Findings reveal key insights into how founders are constructing startups within the GenAI period
Costanoa Ventures, a boutique early-stage B2B enterprise capital agency, launched findings from a survey of founders constructing within the AI area, “Building an AI-Native Startup,” providing a snapshot of the AI-native startup ecosystem. The survey contains insights into how founders constructing in AI strategy hiring AI expertise, the instruments they use, and the challenges that hold them up at night time.
“Right this moment’s early-stage startup founders are the primary GenAI-native era,” mentioned Martina Lauchengco, companion at Costanoa Ventures. “GenAI is reshaping how founders construct merchandise, who they rent and the way they scale. What shocked us was how a lot use of basis fashions past GPT is rising and the way early they concentrate on go-to-market.”
One key space the survey checked out was using foundational fashions. The survey discovered that 9 out of ten founders (89%) surveyed are utilizing some model of GPT of their startups, with greater than half stating they use 4 or extra fashions. It’s a powerful indicator of the function bigger fashions are at the moment taking part in within the startup ecosystem and innovation.
Key findings from the survey reveal:
How founders use fashions, knowledge and instruments to construct AI merchandise
- Over half (54%) of all respondents are utilizing 4 or extra basis fashions; 75% use multiple mannequin.
- Practically 9 in ten founders (89%) are utilizing some model of GPT, adopted by Llama and Claude at 40% every.
- Pre-seed and seed stage firms are twice as probably to make use of Mistral as Collection A or later firms.
- Simply shy of 90% of respondents are utilizing some kind of AI tooling both to construct their platform or to reinforce their very own work, with nearly all of instruments supporting infrastructure and MLOps. Hottest coding instruments embrace: Cursor.ai, Github co-pilot and Supermaven.
“The inspiration mannequin panorama is altering quick. On one hand, the converging pattern on mannequin efficiency has led to individuals selecting a wide range of fashions; alternatively, plenty of individuals nonetheless select the highest 3 retailers as a extra future-proof possibility because the state of the frontier retains transferring ahead,” mentioned Rebecca Li, knowledge and AI investor at Costanoa Ventures.
How founders take into consideration hiring and AI experience
- 50% of founders are situated within the Bay Space with second-time founders 33% extra more likely to begin their firms within the Bay Space, citing proximity to expertise and buyers as a driving pressure.
- Just below one-third of firms based after 2022 really feel the necessity for a cofounder with a PhD or background in utilized fashions. Firms with an AI cofounder are considerably extra more likely to rent an engineer with educational AI or AI analysis expertise (90% and 61%, respectively).
- Practically 54% of firms prioritize go-to-market roles for early hires.
“This reaffirmed what we see: the businesses getting essentially the most leverage from AI at the moment usually aren’t based by individuals with an AI PhD or years of expertise in AI. They’re made up of entrepreneurial, fast research engineers who’ve the curiosity and ‘simply construct’ mentality to maintain up with the bleeding edge in AI,” mentioned John Cowgill, basic companion at Costanoa Ventures.
What retains founders up at night time
- Repeat founders are twice as more likely to point out “noise out there” as essentially the most painful a part of constructing in AI proper now.
- Solely 16% of pre-seed and seed founders point out expertise as a significant problem, however of those that did, 80% are repeat founders.
“The core challenges of early stage startups are the identical whether or not you’re an AI-native startup or not. These issues have been the identical for many years, however now we’re including a layer of complexity as groups discover ways to harness the ability of AI,” mentioned Amy Cheetham, companion at Costanoa Ventures.
Lauchengco added, “It’s fascinating to see how rapidly issues are altering in how founders construct startups. However what will probably be most attention-grabbing is seeing how responses evolve over time. It’s really a brand new period.”
Costanoa Ventures surveyed 30 founders who collectively raised $700 million in enterprise funding, with $70 million collectively raised by the pre-seed and seed firms who shared their funding— 21 of whom constructed their firms throughout the final two years. The survey included founders from each Costanoa Ventures’ portfolio firms and plenty of unaffiliated with the agency. The businesses surveyed embody a broad vary of AI use circumstances, from planning and reserving journeys to customizing gross sales outreach to enhancing IT workflows. Solely firms with exterior funding have been included within the closing outcomes.
The total survey is out there to view here.
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