Today we welcome Shane Earley to DTC's Portfolio Development Team. Shane brings more than a decade of experience in enterprise sales, strategy and partnerships to the role. He'll work alongside Chris Falloon and Julia Beech to support GTM efforts for our portfolio companies including PMF analysis, sales leadership coaching, and direct customer introductions. We're excited to have him with us!

While most people are focused on model innovation, enterprises are focused on outcomes. At SlatorCon San Francisco, DTC Partner Radhika Malik joined Esther Bond and Kanu Gulati to discuss where value is emerging across the Voice AI stack. What bubbled up in the conversation: ➡️ The model layer is critical, but lasting value is increasingly created through infrastructure, workflows, integrations, and the systems that help enterprises deploy AI effectively. As Radhika put it: "The model layer is necessary but not sufficient." ➡️Enterprise adoption, not model performance alone, will define the next phase of AI. ➡️ Faster development cycles are changing how investors evaluate startups. A polished demo is no longer enough. Thanks to @slatornews for the opportunity and for capturing the discussion in this recap. del.ly/6011BGrHdX

Congratulations to Aitan and @terraoffsec for being named to the 25 Most Promising Startups 2026 list by @N12News, @ValleyBank, and @Leumitech. We couldn't agree more!

Anyone who's spent hours trying to debug why an AI agent failed will appreciate what @OpenObserve released today. If that resonates, give them a look and show them some support on @ProductHunt today. del.ly/6016BGzVRM

The strong analyst and ecosystem support surrounding @LightbitsLabs' announcement today of Inferra highlights a growing industry consensus: inference economics matter. A lot. Maximizing GPU utilization, reducing latency, and overcoming memory bottlenecks will play a significant role in determining how AI continues to scale across the enterprise. We are excited to see the Lightbits team continue innovating in this important layer of the AI infrastructure stack. Congratulations to Avigdor Willenz, Eran Kirzner, and the entire team on the introduction of Inferra. del.ly/6018BGJ5gI

With investments in Bland, @Cartesia, and LILT AI, you could say we're a bit bullish on the future of Voice AI. Catch DTC's Radhika Malik and @kanugulati of @khoslaventures with Esther Bond at SlatorCon at September 3rd on the leading edge(s) of voice AI, what's being developed, where capital is being allocated, and how research and capital continue to fuel SF's AI leadership.

Enterprise AI projects often stumble because the context of how work gets done isn't there. That's the premise behind Skan's approach to AI transformation. Their work is resonating with some of the biggest banks in the US and a quarter of the Fortune 50. This week, we re-upped our support of the team by co-leading the company's Series C announced. In our latest interview, Skan co-founders Avinash Misra and Manish Garg share their perspective on: ✅ The biggest mistakes enterprises make when deploying agents ✅ What separates successful AI transformations from failed pilots ✅ How organizations can identify where AI delivers real ROI ✅ Why the future is human + agent collaboration, not human vs. agent Read the full interview in the first comment.

Building a great product is only half the battle. Turning that product into a repeatable, scalable revenue engine is where many enterprise startups struggle. That's why DTC invests heavily in portfolio development. Every year, our PortDev team facilitates hundreds of customer introductions, hosts dozens of customer-facing events, and provides hundreds of hours of hands-on go-to-market coaching to help founders navigate enterprise sales and accelerate growth. The PortDev team was founded and built out by DTC's Chris Hillock and is now led by Chris Falloon. We talked with Falloon about what challenges founders are facing today and his plans for the development function for DTC. Read on: del.ly/6010B18f2w

Headed to Black Hat next week? Avoid the Vegas heat and join us, fellow cybersecurity practitioners, along with folks from Endor Labs, Terra Security, and The Redesign Group for a rare wine tasting event. Drop us a note for an invite. 👉 del.ly/6010BExyUr

When you're a startup, one of the most effective ways to cut through the noise is to have customers willing to share their success stories with others. Flexor is firing on all cylinders on this and had not one but two customers go on the record this week with how the company's AI Context Engine (ACE) is playing an integral role in their AI strategies. MLB team Cincinnati @Reds picked Flexor ACE to layer on top of @Databricks to automatically process massive amounts of unstructured player and game data to get faster, game-changing insights. Then in a fast follow, @Scotiabank's Yashaswi V. joined Flexor CEO Or Zabludowski on stage at CDOIQ Program to talk about making unstructured enterprise data ready to work across teams at multinational bank. Attending CDOIQ? You can still catch the Flexor team there today and tomorrow. del.ly/6013BEoGw5

DTC's Daniel Docter spent time with Mary Ann Azevedo for @crunchbasenews to talk what's new with the AI-driven innovation wave versus the many waves that have come before, DTC's quiet run of exits*, and the one piece of advice he gives every founder. Read on for the full interview: del.ly/6019BEmMES *Netskope, SingleStore, Rivos, LayerX, Entro Security cc: @bayareawriter

A few short years ago, @Forbes named @runpod to their Next Billion Dollar Startups list and with this week's announcement of the company's Series A, that achievement is unlocked. Congratulations to Zhen Lu and Pardeep Singh and the entire Runpod team. We were proud to have co-led your seed round alongside @intelcapital. And we're even more proud to celebrate all you've accomplished since then. Looking forward to watching your continued growth and success as you pilot this dev-first rocket ship into the future! linkedin.com/posts/runpod-io…

Let this sink in: 91% of companies are using AI agents, but just 10% have a formal governance strategy in place for the technology. Non-human identities are growing exponentially, and enterprises are struggling to keep up. This gap is particularly troublesome when it comes to managing access. Unlike humans that are more discerning, AI agents have shown that they'll exploit every access point possible to complete a task. @Cequenceai CTO Shreyans Mehta shared his thoughts with TheSourceCode on how companies can control autonomous agents: 💡The trouble with simply linking user identity to AI agents: "Identity tells you who has access to applications and data, but not what that access should be used for — and for autonomous agents, that distinction is critical. Simply granting agents the same access as the user is no longer acceptable.” 💡Why every access point matters: "The non-deterministic nature of these systems means that if you give an agent broad access 'just in case,' it will eventually find a reason to use it. That's not a bug in the model. That's a configuration decision.” 💡The need for run-time enforcement: "Least privilege for AI agents means defining access by task, not by user role. The agent gets the tools it needs to fulfil its job description, aligning it with a specific job, nothing more.” 💡Having the right documentation: "The governance gap isn't regulatory. The regulations are catching up. The gap is operational: most enterprises deploying agents today can't produce the audit trail regulators will demand.”

It's Data + AI Summit time. We're once again convening founders and investors with our friends at @SignalFire, @Databricks Ventures, Hetz Ventures, Nimble and Upriver. If you're building in the Data + AI space (yes, that's most everyone of late), RSVP to join us next week for a happy hour of real connections. del.ly/6019B8LkQd

Congratulations to @MinIO co-CEO Garmia Kaoopr on being named to the 100 Women in AI list! Created by Flybridge and XFactor Ventures, the list honors people who are leading and building the AI that'll shape how we learn, work, and thrive in the years to come. As co-founder and co-CEO of MinIO, Garmia was an obvious honoree. Quick aside: If you're headed to @FortuneMagazine Brainstorm Tech, catch Garima tomorrow at the conference's AI That Moves the World discussion.

Good morning, @Snowflake Summit-ers! Today’s the day. Specifically, Dev Day and the Snowflake Startup Challenge final. Wishing the @TwineSecurity team best of luck in taking top prize. Catch the finale live at 11:40 AM PT. While we are rooting for Twine, you’ve got to have solid, differentiated tech to get to the finals, so a nod to finalists @LGND_AI and @Airrived_ai, too.

If you’re… ➡️ Leading AI innovation inside a large company ➡️ Tired of the usual slide decks at conferences ➡️ Need a break from the trade show floor …you may want to head over to IMPACT 2026 next week. Cambridge at its best, Impact brings together like-minded enterprise innovators in an off-record, in-depth, peer-filled environment. While you’re there, catch DTC’s Chris Hillock in conversation with Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs’ Laura Plunkett, Maven AGI's Rob Middleton, and VanishID’s @Matt Polak on how to nail enterprise + startup partnerships from the get-go. del.ly/6014B8jB46

Quantum Source just hit a milestone worth paying attention to. QS is building what it believes is a practical path to fault-tolerant quantum computing: trapping single atoms on a photonic chip to generate photons and create the entanglement needed for scalable computation. At room temperature. The goal is a quantum computer that fits in a server rack and works for real businesses. The team recently published a new arXiv paper that advances that vision. The broader signal: This is a step toward atom-photon interfaces compatible with standard CMOS manufacturing—bringing quantum hardware closer to conventional semiconductor processes and improving the economics of scale. Quantum computing is often framed in terms of what it might do. Work like this shows what it takes to get there. Dive in: del.ly/6019B8bNlc

It's #BosTechWeek next week and if you're an early-stage founder, there's a lunch you won't want to miss. Hosted by Alex Konrad's fantastic Upstarts Media, this working lunch session brings together Jonathan Corbin of @MavenAGI , Nick LaRovere of Pryzm, and Christopher O'Donnell of Day AI to talk tactical and practical company-building tips. Bring on Boston's next billion-dollar startup! And, if you happen to be building one of these types of companies in the enterprise tech space from silicon to the application layer, reach out. DTC is investing. del.ly/6012B8HPrQ

Enterprise tech buying decisions in 2026 feel a bit like a roulette bet. Lot of action, a lot of noise, but sometimes challenging to be confident in outcomes. During NYC Tech Week, we’re gathering a room of operators, founders, and tech buyers to talk about what’s actually working—across AI, data, cybersecurity, and enterprise infrastructure. Of course, to be followed by a happy hour and networking. Not theory. What teams are deploying right now. We’ll get into: 💡Where AI is delivering real ROI (and where it’s not) 💡How buyers can better evaluate new vendors in a crowded market 💡What’s fundamentally changing in enterprise tech stacks If you’re making build vs. buy calls, this is a high-signal conversation to be in with folks from Distyl, Cequence Security, Singulr AI, Tetrate, DTC and our friends at NVIDIA. Save your spot → del.ly/6010B8D02G