Nicole Baer

Never really wanted to be anywhere else.

I've held leadership roles at Logitech, Zendesk, Aon Hewitt, now Carta.

I'm also a two-time

founder of marketing advisory firm.

So I've been sort of on the in-house side of the front as well as the agency side for a few decades now.

So everything that's happening in AI is incredibly interesting to me as well.

Yeah.

I think what it's referring to is sort of the non-AI world of startups and the AI world of startups.

And about half of all venture funding is going to AI native startups now.

So that means like the world of everything else, which used to be 100% of the world, is now 50% of the world.

And so it's a very different landscape than it's been in the past.

And really at all stages, whether it's seed all the way up through later stages, we're seeing more fundraising going to AI native companies compared to non-AI companies.

A lot.

A lot.

I think to Grant's earlier point, deal count is down.

It's at a six-year low.

So the number of companies that are getting funding is significantly down.

But the amount of funding that's going to sort of the chosen companies is...

incredibly high, especially for later stage companies who have sort of proven out their, you know, their disruption that they're creating around AI.

They are getting massive investments by mega funds.