The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Episodes

• 20VC: The Pro-Rata Battle: Valar Atomics Sues Day One Ventures | Meta Returns to the AI Frontier With Muse Wonder | NVIDIA Eyes $30B Reflection Deal & Jev Raises $870M at a $7.5B ValuationAGENDA: 04:00 Valar Atomics Sues Seed Investor Day One Ventures Over Pro Rata 17:00 Meta Returns to the AI Frontier With Muse Wonder 20:00 NVIDIA Eyes $30B Reflection Deal as Amazon Circles Decart 26:00 Jev Raises $870M at a $7.5B Valuation—Weeks After Launch 31:00 42 New Decacorns: The AI Boom Overtakes 2021's Record 36:00 Isomorphic Labs Eyes $50B Valuation in New Funding Talks 46:00 Anthropic Slashes Haiku Prices by 90% as AI Price War Intensifies 52:00 Bending Spoons Slashes Airtable's Team: What Do Founders Owe Employees? 57:00 Bumble to Go Private in $1.3B Deal: Can AI Transform Dating? 01:01:00 The SaaSpocalypse Deepens: Why $500M ARR May No Longer Be Enough 01:06:00 Flock Safety Cuts 270 Jobs Amid Privacy and Security Backlash

  1523|1T 13M
• 20VC: Atlassian CEO on Why Agents Won't Replace Interfaces | Why Enterprises Won't Trust Chinese Models | Why The Jury Is Still Out On The Benefits of Specialised Models with Mike Cannon-BrookesMike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder and CEO of Atlassian, the company behind Jira, Confluence, Trello and Loom. Atlassian generated $6.5BN in ARR in 2026, and serves more than 350,000 customers, including over 85% of the Fortune 500. Today, Mike is leading its expansion into enterprise AI through Rovo and the Teamwork Graph, connecting company knowledge with AI agents. AGENDA: 03:00 Do AI Agents Turn Traditional Software Into Just Databases? 16:00 Will Enterprises Ever Trust Chinese AI Models? 20:00 Is Building Your Own AI Model a Losing Bet? 24:00 Can AI Startups Survive When They Finally Have to Care About Costs? 30:00 What Happens When AI Gets Cheaper Than Anyone Expects? 35:00 Is Company Context the Real Moat in Enterprise AI? 41:00 What Happens When OpenAI and Anthropic Come for Your Customers? 44:00 Why Are Young Founders Cashing Out More Than Ever? 49:00 What Does Nobody Tell You About Getting Rich?

  1522|55M
• 20Sales: Inside Ramp's Sales Playbook: How to Build a Sales Machine with Max Freeman, SVP Sales @ RampMax Freeman is SVP of Sales at Ramp. He joined the company as its first sales hire. By 2025, he was leading more than 300 salespeople, helping build Ramp's sales organisation from the ground up. Ramp's latest reported revenue exceeds $1.7BN, with a valuation of over $40BN. AGENDA: 00:00 Inside Ramp's Sales Playbook 05:00 How Do You Find Exceptional Sellers—and Why Bankers Make the Best? 18:00 How Do You Build an Outbound Machine That Scales Beyond Your SDR Team? 24:00 How Do You Shorten Sales Cycles Without Slashing Your Price? 27:00 How Should You Pay Your First Reps—and Incentivise New Products? 34:00 How Do You Onboard Reps Who Can Actually Sell? 40:00 How High Should Quotas Be—and How Long Should Reps Get to Ramp? 44:00 How Do You Drive Customer Expansion and Forecast Revenue Accurately? 54:00 How Do You Grow as a Sales Leader Without Taking Over Every Important Deal?

  1521|1T 7M
• 20VC: Cognition vs Factory: Vinod Khosla Creates a Storm | OpenAI Nears $70B Run Rate: Anthropic Under Threat | ElevenLabs Doubles Its Valuation to $22B & Salesforce Buys Listen Labs for $2BJoinin the trio today we have Dev Ittycheria, CEO @ MongoDB. AGENDA: 04:00 OpenAI Nears $70B Run Rate—Anthropic's Lead Under Threat 12:00 Factory vs Cognition: Silicon Valley's Talent War Turns Ugly 23:00 Vinod Khosla Blasts His Own Portfolio Company 25:00 Reflection Launches Beam: America Strikes Back in Open-Source AI 34:00 ElevenLabs Doubles Its Valuation to $22B 37:00 Salesforce Buys Listen Labs for $2B—Sequoia Cashes In 46:00 Vercel Hits $600M ARR as Agents Drive Half Its New Business 55:00 Former Groq Engineers Sue Over Nvidia's $17B Deal 01:01:00 Meta's Muse Steals the Show as OpenAI's Dots Underwhelms 01:05:00 Oura Pulls Its IPO Despite 74% Growth—A Warning for VC

  1520|1T 13M
• 20VC: Is Seed Investing Dead Without a $1BN Fund? | Does Ownership and Price Matter When Companies Can Be $1TRN Exits | Are AI Revenue Numbers Real and What to Watch Out For with Venky Ganesan, Menlo VenturesVenky Ganesan is a Partner at Menlo Ventures, whose portfolio includes Anthropic, Lovable, Legora and Higgsfield, alongside earlier hits Uber and Roku. Venky's own investment track record includes Palo Alto Networks, Upwork, Poshmark and Rover. He is a three-time Forbes Midas List investor and former Chair of the National Venture Capital Association. AGENDA: 07:00 Can You Still Do Seed Without a $1 Billion Fund? 11:00 How Much of AI's Revenue Growth Is Actually Real? 19:00 When Is "Overpaying" the Smartest Investment You Can Make? 25:00 Does Ownership Still Matter in a World of Trillion-Dollar Outcomes? 31:00 Is "Big Tech Will Buy Us" a Dangerous Investment Thesis? 36:00 Why Invest in Venture When You Can Just Buy the Magnificent Seven? 45:00 When Should You Sell a 40x Winner—and When Should You Double Down? 54:00 Can a $50 Million Fund Still Compete With the Venture Giants? 58:00 Quickfire: Is Benchmark Harder to Beat Than Sequoia?

  1519|1T 6M
• 20VC: The Future of Datacentres: What You Need to Know | Why Everyone Gets GPU Depreciation and AI's Energy Costs Wrong | Who Really Makes Money From AI & Why Most Moats Don't Exist with Chase LochmillerChase Lochmiller is the Co-founder and CEO of Crusoe. Crusoe builds and powers the data centres that companies use to train and run AI. It has raised approximately $6.4 billion in equity, including its latest $3.9 billion Series F at a $30.9 billion valuation. Its backers include NVIDIA, Founders Fund, Gavin Baker's Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital and Valor Equity Partners. AGENDA: 04:40 What Does Climbing Everest Teach You About Building a Company? 17:40 What's Really Stopping Us From Building Enough AI Data Centres? 25:50 Are Data Centres Really Driving Up Your Energy Bills? 28:05 Will Half of Planned AI Data Centres Never Get Built? 32:10 How Quickly Can a GPU Pay for Itself? 38:35 Will Your GPUs Become Obsolete Before You've Paid Them Off? 44:20 What Does It Take to Produce the Cheapest Intelligence? 49:50 Will Companies Building Their Own Models Eat Into OpenAI's Business? 51:55 Can You Build a $30B Company and Still Be a Great Dad?

  1518|1T 1M
• 20VC: Instinct Raises $1B at $10B Valuation | AMD Buys Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2B | Meta Poaches MongoDB's CEO | Bessemer Raises $5.75B | Oura Pulls IPO & Nubank Eyes $8–12B Monzo TakeoverAGENDA: 00:00 Highlights: Jack Altman Joins The Trio 05:00 Anthropic's S-1 Leaks: $8B Operating Loss and $518B in Compute Commitments 10:00 Instinct Raises $1B at a $10B Valuation to Take On Meta 25:00 AMD Buys Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2B 39:00 Meta Poaches MongoDB's CEO as Shares Plunge 20% 43:00 AI Startup Seeks $10B Valuation Just One Week After Seed 47:00 Modal Hits $15B Valuation as Baseten Eyes $26B 54:00 OpenAI Reopens Its $200 Plan—and Halves What You Get 57:00 Oura Pulls IPO After Targeting a $16B Valuation 01:03:00 Nubank Eyes $8–12B Monzo Takeover 01:08:00 Bessemer Raises $5.75B as NFX Switches to Its Own Capital 01:14:00 Anthropic Founders Move to Lock In 50.1% Voting Control

  1517|1T 18M
• 20VC: $1BN ARR in 18 Months; The Untold Story of Higgsfield | Spending $4M Per Month on Models | Why Moats in AI are BS | Scaling a Content Team to 150 People with Alex MashrabovAlex Mashrabov is the Founder and CEO of Higgsfield, the third fastest scaling company to $1BN in ARR behind OpenAI and Anthropic. Reports suggest their latest funding round could place an $8BN valuation on the company. Prior to Higgsfield, Alex sold his prior company to Snap Inc for $166M. Alex was a competitive programmer as a kid, reaching third best in the world. AGENDA: 00:00 The Programming Prodigy Who Sold to Snap for $166M 09:00 Burning $10M: The Pivot That Saved Higgsfield 12:00 A $1B Revenue Run Rate in 18 Months; How Real Is It? 16:00 Will OpenAI and Google Wipe Out $20 AI Subscriptions? 21:00 Are AI Labs Gaming the Benchmarks? 28:00 Spending $4M a Month on AI; Genius or Insanity? 36:00 Are AI Moats Bullshit? The Great "Wrapper" Debate 43:00 One Full Day With His Son in Three Months: The Cost of Ambition 54:00 Quickfire: Is Snap Broken—and Will HubSpot Survive AI? 01:02:00 $10B in the Next 12 Months? Alex's Audacious Growth Bet

  1516|1T 9M
• 20VC: Five Predictions for a World of Agents | The Ads Business Model Will Die | Biggest Lessons from Working with Elon Musk at Twitter with Parag Agrawal, ParallelParag Agrawal is the Co-Founder and CEO of Parallel, building web search infrastructure for AI agents. Parallel has announced $230M in funding from Sequoia, Khosla, and First Round Capital. Previously, he was CEO of Twitter, succeeding Jack Dorsey after serving as CTO and becoming the company's first Distinguished Engineer. AGENDA: 03:00 What Breaks When Agents Search the Web 1,000x More? 07:00 Speed, Cost or Accuracy: What Do Agents Really Need? 13:00 Will Tiny Models Catch Today's Most Powerful AI? 16:00 Is Model Routing a Commodity? 21:00 Is Amazon Making a Mistake by Blocking AI Agents? 23:00 Does the Ads Business Model Die in a World of Agents? 27:00 Can You Pay Publishers Without Killing Your Margins? 33:00 Why Parag Wants a Race to the Bottom on Price 43:00 What Stops Your AI Agent Breaking the Rules to Get Results? 45:00 Why AI Hacks Should Embarrass the Labs 52:00 What Parag Saw Working With Elon Musk

  1515|56M
• 20VC: Meta's Muse Hits No. 1. ChatGPT Finally Has a Rival | Menlo Sounds the AI Bubble Alarm | Factory Triples Its Valuation to $5 Billion | Keith Rabois vs Airwallex: Who is Right? | Crusoe's $3.9 Billion Round. Is the Data Centre Trade Overheating?AGENDA: 04:35 Anthropic's $2 Trillion IPO Delayed. Cracks in the AI Boom? 10:30 OpenAI Faces $278 Billion Cash Burn. Out of Money by 2028? 12:55 Meta's Muse Hits No. 1. ChatGPT Finally Has a Rival? 17:05 Amazon Blocks AI Shopping Agents. Shopify Welcomes Them. 24:10 ChatGPT Inventor Launches Jev. Vercel's Fastest Launch Ever. 34:15 A $40 Million Seed Round. Is Traditional Seed Investing Dead? 39:00 Menlo Sounds the AI Bubble Alarm. Harry Calls BS. 54:00 Factory Triples Its Valuation to $5 Billion. Coding Is the Mother Lode. 1:00:20 Legora Hits $200 Million ARR. Is $11 Billion Too Rich? 1:03:50 Crusoe's $3.9 Billion Round. Is the Data Centre Trade Overheating? 1:08:55 Keith Rabois vs Airwallex. Fintech's Feud Escalates. 1:16:40 Sydney Sweeney for Airwallex? Lemkin's Wild PR Plan.

  1514|1T 20M