Jennifer Neundorfer, co-founder of January Ventures, stopped by the Equity podcast during TechCrunch Disrupt to discuss fundraising on this very AI-driven market.
Founders and investors alike are obsessive about AI, and even Neundorfer said her company is on the lookout for ways to make use of AI to make their work more efficient, similar to helping with market and competition due diligence. When it involves starting firms, she prefers founders who need to create something completely latest.
“When I see someone using AI to do something that's not 10 times higher, I all the time get more excited. It's actually about creating an entire latest experience, a brand new workflow or an entire latest behavior,” she said. “That's what we're seeing. Less incremental change and more entirely latest behaviors.”
This is becoming increasingly difficult for founders as fatigue has increased as increasingly AI ideas sound the identical.
“I believe founders break through once they can communicate to investors why what they're doing is actually different from the handfuls of other startups doing it and why they're the best team for it,” she said.
Whether we’re within the so-called AI bubble or not, Neundorfer says a market correction is probably going coming and lots of the firms receiving windfall investor money now may not survive. The winners will meet this moment and construct “truly category-defining firms” that capture where technology goes next. “Founders who’re in a position to stay one step ahead of the competition, construct at the sting of what is feasible today and construct for what’s to come back,” she listed. “Founders who’re in a position to truly read the market and understand what their customers want, slightly than simply constructing what is feasible. These are the founders who may have a bonus.”
Elsewhere within the pod, she talked about her life before Venture, where she worked at YouTube and 21st Century fox.
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“I often met individuals who had great technology,” she recalled of her time at 21st Century fox. The a part of the job she enjoyed most, meeting people and talking to them about technology, made her realize how much she would probably love working with early-stage founders.
But the educational curve was steep when she decided to maneuver on to investing. In the early years, she said she would consistently check in with the founders and supply detailed details about their firms.
“That's appropriate in some cases, nevertheless it's really in regards to the relationship with the founder, not only supporting the corporate, but supporting them as an individual,” she said.
Now she feels comfortable in her job. She serves as a mentor for various organizations similar to Techstars and, in response to PitchBook, has made greater than 50 investments at January Ventures and has now made several exits.
During the conversation, Neundorfer discussed the changing enterprise market, funding levels for minorities and girls, and enterprise markets outside of San Francisco which might be seeing success. Her biggest advice to diverse founders right away actually applies to many founders constructing on this climate: ignore the noise and deal with constructing a very good company.
“Anything else becomes something they will’t control and isn’t well worth the worry.”
