@lightspeedvp
Serving bold builders of the future. Not an offer to buy/sell securities or investment advisory services. Disclosures: https://t.co/NqUCVhdnhA
Do models have something like a subconscious? @clairejyz on Anthropic’s research into J-Space and the hidden processing behind model behavior: "For many years, people have been trying to understand how a model's brain works." "Could a model have a divide the way humans do between accessible thoughts and all the unconscious, below-the-surface processing?" "The J-Space is, in essence, a mental whiteboard." "In the same way that humans have a mental whiteboard where a lot of thoughts are processed behind the scenes, models have a similar concept."
NEW: $500M is being poured to end respiratory diseases. This week, @clairejyz and @Machiz unpack why some big names in tech are backing Intercept, a new initiative focused on making illnesses like the common cold, flu, and COVID far less common. Lightspeed Partners @GalymImanbayev and @f_fatemi21 break down the AI care model, how they see healthcare going from being reactive to proactive, and companies like @Doctronic and @Neko are shaping consumer health. They also dive into: • How AI could change advertising with the first media generation models from Meta Superintelligence Labs • Anthropic’s latest interpretability research and the race to understand what AI models are “thinking” • Amazon Leo reaching a major milestone as a potential Starlink competitor Full video link below.
@clairejyz @Machiz YouTube: youtu.be/Y7F0ctQ4laM
@clairejyz @Machiz Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/7BNEu5…
@clairejyz @Machiz YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=l_7Zjs…
Europe's defense infrastructure is being rebuilt. The New York Times @dealbook covered @HelsingAI’s drone factory in Germany. When @torstenreil, Niklas Köhler, and Dr. Gundbert Scherf started the company in 2021, democracies were looking to future-proof their defenses. Today, Helsing has assembled a strong management team that is embedding AI-enabled software in next-generation defense technology. We believe Helsing is a leader in building intelligent autonomous systems and are excited to support their journey. Read more via the link below. @ravi_lsvp, @ravirajjain, @alex_schmitti
We’re proud to participate in @HelsingAI’s $1.8B Series E, bringing the company to a total valuation of about $18B. As software develops further, so too must the technology that defends our infrastructure. We first backed co-founders @torstenreil, Niklas Köhler, and Dr. Gundbert Scherf for their Series C in 2024. Since then, Helsing has tripled in valuation. Helsing’s commitment to mission-ready, AI-native software for the defense industry has led to strong partnerships with hardware companies and governments across Europe. We are very excited to continue partnering with the Helsing team. Congratulations on the raise! CC: @ravi_lsvp, @ravirajjain, @alex_schmitti
Arena started as “a side project of another project.” In spring 2023, after Meta released Llama, Berkeley students spent a weekend fine-tuning it on shared GPT conversations. The result was Vicuna. They put it on the web and believed it was better than base Llama. But then came the harder question: “How do you show that it’s better?” Existing benchmarks were mostly “static tests.” They did not capture real interaction between humans and LLMs. So they built what they called “battle mode”: ask anything, compare two randomized models, and vote. “That’s how Arena was born.” @istoica05 on Lightwork
We believe great consumer hardware needs three kinds of genius in the room. Hardware, software, and design. That’s why we’re excited to lead @Nirva’s $8M Seed Round. Nirva seeks to design the world's most beautiful and insightful AI wearable. Consumers are spending billions trying to optimize themselves. But AI wearables only get smart if you wear it. We believe co-founders @realweilyu, @jasonqchen, and @HanyingHu have the kind of genius to make a wearable that people choose to wear everyday. Wei and Jason’s experience building hardware and software products at Meta, combined with Hanying’s design DNA can bridge the gap that we believe consumer hardware demands. Nirva understands how difficult it is to understand one’s own patterns and chronicle them. Their AI wearable was built to track users’ moods throughout the day automatically, mirroring their lives in the form of a journal. The next iconic consumer device may not look like a gadget at all. Instead, it may look like a beautiful piece of jewelry. We are incredibly excited to partner with the Nirva team. Congratulations on the launch. CC: @LightspeedIndia, @PinnLawjindakul, Chris Halim, @kaluwi, and @kumarharsha2212
@Nirva Learn about Nirva here: lsvp.com/stories/why-we…
.@OrcaBio just received FDA approval for their new immunotherapy drug, TREGZI. This new precision-engineered cell therapy aims to help patients with blood cancer strengthen their immune systems. Many patients with blood cancers are at risk of developing chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) following a donation, and Tregzi is designed to use stem cells to help the immune system fight back. Congratulations to founders Ivan Dimov, Dr. Nate Fernhoff, Jeroen Bekaert, and the entire Orca Bio team on this accomplishment! We first partnered with the team when investing in their Seed round back in 2016. It has been incredible to see them grow and continue to work towards their goals to aid the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. CC: Partner @AggShaurya and Venture Partner Jonathan MacQuitty
Learn more in Orca’s press release here: orcabio.com/orca-bios-treg…
"A single new drug costs around $2.6 billion, takes 10-15 years, and up to 90% of candidates that enter trials fail." @clairejyz on why the endgame for AI labs could be co-developing drugs with pharma: "Whether it's Claude Science or GPT-Rosalind, they can tackle that front end. They can help with discovery, hit finding, lead optimization, predicting how it will play out in preclinical." "If you can help with that part, then by the time you actually release a drug, you'll have a better hit rate. That's the flywheel they're going after." From Lightwork
"A single new drug costs around $2.6 billion, takes 10-15 years, and up to 90% of candidates that enter trials fail." @clairejyz on why the endgame for AI labs is co-developing drugs with pharma: "Whether it's Claude Science or GPT-Rosalind, they can tackle that front end. They can help with discovery, hit finding, lead optimization, predicting how it will play out in preclinical." "If you can help with that part, then by the time you actually release a drug, you'll have a better hit rate. That's the flywheel they're going after." From Lightwork
Some say stronger models should make human evaluation less necessary. @istoica05 argues the opposite: "Music is totally subjective. A smart LLM can maybe guess what I would like, but there is not only one answer. That comes down to human taste, and that will remain for a long while." "Think about the most successful AI applications today. Coding: it's a developer in the loop. Customer support: it's satisfying a human and answering human questions." "Despite the fact that these models are going to become more and more powerful, human signals are going to be very important, if not even more important." From Lightwork
NEW: Meta is turning brainwaves into text, as AI labs race to support scientific research. This week, @clairejyz and @machiz are joined by @ionstoica05, co-founder and chairman of @arena, to break down Arena’s journey to $100M ARR in 8 months. They discuss the importance of human signals, the limits of measurability, and maintaining neutrality and trust as a crowdsourced leaderboard. Watch the full episode of Lightwork below.
Can space data centers actually work? @guruchahal says the real bottleneck is not radiation or cooling, it’s launch cost. "We've been sending compute into space for 17+ years. Every satellite that is up in space is running a CPU, tapping into the sun's power, removing heat, and handling radiation." "The question of can you run a GPU or a CPU in a satellite up in space is a foregone conclusion. You obviously can." "The real question is: can you do it in an economically feasible way?" "If it costs zero to put compute up in space, space would be significantly cheaper because power is free and cooling is free." "The big part is what SpaceX and other launch companies are able to do in terms of bringing the launch cost down." From Lightwork.
Everyone is talking about data centers. But what actually are they? @guruchahal gives the simplest explanation: "Data centers are nothing new. They've been the anchor and a critical part of our economy for over 30 years." "Everything we do in technology comes from a data center. You watch Netflix, that's a data center. You do a bank transaction, that's a data center. You buy something from Amazon, that's a data center." "They're just a collection of computers sitting in a large building, serving up our websites and technology and applications." From Lightwork.
.@bsomaia on AI valuations: “Are we in a super cycle? Yes.” “Are we in a very rich valuation environment? Yes.” “Will there be investments that despite this valuation environment will be extremely rewarding? Yes.” "Will there be investments that turn out to lose money? Yes." "All of those things can be true." From Startup Policy Forum with @ShwetaRKohli.
The team at @unconvAI has released their first model, Un-0! Un-0 is an image-generation model powered by a simulated system of coupled oscillators. Instead of the massive arithmetic operations that power most AI, the model uses simulated physics. Thousands of virtual oscillators influence each other, sync up, and settle into patterns. Feed it an input, let the oscillators interact, and the resulting pattern is the output. On ImageNet 64×64, Un-0 achieves an FID score of 6.74, matching the quality of leading conventional image generation methods when they were first published. The company has stated that, to their knowledge, this is the most capable image generator to date that uses a simulation of a physical dynamical system. Unconventional AI believes energy efficiency demands a fundamentally different computer, one where physics does the computing. We believe this is a meaningful milestone in their goals of achieving ~1,000x energy-efficiency gains in modern AI. Congratulations to @NaveengRao, @MeeLan_Lee, @sachour__, @MCarbin, and the entire Unconventional AI team. We are incredibly excited for what’s ahead. CC: @guruchahal, @ravi_lsvp, and @buckymoore
Read more here: techcrunch.com/2026/06/25/dat…
A big congratulations to the @Arena team on hitting $100M ARR! This milestone announcement comes just eight months after the launch of their evaluation product. Arena hosts millions of users who can work in real time with AI agents, testing and comparing different AI models. One primary feature is their AI model performance leaderboard, which has been generated from over 10 million user evaluations. Incredible milestone @ml_angelopoulos, @infwinston, @istoica05, and team. We’re proud to see Arena continuing to develop and advance the frontier of AI through community-driven evaluation. Learn more in the post below.
When intelligence is abundant, opportunities are omnipresent. Lightspeed’s @bsomaia spoke with @ShwetaRKohli, President & CEO of Startup Policy Forum India, to cover what he believes the AI super cycle could mean for India’s digital economy. India already has the entrepreneurial spirit. Pair that with AI, and India could be positioning itself on the cusp of a large-scale transformation. This conversation goes beyond the headlines, unpacking the questions defining the AI era, how venture has changed, and why we believe the next generation of Indian consumer leaders could be AI-native. Check out the conversation below.
Full Interview: youtube.com/watch?v=VT97Aq…
We’re excited to continue backing @straikerai for their $64M Series A. As enterprises apply agents to their workforces, Straiker helps ensure secure deployment with comprehensive discovery, adversarial testing, and runtime protection. When we first partnered with founders @ankurdotshah and Sreenath Kurupati, security agents were still early in enterprise adoption. Now that they’ve become a critical element, the two have grown Straiker to account for that shift. Congratulations to the Straiker team on the raise. It has been exciting to watch the company grow since we first invested in their Seed in 2024. CC: @guruchahal, @buckymoore, @arifj
Learn more in the press release here: straiker.ai/blog/straiker-…
Is ChatGPT really drinking a bottle of water every time you prompt it? Lightspeed partner @guruchahal says "the only thing drinking a bottle of water around here is me, not ChatGPT." He explains: "The next generation of AI data centers are closed-loop systems. It's not like there's a river flowing next to the data center and hot water comes out." "Once the data center is up and running, the water just gets recirculated within the system." "We are rapidly approaching a world where the water impact, which is already negligible, is approaching zero." From Lightwork
Enterprise tools don’t always translate to small businesses. @getpiehq is coming out of stealth with a growth platform seeking to help SMB owners. We’re proud to have led Pie’s $19.5M Series A as they come out of stealth, bringing their total funding to $23.7M The co-founders of Pie, @akhilmantrip and Syed Ali, have been working with small businesses for a while. They noticed that many had huge growth potential but lacked the tools to unlock it. Enter Pie. Pie is an agentic growth platform that gets the word out on websites people actually use. It runs the business’s ads across all the places that potential customers might look, and it aims them at the customers ready to buy, not just whoever is cheapest to reach. This round of funding coincides with scaling of Pie’s vertical SaaS integrations, expand its product suite across growth, AI search, and AI front desk Congratulations to the team at Pie on the raise.
Read more about Pie here: finance.yahoo.com/small-business…
"[India's] government has generally been so embracing of entrepreneurship and of technology and what technology can do. That mindset is more important than anything else." @bsomaia on what India's government can do to help accelerate transformative technology: "Ultimately, all of this is about animal spirits." "We don't need to figure out the how. Let's lay out a vision for what this could mean for [India] and for different parts of the economy." "Entrepreneurs will go and find the opportunity. We've seen that happen. We'll see it happen again." From Bejul's interview with Startup Policy Forum India
@bsomaia Full Interview (June 29, 2026): youtube.com/watch?v=VT97Aq…
NEW EPISODE: AI engineering talent is fractured, and companies are making shocking bets. x.com/clairejyz/stat…
Watch the full podcast episode here: youtu.be/PpJG-tUFKJQ
.@clairejyz breaks down why SpaceX’s $60B acquisition of @Anysphere, the company behind @cursor_ai, may make strategic sense. Cursor became one of the biggest players in AI-assisted coding in just two years — while Elon has been building a vertically integrated AI stack across compute, infrastructure, and distribution. “Cursor was a very natural partner... There’s sort of a perfect partnership here.” From our new show Lightwork.
Judgment Labs Co-Founder & CEO @alexshander03 on the founding bet behind the company: “We don’t believe that humans are going to be the end users of this kind of product. It’s going to be agents.” “If you want to make an infrastructure product that puts agent improvement on autopilot, there definitionally should be as little human in the loop as possible.” “Today the product is primarily building infrastructure for agents to improve other agents.”
Every pilot has a flight simulator before they launch. Why can’t AI agents have one too? @PatronusAI is building simulation infrastructure for the next generation of intelligent systems. Today, we are tripling down on their team for their $50M Series B raise, bringing their total capital raised to $70M. Lightspeed first backed co-founders @anandnk24 and @rebeccatqian in their seed round in 2023, and are thrilled to continue this journey with them. As AI moves from chatbots to agents, training and testing those agents is critical. Patronus is building the simulation infrastructure that seeks to make that possible. The future of intelligence is taking flight. CC: @whoisnnamdi
Read more about Patronus AI here: techcrunch.com/2026/06/25/pat…
What happens when AI agents make mistakes? On this week’s episode of The Investment Memo, Lightspeed Partner @JamesAlcorn94 sits down with @judgmentlabs co-founder @alexshander03 to discuss the agent workflow (and more). Alex started researching AI performance at Stanford when he was just 16. Today, alongside co-founders @andrew_li03 and @JSCamyre, the team is building the quality layer for the agent era. The episode goes deep into many critical questions, like why agent evaluation is becoming critical infrastructure, how to measure trust and reliability, and what breaks when agents move from demos to production. We’re excited to have led the Seed and co-led the Series A, totaling $32M in funding. Tune into the full conversation about the future of AI evaluation, in the era where judgment is everything. Chapters 0:00 Putting Agent Improvement On Autopilot 2:20 What Judgment Labs Actually Does 3:09 Being A Full Lifecycle Agent Behavior Monitoring Platform 4:59 How The Co-Founders Met 7:57 The Fundraising Journey With Lightspeed 11:57 Two Core Technological Bets That Shaped The Product 14:49 The Philosophy Behind Partnering With Customers 17:28 How They Choose Their Early Customers 19:40 The 5-Year Vision For Judgment Labs 22:10 Where The Business Goes From Here 24:39 How To Get In Touch With Alex And The Team
Check out the full episode here: youtube.com/watch?v=c5571D…
Today, we are excited to announce our participation in @assort_health’s $120M Series C. Healthcare currently carries $1.1 trillion administrative burden, and it starts the moment a patient tries to book an appointment. Assort Health is working to change this by transforming the patient experience. What began as the first voice AI agent to schedule a specialty appointment has grown into a full-stack platform, spanning scheduling, intake, referrals, document processing, medication refills, real-time eligibility, lab requests, and payments. Every layer of the patient journey, designed to be more efficient and individualized. We first backed the team for their Series B last year. The platform has expanded significantly since, and we can't wait to see where they take it next. Congratulations to @_JonWang, @_jeff_liu, and the entire Assort Health team. CC: @GalymImanbayev, @BrentonFargnoli, @AggShaurya
Jeff Bezos’ new company is pursuing an “artificial general engineer” that can “design, simulate, and help manufacture complex physical objects.” @clairejyz : “Today with a Claude or a ChatGPT, they’ve ingested the entire corpus of the Internet — but mostly digitized content.” “It’s great at language. It’s increasingly good at images and video, but what it’s not great at is actual manufacturing and physical output.” “You don’t actually have any systems that are trained on the real world.” From our new show Lightwork.
You can now text your AI agent like you text your group chats. We are excited to announce our participation in @heyjarvie’s $8.3M seed round as they go live for usage on iMessage, enabling users to message agents through chat apps. Founder @Ken__Chong was inspired by the AI agent wave in enterprise, and wanted to incorporate agents into everyday communication. Jarvie can be messaged directly or added to group chats to organize plans, perform tasks, and provide summaries in the simple format of just sending a text. We believe AI assistants like Jarvie have the potential to reshape the future of how we interact with technology for typically mundane tasks. Congratulations to the team on this launch! CC: @ataussig
Read more about Jarvie here: heyjarvie.com
The @harmonic_ai Hot 25 Startups list for Q3 just dropped, featuring a number of Lightspeed portfolio companies. Congratulations to the teams at @resolveai, @dualentry, @raindrop_ai, @sandstonehq, @RicursiveAI! The Harmonic Hot 25 Startups list highlights notable startups that are causing a buzz, based on aggregated investor interest from thousands of VCs. Making this list is a notable accomplishment. We’re excited to back companies like these that are constantly working to innovate and build on their momentum.
Check out the full list here: harmonic.ai/hot-25-startup…
“The bigger you are, the harder it is to keep growing, the harder it is to compound. But actually at the top, the data shows quite the opposite.” “The companies that are riding that curve are compounding their value the way chips are compounding their power.” "Above $100 billion, companies have access to capital, talent, distribution, and moats that are getting better, especially in an AI world." James Ephrati, Growth Partner at Lightspeed, explains the power law paradox and the viral chart from @coatue_thomas on this week's Lightwork:
"Ten years ago, venture was mostly: write the first check and watch the movie." Lightspeed’s James Ephrati on how secondaries and continuation vehicles are changing late-stage venture: "Ten years ago, the only exit paths were either an IPO or an acquisition." "Now the game has changed because you have more tools at your disposal." "It's not just picking right. It's investing and then managing that position the whole way through." "Companies are able to stay private longer, while investors, employees, founders, and early shareholders get liquidity along the way." From our new show Lightwork.
This week on Lightwork: Snap Launches Specs, Bezos’s $41B AI Startup & The SpaceX Cursor Deal x.com/clairejyz/stat…
What happens to ads when AI agents start doing the shopping? @machiz and @clairejyz discuss: "Our entire Internet is built on this premise that we're monetizing on eyeballs. All we care about is how many people see things." "When you are being funneled through an AI conversation and a link that is suggested to you by AI, those are often much higher intent." "AI-referred visitors converted at nearly 50% higher rates than organic search, with 14% higher average order values." "I'm not going to pay per click. I'm not gonna pay per view because that doesn't work." From our new show, Lightwork
NEW: Seed stage startups are shutting down faster than new ones are being created x.com/9137302/status…
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Ravi Mhatre on AI's exponential tipping points: "A year or six months ago, you could see things going from seeming impossible to knowing that because of AI, they are now inevitable." For Waymo, that tipping point came when the intelligence became powerful enough to drive a car “three or four times more reliably than any human driver.” Before that, self-driving still felt experimental. But after, Ravi says, you saw “massive, rapid proliferation of the technology.” From Lightwork with @ravi_lsvp
“Today, generative media is often like a slot machine. You give it a lot of prompts and you hope you get something back good.” @reactorworld Co-Founder @_bschmidtchen says real-time changes the medium itself — the same way it did for personal computing: “As soon as personal computers like the Macintosh, or in the smartphone era, things became more realtime and interactive,” he says, “the power it unlocked in creativity and new types of applications was extremely powerful.” With real-time generative media and world models, “you’ll see a similar sort of unlock for consumers, prosumers, and professionals.” From The Investment Memo with @theamberyang and @buckymoore.
Real-time world models represent a fundamental shift in AI. @reactorworld is building the platform for real-time generative video infrastructure, supporting developers who need the tech for use across entertainment, physical AI, and robotics. Co-founders @taiuti and @_bschmidtchen joined us last week on The Investment Memo, hosted by Partners @buckymoore and @theamberyang, to talk about the era of world models. The conversation centered around the infrastructure Reactor is building, why real-time models are the edge right now, and current use cases for the product. Alberto and Bryce agreed that world models are shaping the way simulations are created, and that developers need a streamlined platform that can support their ideas. We believe Reactor is positioned to be at the frontier of research into real-time generative models. We look forward to seeing how these models apply across industries. Chapters 00:00 Introduction & Overview of Reactor 01:08 Meet the Hosts & Founders 02:18 The Origin Story: From 3D Assets to World Models 05:07 Real-Time Video Applications Across Industries 06:55 The Open Source World Model Explosion 07:23 Why Infrastructure Is the Opportunity 08:42 Parallels to Past Technology Waves 09:51 Bridging the Research-to-Production Gap 13:13 What Developers Are Building with World Models 16:41 Lessons from Luma AI 18:23 What Apple Vision Pro Taught Bryce About Real-Time Systems 20:48 Company Values & Team Culture 22:40 Series A: What the Capital Unlocks 24:13 Reactor's Five-Year Vision 26:09 Closing Remarks
Healthcare runs on conversations. Now, AI is being built with the goal to truly understand them. Last week, @AbridgeHQ hosted their first-ever keynote. At the event, Abridge unveiled their AI-native clinician intelligence platform built to support the full arc of a patient visit and connect the clinical, financial, and evidence-based decisions that shape care. The company also announced its collaboration with NVIDIA to build a first-of-its-kind foundation model purpose-built for clinical conversations. Abridge co-founder @ShivdevRao says, “We started Abridge to save time, save money, and save lives.” Today, Abridge supports more than 100 million conversations annually across 300+ health systems serving over 250 million patients. We are excited to back Shiv, San Oo, Brian Wilson, and the entire team as they continue to make these strides in healthcare intelligence.
Learn more about Abridge here: abridge.com/press-release/…
AI is moving too fast for people to keep up. So we’re building something new. Lightwork is our weekly show on AI, tech, and funding, hosted by @clairejyz and @Machiz. Thank you @MollySOShea and @sourceryy for the first look at what we’re building. x.com/MollySOShea/st…
For the first time since leaving Google DeepMind to found @IneffableLabs, David Silver joined Lightspeed's @ravi_lsvp on stage at @Founders_Forum in the UK. David launched Ineffable earlier this year with a singular mission: making first contact with superintelligence. In conversation with Ravi, he laid out his framework for two eras of AI, the era of human data, where machines distill everything we already know, and the era of experience, where they learn through their own interactions with the world, through trial and error, without limit. The hardest unsolved problem, in his view: building machines that can discover things no human knows. Not resolving existing questions, generating entirely new ones. That thread runs back to AlphaGo and Move 37, a moment where a model made a creative decision no human would have made, and won. We believe founders like David are leading the next era of AI research. Thank you to David for joining us last week. We can't wait to embark on the journey to superintelligence with you and Ineffable Intelligence.
Read more about our investment in Ineffable Intelligence here: lsvp.com/stories/move-3…
Ravi Mhatre on what makes a founder special: “They think in future tense.” The best founders think from first principles. They understand technology at its “ground truth level.” And they can tell a story about the future that, “five years and even ten years later,” turns out to be right. @ravi_lsvp on our new show, Lightwork
Introducing Lightwork. New episodes every Monday morning.
Watch the full episode here: x.com/lightspeedvp/s…
By the time a cybersecurity vulnerability is public, attackers may already have an exploit ready. @chainguard_dev has been working to shrink the time between disclosure and exploitation by identifying potential threats before attackers do. They just released Athena, an industry coalition targeting open source vulnerabilities, designed to help software engineers build faster while staying compliant. Co-founders @lorenc_dan, @AikasVille, and @mattomata have continued to innovate open source security. We first invested in their Series C in 2024, and they continue to innovate in open source security. Athena is their most recent project to patch vulnerabilities even before disclosure. Congratulations to the team at Chainguard on Athena’s launch. CC: @guruchahal
Learn more about Athena here: chainguard.dev/athena
Most people think of SpaceX as a rocket company. @clairejyz breaks it down into three businesses: 1) Space transportation: Falcon 9, Dragon, Starship, and the launch business 2) Global internet connectivity: Starlink, or as Claire puts it, “a much better internet” anywhere you want it. 3) AI: xAI, Grok, X, and the compute layer around them. From our new show Lightwork.
A historic IPO, a massive makeover for Siri, and Anthropic's most powerful model released to the public. What do these have in common? They were all covered on the inaugural episode of Lightwork, Lightspeed’s newest podcast with hosts @clairejyz and @Machiz breaking down some of the latest news in AI. This week centered on a number of topics, most notably SpaceX’s massive $1.7T IPO, the largest in history. Claire and Josh analyzed one of the most powerful AI model ever released (now with brakes built in), Apple rebuilding Siri with help from Google's Gemini, and a quiet milestone with loud implications, as AI agents now generate more web traffic than actual people. Lightspeed Co-Founder & Managing Director @ravi_lsvp joined them to talk founders, AI cycles, and what he looks for that typically won’t show up in a pitch deck. Claire and Josh also highlighted some notable deals from this past week, spotlighting @beaconsoftwarex, @sandstonehq, and A Security. Watch the full episode below. Episode two coming June 22nd. 0:00 Welcome to Lightwork 3:30 This Week in AI & Tech Headlines 4:15 Claude Fable 5 Release 13:33 SpaceX: The Largest IPO in History 23:14 Apple's AI Reset at WWDC 30:39 Agent Traffic Passes Humans Online 40:45 Guest Interview: Lightspeed Co-Founder Ravi Mhatre 41:50 What Success Looks Like In A Founder? 44:29 Picking Winners On An Exponential Curve 48:44 Enterprise Trust Is The Moat 52:10 What Still Excites Him After 30 Years 53:43 Ravi on Lightspeed Entering New Media 56:37 Deal Breakdowns 58:47 Final Thoughts and What's Coming Next
@clairejyz @Machiz Check out the full episode here: youtube.com/watch?v=7GBocx…
Every week, thousands of AI headlines compete for your attention. Lightwork is where we aim to separate the signal from the noise. Hosted by Claire Zau (@clairejyz) and Josh Machiz (@Machiz), Lightwork is Lightspeed's new weekly podcast, unpacking the stories, trends, and ideas shaping the future of AI and technology. We’ll trace these shifts from research labs to deal flow to the companies shipping product, and bring in guests working at the front of AI to help sharpen the picture. Tune in to the first episode of Lightwork tomorrow (June 15) at 8am ET.
AI advancement is buzzing. What do the leaders behind the foundational models have to say about what’s being built? Yesterday, Lightspeed hosted a Builder’s Breakfast at our London HQ alongside @GoogleDeepMind and @GoogleCloud. With numerous founders present, the conversations
“I think legal teams and lawyers will become more strategic, more generalist, and more orchestrators.” @nifleisher, Co-Founder & CEO of Sandstone joins @lisabethhan and @guruchahal on why AI means “a lot more deal volume,” “a lot more things to review,” and “a lot more AI slop x.com/59910220/statu…
.@nifleisher (Co-Founder & CEO @sandstonehq) why the legal tech category is finally ready for better software: “I was surprised there were tools with 99% adoption, but the UX was still very poor… No one said, ‘I love the software I use every day.’” “Lawyers are looking for x.com/lightspeedvp/s…
The infrastructure behind physical AI has to keep up with the momentum of software models, or else it fails. That's why we’re excited to announce that we led the $5M Seed raise for Kyber, a company focused on strengthening the invisible infrastructure behind machine control, as
Read more about Kyber here: lesechos.fr/start-up/deals…
Go-to-market is one of the core drivers of great product distribution. We partnered with @cello_hq to vote on some of the most impressive growth leaders right now for the #GTM10 awards. 602 nominations across 28 countries later, the winners have been announced. The 50 selected
Check out the full list of winners here: thegtm10.com/winners-2026/
In-house legal is often heavy on administrative tasks and light on resources. @sandstonehq is an AI platform that’s working to target problems facing corporate legal teams. CEO and co-founder @nifleisher recently joined @guruchahal and @lisabethhan on The Investment Memo to talk
Silicon Valley and Main Street meet in the middle with @beaconsoftwarex. This is why we're excited to double down in the company for their $225M Series C. Beacon software buys, builds, and grows essential software businesses, integrating AI to boost operations. Their focus is
Read more about Beacon here from @sarahklearman: wsj.com/pro/venture-ca…
We’re excited to announce that we led @sandstonehq’s $30M Series A. In-house legal teams stand to benefit significantly from AI support. We believe Sandstone understands the lack of resources that can be provided to those teams. The AI platform, founded by @nifleisher,
Read more about Sandstone here: techcrunch.com/2026/06/09/san…
We’re excited to announce our investment in A Security, which launched today with $37M in funding. The security playbook is being rewritten in real time. AI has the potential to accelerate the discovery, chaining, and exploitation of vulnerabilities. Defenders need systems that
Read more about A Security here: fortune.com/2026/06/08/lig…
We’re excited to lead A Security’s $37M Series A as they emerge from stealth. The security playbook is being rewritten in real time. AI has the potential to accelerate the discovery, chaining, and exploitation of vulnerabilities. Defenders need systems that can move just as
Read more about A Security here: fortune.com/2026/06/08/lig…
Finances shouldn’t be fragmented. We're excited to double down in @tryramp for their recent $750M Series F, bringing their total valuation to $44B. Just yesterday, the company also launched “Stack,” an AI operating system designed to assist accounting firms. Stack aims to do
@tryramp Read more about Ramp here: prnewswire.com/news-releases/…
As agents take on more responsibility, reliability becomes critical. @raindrop_ai is working to prevent that. They just released Raindrop 2.0 to help build fixes out of failures. Their “self-healing” agent loop evaluates multiple angles of the problem, with the goal of x.com/benhylak/statu…
The race to unlock fusion power is heating up. @Helion_Energy is a fusion power company with a mission of producing a clean, zero-carbon electricity source. Two years ago, they launched their 7th-generation prototype, Polaris, and are now building their first fusion power plant
Read more about Helion here: theinformation.com/articles/fusio…
@suno CC: @lisabethhan
