David Beisel

A big milestone today for Grow Therapy, which just announced a $150M Series D led by TCV and Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with BCI and Menlo Ventures joining Sequoia, Transformation Capital, and SignalFire. When we led Grow’s Series A in 2021, it was rooted in a belief that mental health access in the U.S. isn’t hindered by supply, it’s a systems problem. To win, Grow needed to be deeply integrated into the healthcare ecosystem, not operating as a point solution. In just 5 years, more than 2 million people have used Grow, with over 10 million therapy and medication management visits delivered on the platform. What stands out is the infrastructure the team has built: Grow now partners with 125+ health insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid across most states, reaching 220 million covered lives. At the same time, tools like its clinically-guided AI notetaker are reducing provider documentation time by nearly 70%, helping clinicians focus more on care. This is what durable healthtech looks like: deep payer integrations, measurable outcomes, and technology embedded directly into existing healthcare workflows. Excited to continue partnering with Jake Cooper, Manoj Kanagaraj, MD, Alan Ni, and the entire Grow team as they build trusted mental health infrastructure for insurers, employers, health systems, and most importantly, patients.

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Talking to users and thoughtfully integrating their needs and wants was woven through everything we did at IDEO—threaded through every prototype and product decision. Reading my colleagues Joanne and Leo's latest work brought that to mind. They describe a future where research runs continuously, with AI agents recruiting participants and instantly surfacing insights. Synthetic personas, carefully trained on consumer signals, mirror human behavior closely enough to extend live studies and compress timelines from weeks to hours. Today user research mostly runs in fits and starts, prohibitively expensive and locked away in dedicated project cycles when it could be a constant companion, seamlessly integrated into the product development process. Joanne and Leo lay out the full vision here: https://lnkd.in/gEUBSG_J

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I go to Consumer Technology Association's CES Show each January for two reasons: What bets are startups and large companies making in product innovation and technology, and how likely are those bets to move the needle this year in a way that creates momentum. And to separate what looks close from what actually is. You stand in front of the thing, ask a few annoying questions, watch where it breaks during live memo, and suddenly the gap between promise and deployment becomes visible. Consumer takeaways from CES 2026 🤖: Robots are everywhere, but most home use cases are still a patience tax. The near-term winners are constrained environments: coffee stations, vending-store formats, hospitality support. Transparent displays are finally credible, but they’ll show up in premium B2B long before they become normal in homes. Smart appliances will keep getting smarter, and better at monetizing attention. Investor takeaways: one steady, one heavy ⚠️: The steady one: the best startups weren’t betting on miracles. They were building on proven components, tight scope, clean deployment paths, and obvious ROI. The heavy one: the “synthetic companionship” category is crossing from weird to normal, fast. And when a substitute for human connection becomes normal at scale, the cost rarely stays where the product team expects it to. We don’t need to be afraid of a Terminator scenario. The risk that keeps nagging me is closer to a social autoimmune disease 🧠 Tools designed to help us start weakening the very social tissue that makes people resilient. AI-generated convenience slowly replaces effort, and effort is where humanity's true survival skill lies. Put that next to AI reducing the demand for human labor, and something else shifts. Work needs fewer people. Relationships start to feel expensive. Families stop being the default and start becoming a choice you have to justify. That’s the bet I keep thinking about. And it’s the one we should be far more deliberate with before AI-induced convenience becomes normal. #CES2026 #Future #AmbientAI #TransparentDisplays

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With the launch of Claude Co-Work (and tools like it), I feel like every week in 2025 carries the weight of a decade. Some thoughts: 1. The technology is genuinely different this time. Claude Co-Work isn't an incremental improvement — it's a 100x leap over what existed 12 months ago. If you haven't used it yet, stop what you're doing. 2. Markets. Software and advisory businesses face an existential reset .Not decline. Reset. Consulting, legal, accounting, financial advisory — these industries aren't disappearing, but they're heading toward 80% fewer people doing the same work. KPMG just told auditors to cut costs by 50%. This is the beginning, not the exception. 3. Real-world industries aren't safe either — they're just next. Industrials, energy, consumer goods, travel all have a natural (physical) moat. But consumer brands being built today are doing it with 80-90% less headcount than their predecessors. Any company older than 6 months that isn't adapting is already behind. Jack Dorsey's Block cutting 50% of its workforce despite strong growth is a preview, not an outlier. 4. The new bottleneck is energy, not labor. Once labor becomes abundant and cheap, the constraint shifts. Whoever can produce energy at scale and reasonable cost will have the most important infrastructure asset of the next 20 years. 5. The job market is being structurally changed for good and this is not a minor adjustment. Bankers, lawyers, accountants, software engineers — some roles will survive the way painters survived the printing press. Most won't. The talent that moves fastest onto new tools will capture a disproportionate share of the upside. We're entering a period of massive productivity unlocks and equally massive collateral damage. The future is bright. The transition is not going to be comfortable. Go test out some of those new tools.

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AI is changing the structure of most companies we see. Lots more coming from us on how startups can build faster, leaner teams -- and where we see all of this going. Great piece from Pete Flint to kick it off: https://lnkd.in/dcUebcJj

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I went on NYSE with Kristen Scholer to talk about the $94M Series A for OpenFX that was announced yesterday. We spoke about the transformational impact the company is having for its customers around the world. Live in 15 countries and 90%+ cheaper and faster then the status quo through its stablecoin-based infrastructure. As a global business if it takes you 3 or 4 days for your transfer to settle after it touches the correspondent banks it is possible that you will lose 5% of the value as we have seen in the last month with both the Philippine Peso and the Indian Rupee. So not only is using the status quo a terrible value prop - very slow and very expensive - it can also be value destructive. As we have mentioned the business is doing $45B of volume. To put that in perspective, Wise scaled to about $250B of volume over 15 years and are considered are a market leader in the last generation of fintechs. So in less than 2 years OpenFX is doing nearly 20% of their volume and we expect significant growth ahead. Prabhakar Reddy and the team are off to a great start but there is much work ahead. More in the interview below.

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HealthVC x Lusha: Unlocking Smarter Fundraising and Sales Workflows We’re thrilled to announce our newest partnership: HealthVC has teamed up with Lusha to bring next-gen data and prospecting tools to founders, fund managers, and operators across our community. Lusha recently launched a powerful suite of AI-powered features that redefine how go-to-market teams research, prospect, and convert. Now those capabilities are coming to HealthVC Pro subscribers. ✨ With this partnership, you’ll be able to: Surface real-time, accurate, and compliant B2B contact data Use AI Prospecting Chat to instantly uncover new investor or customer leads Tap into CRM-triggered recommendations to stay one step ahead Turn insight into action with Sales Streaming, Lusha’s smarter, connected selling framework. But Lusha’s superpower isn’t just the AI; it’s that the AI sits on top of best-in-class data. That means every signal, every recommendation, and every lead is not just fast, it’s trustworthy. At HealthVC, we’re building more than a newsletter; we’re building the operating system for venture, and this partnership helps our members move faster, pitch smarter, and close better. Available now to all HealthVC subscribers, link in comments.

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As a board advisor, I’ve seen this pattern play out all too often: small to mid-sized technology businesses getting into real trouble not because of a bad product or a broken market, but because the executive team underestimates the importance of effective board communication and board relationship management. A business model pivot is one of the most critical and fragile periods in a company's life. Even in such high-stakes situations, I have witnessed executive teams mismanaging their board relationships, with expensive consequences for financial and human capital. I saw a profitable, cash-flow-positive SaaS business try to move from B2C to B2B, having already: • redirected resources • shifted management attention • started execution …all before the board had been properly engaged and crucially without a business plan. The initiative was blocked. Trust and goodwill were burned. The executive team had to go back to the drawing board, develop a detailed business plan, and restart discussions from scratch. Exactly what should have happened before resources were redeployed. Eventually, the board approved to give the executive team a 12 months window with a defined budget, setting expectations around traction and evidence. A year later, the B2B experiment had failed, the core business had suffered from loss of focus, and the executive team changed. Ironically, a renewed focus on the core business, with fresh leadership and discipline, put the company back on a growth path. Three lessons stand out: 1.             Boards don’t like surprises, trust is built through early engagement 2.             Pivots need real business plans, not conviction alone 3.             Focus is a strategic weapon, especially in scale-ups Boards are not there to block ambition. They’re there to protect the long-term health of the business. Executive teams that treat the board as a thinking partner, not an approval hurdle, make better decisions and move faster in the long run. More details about this topic in the article below https://lnkd.in/ep2MDvM9

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It is incredible what care.fi has built - an OS for healthcare players —unifying RCM, claims intelligence, and embedded finance into a single execution layer. Welcome to July Family, Care.fi

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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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One of my agentic commerce predictions for 2026 in this recent Forbes piece: Matt Nichols, General Partner at Commerce Ventures, notes that the mechanics are already in motion. Looking ahead, he predicts that this year, "Agentic commerce transaction volume reaches meaningful levels as consumers advance from research to buying on AI platforms. 2026 will be the year that transactions are completed in these platforms." To this prediction, Nichols adds another: retailers will be forced to build "super-feeds" specifically for AI platforms. “These data feeds may involve monetary transactions that could include payments to AI platforms or payments to the retailer/brand (depending on balance of power).” https://lnkd.in/g65RAerA

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Thrilled to share the launch of Criticality, a $65M fund built to back founders solving hard, high-leverage problems at the intersection of technical complexity and real-world urgency. Criticality builds on the foundation we’ve laid at Antler - applying our conviction-driven approach to companies at Seed & Series A. The fund is sector-flexible but applies a deep tech lens to each opportunity, targeting non-obvious, high-leverage problems from the earliest stages of company formation. Grateful to the New Mexico State Investment Council for their support in anchoring Criticality. More to come soon from Cash Allred & I.

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I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

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The SMS interactions between brand & consumer contain incredibly rich context for 1:1 personalized commerce experiences. Postscript is the platform enabling such experiences. On this week's episode, Rishabh and I sat down with Adam Turner to explore how SMS evolved from an abandoned-cart afterthought to a 1:1 sales & marketing channel. We covered: - Category creation and the rise of the “SMS marketer” - Compliance and quality as product design principles - Moving from broadcast to conversational journeys - Building distribution in the Shopify ecosystem, then scaling a sales-led motion - Where AI has augmented vs reinvented both marketing products and teams Link in comments

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Every #VentureStudio GP knows some portfolio bets won’t hit. That's expected - and it's one of the reasons studios are such a powerful vehicle for innovation. And while a venture's failure might be what's visible to the outsider, what keeps them up at night isn’t failure at the venture level — it’s failure at the systemic level within the studio. One bad entity design. One IP misstep. One governance gap. That’s how studio operations fall apart. We break down how to spot (and fix) these cracks before they turn into fault lines in our latest paper, "The GP Dilemma" - DM me and I'll send you a copy!

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Very happy to share that we are leading Pursuit's Series A. Mike Vichich and Brandon Max are exceptional leaders. I met Mike in December 2024 and was immediately struck by his focus on building in government, one of the most important and under-innovated sectors. Big vision, strong execution, and optimism. At the time, I was between roles and doing some angel investing. That conversation made it clear I wanted to work more closely with founders like him. A year later, I get to do exactly that. Leading this round is a full-circle moment. If you're building in GovTech please consider taking a look at their fantastic product. And reach out to us at Builders VC as we love the market!

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Two weeks ago on Swimming with Allocators, we sat down with David Clark, CIO at VenCap, to talk about what decades of venture data can teach allocators. One takeaway that stood out: discounts don’t matter as much as people think in venture secondaries. Because venture is such a power-law asset class, outcomes are driven by exposure to a few massive winners. Whether a stake is bought at a small discount, or even a premium, often matters far less than the quality of the underlying company and its upside. Great conversation on venture returns, manager selection, and the nuances of how allocators should think about secondary investments. 👇 Link in the comments.

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🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg

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