Vivienne Wei

The second update that I wanted to share was an investment that we've been working on for quite some time. Excited that the announcement has finally gone out. Citi Ventures has invested in Lakera, to build the next-generation of security tools to protect the next-generation of applications (those powered by LLMs). We got to meet David Haber and his co-founders, Matthias Kraft and Mateo Rojas-Carulla, just as the year started and were blown away by their vision of the future. Humans use LLMs today but in the not too distant future LLM-agents will talk to LLM-agents at rapid speed. Lakera's Guard product protects LLM-based applications from malicious prompts (made by bad actors trying to steal data) by inserting a layer of trust where bad prompts are detected and only valid/safe prompts reach your applications. The term in vogue today is an "LLM Firewall". We conducted an exhaustive search of the category and came away believing Lakera had built the most robust and scalable product in the market. Can't wait to get started with the team and work with them on this journey! Matt Carbonara ✅, Vibhor Rastogi, Arvind Purushotham, Blaze O'Byrne, Avi Arnon, Çağla Kaymaz, Olivia Zhang, Max R. Mailman https://lnkd.in/ewMmennJ

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a new #FINTECHTALK podcast is out My conversation with Linda Haddad of Bank of America, Laura Lucas GP at L'ATTITUDE VENTURES, Stéphanie Joseph CEO of Kura (Techstars '24), and Maria Medrano CEO at Inspirame on the untapped potential for startup investors. The podcast is prefaced by an opinion piece where I delve into why venture capital, especially at the early stage, is nothing more than glorified lottery ticket selection. The data backs this up, revealing an urgent need for reform and disruption in the industry. Silicon Valley's mainstream VCs won't instigate this change on their own. It's imperative that limited partners, institutional investors, corporate partners, and the startup community demand transparency and accountability within the VC ecosystem The availability of capital, much like credit, is a critical function for economic development not just in Silicon Valley giving it a public policy and regulatory impetus and we cannot afford to leave it unchecked. With SVB implosion last year, maybe the time is ripe to disrupt the disruptors. 🚀 Thanks to Evita Grant, Eza D'Souza and chatGPT for contributing to the opinion piece. Let me know what you think in comments below. #VentureCapital #Innovation #StartupEcosystem #PodcastAlert

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We are excited to back EnFi, Inc in their first round of financing. They just came out of stealth and announced a $7.5 million raise from our good friends at Unusual Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, Argon Ventures and us at Impellent Ventures. Scott Weller spoke with me about his new idea around revolutionizing credit risk analysis through AI, begrudgingly bemoaning getting pulled back into yet another startup :) He and Josh knew there had to be a better way to get risk analyzed fast at the level of the enterprise after the great SVB failing occurred and left thousands of founders scrambling away from their multi-covenant loans. They needed to move their money but couldn't because other financial institutions still relied on a clunky, long process of assessing loan-worthiness. Enter Enfi. I asked him to invest. Scott was another one of those entrepreneurs we'd back no matter what they were doing. It took a while to get him and the indomitable Joshua Summers to make room for us. But they finally relented, because I'm annoying. Very, very annoying. Like a chihuahua with a kazoo, except worse. Ask anyone... EnFi’s platform is revolutionizing credit risk analysis, underwriting and portfolio management through advanced AI and real-time monitoring for complex credit instruments. Their innovative approach to Continual Risk Analysis provides institutional and private lenders with deeper insights and automation, enhancing decision-making and risk management. Congratulations to co-founders Joshua Summers and Scott Weller, and the entire EnFi team. We are proud to be part of your journey and look forward to your continued success! #Fintech #AI #Lending #CreditRiskManagement #Innovation

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Access to scaling/ working capital for small to midsize businesses is difficult to come by. Pipe is changing that by embedding their financial solution into the current workflow of small/ midsize businesses. This is literally a game changer. See Luke Voiles' post and the Fintech Nexus article to learn more.

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Rubrik’s IPO Signals Venture Capital Optimism and Growth Opportunities Rubrik’s recent IPO triumph serves as a powerful signal for venture capital investors. The company’s valuation surge provides hope for reasonably priced growth financing rounds. However, many companies still find themselves below the valuation of their last funding round, patiently awaiting brighter days. Here’s a closer look at Rubrik’s journey: Successful IPO: Rubrik’s stock price soared 17% on its debut day, closing at $37. The firm’s valuation now stands at approximately $6.49 billion. Upsized Offering: The IPO raised a whopping $752 million, fueling Rubrik’s expansion plans and valuing the company at $5.6 billion. Steady Growth: Rubrik’s valuation has steadily climbed. In January, a Series E round valued the company at $3.3 billion, up from $1.8 billion in 2017. Investment Backing: Microsoft, Greylock, and Lightspeed have all backed Rubrik, reinforcing its potential. #IPO #VentureCapital #TechCompanies #GrowthOpportunities #DataSecurity #CloudComputing #Cybersecurity

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Coming soon on Aug 1: "Transformation to a Fresh Tomorrow." This is theme of our 3rd Annual Web3 Investor Day, as we welcome the innovators and investors convening in Chicago for these discussions around the next generation Internet. Our theme reflects the optimism, determination and commitment investors and innovators have solidified off the depths of the bear markets to drive success in the bull markets. Broader investor optimism suggests that fresh institutional funds into Web3 across both tokens and equity may endure.  Across adoption metrics, customer interest and developer activity, Web3 seems to have normalized. It’s refreshing to see the transformation and next evolution of Web3 and it’s refreshing to meet many of you on August 1.  And yet, even with the improved optimism from last year, there still remain open questions in the development and adoption of our next generation Internet:  1. the balance of speculative versus productive investor capital in this current cycle 2. the productive role of liquid trading capital in fostering Web3 innovation 3. the attractiveness of venture investments in follow on financings 4. the role of policy and regulation that may enhance innovation 5. the continued developer activity to improve the underlying infrastructure 6. other Web3 recovery characteristics in target customer use cases. We remain committed to navigating regulatory shifts, fostering investor optimism, and building the customer use cases for Web3.  Physical spaces enhance our innovation conversations.  In person relationships foster our collaboration.  Relationships drive breakthrough innovations.  Reach out to Rizza Torres at Decasonic if you would like to join us! #web3investorday #web3 #venturecapital

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On the back of the article from The Guardian “Banks, airlines and media outlets hit by global outage linked to Windows PCs,” it got me thinking… What would happen if AI services like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc., went down? Why can’t we use these offline instead of being connected to the Internet? Many organisations are becoming dependent on AI, raising concerns around security and privacy. We would witness significant disruptions across various sectors. Customer service, healthcare, finance, and logistics heavily rely on AI to optimise operations, provide insights, and enhance user experiences. The absence of AI would slow decision-making processes, reduce efficiency, and potentially lead to increased errors. This scenario underscores the critical importance of AI in our modern infrastructure and the need for robust contingency plans to mitigate such risks. https://lnkd.in/e8KFV6QK #AI #Technology #BusinessContinuity #RiskManagement Whitespace

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Open-source models can be a strong lever for increasing gross margins at AI companies, especially those that have hefty cost structures (e.g., enterprise sales orgs that require significant customer success or implementation resources, as well forward-deployed AI services models common in healthcare and life sciences). One of many reasons to maintain a modular and flexible stack with minimal dependencies when building an AI company. More on the importance of flexibility in the AI stack: https://lnkd.in/eA2XATRk h/t Delip Rao #ai #artificialintelligence #generativeai #healthcare

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Thrilled to announce the launch of our inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks at Emergence Capital. This comprehensive report dives deep into the metrics and trends shaping the early-stage enterprise cloud market. A huge thank you to our VC partners and contributors for making this possible! Here's a sneak peek of our findings: --> 60% of companies have already integrated GenAI into their service offerings, with another 20% planning to do so this year. --> While most companies use OpenAI as their primary LLM, many are experimenting with multiple models. We’re seeing a trend toward intelligently routing GenAI inference requests based on cost, performance, and security. --> Companies that have implemented GenAI are showing promising results, with a 7% higher NDR compared to those that haven’t. Beyond Benchmarks goes further with more GenAI trends, insights on the current fundraising environment, and key performance metrics. Our goal is to provide founders and their teams with valuable benchmarks to help them make better-informed decisions. At Emergence Capital, we're committed to helping founders build iconic companies. Dive into the full report here: https://lnkd.in/g6bnvAZM

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We’re gearing up for the second Citi GenAI Summit in NY on July 9th! Really looking forward to hearing Jay Schuren, CCO at DataRobot, a Citi Ventures’ portfolio company, discuss DataRobot’s enterprise-grade GenAI capabilities and features, including unification and governance of end-to-end generative and predictive AI workflows at the event! Arvind Purushotham Vibhor Rastogi Matt Carbonara ✅ Cagla Kaymaz

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🎙️ Amy Saper is a force of nature, having held senior product roles at Uber, Twitter, and Stripe, as well as being a partner at Accel and a Sequoia Scout, before joining forces with Jeff Clavier Tripp Jones Susan Liu Andy McLoughlin and team at Uncork Capital. Amy and I had a great conversation recently (Podcast in the comments below), but here are the main areas we covered: 1)Transitioning from product roles to VC: The adjustments that needed to be made and the similarities and differences of VC and working at startups. 2) Capital Constraints and Creativity: Drawing from her Twitter days, where the original 140-character limit spurred creative communication, she believes that today's capital constraints can be a large net positive for companies in unlocking creativity. 3) Being Client centric as VC: A strong parallel exists between operating companies and venture firms in their customer focus. What does being client centric mean in the context of VC firm and what is VC's version of Product-Market Fit? 4) Talent Attraction and Development: Her non-negotiable is a founder's ability to attract and develop top talent as it's a huge correlation to startup success. listen to the full conversation in the link in the comments: #VentureCapital #Startups #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #fundraising‍‍‍‍‍

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At the heart of all business transformations are: 1. Reduction in opex 2. Investment in new/better revenue streams That’s it, that’s the list.

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I’m thoughtful about the impact that the dissolution of OpenAI’s risk and ethics team led by Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike might have on the direction of the company’s tech & product development. And - this strengthens my resolve to earn a Masters of Data Science & AI degree over the next 18 months, weighted toward the deeply important conversation around building tech within a framework of ethics, equity and risk mitigation. We must find an equilibrium that balances the raw speed of AI innovation with intentionality. Can’t wait to get started! OpenAI #ai #BuildWithIntention #venturestudios #vc

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This is quite a piece on accusations of unethical pay-to-play within the #cyber #VC ecosystem. -Guaranteed first-year sales for portfolio companies -Formal loyalty program for CISOs -Points awarded within the program for CISO commitment level to portfolio companies (meetings, PoCs, product purchases) -Share of GP fees for CISOs in the loyalty program https://lnkd.in/gDta7Gp7

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Days after celebrating Ibotta’s IPO, Hans Tung shares his thoughts with TechCrunch’s Mary Ann Azevedo on down rounds, AI, and more: 📈 On down rounds: “It’s like getting a report card or test/exam score. It doesn’t really matter until you have an exit. An #IPO is actually just a milestone, not the end game. An IPO is the beginning of public investors being along for the ride. So when you think in longer-term valuations, up or down temporarily doesn’t matter as much as generating a big outcome at the end.” 🤖 On #AI: “You can argue that we’re only in the first half of the first inning for AI… You do see a lot of crazy rounds happening at the beginning of a boom, but there will be bifurcation. There will be companies that end up doing great, and most companies may not. You’ve gotta still be very thoughtful about choosing which ones have a chance of being around for a very long period of time." 💡On our new name: “We picked the name Notable because we want to put the focus on the founders. We invest in notable founders, notable causes, notable ideas—even notable investors."

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Since early 2021, VC quarterly exit values have plummeted to $50B or below, a stark contrast to the six consecutive quarters of $100B+ exits before then. With IPOs dwindling and M&A activity slow, the future of venture industry exits appears uncertain. Will we see a surge in private venture-backed company acquisitions? This could be a crucial and innovative strategy to boost VC exits. Increased private acquisitions might offer a much-needed lifeline, providing a creative solution to the current exit drought in the venture capital market. #venturecapital #inspireglobalventures

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Excited to share a new report from our Insight IGNITE team (with contributions from yours truly :) As the business value of AI increases, so does the business risk... Insight Partners’ 2024 State of Enterprise Tech report identified AI as the top concern (and opportunity!) among cybersecurity leaders, including securing data used in AI systems and AI system access controls. Whether you're a cyber entrepreneur looking to learn more about enterprise priorities, or an enterprise leader looking for benchmarks for your current and future cyber strategy, this report has answers!

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Fin Capital’s Fintech CEO Pulse Report is out! We surveyed over 50 CEOs and C-suite leaders of private companies from our portfolio and the broader fintech industry during June and July 2024 to get a quick pulse on what’s top of mind for fintech’s leaders. Here are some key takeaways: Optimism in the Air: More than 60% of CEOs reported being bullish or highly bullish on the fintech industry for the second half of 2024. Regulatory Changes on the Horizon: CEOs identified Cryptocurrency, Open Banking, and Buy Now Pay Later as the top three sectors likely to see increased regulation by the end of 2024. CEOs Want Business Development Support: Beyond capital and fundraising, business development support emerged as the top area where CEOs seek investor assistance.For more insights, including comments from my colleagues Ren Riley, Logan Allin, Matthew D. Mann, CFA, and Stephanie Perez, check out the full report here: https://lnkd.in/euHK8-9B

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