Unlocking AI Agents, Biotech Breakthroughs, and Validating Ideas: Insights for Founders and Builders

This week, Archon's Jamie Lazarovits joins the Founded & Funded podcast to share his journey from academic research to launching an AI+biotech company. Madrona Partner Jon Turow dives into the world of AI agents, sharing the opportunities for founders to build transformative tools and critical infrastructure in 2025. Plus, catch Jon Turow at the Cerebral Valley AI Summit in SF tomorrow, discussing agents that reason.?On the portfolio front, Amperity and iSpot named new C-level executives, Read AI announced an integration with Notion, Observe launched Kubernetes Explorer, and so much more.

Founded & Funded

Archon’s Jamie Lazarovits on Unlocking the Full Power of Antibodies With AI

What does it take to move from cutting-edge academic research to launching a biotech company that could transform medicine? In this week’s episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo sat down with James Lazarovits , CEO and co-founder of Archon Biosciences , to uncover the story behind their groundbreaking protein-based biologics and their unique Antibody Cages (AbCs).

From bootstrapping deep tech investments as a student to navigating the challenges of commercializing revolutionary science, Jamie shares the pivotal moments, tough decisions, and key lessons that led to Archon’s creation.?This isn’t just a story for biotech enthusiasts—every founder can take away valuable insights on:

• Asking for help and building teams with complementary skills — no founder succeeds alone.
• Applying AI thoughtfully — it’s a tool, not a magic wand.
• Patience — ensure your foundation is strong before scaling.
• Partnering with investors you trust and who align with your mission.
• Setting a high bar for talent and culture — great people build great companies.
• Communicating your differentiation — make your value clear to all stakeholders.

Listen on?Spotify,?Apple, and?Amazon?| Watch on?YouTube.

Perspectives

AI Agents Are Stuck in First Gear, but 2025 Will Change That

AI agents feel stuck in first gear —?just a few products in a few categories today work reliably and have a large scale of adoption. But there has been a ton of innovation beneath the surface that will unstick builders/founders in 2025 and enable new use cases.

Here's why Madrona Partner Jon Turow says this all matters:

1) You don’t need to wait for better AI models. There are years' worth of work to be done even if the models stand still (which they won't).

2) From next-gen copilots to teammate agents to invisible agents, the potential to create transformative tools has never been greater.

3) The landscape of AI agent infrastructure primitives like memory, orchestration, and auth is still wide open for builders.

4) Imagination, user trust and intuitive design will separate the winners — teams will adopt agents that feel natural and prove their reliability in real workflows.

Read Jon's full thoughts and the opportunities he sees for founders.

Jon will also be discussing this topic tomorrow at the Cerebral Valley AI Summit hosted by Eric Newcomer !

MVL

Early Idea Validation Part III: Solution Ideation & Validation

In part three of Madrona Venture Labs ' early idea validation series, Elizabeth Webber and Henry Huang discuss the importance of validating your concepts with real customer feedback to ensure your ideas align with their needs and motivations, avoiding costly mistakes before launching your product.

Learn how to run effective ideation and validation sessions, avoid common biases, and uncover second-order insights to elevate your solution. Read more here.

Portfolio Roundup

Amperity named Tony Alika Owens as new CEO.

iSpot hired Nipun Dureja as CTO.

CommerceIQ launched Nexis, the AI teammate built just for commerce.

A-Alpha Bio released its?AlphaBind?antibody optimization model, which uses antibody-antigen binding data to engineer effective therapeutics.

RelationalAI made its Knowledge Graph Coprocessor available in GA as a Snowflake Native App.

Read AI announced an integration with Notion.

Observe launched Kubernetes Explorer to simplify cloud observability, which was covered in the Silicon Angle.

Indochino ready-to-wear is now available at 50 Kohls stores and online.

Fixie.ai released Ultravox v0.4.1, a family of open-speech models trained specifically for enabling real-time conversations with LLMs.

DevZero launched the Developer Experience Index (DXI), a new tool that gives engineering leaders real-time insights into the development process.

Stacklok CEO Craig McLuckie joined All Things Open to discuss how AI is transforming developer workflows.

Yoodli partnered with Palette Skills to offer users the chance to sharpen sales communications and enhance their readiness for B2B tech sales roles.

Temporal was named a finalist in two categories for the 2024 DevOps Dozen awards. Vote now.

Evocalize partnered with Total Expert and Rebel iQ to revolutionize local digital marketing for mortgage professionals.