Keith Grose

Met with one of our portfolio founders today, who walked me through their new product strategy and vision. He explained that they’re rolling out a new payment gateway integration, something that previously took a team of 100 engineers 8 months to build, and was scoped at 6 months with their current 30-person team. Instead, a mid-level engineer was able to knock it out in 2 days, leveraging Anthropic's Claude for product specs, Linear to manage planning and ticketing, and Windsurf to ship the code... 🤯🤯 There are two ways to view this... The pessimistic view suggests that increased productivity means fewer engineers are needed, and companies will continue to reduce headcount and overhead with further advancements AI and everyone will be jobless... The optimistic view, however, suggests Jevons' Paradox comes into play, and as productivity rises and costs drop, demand surges. Companies build more features and enter entirely new markets— Ultimately, technology has consistently been a net societal benefit. For every role it automates or streamlines, it creates new, more valuable ones. Ex) Tractors didn't kill farming, instead, it allowed workers to move from the fields upstream into more specialized, productive tasks Excel didn't reduce the need for finance bros, but instead enabled analysts to handle more complexities and created a broader spectrum of finance roles. The printing press, cars, cameras, and the internet were all initially met with skepticism and fear—but ultimately, each became an essential tool that created much more value than it replaced. AI is no different, its just a tool. It doesn’t replace human capabilities- it enhances it. As with any tool, it's most effective when used by those who know how to use it the best.

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I hosted a discussion yesterday at unlock VC (previously WVC:E) Summit about Barriers to Progression with some incredible women. However, I left the session feeling frustrated and honestly a bit angry. One question in particular that has stuck with me is a young woman asking for advice on how to manage a situation where her firm has hired a male counterpart but on a much higher salary. She didn’t know how to bring it up. Now, I’m not really one for giving advice (for many reasons) but I’m disappointed that we are still having these discussions today. So here are a few things I wish someone had told me earlier: On pay gaps: You don’t need to tiptoe around this. Book time with your manager, bring data (market rates, your contributions, comparable roles), and state your case directly. If they’re defensive rather than collaborative, that tells you everything you need to know about whether this is somewhere you can grow. On knowing your worth: Keep a running doc of your wins - deals you’ve sourced, value you’ve added, relationships you’ve built. When imposter syndrome hits (and it will), you’ll have receipts. When comp conversations come up, you’ll have ammunition. On finding your people: The women who’ve helped me most in this industry weren’t at my firm (because there weren’t any). Build your kitchen cabinet - other women and men in VC, founders, mentors who’ll tell you the truth and have your back. The ones who supported me ended up being my co-founders at Pact. These relationships matter more than any single job. On when to walk: Sometimes the best career move is leaving. If you’re constantly fighting to be heard, paid fairly, or taken seriously, your energy is better spent somewhere that actually values you. There are firms getting this right. If you’re dealing with any of this - pay disparities, being overlooked, or just feeling stuck - please DM me and let’s talk. I’d like to offer support where I can. Any other advice? Itxaso del Palacio, PhD Natasha Lytton Katharine Spooner Kadi-Ingrid Lilles Francesca (Check) Warner Camilla Dolan Isabelle O'Keeffe Tong Gu Reem Wyndham Roxane Sanguinetti Sophie Winwood

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What if Series A had its YC moment? Standard Capital just launched a $425M fund to do exactly that—turning the friction of bespoke terms and dragged-out diligence into a standardized, founder-friendly process. It’s brilliant. It validates what many of us believe: venture needs a reset. At The Venture Catalyst, we’re building something similar—but at the other end of the pipeline. Our mission isn’t just to fund overlooked founders at pre-seed/seed. It’s to design an ecosystem that collapses the silos between: - The Fund – conviction capital for founders others overlook. - The Studio (CAT Lab) – an invitation-only company-building engine that trains founders in resilience, mindset, and capital efficiency. - The Impact Foundation – mission-first programs that build trust, visibility, and inclusivity across communities. Like Standard Capital at Series A, we believe speed, clarity, and alignment are what matter most. But we go deeper: we’re not just writing checks. We’re investing in humans. Because products pivot. Markets shift. But the founder is the constant. This is the playbook we’re laying down: Build conviction early. Train resilience, not hype. Create symbiotic loops between fund, studio, and foundation. It’s not just “a fund” or “an accelerator.” It’s an engine for long-term value, trust, and impact. Curious to hear from this community:

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Venture capital round names are getting ridiculous. I was having a conversation with Mike Palmer last week. We both had noticed a trend of VC-backed companies raising rounds with weird names. Many more disguised extensions and strange nomenclature to maintain the illusion of progress. Specifically, data from the last 12 months of fundraises logged in Harmonic (over 1,000 rounds) shows a nontrivial overlap between the names and sizes of different rounds. Series A sizes are approaching Series Bs, but there are equally several Seed extensions disguised as Series A rounds and all between. Not to boot that there are 22 different round names that I had to filter and AI my way through to get to the meat of the data. For me this represents a broader trend of venture capital firms and startups attempting to conform to ideals about what a successful company journey should look like. This toxic pattern matching represents a broader trend I’ve seen around storytelling in venture capital. As we approach conformity and pattern, we lose sight of alpha. More on that to come.

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Dealwire.TECH Deal of the Week — Mesh ($75M Series C, $1B valuation) https://www.meshpay.com/ Crypto’s next chapter isn’t about speculation — it’s about payments infrastructure. Mesh’s $75M Series C at a $1B valuation signals a clear shift in investor conviction: capital is rotating from trading and token-centric narratives into real-world transaction rails. Mesh is building what many in the industry have talked about, but few have executed: a global crypto payments network that connects exchanges, wallets, and payment providers into a single interoperable layer. Consumers can pay with any supported digital asset, while merchants settle instantly in stablecoins or local fiat — no volatility risk, no wallet management, no fragmented integrations. The company’s asset-agnostic SmartFunding technology abstracts away blockchain complexity, routing “any-to-any” payments across chains and liquidity pools. The result is a horizontal payments layer that targets embedded deposits, remittances, and high-value cross-border commerce — areas where legacy card rails struggle with FX leakage, chargebacks, and delayed settlement. Led by Dragonfly, with participation from Paradigm and Coinbase Ventures, the round reflects strong alignment around an infrastructure-first thesis. Mesh’s ambitions — $1B in revenue and $1T in transaction volume — place it firmly in the category of next-generation global payment networks, not fintech tooling. Bottom line: If crypto is going to reach mass adoption, it won’t look like exchanges — it will look like invisible, instant payments embedded everywhere. #DealOfTheWeek #DealWire #CryptoPayments #Fintech #PaymentsInfrastructure #Stablecoins #Web3 #DigitalAssets

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Hot take: lot's of #LP's are growing underwhelmed with traditional venture investing. 💰 Fees are high given the level of engagement with the company operators. ❓ Access is opaque - LP's are unclear on the portco operations and outcomes. Outcomes are scattered - power law investing can certainly work, but many feel that venture capital investing is just a numbers game. There's another way. I'm biased, but I think it's better: #VentureStudios as an asset class. They blend: 🤜 🤛 Control and ownership 💡 Thematic focus 👬 Partnership with operators Studios offer a fund-like structure — but with more alignment, higher value conversion and less noise. If you're interested in understanding more about the studio model, we have resources to share. Please reach out and let's connect!

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Big milestone for Firmable. We’ve raised $14m Series A led by Airtree. Sales has moved through a few big waves: intuition-led, CRM-led, data-led. We’re now entering the next one – intelligence-led sales. The opportunity isn’t just better data. It’s turning that data into clear direction and action, without adding more work for sales teams. That’s what we’re building at Firmable: a foundation of trusted external data, layered with intelligence that helps sellers know who to focus on and when. Led by Airtree, this round supports our expansion across Asia and into the US – and accelerates the build-out of AI agents that take the admin work off sales teams so they can focus on what they do best. Proud of the team, grateful to our customers and investors. We’re just getting started. Read the exclusive in the AFR. https://lnkd.in/gr66uknb Leigh Jasper | Tara Salmon | Karthik Venkatasubramanian| Chester Thompson| Chath Widanapathirana

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I’ve spoken to over 2 dozen MDs at PE firms I can confidently say that the arb of figuring out how to implement Vertical AI at portfolio companies is very real right now It will fundamentally change underwriting for those who can do it predictably and unlock generational returns. Most are aware they need to act. Very few have.

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Unlocking private capital doesn’t always take billions. Sometimes, it starts with just £10 million — structured the right way. When Michele Giddens and her co-founders launched Bridges Fund Management, they used catalytic capital from the UK government to de-risk their first fund. That initial public investment has now helped crowd in over £2 billion in private capital. 🎧 Tune in as Michele shares how they built one of the UK’s first impact investing firms — and why blending public and private capital is still one of the most powerful levers for change: 👉https://lnkd.in/eEPrk9Bq #SRI360 #ImpactInvesting #SustainableInvesting #Sustainability #InclusiveEconomy #EnvironmentalImpactInvesting #MicheleGiddens

Really enjoyed this chat with William as part of his Early Rounds series. ☕ We covered a lot, from ThatRound and using AI in fundraising, to lessons from CROSSIP, building syndicates, and a few tougher chapters along the way. A lot of what we’re building was born out of that lived experience. Have a read if you want to know more about how ThatRound came to be!

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