Anthony Keys

It’s New York Tech Week, and #AmTech-friendly events are everywhere. Here’s a list of what’s going on this week, for companies that matter for America and the investors who back them: Monday: BloombergxTechNYC Defense Tech Breakfast Reception Industry Bloc Demo Day Building AI Solutions in Health and Bio Scaling Cyber: How Founders, Investors, and the Government Can Build Together Tech vs. Government NY Tech Meetup w/ NY Robotics Tuesday: How AI is Quietly Rewiring Healthcare & Government The Future of Investing in Robotics - Perspectives from Founders and Funders Dual-Use Innovation Policy x Tech Building Beyond: Tech’s Infrastructure Frontier AI for Energy, Infrastructure, & Deep Tech Critical Mass Wednesday: Hard Truths: Hardware Founder Breakfast NYC Nat Sec & Nuclear Breakfast America Assembled: Robotics & Trade Human Body as Software: Program, Fix, Edit Mission: Possible – Tech x Gov Happy Hour Deep Dive into Deep Tech Startups Thursday: Commonweal Ventures <> AlleyCorp’s premier event, AI and the Future of Government (Tech) Preseed + Seed Fundraising in Deep Tech Startup Cities - Building Regional Hubs for Tech & Talent Geopolitics of AI & LLM Adoption Friday: AI on Main Street: Supercharging SMBs Rethinking Rent: How Fintech Is Making Housing More Accessible AI & Future of Healthcare #NYTW #TechWeek #Startups #NYC 

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We’re creating a bunch of citizen software tools. They’re inherently insecure, hard to manage, and incomplete. I’ve been down this road before with Filemaker, Microsoft Access, Webflow, Airtable…and on and on. The tools change, but the core story has not.   That said, we will see the face of SaaS change as people do start to build their own agents and tools over top of existing software. But, why do we need a completely different CRMs for every company? We don’t. The core functionality of horizontal solutions like CRM will be delivered by a SaaS-like provider, but the features will likely be much shallower. Most companies will be build the strategic features they need ON TOP of these products. And that’s where real strategic advantage is built: by layering your strategic processes on top of existing tools.    But, let’s be real, many processes don’t provide strategic value. Plenty of companies can run the exact same HR playbook as everyone else. Why do I need to create my own? So, don’t look for traditional SaaS style software to go away any time soon. Thanks to Erik Andersen for sharing!

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As I make my way to events here in NYC, I have the pleasure of meeting some really cool founders, building some really cool things that I think people should know about. Here's a few of them: 1. Jeremy Philip Galen of Charlemagne Labs, Inc. - Jeremy is solving a huge, and very real problem in the cybersecurity space: social engineering. Rather than building a plugin that hooks into one source like email, his product leverages a SLM to monitor every action a user takes, stopping them from clicking a bad link, responding to a suspicious text, and more. 2. Sam Kececi of The Sentience Company - I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Sam and co to hear more about what they're building towards, and if there is a race to "personalized ai", they're front running it. Very cool team and product! 3. Ali Dajani of Modeeri - coming from working in the kitchen of some Michelin star restaurants here in NYC, Ali took what we he learned from the operations side and turned it into a really cool product, that solves a lot of critical problems in the hospitality ops space. I <3 NYC startups and there's lots of great people building here (certainly more than mentioned here) - pumped for TECH WEEK by a16z where I'll hopefully meet some more. #event #nyc #tech #ai #startup #founder

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Over the weekend I was thinking about how GPT-5 and other recent model upgrades will push industrial automation forward, and translate into physical-world actions. Our focus at nvp capital is on founders building in vertical AI, and while much of that is LLM based today, in the future (especially for industrial use cases) we see a world where that becomes driven by Vision–Language–Action models (VLAs). GPT-5 takes a real step forward in multimodal reasoning — not just reading text, but interpreting images in context. Drop in a photo of a landmark and it often nails the location (and yes, it will tell you it’s better than GPT-4!). 📸 Multimodal context is a bridge to actions, where productivity gains can really scale. Today, OpenAI and other foundation model players focus on digital actions, while physical actions -- the domain of VLAs -- are mostly pursued by companies with physical assets and data, like Gemini or Grok. For founders building in industrial and robotic automation 🤖, interest in VLAs is growing — even if they’re still too early for broad commercial use. GPT-5’s integrated handling of text, images, and other inputs could make it an ideal VLA “brain,” capable of interpreting scenes, following nuanced instructions, and planning precise, multi-step actions that lead to highly adaptable agents moving seamlessly from perception to action. An open question is whether OpenAI will step into that physical domain — or leave VLAs to those already playing in the hardware-heavy world ⚙️. Either way, if you’re building vertical software using VLAs, we’d love to talk to you!

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In this week's episode of The Difference Engine, tech strategy podcast, Jonathan Simnett and I run our Category design rule over the launch of a new audit-free Big 4 competitor consulting firm, Unity Advisory. They are backed by $300 million of Warburg Pincus LLC PE money. But are they different enough to redefine the Category or just be a bit `better`? As business advisers, are these cobbler’s children running barefoot? Also in this week’s episode, we look at some things every aspiring Category creator needs to know from the outset. Y Combinator is widely regarded as the world’s leading startup accelerator, having helped launch companies now worth a combined $800 billion. So, when they share their experience, it’s worth paying close attention. Could a few key insights change your chance of success? Listen to our take on advice from co-founder, Paul Graham. Click the link in the comments to listen to Episode 49 and all previous episodes of The Difference Engine 👇 #ycombinator #unityadvisory #consulting #audit #strategy #podcast #big4 #PE #privateequity #category #categorydesign #techstrategy #techinvestment #investment #advisory #technology #business #Deloitte #PwC #EY #KPMG #warburgpincus

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For organizations in regulated industries, trust in your vendors isn’t optional — it’s table stakes. That’s why we’re proud to share that Opus Guard has achieved SOC 2 Type II attestation. We know retention and deletion aren’t just features — they’re compliance obligations. That’s why this milestone matters. What this means for your compliance programs: - Confidence in vendor due diligence → Your security and procurement teams get independent assurance that our controls meet the Trust Service Criteria. - Alignment with retention & governance needs → Our platform enforces defensible lifecycle management in Confluence, and now our own operations meet the same high bar. - Efficiency for audits → SOC 2 evidence reduces vendor questionnaires and accelerates your compliance processes. 📖 We’ve written more about our journey (and what makes auditing a Forge-native app unique) here: https://lnkd.in/gM_M2CKC For our customers in financial services, healthcare, government, and beyond - this is one more way we’re ensuring your data governance goals can be met with confidence. #SOC2 #Compliance #RetentionManagement

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Thanks to CTech by Calcalist for the thoughtful VC survey. I weighed in on the structural shifts defining 2026, from the reopening of the IPO window to how the “resilience” narrative is evolving, and why defense tech is emerging as a durable next growth engine alongside cyber. Give it a read → https://lnkd.in/dkAArKp7

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jensen called the idea that enterprise cos will rip+replace software 'illogical' and he's right. no one wants to vibe code their payroll - software is 8-10% of enterprise budgets & for most companies the compliance risk of rebuilding mission-critical systems far outweighs the software savings

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Excellent analysis by Matt Brown, worth a read if you weren't able to attend the show. vSaaS not slowing down any time soon! Proud to be at DialStack, expanding embedded beyond the ever-present Payments and FinTech. If you're a platform touching the customer engagement / 'front office' experience for your customers, let's talk! Adding Phones has never been easier.

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From MCP to CLI Alpaca announced their CLI for trading API! This is a big win for agentic trading. I have been writing a lot about Social Leverage and how we are leveraging MCP plugins for our own tech stack and all of our portfolio companies that are natively integrating with Claude. This Alpaca announcement is another exciting step forward for the company, providing access to 100+ trading functions across stocks, options, crypto, market data, and account management. Everything AI is moving at lightning speed, and it is exciting to see companies leaning in to take full advantage.

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Thrilled to be doubling down on our partnership with the world-class team at Flare as they shape the future of Threat Exposure Management. On the heels of their expanded identity capabilities launch, this next chapter of growth builds on the industry’s leading cybercrime database to automate validation and remediation of exposed credentials across the dark web before they become critical breaches.

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I watched Suffolk’s Boost Demo Day and left absolutely impressed at what the Suffolk Tech Team is doing vs most other VCs/Accelerator Programs. I occasionally write about the craziness of the VC world. VCs like to talk a big game about “adding value”, without much to show for it. Suffolk’s Boost program is clearly the opposite. And it’s not that every company is going to wildly succeed. Some of the companies that go through the Boost program never end up getting anywhere, but that’s the reality of running a business. Their success rate isn’t the point. The learnings, connections, and tangible industry experience are invaluable for construction tech founders starting from scratch. So what do they get right? - They give real access to customers and networks (not just intros) - Provide lots of education for outsiders entering construction - Showcase all their companies at their demo day And they’re not just doing it for their selfish gain. The innovation is for the wider construction community. Suffolk could run Boost purely for the competitive advantage. Instead, they invite other construction companies, create networking opportunities, and share what their companies are building. And it was great to see some of our other clients there at the Boost demo day! This is how you advance an industry. More accelerators/innovation programs should look like Boost. Access to customers, community building, and long-term commitment. That’s actual value-add. Shoutout to Diana K., Jonson Berman, Parker Mundt, Mack Rush, Carly Joos, and Ryan O'Connor from the Suffolk Technologies team. You guys are killing it.

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We didn’t start Smart Access because we wanted to build a startup. We started because we saw something that felt fundamentally broken. Inside one of the largest retailers in North America, some of the most sophisticated distribution networks in the world were still relying on pen, paper, spreadsheets, and manual observation to understand how work was actually getting done. The systems to plan and optimize existed, but the visibility into execution didn’t. So we started building. What began with 2 people writing the first lines of code has grown into a team of 35 and counting. Along the way, we’ve had the privilege of working with operators who run some of the most demanding distribution environments and push us every day to make execution easier to understand and improve. Today, we’re announcing our $12M Series A led by Lobby Capital, with participation from Aspenwood Ventures and Coelius Capital. Milestones like this are energizing. But they also raise the standard. Huge thank you to our team, our customers, and the early believers who chose to build with us before anything was certain. John White Jon Smelquist Kyle Jeske Amar Sandhu Dylan Maclean Lini Sarma Greg Barone Patrick Lor 🚀 Arden Tse Tim Hodge Neil Frizzell Sara Mohajerani Colin Kay Lars Leckie Mark Benning Zach Coelius Eric Carlborg James Franzone Dion Lisle Courtney Sotherland Roddenberry, PHR Chris Allen Sarmistha Boal Ben Mollman Chris Stedman, CFA Bill Kennedy David Lord Amanda Regnier Chris Neumann Xabier Ormazabal Wade Shearer Jeremy Weintraub Paul Bellows Chris Squires Joanne Fedeyko Jamie Knowlton

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Huge step forward from the Dyad team. AI that actually clears the inbox and kills rekeying (not just talks about it): 📨 Email Triage Agent to route submissions automatically 📃 Extractor to pull data from PDFs straight into ALIS DX If you’re an MGA, wholesaler, or program administrator who wants teams focused on underwriting, not manual work, this is worth a look: https://hubs.la/Q03T_Q1S0

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Harpoon Ventures + Black Flag is teaming up with Microsoft for Startups to provide founders with access to up to $250,000 in Azure credits, empowering builders to scale faster, train models more efficiently, and access world-class AI infrastructure. What’s included: ⚡Up to $250K in Azure credits (usable across Azure OpenAI, Grok 3, Llama 4, and more) 💻On-demand GPU VMs for model training and fine-tuning 🧠Access to GitHub Enterprise + Microsoft 365 Business Premium 🤝Dedicated Microsoft technical + GTM support This partnership is designed to give deep-tech and dual-use founders the tools and resources they need to win. Because when they win, we all win. 🏴‍☠️

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Delve Shipmas Day 4! After 3 days of launching major AI features, today we're launching support for even more compliance frameworks (ISO 42001, PCI-DSS, FedRAMP, CMMC, and more). -- Over the past several months, we've seen more and more companies get compliant with AI frameworks, both to demonstrate their security posture and as a competitive edge. At Delve, we believe that being AI-native doesn't just mean making compliance more modern than ever with AI. It also means supporting those latest AI regulations. So here they are! (Plus, for those who have been following along in our journey, you'll know that we were one of the first 100 companies to get ISO 42001 compliant. Now we want to pay it forward.) -- You can think of Delve as your one-stop shop for any security or compliance need whatsoever. Whether it's the newest AI regulations like ISO 42001, or the most stringent regulations like CMMC and FedRAMP, which are important if you're selling to the government, Delve can help. -- Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas! If you have any security or compliance needs whatsoever, we're always happy to help at Delve.

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The AI infrastructure market is shifting. Production workloads require verifiable security, reliability and efficiency. Becoming a public company allows us to invest more deeply in confidential computing and secure AI infrastructure. Today, we completed our merger with Movano and expect to begin trading on Nasdaq as Corvex, Inc. (ticker: MOVE). Over the past decade, the AI industry has focused on scaling compute. What is becoming clear now is that production AI workloads require more than raw compute capacity. They require infrastructure that delivers: • predictable performance • operational reliability • and increasingly, verifiable security. At Corvex we’ve been building infrastructure around those requirements. https://lnkd.in/eZbk82Z6

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This week's What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #465 newsletter is out! "It’s Still Early: $100M ARR Isn’t the Only Scoreboard" Plus...AI is stealing headlines, but robotics 🤖 is quietly becoming the other half of the autonomy story—factories, warehouses, healthcare, defense. These businesses won’t always sprint to $100M ARR overnight, but the combination of AI + robotics will build companies with staying power. full post in comments:

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