SaaStr 824: VC in the AI Era - Exactly What's Getting Funded, Why & When with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin
episode
The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
30 min
1 speaker
5 chapters
transcribed 16 days ago
Transcript
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the official Saster Podcast where you can hear some of the best Saster speakers. This is where the cloud meets. Up today on the Saster Podcast, you gotta be number one at something to stand out today. Now, maybe if you're the number one fastest growing anything, you will stand out. But be honest, what are you number one in? And I certainly see way too many decks. Others, everyone else sees way too many decks where it's interesting. Hey, we're we're an AI SDR tool. Great. Okay. Some folks don't believe in it. It's after we do believe in it. We have four of these running around. DR Esther. We believe. What are you number one in? We're gonna do this and the other guy No, like you gotta be because we're just seeing these ever number one has always been the most important adventure, but people are obsessed with it now.
They're obsessed with finding the next open AI, the next category winner. Hey everybody at Saster, connect data, automate busy work, and empower teams like nobody's business with the one platform that grows with you every step of the way. Learn how Salesforce works for startups at Salesforce.com slash SMB. That's Salesforce.com slash SMB. Hey everybody at Saster. Finn is the number one AI agent for resolving complex queries like refunds, transaction disputes, and technical troubleshooting, all with speed and reliability. See how Finn can deliver the highest resolution rates and highest quality customer experience at fin.ai slash saster. That's fin.ai slash saster. Hey everybody. Get excited. Saster AI London is this December, December 1st and 2nd, and we're on track to completely sell out with the playbooks for AI and B2B.
Join 2,000 plus VI and AI leaders for two days, two days of practical advice on scaling in the new year. We'll have speakers flying in from OpenAI, Wiz, Play, Intercom Fin, and all your favorite B2B companies, including yours truly with Harry Stebbings and more doing our live 20. B C podcast. It'll be fun all in the heart of London. Don't miss out. Get your tickets. You can still go. Go to spodcast.saster London.com. That's podcast dot sasterlondon.com for special discount just for you. I thought I would do something Pretty simple. This week. Show you some data.
What are the current VC funding trends and insights in the AI era?
And certainly what I have learned talking with a lot of founders this year, running, we've actually launched. A new tool on Saster.ai where we can review your pitch decks. We'll we should cross a thousand VC pitch decks reviewed this week and almost 400,000 startup valuations on Saster.ai. What I've learned from that, what I've learned from companies I've invested in at Saster Fund that are raising money or have raised money. And a lot of stuff I've certainly learned doing the new 20 VC with Harry and Rory, which is a lot of fun if it comes out every Thursday if you guys want to watch. So I kind of wanted to talk about just what's happening in VC funding so folks could know. Some of this may be Captain Obvious, some of this you may get if you read Saster content or watch our pods or others.
But I thought I would just summarize everything happening in the market. Um, and again, this is not profound, but I do think it it is important. So iconics, one of the leading growth funds, originally funded by Mark Zuckerberger's money and others, but it's got many, I think tens of billions under management. They just put up a great set of metrics as of September thirtieth. I just wrote them up on Saster this week. Amelia will probably have them out in a newsletter this week. It's pretty good. I summarized a Seventy some odd page report and just find out. A few key points to them, but I pulled out a couple slides for folks to understand what VCs are thinking about. And I know you I know almost everyone knows this, but I think this is just it's a good to summarize this to understand what's investors' heads and why it means a lot of B2B VCs, a lot of classic SaaS investors, B2B investors that might have been interested in investing in you 18 to 24 months ago will not be interested today.
They're just not interested.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–2:30
2
What are the current VC funding trends and insights in the AI era?
2:30–8:03
3
Which SaaS performance benchmarks define the top‑quartile startups?
8:03–11:55
4
How are AI‑native companies achieving hyper‑growth compared to traditional SaaS?
11:55–28:26
5
What growth expectations differ between public and private B2B companies?
28:26–30:29
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors
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