Web Augustine

Vibe coding ... maybe not all good vibes? Hear Arcesium MD and Head of Client & Partner Development David Nable discuss why it's important to "be careful with vibe coding ... in a regulated industry." Watch the entire conversation on Alt Goes Mainstream: https://lnkd.in/eshC3AFJ

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Two articles I've been thinking about together this week: Amir Kabir at Overlook VC on "the defining tension of 2026: extraordinary concentration at the infrastructure layer, extraordinary democratization at the application layer" Take a read: https://lnkd.in/gyaFg-nB And Isaac Arnold's framework for what actually makes an application layer company durable: workflow entanglement, domain specific knowledge, and data that compounds from usage rather than just intelligence. Take a read for yourself: https://lnkd.in/gSDXA-vH Amir identifies where the opportunity is, Isaac identifies why most companies building there won't capture it durably and what separates the ones that will.

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A few weeks back, I watched Maggie Hott, GTM leader at OpenAI, confidently navigate her first board meeting at Unify. Having worked with her through Emergence Capital's Operator in Residence (OIR) program, seeing her immediately contribute valuable insights made me think about how most board members receive virtually no training for this critical role. At Emergence, we've built our firm around developing board excellence. We grow all our partners from within and have established a culture of mentorship focused on board service. Junior investors aren't thrown into the deep end—we pair them with senior GPs to observe effective board dynamics firsthand. My initial experience was at DroneDeploy alongside my partner Kevin Spain, where I got great mentorship before taking on independent board responsibilities. We extend this methodology to our OIR program, where operators learn how to be effective board members. Based on my experience mentoring directors, here are the fundamental principles I share with first-timers for how board members can best support founders: 1. Reframe the purpose: Problem-solving, not reporting If your board meeting is primarily reporting, you're wasting your management team's time. Information sharing should happen asynchronously, with board members engaging with materials before the meeting. This enables the live session to leverage collective intelligence on critical challenges. This rarely happens because many directors overextend themselves across too many boards—another reason we maintain a disciplined investment pace. 2. Master the Socratic approach The most valuable contribution often comes through thoughtful questions rather than declarative statements. Your objective is to enhance the decision-making capability of management. I enter each meeting with 1-3 specific areas where I know I can add value, focusing questions on these topics. 3. Follow-through separates professionals from amateurs Diligently document your commitments, establish clear action items, and execute them. It's crazy how just doing this proactively makes a board member stand out. 4. Understand your unique contribution to the board ecosystem A high-functioning board resembles a great basketball team—you need complementary skills, not redundant ones. In every meeting, I stay conscious of my distinct value relative to others in the room, whether that's SaaS expertise, AI knowledge, or a particular relationship dynamic with the CEO. I calibrate my role based on needs—sometimes assertively addressing areas where others have less experience, other times asking probing questions where fellow members have deeper expertise. -- To my knowledge, Emergence is the only VC firm with a formalized program dedicated to board excellence. It's an investment that yields returns where they matter most—in bending the odds of success for our founders. Founders, I'm curious: What board member behaviors have you found most valuable?

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Fika Ventures pours more than capital. It pours intent. A Los Angeles seed firm founded in 2017, Fika Ventures was built by former operators who know the grind isn’t theory. General Partners TX Zhuo, John Chen, and Arteen Arabshahi turned founder scars into a #B2B strategy. They grew a small team into 11 professionals, scaled to $500M+ across 4 funds, and kept cadence sharp. Think pour over, not cafeteria coffee. Precision heat. Measured flow. No bitterness, just velocity. The roster reflects this ethos. Operating Partner Matt Hersh, Principal Gabriella Brignardello, Senior Associate Olivia Pittard, Associate Julia Puzzo, Head of Marketing and Community Ju-Djuin Csontos, CFO Natalie P., and Venture Partner Aaron Szekel work founder hours without applause. Principle is simple: be extra hands, eyes, and signal. Earn the right to be a thought partner by doing the work. The thesis is tight. Fika backs subject-matter experts building B2B software, #fintech, #marketplaces, and #healthcare across North America, primarily at pre-seed and seed. They lead and co-invest with conviction, but the filter is sharper than a ristretto: domain mastery, go-to-market clarity, network effects. Each check comes with recruiting, business development, and capital strategy support from day one. Proof stacks quickly. Since inception, Fika has backed 80+ companies, achieving over 10 exits. BuildOps reached unicorn status with a $127M raise. Edge Impulse (a Qualcomm company) joined Qualcomm. Spinwheel, Payabli, Noyo, and Papaya are building category leadership. Over 60% of follow-on capital has been led by investors introduced by Fika, a stat that speaks volumes in quiet rooms. The market bets are pragmatic. #Embeddedfinance and #verticalSaaS where workflow wins. AI-driven #automation in #compliance and ops where accuracy pays. Healthcare procurement and #digitalhealth marketplaces where policy, process, and payment collide. Through line: tie intelligence to the transaction, put analytics where decisions are made, build inside regulated complexity, not around it. Dedicated recruiting sources 10x talent. A 40,000+ network opens warm doors. Capital strategy is co-planned against milestones, not mythology. When nights run long, Fika runs with them. That is founder-hour commitment, treating portfolio as team, not inventory. Values anchor everything. Clarity before conviction. Service first with humility. Those values show up in the LA First Look Retreat connecting builders and backers, the The Pour Over podcast and Medium insights, and the LA Tech Community Cares Fund directing relief when it matters most. Fika Ventures portfolio companies are hiring and open to partnerships 👇 Follow this firm. Study their founders. Track their plays. #VentureCapital #VCSpotlight #VCFirm #Startups #FounderJourney #StartupFunding #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosystem #StartupEcosystem #Hiring #TechHiring If software engineering peace of mind is what you crave, Vention is your zen.

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At Eniac Ventures we’re investing in companies built for a world of abundant intelligence. At the agentic layer, that means leaning into regulated industries like healthcare, government/defense, and financial services, where data friction is the moat, not the obstacle. The companies that will win here aren’t just building smart products. They’re willing to take on liability, to stand behind the output, own the outcome, and put skin in the game alongside their customers. At the tooling layer, it means things like security, privacy, and compliance. The model companies can’t be the ones solving this. You don’t grade your own homework. These need to be independent layers, and the need only grows as agents move deeper into mission critical environments. In the age of abundant intelligence, the hardest areas to build in will likely be where the most durable companies emerge.

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Black Flag has a new partner! The edge of national security demands models that grok the mission. That’s why Black Flag is partnering with xAI to give founders free credits and direct access to Grok: xAI’s family of powerful, multi-modal, real-time models. Whether you're building battlefield copilots, secure data agents, or edge-deployed LLMs, Grok delivers: 🛰️ Deep reasoning across text, code, and context 🕵️ Faster inference and improved function calling 🔒 CUI: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth just announced that Grok is being adopted for handling Controlled Unclassified Information If you're building a critical technology, the next generation of secure software will be developed with Grok. Fly the flag 🏴‍☠️. Apply here: https://www.blackflag.vc/ 

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Inertia is the commercial fusion energy company, and today we're taking a big step forward with $450M in funding! With support from Bessemer Venture Partners GV (Google Ventures), Modern Capital, Threshold Ventures, Neo, Uncork Capital, Long Journey, and WndrCo we're taking proven physics from the lab to build the industrial foundation for gigawatt-scale fusion power plants. The road to get here involved $30 billion in government funding for inertial confinement fusion experiments, the groundbreaking demonstrations of fusion that works at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the incredible ingenuity of my co-founders Andrea (Annie) Kritcher and Mike Dunne, and the team of DO-ers we’re building at Inertia. Now, with our funding, we're going to: 🔆 Build and scale the production of the world's most powerful laser  🔆 Build the world's first fusion fuel factory to mass produce fusion targets 🔆 Design and build the first gigawatt, utility-scale fusion energy power plant We're bringing star power to Earth. Read the founders' letter: https://inertia.com/news/ Read the press release: https://lnkd.in/gVEEYEpv And come build with us: https://inertia.com/jobs

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