Together with
Good morning 👋
And happy Friday.
Agents are coming to replace your job - at least that’s what YC is betting on.
Nearly 50% of their latest batch label themselves as AI agents, and the trend is not slowing down. Venture-backed companies are being rewarded on efficiency, and agents allow for companies to be built efficiently from Day 1.
Here are some more thoughts on agents, growing revenue-per-employee, and investing in YC companies as a strategy …
TOP
All in on agents 🤖
We’ve written a lot about AI agents, automation, and growing revenue-per-employee. We think the future belongs to efficient businesses, and that’s what we’re betting on.
YC is doing the same.
Of the 144 startups in the Spring 2025 batch, 67 are described as “AI agents” within the accelerator’s online database. Last batch had 58 out of 163.
If you talk to venture investors about the valuations for some of these YC companies, you’ll learn a lot about the idea of overbidding.
Some of these companies are raising at a $70m post on only a few million in revenue. If that revenue is actually ARR is a totally different discussion.
We cast no judgement on whether or not backing YC companies is the right move, but it does seem like the game favors those who can afford to play it.
Find companies: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?batch=Spring%202025
Together with Delve
SOC 2 that doesn’t suck
There’s a dozen compliance platforms out there - but they don’t understand YOU (at least not like Delve does).
Most give you a checklist and some APIs. All of them will upsell you on every service under the sun. None of them understand what you actually need - helping you get your enterprise deal done.
Delve gets you fully compliant with SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and GDPR — in 15 hours or less. And their security experts will get on the Zoom call and help you close your deals. We’re not just a software platform - we’re a partner with a promise.
Need proof?
Lovable: Got SOC 2 in 20 hours
11x: Saved 143 hours and unlocked $2.3M ARR
Bland AI: Got SOC 2 and unlocked $500k ARR in 7 days
Pick the right compliance partner from the start ...
(Plus, they’ll ship you Airpods Pro on us when you get fully-compliant :)
TWEET
HEADLINES
With Voyager’s 82% IPO pop, defense tech VCs see a bright future for liquidity (Pitchbook)
AI-Powered Work Assistant Glean Lands $150M at $7.2B Valuation – 9 Months After Last Raise (Crunchbase)
Legal tech platform Definely raises $30M Series B to make contract reviewing more efficient (TechCrunch)
Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z bio and health strategy, steps down (TechCrunch)
COMMUNITY
“The only membership that pays for itself” 🤝
Here’s a list of things tier-one investors have access to:
Good background knowledge and an understanding of how venture dynamics work
A source of good deal flow so that you see founders first
An elite investor network that you can share notes, deals, and other information with
Mental frameworks to understand company building, scale, and what makes a good vs. great investment
Connections to other high-quality people that become future co-workers or portfolio company employees
Usually that takes 5 years minimum (at least for us), but usually it takes even longer.
That’s why we built this - to speed up the onramp for private investors serious about giving themselves an advantage in the venture game.
2,500 other investors from places like Bessemer, Insight, Accel, and Founders Fund already use it, and we think you should too.
MEMOS
Outtake: Thoughtful cyber agents to secure high-profile people
HumanLayer: Human-in-the-loop agents
Chima: Interoperability for AI agents
Superpower: The all-in-one subscription for preventative healthcare
Documenso: The DocuSign killer
Thanks for reading this far and giving us a little bit of your attention this week.
Feel free to unsubscribe whenever this stops becoming valuable to you.
- Clay
(Founder @ Confluence.VC | GP @ Outlaw)
Wait ... there's more? 👀
See why some readers are bumping up their reading experience ....
Unlock everything in ProA subscription gets you:
- Deal flow reports
- Ultimate VC Resource Library
- Private Airtable databases
- Behind-the-scenes updates
- Private consulting call
- Early access to new products
