Newcomer is the top startups & venture capital media and events company, from @EricNewcomer.
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The Week in Short
Meta launches its personal assistant Muse with national advertisements, a cute logo, and lots of ambition. Insurance startup Corgi goes big on outlandish marketing techniques but hits pause on cafés. A16z partner Josh Elman talks Apple and consumer AI on the podcast. VCs share their opinions on the top venture firms in Newcomer’s VC Sentiment Report. Lightspeed backs big AI rounds. Bessemer brings in billions for its latest funds. Investor China trips are back in vogue. Oracle cites “force majeure” in its New Mexico data center buildout. A16z launches a new educational venture with the Horowitz Andreessen Academy. Top AI CEOs push back against the AI doomers. The QuantumJane newsletter launches from a friend of Newcomer.
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No surprise, nearly half of the VCs we surveyed for our VC Sentiment report mention @conviction as the emerging firm they'd most like to invest in.
Read the full report at for all 24 questions, their responses, 343 direct quotes from our conversations, and 100+ named startups.
reports.newcomer.co/s/4gyfaf…
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Robotics was the top emerging vertical that VCs were prioritizing in our anonymous and extensive VC Sentiment Report.
Read the full report at for all 24 questions, their responses, 343 direct quotes from our conversations, and 100+ named startups.
reports.newcomer.co/s/ev4h57…
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You gotta spend tokens to make money.
We're only a week away from the definitive invite-only gathering on AI commerce and finance.
Join 200+ founders and investors at the Machine Earning AI Summit, like @oismailny (@onepay), @jackiereses (@Lead_Bank), @jgreze (@TownAI), @katie_haun (@HaunVentures), @illscience (@a16z), @MaxRhodesOK (@faire_wholesale), @kirstenagreen (@ForerunnerVC), @i_zerbib (@sapiom), @PranavkSood (@airwallex), @ryanking (@Chime), Mike Taylor (@GustoHQ), and @pk_iv (@browserbase).
Apply now for a last minute ticket: lnkd.in/dnEkZEm5
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Newcomer retweeted
We asked 25 top VCs:
If you could be an investor in any multi-stage private markets firm besides your own based on their investments in the last 12 months, who would it be?
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Newcomer retweeted
We asked 25 top VCs:
If you could invest in any venture fund started in the last 5 years, what would it be?
There was one resounding answer @conviction
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Newcomer retweeted
MASSIVE drop from @NewcomerMedia today!
We're launching Newcomer's VC Sentiment Report! it's a new quarterly in-depth report chock full of unfiltered insights from top Silicon Valley VCs.
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We got together 25 of the VCs we respect the most — investors who aren’t afraid to say what they think (anonymously) — and interviewed them systematically about the top questions of the day. These investors include multiple current and former Midas List members, well-respected emerging managers, and other top general partners.
Collectively they represent firms that manage more than $100 billion in AUM.
We spoke with each participant live over video chat for 30 to 45 minutes and collected 344 individual quotes for the report.
reports.newcomer.co/
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Newcomer retweeted
What do top venture capitalists really think off the record?
Here at Newcomer we’ve established an unusual level of trust with venture capitalists — we’re skeptical enough to write truthfully about the startup industry and savvy enough to really listen to what smart investors are saying.
So we got together 25 of the VCs we respect the most — investors who aren’t afraid to say what they think (anonymously) — and interviewed them systematically about the top questions of the day. These investors include multiple current and former Midas List members, well-respected emerging managers, and other top general partners. Collectively they represent firms that manage more than $100 billion in AUM.
We’re excited to share the fruits of those conversations in the form of Newcomer’s VC Sentiment Report.
reports.newcomer.co/
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Newcomer retweeted
HUGE: Introducing Newcomer’s VC Sentiment Report: Unfiltered Insights from Silicon Valley’s Top Venture Capitalists newcomer.co/p/introducing-ne…
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Meta’s Muse Eats into Instinct’s Early Lead
The personal AI agent war is upon us. For weeks now, tech insiders have been drooling over Instinct, a months-old startup that works as a chat box on WhatsApp or iMessage and books tickets, finds apartments, sends emails, and cancels subscriptions, all for free so far.
But even as Benchmark-backed Instinct reportedly seeks a $10 billion valuation, Meta is nipping at its heels.
Meta’s Muse, launched last week, connects to each app on your phone and can run the mundane parts of life with its own browser. The browser is visible on your screen, while Instinct runs everything on its backend, with only a chat box visible to you.
Instinct has the happy problem — but problem nevertheless — of slowing answers due to capacity constraints, as we’ve experienced along with many others. Meta is aiming to capitalize.
Vijay Rayapati, who runs Atomicwork, an AI rival to ServiceNow, said Muse feels faster and he is using it much more than Instinct, a sentiment echoed by many on X. Muse also works on “isolated compute,” Rayapati said, making it faster and more reliable for privacy purposes, compared to Instinct which distributes compute across users.
Both companies also have to compete with Town, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Forerunner Ventures.
It is obviously far too early to call any winners, but Meta’s entry, and early success, shows the power that Big Tech incumbents still enjoy.
Instinct’s 23-year-old CEO Noah Shinn, who seems to communicate with the world mainly via X, is rolling out new features at breakneck speed, though he doesn’t acknowledge the competition. In recent days, Instinct can now make phone calls, and talk to your friends’ Instinct agents to coordinate plans, taking it deeper into people’s lives.
More at @NewcomerMedia
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The Week in Short
Ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and falling oil exports threaten the capital flows propping up the AI build-out, but it hasn’t slowed much yet. Meta’s personal AI assistant Muse gives Instinct a run for its money. Former SEC regulator Renée Jones says the rules for Silicon Valley need to change on the podcast. A new report from Menlo Ventures details how consumers are using AI tools to make money, but finds that they’re sticking with incumbent chatbots for now. Crusoe raises nearly $4 billion in a single round at a $30.9 billion post-money valuation. A major crypto regulation bill fails to pass the Senate. European fintech Revolut falls victim to cybercrime. Mark Zuckerberg gets the Colossus treatment. Bain Capital Ventures unveils a new $1.6 billion fund.
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The Week In Short
The OpenAI / Hugging Face hack stirred up discourse about the dangers of rogue AI, while the model-makers move to bring in big cybersecurity bucks. Dimension founder Zavain Dar explains what Silicon Valley can learn from Chinese AI companies on the podcast. Inference provider Baseten scoops up an early-stage infrastructure startup. Mistral brings in billions but can’t shake its identity crisis. A new Ramp report shows AI spending per employee dipped in August. Coding assistant Cognition rakes in billions. Meta launches its Instinct-competitor Muse. The DOJ turns its attention to Nvidia’s Groq acquihire. Biden administration officials tell their side of the infamous a16z meeting in 2024 that led firm leaders to endorse President Trump.
In full here: newcomer.co/p/for-startups-f…
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Our summits aren’t about sitting in an audience all day.
They’re about connecting with other top AI founders, investors, and leaders.
Apply now: reg.newcomer.events/earn1/st…
Meet the leaders guiding our curated discussion groups, one of the most popular parts of the day: 🧵👇
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Anu Maheshwari, head of venture ecosystem, @nebiusai
Apply now to join us: reg.newcomer.events/earn1/st…
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