Founders - slapping AI on the front page of the pitch deck ain't gunna cut it this year.
Lulu Cheng Meservey nailed it with this breakdown on TBPN recently:
"There's no more value to come from using the list of AI buzzwords. People are fatigued. So just skip to — what is the thing that it actually does, and then prove to me that it actually does do that."
Our Carta data shows that 50% of all the money invested into software startups last year went to an AI company. If you exclude the massive late-stage raises it's...still 48%.
VCs want to invest into AI, yes. But it's now a default expectations as opposed to a differentiating factor.
Skip the jargon and lead with the real value.
We don't talk about Javascript startups these days, we won't keep talking about AI startups as an overall category for much longer either – and I can't wait to stop making this chart 😁
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