The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC's Big Fat Quiz of the Year: Founder, Fund and Breakout Company of 2025 | Predictions for 2026: The Company to Buy, The Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win 2026 and The Tailwinds NVIDIA Will Face
22 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I think we see four IPOs backloaded next year. SpaceX goes out first. Canva comes out of nowhere second.
Chapter 2: Who was the Founder of the Year for 2025?
Databricks does it in the back half of the year because it's just time. Anthropic does it at the end of the year. OpenAI probably should have gone first, but it's burning too much.
Chapter 3: What product won Product of the Year for 2025?
There's no ceiling on venture, which changes all the math and calculations. You haven't missed the boat as investors because what agents can do, we just started.
If unemployment ratchets up even two or three points, regardless of the reason, could just be the business cycle, you'll see a tech lash that makes what we're dealing with now an understatement.
Society will be terrified of AI.
Chapter 4: Which Fund was recognized as Fund of the Year?
If the robots are going to take over society, I want to be sure that I own the robots.
This is 20VC and the new show of the year for us has been our weekly show with Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll. It's been incredible to see the response that it's got. And for the final episode, we are doing a big fat quiz of the year. What does that mean? It means we are giving out awards to Best Fund of 2025, Best Founder of 2025, Best Product of 2025.
And then we do a look forward and we make some predictions. Which public stock is the stock to buy, stock to sell, which companies will go public in 2025, and so much more. This was great fun to do and I always want your feedback, harry at 20vc.com. Let me know what we can do to make these better for you.
Chapter 5: What are the Breakout Companies of 2025 that made an impact?
But before we dive into the show today, now most people who get scammed never talk about it. And if it can happen to tech savvy professionals, CEOs and investors, it can happen to anyone.
But the problem isn't just losing money, it's that today's scams, they're built differently for a very new world, one where AI can generate convincing messages in seconds and fake sites look more like real sites than the real thing. Traditional tools were not built for this future. And that's why Guardio exists. Guardio is this incredible predictive and proactive engine.
Chapter 6: What were the biggest surprises in 2025?
It leverages advanced AI threat detection to block highly targeted, socially engineered scams before they ever reach you. From phishing emails and fake login pages to financial fraud, Guardio protects you across the ways people actually live and work online. And security shouldn't be complicated.
Guardio continuously monitors across all your accounts and devices, uncovering risks in real time and guiding you to close gaps before attackers exploit them. Trusted by over a million users, Guardio is setting the new standard for personal cybersecurity. Visit guard.io slash 20VC today to start your seven-day free trial because the threats of tomorrow, they're already here.
Chapter 7: What predictions are made for the top performing tech stocks in 2026?
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Chapter 8: Why could Salesforce be the buy of 2026?
No matter where you are in your journey, do more with a domain. Go to domains.squarespace.com forward slash 20VC and get 20% off your dream domain with coupon code VC20. That's VC20. And finally, we have to speak about our newest sponsor. It's Intercom. If you're looking for a way to transform your customer service, let me introduce you to Finn, baby.
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It automates the most complex customer queries like refunds, transaction disputes, technical troubleshooting with speed and reliability. I wish my team was speedy and reliable. Beats every competitor in every head-to-head bake-off, completely configurable and code optional setup. My word, I mean, the benefits just go on and on. It's easy and efficient implementation.
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You have now arrived at your destination. Boys, it is the big fat quiz of the year. I don't know if you have this in America. The big fat quiz of the year is like a comedy show with Jack Whitehall where they do like a review of what's happened and then they do your predictions for next year.
I thought that, you know, I could be the Jack Whitehall in this scenario and we could do a review of what happened in the last 12 months and then look forward on 2026 and some predictions. And so we're going to start... With number one, the most important part of all of our ecosystem, the founders. Founder of the year for 2025. Who would you have as your founder of the year?
Listen, I know what the product of the year is. The product of the year is Claude35 or Claude37. Without this, we have no vibe coding. Without this, we have no lovable, no vacations degrees, no replet, no cursor that really works, no gamma. None of these products, many of which existed for years, did not work until we could debate when it was.
They worked with Claude 3.5 at the end of last year, but they weren't great until 3.7 and then 4 this year. And 4 changed our lives. And you may not use it. You may use the outputs. You may use agent force loops. It's not all that. You may use Cursor, which is still 90% powered by Anthrop. You may use Gamma.
or Replit, or again, lovable for Harry, none of these products we use, this changed the way we deliver AI inside of products. It's not just coders. It changed everything else. So do I give Dario credit as CEO? I don't know. I mean, I don't love all those warnings about how 90% of the world's going to be unemployed in several weeks, but he delivered, right?
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