Coco Sack

This is crazy: NONE of the GenAI unicorns that started post-transformer are YC companies. And 85% were founded in just the last 2 years: 55% in 2023, 30% in 2022 (we are early in the cycle) via @BennettSiegel

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Noticed that VC funds are getting looooooonger? Special VC roundtable guests Tomasz Tunguz, Dave McClure, and Grady Buchanan discuss a noteworthy trend: venture funds that once extended around 10 years are now stretching to more like 12-15 (mainly because startups are staying private longer). Find out why some companies are remaining private for decades… or even FOREVER in this TWiST highlight.

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VC math is hard to wrap your head around sometimes. Take a $1B fund. Let’s say: • $900M is written off to zero. • One $100M check hits and returns $3B. The math: $3B – $1B = $2B profit → a 3x fund. That’s considered very successful in venture. LPs get 3x their money back, and the GPs earn hundreds of millions in carry. It shows the paradox of venture capital: it’s not about batting average. You can be “wrong” 90% of the time and still be a top-performing fund. What matters is magnitude. A single extraordinary win outweighs every loss. That’s why VCs swing for the fences, because one unicorn can carry the entire portfolio.

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Meet Brice Douglas the Co-founder of Zaymo (YC W24) 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 After graduating from Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch, Brice and his team (Santiago Gomez Paz & Daniel J.) at Zaymo (YC W24) have successfully raised $1.5 million in funding . Zaymo (YC W24) is revolutionizing email marketing by embedding interactive shopping experiences directly into emails, allowing customers to make purchases, leave reviews, and manage subscriptions without leaving their inboxes. Brice’s journey began at Brigham Young University, where he co-founded Zaymo and participated while working with Peter Harris at the University Growth Fund. The team’s innovative approach earned them $875,000 in investments after securing third place at the 2023 Rice Business Plan Competition . With features like one-click upsells, in-email reviews, and subscription upgrades, Zaymo is setting a new standard for e-commerce email marketing. Their interactive emails have led to significant increases in customer engagement and sales, including a 27% boost in revenue for some clients . Brice’s vision and leadership are truly inspiring, and it’s exciting to see how Zaymo is transforming the way brands connect with their customers. Check out their innovative platform. #LeadersOfSiliconSlopes

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Post YC demo day thoughts. It looks like few investors or first time founders understand this about the application layer companies, but repeat founders do and it’s clear from every conversation with them we had. Repeat founders realize that 0-$200k ARR in 3 months on a vibe-coded prototype is not sustainable growth. It is much easier now to sell AI apps to companies - they are all panicking and willing to throw PoC money at anything that can show a demo. Doesn’t mean shit unless you can make it so they use your product daily, actually love it (not just show it to their boss as “we’re implementing AI”), and let a part of their business depend on it. NRR is much more important than ARR. Quality of revenue > amount, especially early on. Doing things that don’t scale to find PMF, but not trying to scale them without building out the product properly. If spreadsheet investors throw money at you at big valuations - think twice before taking it. They will just keep pushing u to continue growing at 30% MoM and you can’t scale PoC revenue to $100M ARR. Think about moats and data flywheel. Go deep instead of going broad (data is a great niche differentiator while controlling distribution channels is a moat for horizontal platform plays, and as a startup you won’t have resources to control distribution for a very, very long time).

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Anthropic just launched Claude for #Healthcare, and OpenAI just launched ChatGPT Health. Both are LLMs, but their strategies differ significantly. I wrote down a few thoughts. 1️⃣ 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 Claude is entering the race with the ambition to integrate AI scribe + AI billing + AI clinical decision support + workflow, in order to become a new intelligence layer on top of legacy systems. It targets payors, providers, and consumers, tapping into (public) databases to optimize clinical operations. Claude also launched Claude for Life Sciences in October 2025, offering tailored solutions for pharma and integrating them into this broader ecosystem. 2️⃣ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐆𝐏𝐓 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐫 / 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 ChatGPT’s strategy is much narrower, as it focuses primarily on consumers and patients, but with a much deeper offering. It integrates medical navigation, lifestyle, nutrition, and fitness, as well as decision support to help users choose the right care plan (in the US), going after players like Transcarent. 3️⃣ 𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐆𝐏𝐓 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐀𝐈 Both Claude and ChatGPT integrate with Function Health, which uses blood analyses to both detect diseases early and optimize daily health. Consumer AI currently remains a tool for the healthy and wealthy, but over time the system may shift from being doctor-centric to consumer-centric. Claude and ChatGPT are clearly accelerating this shift. 4️⃣ 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐰𝐢𝐧: 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐞’𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐆𝐏𝐓’𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐭? Claude is trying to go very big: maybe too big. No one really wants a single player to own such a large and strategic piece of the healthcare tech stack. ChatGPT, on the other hand, aims to become the digital front door of healthcare, similar to Apple or Amazon. In the short term, it may monetize through advertising (as OpenAI has recently launched ads on its models). In the long term, it’s unclear how it will evolve beyond this. It is already replacing “Dr. Google”, but Google itself never managed to build a truly large business around that. 5️⃣ 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 Claude connects to many different sources, often involving unstructured data. Thanks to LLMs, it does not require highly structured or standardized data to operate effectively. MCPs combined with LLMs are redefining interoperability. Claude can ingest raw, unstructured data from multiple systems and generate usable insights. Traditional IT and SaaS systems were simply not able to do this before. ---- Follow HGM Advisory for daily reposts of the most interesting #HealthTech news.

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VCs: Your competitor raised $100M from the same LP you met at a conference. What did they do differently?   They treated it like a deal-sourcing operation, not a networking event.   Here are 19 conferences to build your LP pipeline👇   Venture Atlanta Conference - VC and startup showcase TechCrunch Disrupt - Tech startup and innovation SuperReturn North America - VC and early-stage investment conference RAISE Global Summit - VC and startup investment summit Money20/20 USA - Fintech and payments Web Summit - Technology and innovation Opal Group - Family office networking Carmo Companies - Private markets networking The East Coast Family Office & Wealth Management Conference - Family office networking Marty S.- Family office networkng Life Science Nation (LSN) - Real estate investment 22nd Annual Global ARC Boston - Alternative risk conference for institutional investors DC Finance's Global Family Office & High Net Worth Community - Family office networking California LP Summit - LP and institutional investors The Florida Family Office & High Net Worth Conference - Family office networking Florida Venture Forum - Early-stage VC and startups Angel Capital Association - Angel investor networking Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) - Institutional LP and private markets SuperVenture North America - VC networking   If you meet just 3 meaningful contacts per event, that's 57 potential opportunities for deals, partnerships, or LP commitments. And that's being conservative. Most events offer way more than 3 quality connections if you work them right.   The difference between a $10M fund and a $500M fund is how you work the room!   Which ones are you hitting in 2025?   🤝 Follow me for proven strategies that help VCs close more deals, raise larger funds, and build lasting LP relationships.

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YC’s request for startups told us something: AI is coming for healthcare’s $1 trillion admin problem… The U.S. spends over $4T a year on healthcare. Roughly $1 trillion of that is just… admin. Forms. PDFs. Fax machines. Manual data entry. Still. YC is basically waving a giant flag: “There’s a trillion-dollar startup here if someone just automates this mess.” And the timing couldn’t be better: - LLMs can now extract data from chaotic formats - Agents can move info across systems - Human-in-the-loop? Optional. What this means: - You don’t need to disrupt doctors… you need to eliminate the clipboard, read the illegible handwritten notes, digitize the physical folders - Your AI agent doesn’t need to be sexy. It just needs to be an assistant to back-office staff - If you understand HIPAA and workflows, you’ve already got an edge Healthcare is full of friction. Your job? Reduce it. Automatically.

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🚨 Another YC unicorn minted 🚨 Eight Sleep (YC S15) just raised $100M at a $1B valuation—but the real story isn’t funding. It’s how they escaped the “mattress trap” by creating a new category: Sleep Fitness. I break down: YC’s category creation playbook How data + execution built a moat Where Eight Sleep goes next (AI + healthcare) 🎥 Full episode here ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/eh448arg

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Duke Rohlen built and sold 5 companies for $1.7B.  Here's how he's disrupting medical industry with his new model👇 Rohlen started a restaurant business at 22, scaling it to $20M+ in revenue. Post that, he went on an entrepreneurial journey in building medical devices. He built and sold 5 companies in the role of either Co-founder, CEO, MD, or Director. Today, he runs Ajax Health—a private equity platform backed by KKR. His playbook? To turn large, slow companies into lean, fast-moving venture portfolios. Take Cordis, for example → It was once stuck at $700M with slow growth and thin profit, but is now doing over $1B in annual sales after the acquisition of Ajax. Here’s how he is doing it👇 1./ Learnings from different industries Rohlen started in the restaurant industry, scaling and selling a successful chain before ever touching healthcare. But that outsider experience became his edge. He brought with him: • Operational rigor • Relentless efficiency • Customer-first thinking At Lumen, Fox Hollow, and CV Ingenuity (his earlier companies): he applied these same principles. As per him: “We needed a better way to balance capital efficiency and technological ambition.” 2./ New Venture and R&D Models After the acquisition of Cordis, he created “Cordis-X,” a venture arm under Ajax. Since most medtech innovation is either too risky or too slow, he fixes that by restructuring the innovation pipeline. He breaks development into three categories: • Transformative → Bold, high-risk tech • Synergistic → Enhancements to existing products • Incremental → Small but essential updates So, instead of betting everything on a moonshot, he blends all three. This approach blends bold bets with steady improvements, driving faster, lower-risk innovation without wasting capital. 3./ Focus on Capital Efficiency Rohlen’s model redesigns medtech innovation around two principles: • Strategic Budgeting • Hiring independent talent As per him: spending $100M on the wrong bet is career-ending. He focuses budgets on key inflection points, Ajax compresses timelines from 8 years to just 3.5, without cutting quality. There's also a smart talent trick in play. Instead of a traditional org chart, Rohlen uses a model where: - Cordis-X runs like an App Store.  - Engineers and entrepreneurs get scoped projects. - They have fixed budgets and upside in the outcome. This model removes the biggest blockers of capital inefficiency and bureaucracy. Ajax’s model didn’t stop at Cordis. They’ve partnered with multiple multibillion-dollar corporations, building custom growth engines inside each one. Why this works: ↳ Faster, de-risked innovation ↳ Legacy firms avoid disruption ↳ Entrepreneurial talent gets autonomy + support A story with tons of insights for both acquirers and founders.

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Check out the latest funding news from across the Techstars portfolio. → Zipline (Techstars 2011), a drone delivery and logistics startup, raises more than $600M in new funding, boosting its valuation to $7.6B, as it expands commercial deployments. → Language learning startup Preply (Techstars 2015) raises $150M and becomes the 23rd known unicorn from Techstars accelerators. → Hydrosat (Techstars 2019) raises $60M in Series B funding → Tive (Techstars 2017) receives a $20M investment, valuing the shipment-tracking systems developer at slightly more than $500M. → Parambil (Techstars 2023) raises an additional $6M in seed funding ($8M to date). → Seasats (Techstars 2021) receives $24M in Department of War APFIT funding to accelerate the fielding of its autonomous surface vessels. → Hawaiian Airlines’ newly announced $600M Kahuʻewai Hawai‘i Investment Plan features a strategic investment in Ampaire (Techstars 2018) to support hybrid-electric aviation in the islands. → Fintalo (Techstars 2025) secures $500K+ in oversubscribed Pre-Seed funding. → PraxisPro (Techstars 2024) closes an oversubscribed $6M seed round. → Samara Aerospace (Techstars 2024) closes $10M seed round to help bring more stability to sats in orbit. → MyARC (Techstars 2022), a platform that enables fitness creators to train their communities at scale, secures £1.5M investment. Massive congratulations to these incredible portfolio companies!   🔗  Read more at https://lnkd.in/dxtCTvrg 

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What would DoorDash's 2013 YC pitch look like if the founders had to pitch it today?  more than a decade ago, DoorDash's pitch nailed three foundational elements that captured Silicon Valley investors’ attention: 1️⃣ Clear problem and credibility 2️⃣ Proof of traction and PMF with $10,000 in sales and 150 paying customers 3️⃣Growth mindset and early GTM strategy In 2025, however, founders need to double down on precision and validation to differentiate and stand out in the eyes of investors. If DoorDash’s pitch were made today, here’s what founders should add to make it stronger.: 🆕 Hook investors with data and open with a powerful metric or insight, like: “In our first month, we generated $10,000 in revenue in a $50B market.” 🆕 Go deeper with market validation by mentioning not only the number of customers but also the learnings they’ve gained about them. What pain points do the users highlight? What feedback confirmed the demand? 🆕 Highlight their core differentiators such as tech moat, business processes, partnerships, or a model that is hard to replicate. 🆕 Map out expansion targets, market-entry plans, and a timeline for growth.   🆕 Talk about economics and the path to profitability by going into specifics: order volume per driver, cost per order, and customer lifetime value projections. If you were an investor today, would you buy into DoorDash’s updated pitch? Like my content? I share exclusive founder resources and tips twice a week in my newsletter. No spam, promise! https://t2m.io/FWZ1hUX #pitch #fundraising #founders #startups #investors #YC 

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