ODDBIRD VC

Last week, we hosted an intimate dinner with AJ Tennant, Head of Sales at Glean and formerly at Slack - joined by 30 exceptional early-stage founders.

Big thank you to AJ and every founder who brought energy, curiosity, and candid questions!

#Startups #VentureCapital

YouTube video by ODDBIRD VC From IIT to IPO | Taking a $1B+ Trucking Company Public with Rajesh Yabaji (Founder, Blackbuck)

Link to full video: youtu.be/SfQmE40xP5k

Reimagining India’s $200B trucking industry isn’t just a logistics play, it’s an infrastructure transformation.

The new generation of builders in developing markets are unafraid to tackle complex problems and are deeply grounded in customer obsession.

#Startups #VentureCapital

Join us for an intimate Dinner + AMA with AJ Tennant, who’s helped scale not one, but two enterprise giants (Glean and Slack) to $100M+ ARR in <3 years!

Link to register: lu.ma/1wy78zpd

Are you:
a. Building an AI-native company?
b. Selling to enterprise?
c. Designing a PLG motion?
d. Or just eager to learn the real mechanics of AI blitzscaling?

If you answered yes to ANY, this dinner is for you.
If you answered yes to ALL, there’s no better room to be in.

Just a while ago, Glean and AnteriorAI were ambitious ideas — early AI experiments. Today, they are true AI killer apps!

"Odd" today more often than not becomes "Obvious" tomorrow 🚀

Proud to have backed both from the beginning.

#OddTodayObviousTomorrow

Source: Sequoia

4.💸𝗦𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 saw a surge in Q1 2025 despite reduced deal activity. The median pre-money valuation was $16M, an 18% YoY jump, despite the number of deals going down by 28%. An indication of a shift to quality and willingness to pay a premium for it.

3. 🔍𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 is a sharp bottleneck across manufacturing industries. Inspection systems are unable to keep up with the manufacturing output. Casting shortages are next in line.

2.👨🏻‍💼𝗔𝗜 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗻𝘁 have a strong right to win. Some companies have capability to apply AI to workflows but most need customized, external help. Enterprise AI budgets have grown 2x in less than a year.

1. 💎𝗥𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 are getting localised. China, home to 𝟳𝟬% of the world’s rare earths, recently curbed exports. The focus is now on localising rare earth mining and production. There are opportunities across the value chain.

𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗽𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗗𝗗𝗕𝗜𝗥𝗗 𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸: We’ve been chirping about the disruptions in rare earth supply chains, the disproportionate opportunity in AI services, bottlenecks in manufacturing, and the rising seed valuations.

#VentureCapital #AI #SupplyChain #Startups #Manufacturing #RareEarth

YouTube video by ODDBIRD VC Building a 10-Member Unicorn | Wayne Crosby - Founder, Google Slides (800M MAUs) & 2x YC Alum

Link to full video: youtu.be/whHGIgTlmLE

Where do MOATs lie in a world where software development costs are being driven to near zero!?

We broke this down in detail with Wayne over a cup of coffee recently!

#MOATs #VentureCapital #Startups

YouTube video by ODDBIRD VC Building a 10-Member Unicorn | Wayne Crosby - Founder, Google Slides (800M MAUs) & 2x YC Alum

Link to full video: youtu.be/whHGIgTlmLE

In a new world where $10M+ ARR companies are getting built by just a couple of founders, is a 10-member unicorn too far out?

We sat down with Wayne Crosby, founder of Google Slides (800M MAUs) and 2x YC alum, to discuss what it takes to build one!

Full video on YouTube!

Use cases for MCP/A2A have barely hit the tip of the iceberg!

#startups #venturecapital #mcp #a2a

PS: AI infra and vertical AI are key focus areas for us! If you're building in these spaces, email us at team@oddbirdvc.com

#MCP #A2A #AIAgents #Startups #VentureCapital

Join us tomorrow in our San Francisco office between 2 and 3 pm for a stimulating conversation on how AI can evolve into a truly democratic and distributed ecosystem! Link to register - lu.ma/edi1utwl

But the larger architectural challenges need to be addressed to create a true "Internet of Agents". Prof. Raskar and his team have been pioneering this field with initiatives like NANDA.

The internet today is starting to look significantly different from what it did even 6 months ago. Protocols like Anthropic's MCP and Google's Agent-to-Agent (A2A) have made significant progress in enabling communication between AI agents.

Wayne Crosby, @Google's Director of Engineering and founder of Google Slides is joining us tomorrow for an up, close, and personal chat. If you’re a founder looking to understand how to leverage Product Led Growth, this one's for you! Register here – lu.ma/owv3acdc

Coinbase betting on India and it's developer community - a huge signal on the quality of Indian origin founders!

4. 👫𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆-𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴/investing is increasingly about who you know. The best teams get funded before they even pitch publicly. We pride ourselves on our ability to catch these early!

#VentureCapital

3.👀𝗢𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗟𝗟𝗠𝘀 and AI agents has been solved to a good extent but interpretability and traceability has a long way to go. Interpretability through visualisations is one step better.

#Observability #Interpretability

2.🧳𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 & 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗹𝘂𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 (high risk, specialized insurance) is seeing increased activity due to the rise of non-linear, complex industries like Cybersecurity, Renewable Energy, etc. where risks are less understood today

1. 🗺️𝗖𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀-𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 is a hot cake right now. Stablecoins are proving to be great intermediaries for currency conversion and are enabling 10x cheaper and 100x faster transfers. Stripe’s $1.1B acquisition of Bridge is a strong signal

#CrossBorderPayments

𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗽𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗗𝗗𝗕𝗜𝗥𝗗 𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸: We’ve been chirping about stablecoins for cross border payments, the rise of excess and surplus insurance, observability & interpretability of AI, and catching the big fish early!

4. Research institutes are one of the last standing sources for technical MOATs in AI. Without focussed research, technical MOATs no longer exist.

3. Thompson Reuters recently won the first major AI copyright case and there will be more to follow, starting with NYTimes vs OpenAI. “Legal” pipelines for sourcing training data is key for LLMs and niche agents.

2. SMBs are on the hunt for AI services companies. Someone who can build custom AI solutions for specific use cases. Think Infosys for AI. Discovery of AI use cases is still in its early stages and services companies will benefit until these use cases get productised.