a16z just dropped updated Gen AI benchmarks after tracking 100s of startups over 18 months.
Key takeaways:
1. AI startups are growing way faster than pre-AI norms
B2B: Median ARR hits $2.1M in Year 1 (vs. $1M pre-AI best-in-class)
B2C: Median ARR? $4.2M by Month 12 👀
2. Speed
sourcery
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Investing + Tech. Open Sourced. → Newsletter/Podcast | @mollysoshea
- Golf is back. Nostalgia is strong. Happy Gilmore 2 is here. @artlevy's prediction? 90%+ on Rotten Tomatoes. We’ll see… but the ingredients are there.
00:00 - “Founding a startup should be your last resort.” Those are rare words you hear from a solo founder who just raised $40M in Series B. On the Sourcery podcast, @pk_iv shares his journey as a solo founder, his take on the future of AI agents, fundraising strategies, and more.
- Cluely, ElevenLabs, Captions, BeReal, Function Health. Bryan Kim (@kirbyman01) wins competitive deals by showing up. Even if it means flying to London in less than 90min or showing up to the office with steak. That’s how he locked down ElevenLabs and Cluely. In this episode with
00:00 - AI adoption isn’t just about performance—it’s about trust. Data privacy, model behavior, and information leakage are make-or-break issues. If the AI vendor can’t reflect the promises a hospital or bank makes to its customers, the deal’s off.
00:00 - Everyone has their favorite model. But people don’t say I’m “Claude-ing” or “Gemini-ing.” They say “I’m ChatGPT-ing” That’s the difference. Distribution wins.
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00:00- $75M in 10 days. No shortcuts, just execution. “From starting formal pitches to signing a term sheet — it was about 10 days. A very intense 10 days.” – @CameronLMcCord , CEO of @Nominal_io Nominal’s $75M Series B led by @sequoia's @Alfred_Lin Lin closed in record time.
- Mary Meeker’s 2025 AI Trends is 340 slides... Let's break it down. 1. Generative AI = Fastest Tech Adoption Ever ChatGPT hit 800M weekly users in 17 months—Google needed 11 years to hit the same search volume. Velocity > novelty. 2. Infra Spending Is Exploding The Big Six
- Why do billionaires & CEOs like Elon Musk + Mark Zuckerberg take $0 salaries?
00:00 - Replying to @SauravShroff_"at a development cost of less than $100M I think it's a phenomenally good deal for humanity"New pod! Aramco of the Moon: @StarpathSpace w/ @SauravShroff5 Fueling Multiplanetary Species, Starting with Lunar Ice Mining - When will we become multiplanetary? - Target dev cost of <$100M - Should the Moon be a State? + Regulatory considerations - Working with ‘extremely
00:00 - This week's top deals for #FutureOfWork: @gopuff raised $1B in Series H valuing it at $15B, @vardaspace raised $42M in Series A, @inviarobotics raised $30M in Series C, and @Guidewheel1 raised $8M in Series A. Head to mollysoshea.substack.com for the full list.
- Underwriting AI starts with a simple question: what’s holding adoption back? From there, it’s about mapping the risks, testing failure modes, and building the confidence layer that helps companies move forward.
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