Costanoa Ventures

We've reached an exciting milestone as a firm – we're celebrating 10 years of Costanoa! We'd like to take a moment to express our gratitude to our community of founders. You all make the work we do meaningful. We're also reflecting on our learnings. Greg put together a list of his favorite 10 lessons over the last decade. Here's to the next 10! 🥳 #venturecapital #founders #community #gratitude

Do AI startups need AI co-founders to succeed? What did your team do? We'll share what we learn to help founders calibrate with peers. Results of this quick survey will be shared with all who participate: https://bit.ly/3XIzzDx

📣 HUGE news: The The New York Times' Ceylan Yeginsu put three AI platforms to the test to plan a trip to Norway and — spoiler alert — her favorite was Mindtrip! 🎉 “Overall, Mindtrip — with its polished, dynamic interface that allowed me to cross-check details with maps, links, and reviews — was my favorite.” Check out the NYT article, then check out Mindtrip. https://lnkd.in/gJeER-7N #MindtripAI #TravelYourWay #TravelDifferently #TravelTogether

Two things I can't recommend more highly: 1) travel to Norway to explore the fjords, the hikes (bring a rain jacket), and night/street life when the days are *long*; and 2) Mindtrip, Inc., which is already revolutionizing travel planning with so much more to come. In the words of the Ceylan Yeginsu from The New York Times who evaluated multiple new #AI #travel products, "Mindtrip — with its polished, dynamic interface that allowed me to cross-check details with maps, links and reviews — was my favorite." She loved the way it incorporates reviews, maps and links into the experience - and is looking forward to the release of the Mindtrip app soon. Me too.  https://nyti.ms/3Lsj7A9

𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜’𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱. Various sources (including the recent Emergence Capital “Beyond Benchmarks report”) estimate OpenAI with ~70-80% market share of LLM deployments today, with Google Gemini a distant second at ~10%. We’re <2 years since ChatGPT launched the LLM era, and I thought it would be interesting to compare this to other platform shifts at a similar point in history and how it evolved over time. 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗶𝗰 𝟬.𝟵 𝗶𝗻 𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟰. By 1996, Netscape had 86% of the web browser market share, with Internet Explorer at 10%. But by 2004 (and many lawsuits later), IE had 94% market share. The battle was far from over though--30 years later, Chrome dominates with 65% market share, Safari sits second at 20%, and the successors to IE (Edge) and Netscape (Mozilla) own just 5% and 2.8%! 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗝𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗣𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗤𝟮 𝟮𝟬𝟬𝟳. And by Q2 2009, the leading mobile operating system by units shipped globally was....Symbian at 38%. By Q2 2011 (4 years after iPhone), Symbian was still leader in mobile OS with market share at 32% and iOS / Android each at ~20%. But 10 years later (2017), no mobile OS other than Android or iOS had >1% market share. 𝗔𝗪𝗦 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝗖𝟮 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟬𝟴. By 2010, AWS still had <10% of the IaaS market, which was fragmented with legacy vendors like AT&T, Verizon, Rackspace, and Terramark noted as “leaders” in the Gartner 2010 IaaS magic quadrant! AWS market share grew rapidly from this point and peaked in 2019 at ~33%. Today AWS still owns ~1/3rd of the market, with Azure second at 25% and GCP third at 11%. None of these analogies are perfect, but it's instructive to look at how each played out and what it could mean for the future of AI. In the browser wars, the early leader (Netscape) lost to incumbents who had 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 (𝗠𝗦𝗙𝗧, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲) 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 (𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲). The risks to OpenAI on both of these fronts are obvious. In cloud infrastructure, 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 made it impossible for any but the biggest tech companies in the world (AMZN, MSFT, Google) to compete. And in the case of mobile, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗮 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 (iOS) and Google 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 (Android). How the “LLM wars” will ultimately play out is anyone’s guess, but looking at past platform shifts, it’s notable how little we knew 2 or even 4 years in about who the dominant players would ultimately be. #startups #ai #innovation

Thanks to Maryam Haque and the Venture Forward team for your wonderful work and a really value-added Emerging Managers Office Hours! Increasing diversity has always been a personal passion and something we care a lot about at Costanoa Ventures, so I loved joining Greg Sands and helping some great emerging managers think through their fundraising pitches and challenges. Special shout-out to the LP panel for sharing their candid insights about the best (and worst) ways to work with them. Super valuable to those who are new (and not-so-new!) to fundraising, especially in this challenging market. #venturecapital #diversity #founders #fundraising 

Mark Selcow is an amazing human and appreciate you calling that out, Poya Osgouei. His super power is to have difficult conversations in a calm and productive manner. He has made me a better investor and partner (and probably spouse too). He has great stories from BabyCenter and Merced Systems, that he co-founded with Matt Glickman. The two of them remain two for two in delivering 20x for their first institutional investors.

Emerging Managers are Founders - with all of the challenges, struggles and difficulties of being so. They deserve the support of the whole industry - existing GPs, LPs and Founders - because this is how the industry refreshes itself, breeds innovation and continues the effort to diversify its talent base. Very happy to participate in this great Venture Forward program. And thanks to SVB and Cooley LLP for their support and leadership.

What are the big narratives in cybersecurity right now? I'm crowdsourcing a list of "things we all hear" for a deeper data-driven examination of myth versus reality. A starter list: 1. There is increased pressure from CISO's to consolidate vendors and serious "tool fatigue" 2. CISO's are being asked to do more with less, budgets are facing real pressure and deal cycles are elongating...but the pressure from CISO's from board level to keep organization secure is higher than ever 3. Cybersecurity M&A is super hot and only going to get hotter 4. Everyone is tired of talking about AI in security, but simultaneously it seems like the only thing people are talking about is AI (some serious "no one goes to that restaurant anymore, it's too crowded" vibes) 5. Cloud security remains a top priority and thorny, unsolved problem for vast majority of enterprises, despite it being a consensus "top 3" priority for at least the past 3 years 6. Data security is getting renewed attention and emerging as a consensus top 3 priority 7. The cybersecurity skills gap remains a pressing issue with no relief in sight 8. Spear phishing attacks are rising in priority with attackers leveraging generative AI to launch attacks at a new level of sophistication and scale 9. Cyber warfare and state-sponsored cyber attacks are increasing in frequency and will intensify as we get closer to election season 10. GDPR was just the beginning: state and federal governments are implementing more stringent regulations in all aspects of security and compliance--UK Product Security and Telecommunications Act, PCI 4.0, new reporting rules from SEC / FTC on incident reporting, AI regulations being discussed in EU, California, and US Government....regulatory overhead will further strain security orgs that are already stretched thin. What else is top of mind for you? #cybersecurity #startups #infosec #datasecurity #CISO

Founders + flowers = a winning combo 💐 ✨