DVC

No Ordinary Island for Extraordinary Conversation 🌊 If you’ve been with us this far, you already know we never pick anything by accident. That’s why on June 5th, all those who got their lucky ticket to AI Rabbit Hole by DVC and MadHats are meeting at Treasure Island. 🐇 The meeting devoted to artificial intelligence needed a special setting. That is why we have chosen an artificial island in the middle of the bay. We believe the right environment makes people open up, think differently, and connect in ways a crowded conference hall never could. Treasure Island has had many lives: born of bay mud in the 1930s, designed for a World's Fair, slated to be San Francisco's future airport, then repurposed as a Navy base, then a film set for The Matrix. 🎬 And on an island this extraordinary, there's only one venue that does it justice — Skyline Events SF, perched right at the water's edge in the middle of San Francisco Bay. From there you'll get 360-degree views of the city skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, and Alcatraz. You'll be surrounded by water, the whole city glittering across the bay ✨ See you there on June 5th 📆 Apply here: https://lnkd.in/eZKKfUPE #AIRabbitHole #AIBubbleTeaParty #SanFrancisco #TreasureIsland #DVC #AI #VentureCapital

They Were Betting on AI Long Before There Were Signs 🐇 In 2012, Nick had a dream. An advertising product that would grow a business’s customer base using look-alike profiling (it wasn't even a term back then). It was a probabilistic problem, and the CTO told him that ML models were necessary for that. Nick was so excited about the technology and its potential applications that he infected Marina with the same obsessive curiosity. And when AlexNet came out, both were convinced AI is going to become real very, very soon. In 2015, they moved to Silicon Valley and made this new frontier their only focus – as founders and as investors. Over the next 11 years, they built a community of researchers, engineers, and builders who shared that same conviction. 🏆 Today, DVC portfolio includes Perplexity AI, Etched, Thinking Machines Lab, Higgsfield, Avoca, Rhoda AI — this year, the total number of fund unicorns reached 7. On June 5,Marina and Nick are bringing that network, experience, and deep understanding of the AI industry into AI Rabbit Hole — connecting some of the best founders, investors, researchers and operators in the field for one day on Treasure Island. The event will gather the people representing the fastest-growing areas of AI — from frontier labs and infrastructure to consumer products and venture capital. Swipe through the cards to read what Nick and Marina have to say about the upcoming event 👇 And apply to join us before the price increases on May 20: https://lnkd.in/eZKKfUPE    #AIRabbitHole #AIBubbleTeaParty #AI #VentureCapital #Startups #SanFrancisco #DVC

3 weeks till our AI Bubble Tea Party — and we're pulling new cards out of our sleeve 🐇 5 arcs, 20 sessions, and a full day to explore the wonders of AI on Treasure Island. Join us to see the real state of AI and figure out the answer to the question on everyone’s mind: Is there a bubble, or is it just bubble tea? 🫧 Swipe to see the complete agenda 👇 Just a reminder, this is an invite-only event, and approval is required. Apply to join here: https://lnkd.in/eZKKfUPE #AIRabbitHole #AIBubbleTeaParty #AI #SanFrancisco #VC #VentureCapital #Startups

Big congrats on the launch! Proud to back the next generation of AI infrastructure 🚀

30 Days Till AI Bubble Party Tea — Meet Our First 10 Speakers 🫧 Here are the first 10 AI grand-masters that you’re going to meet on June 5th, on Treasure Island, San Francisco: 🎤 Steve Jurvetson — co-founder and managing director of Future Ventures. 🎤 Alex Mashrabov — founder of Higgsfield AI. 🎤 Joscha Bach — Executive Director of California Institute for Machine Consciousness (CIMC). 🎤 Nikita Shamgunov — Vice President of Databricks. 🎤 Andrew Wooten — CEO and co-founder of Rhoda AI. 🎤 Eugenia Kuyda — CEO and founder of Wabi. 🎤 Anna Klepchukova — Chief Medical Officer at Flo Health Inc.. 🎤 Anton Kaplanyan — Vice President of GPU Technology R&D at Intel Corporation. 🎤 David and Daniil Liberman — founders of Gonka.ai. This is only the start of our speaker lineup! It’s like a rabbit hole — the more names you see, the more excited you get. Wave 2 is coming, and the names we're keeping secret are going to make you super excited, too. If you already know you want to join, apply right here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eZKKfUPE. #AIRabbitHole #AIBubbleTeaParty #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Startups #VentureCapital #SanFrancisco

If you solve just 90% of everyone’s problem — you don’t have a business ❌ And for a long time, robotics companies were doing exactly that — they were introducing models prepared for ideal laboratory conditions, covering 90% of cases, but completely unready for complex, chaotic environments. That’s why there was a gigantic gap between what robots could do in a lab and what they could do in the real world. It existed until our portfolio company Rhoda AI came into the industry. We made a set of cards that tell you about their story: what they're building, how their DVA model gives machines real-world intuition, the $450M raise that got them out of stealth mode, and the people who started it all. If you want the whole story — start there 👆 🎙️ And if you want to dive even deeper into team’s vision, our Deconstructed VC podcast episode with Rhoda’s co-founder is still available. In a conversation with Marina Davidova and Nick Davidov, Andrew Wooten explained how they find a way to solve 100% of their users’ problems and how you can start doing it too: https://lnkd.in/dYcuZr2s #AI #robotics #startups #founders #vc #venturecaputal #deconstructedVC

👁️🗨️ CopilotKit Raises $27M to Redefine How AI Agents Live Inside Products Companies have been offering AI chatbots in the corner of their apps for years as an additional feature. User typed in a question, waited, received a long, surface-level answer, and had to figure it out on their own. And mostly chose to wait for the manager instead. Atai Barkai and Uli Barkai, the co-founders of CopilotKit, want to change that. Their thesis posits that AI agents can be seamlessly integrated into the product, comprehending user actions, responding to context, and offering dynamic interfaces that render the interaction organic. AG-UI is the open standard CopilotKit protocol that makes this possible. It allows agents to connect to user interfaces, stream responses, call front-end tools, and share state in real-time. The ecosystem has already come together to support it. The $27M Series A round was led by Glilot Capital, NFX, and SignalFire. The company already has Deutsche Telekom, Docusign, Cisco, and S&P Global as customers. Atai, Uli, and the whole team, congratulations on this big step forward 🚀 Round story is now on TechCrunch: https://lnkd.in/eB9yBCNT #AI #Startups #AIagents #VC #VentureCapital #DVC

Do you actually solve 100% of your customer’s problem or merely 90%? 🔧 In this fragment from our Deconstructed VC podcast, Andrew Wooten, co-founder of Rhoda AI, explains why their team is obsessed with talking to customers and why it should be at the core of everything you’re building or planning to build too. Rhoda AI, our portfolio unicorn, is a robotics and AI startup building systems designed to help robots understand and operate in real-world environments. Guys have recently raised $450M in funding, reaching a valuation of about $1.7B ☝️ If you missed it earlier, watch the full conversation to discover: – why most intelligent robots don’t leave the lab – how Rhoda trains hundreds of millions of videos to give machines real-world intuition – what a $450M raise looks like from the inside – and why Andrew believes robots could spark the next Industrial Revolution. 📺  Full episode ⤵️ #startups #robotics #founders #AI #VC #venturecaputal #deconstructedVC

Seven unicorns in four years. 👉🏻 We used to be able to count DVC unicorns on one hand. Not anymore. Well, unless AI lends us a few extra fingers 👌🏼 #AI #Startups #Unicorns #VentureCapital #VC #DVC

🦄 Avoca secures $125M to give every contractor in the US a concierge-grade revenue operation — bringing the total number of unicorns in DVC’s portfolio to seven! The physical services economy might seem straightforward, but building software for it is complex. HVAC companies, roofers, and restoration crews often use separate marketing agencies, call centers, and field teams, with no single platform to connect everything. What once required at least four vendors and a dedicated coordinator is now possible to manage on a single platform, thanks to our portfolio company, Avoca 🤝 With backing from Kleiner Perkins, Meritech Capital, General Catalyst, and others, they have created AI agents that manage the revenue side of a contractor’s business. From the beginning, we were impressed by how well they understand their customers’ biggest pain points. Avoca consistently wins in direct comparisons with the bigger companies in this field. Well done! Congratulations to Apurva Shrivastava, Tyson Chen, and the whole Avoca team on achieving this well-earned milestone 🏆 Full story in Fortune ⤵️ #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #VC #VentureCapital #DVC