Unpacking "A Crisis Moment In Seed"
Rob Go from NextView Ventures delivers a sobering analysis of how AI is fundamentally breaking traditional seed investing models. He argues that AI infrastructure demands capital levels far beyond typical seed checks, while the application layer faces unprecedented commoditization that allows anyone to quickly copy funded startups.
Key takeaways
- •AI infrastructure investments are effectively off-limits to most seed funds due to massive capital requirements that exceed traditional seed check sizes.
- •Coding has become so commoditized through AI tools that competitors can rapidly replicate funded startups, eroding traditional moats.
- •Mega funds are aggressively moving downstream into seed markets due to AI consensus, creating extreme disruption for traditional seed investors.
- •The AI boom has created a bifurcated market where seed investors must navigate between capital-intensive infrastructure plays they can't afford and application-layer opportunities with weakened defensibility.
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Best moment
Why AI infrastructure investing is off-limits for most seed funds
how do you navigate in a world where AI infrastructure probably off limits and doesn't really make sense for a lot of seed investors, and now it's the application level?
Yeah. I think it's such a good point. Right? Because that's another one of the factors. It's that where a lot of the action was most exciting, I think, over the the prior four or five years was in the infrastructure side of things, which doesn't really lend itself that well to most into the seed model broadly. There's some folks who do actually a very good job of this. Like, I think Ed Sim at Boldstar is effectively infrastructure oriented investor, and there's some others. But, yes, the capital intensity ends up being really tough for the seed players.
“Because I think that's the obvious question of, like, how do you just speed and thrive in an environment that's fundamentally changed.”
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