in VC talent. And from the?portfolio:?Typeface made two acquisitions, Numbers Station, Common Room, Clozd, and Pulumi announced new features/products, and Nautilus named a new CMO.
Founded & Funded
Startup to Scale: A Mini Masterclass in Efficient Growth and GTM
In the latest episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona's Tim Porter sits down with Pradeep Rathinam , founder of AnsweriQ (Acquired by Freshworks) and former chief customer officer and CRO at Freshworks . These two dive deep into efficient growth strategies and hard-earned lessons from scaling GTM at small and large companies.
Three (of MANY in the episode) lessons for founders to navigate #GTM and growth include:
1- Paddy’s decision to focus on the core product with the greatest momentum — IT — led to focused growth. His advice? Don’t push uphill. Double down on what's working.
2 - In recalibrating Freshworks' go-to-market approach, Paddy shifted the team’s focus to landing deals over $30K, eliminating the sub-$10K deals that were draining resources. The lesson? Efficient growth starts with knowing where to place your bets.
3 - Retention = Adoption + Engagement + Advocacy. Success in SaaS comes from understanding product telemetry, creating seamless onboarding experiences, and fostering executive engagement with customers.
Don’t miss this one!
Perspectives
Big Tech’s AI Spend: Fuel for the Startups That Will Shape the Future
Big Tech's $60B investment in AI infrastructure is fueling AI innovation for startups!
In Q2 2024, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple together invested nearly $60 billion into AI and data centers, unlocking unprecedented opportunities for the next wave of Next Tech startups. These massive commitments are more than just sustaining growth — they are paving the way for disruptive innovation in AppliedAI.
While Big Tech's scale enables frontier AI models, Next Tech companies are leveraging these advancements to build groundbreaking products and solutions. Startups are standing on the shoulders of giants, using the infrastructure and tools provided to push the boundaries of what's possible in AI.
Read more about how Next Tech startups are capitalizing on these opportunities and why Big Tech is both an enabler and a competitor in Matt McIlwain's latest blog post.
In the News
The VC Talent Who's Who
A huge shoutout to Madrona Director of Talent Shannon Anderson for making the list of the who's who in talent. (And, of course, her amazing Team here at Madrona — Audra Aulabaugh & Matthew Witt — are part of that win!)
Shannon's ability to identify, attract, and develop talent has not only shaped our portfolio companies but also created lasting impact in the broader startup ecosystem. We are incredibly proud to have her leadership driving our talent strategies forward!
领英推荐
As Tim Porter shared, "Madrona is lucky to have Shannon, who is absolutely one of the best in the business. She and her team do so much to help our founders across all aspects of talent and hiring."
Business Insider: 44 of the most promising AI startups of 2024, according to top VCs
Business Insider asked top venture capitalists to name the most promising AI startups so far in 2024 — that they have no financial ties to. Madrona Managing Director Soma Somsegar and Partner Vivek Ramaswami were included in the roundup, naming Continua AI, Inc. and unstructured.io .
"Continua is redefining traditional search companies and leveraging LLMs to revolutionize how people interact with information, services, and each other," Soma told Business Insider.
"[Unstructured is] quickly getting adoption within enterprises and becoming a key part of the AI developer stack. The reason it is special in 2024 is because every enterprise is trying to figure out how best to leverage its proprietary data for use in LLMs, and Unstructured is helping make that happen," Vivek told the online news outlet.
Events
MVL's Saturday at the Park
Join Madrona Venture Labs for "Saturday at the Park" on September 28th at Green Lake Park. This relaxed, outdoor event is for founders and future founders to connect with MVL partners, investors, and the tech community. Pitch your ideas, network, or simply enjoy the day with like-minded individuals. Whether you're solo or with family, drop in anytime. Mingle while your kids play on the playground, or join a walk around the park to discuss your ideas.?Featured founders will be on hand to offer advice, and coffee, water, and snacks will be provided.?Request to join here.
Portfolio Roundup
Typeface acquired two companies, unveiled new products across its suite, and has supercharged its Salesforce partnership with integrations with AI agents. This was covered in TechCrunch.
Numbers Station launched the next iteration of its product in preview. It’s a unified data intelligence system built via data agents.
Common Room launched RoomieAI —?its AI-powered end-to-end pipeline generation solution.
SeekOut released its Talent Maturity Model to help HR Teams address pressing talent challenges.
Pulumi introduced Webhooks for Pulumi ESC to simplify and automate your secrets and configuration management workflows with real-time triggers and notifications. And they launched projects and environment tags.
Clozd announced "Ask Clozd" a new AI-powered search tool.
Nautilus Biotechnology added Kentaro Suzuki to the team as chief marketing officer.
Relational AI?CEO Molham Aref shares lessons in a guest article in AIThority.
Echodyne co-authored a piece with Siemens ACI Airport Council International.
Unstructured is now HIPAA compliant.
Tigera CMO?Utpal Bhatt wrote about interconnecting security risks in Kubernetes environments for The New Stack.