Dan Graham

If you’re going to raise capital, please for the love of sanity know what round you’re in. “But Shuaaaannnn we have a team and an MVP for our AI for dumpling yield optimization. We're raising seed.” Great. What traction do you have? Idea stage with a dumpling wannabe MVP? Thought so. Every founder thinks they’re raising seed the moment the product sort of works and their cofounder stops crashing the demo. But that’s a passion project with a GPU bill. Not seed. Investors specialize by stage for a reason. If you're raising seed, you should talk to seed investors. But before you do that, it helps if you’re actually… you know… at seed. Because a typical seed company often looks more like this: About $250k+ in monthly GMV for marketplaces. About $30k+ in MRR for SaaS. Meaning people are using it. People are even paying for it. And they are coming back for it. Not: A landing page. A Notion roadmap. A waitlist full of your friends. And a pitch deck with a very confident TAM slide. The round you’re raising isn’t what you call it in the headline of your deck. It’s what the numbers say it is. #startup #founders #venturecapital

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The Platform CPG is launching 3 frozen brands for founders in NYC Q4 of this year. NYC is the most competitive, fragmented, and expensive market. But an amazing city for brand building. Here’s the playbook we use: Lock in distribution —————————— DSD routes or strong distributors (Rainforest, Nassau Candy, Dora’s etc) Have a street team hit bodegas, delis, independents Secure retail buyers early ——————————— Key accounts: Whole Foods NYC, Key Food, Foodtown, Fairway, Morton Williams Independents: gourmet shops, bodegas, natural retailers Price right for the city —————————- Expect higher wholesale + retail pricing Don’t launch with thin margins Sampling is key ————————- Street teams, in-store demos, influencer tastings NYC consumers want to try before they buy Build hype outside the shelf —————————- PR drops, influencer seeding, launch events in Brooklyn/SoHo Social content that is authentic Plan for trade spend ———————— Free fills, TPRs, scan-downs, and distributor fees add up FAST Budget 20–30% of revenue back into the market Move fast on ops ————————— Cold chain, warehousing in NJ, delivery into 5 boroughs Route efficiency matters (traffic will eat your P&L alive) Know your consumer —————— The NYC shopper is diverse, trend-driven and makes fast decisions. Hit cultural pockets: fitness crowd, ethnic groceries etc Be prepared! Question: If you were launching a new food/bev brand today, what’s the first move you’d make in NYC?

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ZEC on Solana can be private again. Quick primer: Zcash is a privacy coin. Wrapped ZEC on Solana acts like a normal token, not the private coin people expect. Attention has jumped. ZEC is up 380% recently, so bridges rushed to bring it to fast, cheap rails. The catch: most wraps show balances and history to the whole world. That breaks the point of ZEC. If everyone can see balances, the asset feels foreign on Solana. Privacy should travel with the coin, not stop at the bridge. Encifher offers a fix. It re-wraps ZEC into an encrypted asset, eZEC, so balances and transfers stay hidden while still working with Solana apps. FHE means compute on encrypted data. Here’s the simple model. Your eZEC balance lives as ciphertext held off-chain in a data layer, while Solana keeps small pointers on-chain. Math proofs confirm each move without revealing amounts. Keys are split across a group, like a treasure chest that opens only when trusted parties agree. No single party can peek, and single-use accounts break linkability. Private swaps already plug into a leading DEX. My take: asset-level privacy will beat wallet-level tricks on big chains. When privacy sits inside the token itself, it composes cleanly with DeFi and keeps UX simple. Here’s my quick check for a “private” token: 1. Are balances hidden on-chain. 2. Can you swap it in normal DeFi apps. 3. Is linkability blocked with single-use accounts. If I’m wrong, it’s because wallet UX or compliance rules force teams to water this down and users fall back to public wraps. For newcomers: think of eZEC as ZEC’s privacy, restored on Solana’s speed. Same coin, but with secrecy that survives the bridge. That blend is why I’m watching this space closely.

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Fun discussion today on the potential of this VC vintage—will it be one of the best or the worst? **Bull Case:** Companies are achieving $1B+ valuations with significantly fewer employees, leading to larger exits driven by AI. Much bigger outcomes + less ESOP dilution = better vintages. **Bear Case:** We face high entry prices, but also an increasing number of companies struggling as they navigate the AI landscape, so you have a higher failure rate. You also still have "giant" winners for VCs but less 3x's - think more 0's and 10x's.  Also lots of value accrues to the frontier labs and S tier companies but they burn so much capital in the competition that we see insane dilution and compressed returns because of higher entry prices & more capital needs

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As a VC or founder, you should be focusing on consumer. GPT, Claude, Lovable, Cursor all have one thing in common. Their growth was led by the individual consumer. AI unlocks massive value for individual consumers, in a sense that it disintermediates expertise and intelligence, and changes content interaction and buying behavior. Still, the focus of YC and most VC’s is still on ‘vertical AI’ which doesn’t require a massive leap of logic from the Vertical SaaS gold rush of the past decade. I get that vertical AI will unlock massive value and may be an easier wedge, but I’m yet to see anyone even remotely interested in the possibilities unlocked for consumers. AI has unlocked new content interaction possibilities, new ways to manage personal knowledge, and new behavioral patterns are already emerging. Consumer has been out of vogue for the past 3-4 years now, and now with consumer purchasing power increasing, right now may be the best time to build / grow a business. 3-5 years from now when consumer is the flavor of the month, it may be too late to dislodge the ones who’ve built on conviction and clarity today. Side note: I understand that the chat interface is still the preferred UI, but does no one else find it just a bit clunky / inconvenient? Some food for thought. 😏

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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 Five Hidden Superpowers Of a Celebrity Co-Founder A pre-revenue brand just landed a $50M valuation and premium Target shelf space in 90 days. Not because of their product. Not because of their team. Because their celebrity co-founder made three phone calls. After analyzing 1,000+ celebrity-founded brands at HotStart VC, I discovered something that changes everything: The average celebrity co-founder delivers 12x more value through their network than through their social media. Yet 90% of founders still pitch celebrities like they're hiring influencers. The smartest brands understand that celebrity co-founders aren't just marketing channels. They're strategic partners who can: - Get you into major retail in months instead of years - Negotiate supplier terms that save millions - Generate media coverage without PR spend - Create investor FOMO that multiplies valuations - Broker partnerships that would take years to orchestrate One phone call from the right celebrity can be worth more than 100 million impressions. Because in a world where anyone can run Facebook ads and everyone has the same Shopify access, competitive advantages come from what money can't buy: Relationships. Trust. Access to parallel business universes that operate by different rules. The celebrity co-founders who understand this aren't just the faces of brands anymore. They're the architects of unfair advantages. In this week's newsletter, I break down the 5 hidden superpowers of celebrity co-founders and show you exactly how to unlock their $100M network value. https://lnkd.in/eSuw3qE8

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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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In this episode of Innovate or Evaporate, I sit down with Mike Clem, CEO of Sweetwater, a nearly $2B music tech powerhouse that still thinks like a startup. 𝗪𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗸:  • What “founder mode” looks like at scale  • Why they don’t obsess over competitors  • How 1,000 small improvements beat one big moonshot  • And why human relationships, not just AI, are their real moat Sweetwater wins by giving away more value. Period. If you care about scaling culture, protecting what makes your company special, and building for the long game, this one’s for you. 📺 https://lnkd.in/g4nv5_Gv

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Interesting insights about AI (you never learn enough) by Blair Garrou of Mercury Fund at the Plug and Play Tech Center Fall Expo 2025 here in Sugarland Texas Key Insights: 1) B2B over a 10 year span was more favorable towards middle market and SMBs. AI However, is now all in on enterprise 2) Revolutionizing/Modernizing older industries is where AI will be seamless (in construction, certain types of engineering and older processes in energy) 3) It's better to invest in AI that equips workers with another skillset than ones that result in layoffs #startups #venturecapital #ai #emergingtech

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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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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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Decentralized production is the heart of the Going Direct economy. Developing these new systems of production so products are made closer to where they are consumed is the first step in reconnecting consumption w/ production. I break down the first of the 3 Going Direct pillars in the clip below.

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Here's a question that changes the trajectory of almost every studio design we see: who are your customers? Most emerging operators walk in thinking about one: the LP. Maybe two, if founders are on the radar. In Foundations, we map all four: LPs, follow-on investors, founding teams, and the operating team itself. That's when the gaps become visible. Who is your studio's value proposition actually built for? Usually it's built for one stakeholder, and the studio hopes the others figure it out on their own. They don't. The practicum in Week 2 asks each founder to write a one-paragraph value proposition for each of the four customers. Separately. No recycling language between them. It's harder than it sounds because most early studios have only thought deeply about one audience. The other three get vague gestures. 📉 Here's the lesson: structure follows clarity. And clarity means knowing exactly what each stakeholder needs to hear. The studios that speak fluently to all four audiences raise faster, attract better founders, and close follow-on capital more efficiently. That exercise alone has changed more studio designs than any financial model we've reviewed. 🎯 We built Foundations to force this kind of clarity early. New cohorts launch roughly each month. I'll drop a link in the comments for those interested. ⚡

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Seed VC isn’t just in a downturn—it’s facing extinction unless it evolves fast. Great read from Rob Go & David Beisel at NextView Ventures... - YC and mega-funds now dominate the early-stage landscape, squeezing out traditional seed investors - Power law thinking has gone mainstream—everyone’s chasing trillion-dollar outliers - AI isn’t helping seed VCs—it’s raising the stakes, crowding the field, and disrupting VC itself - The middle of the market has collapsed, and excess profits are gone - Hope isn’t a strategy—seed needs a new model, now Link here... https://lnkd.in/ek2MZGhm And if you like this topic, I wrote a piece on venture bifurcating into inception funds and mega funds here: https://lnkd.in/eJz5DmX6 #ai #venturecapital #vc

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40%+ of Seed and Series A funding in 2026 is flowing into $100M+ rounds, as Zachary DeWitt recently highlighted. The market is making a big bet on mega rounds. I'm taking the under on their performance--I'd bet heavily on an index of regular-sized seeds vs the megas.   Here's what I think is happening. Ambitious founders surrounded by AI hype see Anthropic's and OpenAI's returns and think they need to do something similar. In their minds, this means raising huge rounds to fund NBA-level salaries for the most legible AI talent at Meta, Google, other AI labs, etc.   The problem is that this approach is fundamentally derivative. This is not how Anthropic, OpenAI, or any of the other most disruptive AI companies started. Disruption requires doing something that experts dismiss. If a startup requires raising mountains of cash to hire legions of expensive experts, it might have some degree of success, but it will not be disruptive.   Look, this is tricky. Anthropic raised giant early rounds and seems very mission-oriented, so I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here. That said, Anthropic's $124m Series A in 2021 was actually very unconventional in many respects, even in the context of a frothy 2021.   Besides being derivative (and thus not disruptive), this approach also selects for mercenary over missionary culture. And all things being equal, companies with missionary culture outperform. Because if you really care about solving a problem, you're willing to make sacrifices and do non-consensus things—not just copy what worked for the last wave.   So, why does this pattern persist despite these concerns?   The most economically dominant point is that the investors doing the big rounds make a lot of money on management fees. When partners at funds enjoy massive compensation from management fees, investment performance becomes a "nice-to-have."   To be fair, many of these partners are post-economic and are arguably more interested in hiring huge teams and building "platforms." The fees justified by mega rounds align nicely with the expense structure of empire-building. On the other hand, the smaller rounds are done by firms where the principals are making much less on management fees and have much more incentive to see a return on the capital via carry.   The mega firms would surely retort that many of the smaller rounds are done by firms that are here today, gone tomorrow. And there's truth to that. Mega firms with billions of assets are inherently more stable. At the same time, those firms are fundamentally targeting much lower returns. It's trade-offs all the way down.   So when I look at that 40%+ number, I see capital flowing into a pattern that selects for derivative thinking and mercenary culture, with an underlying incentive structure that ensures it keeps happening.   And that's why I'm taking the under on the performance of that 40%.

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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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Public software is down 40% in 12 months. The selloff has been indiscriminate. Companies hitting their revenue targets are getting hammered alongside the ones that deserve it. The market isn't distinguishing between well-positioned and poorly-positioned software companies.   That will change. When it does, the companies left standing will be the ones with moats that matter in a world where agents do more of the work.   The Emergence partnership spent yesterday debating a question I think every founder and investor should be asking (and, judging by my LinkedIn feed, it seems they are...):   Which software moats actually survive in an AI era?   Here's the spectrum we landed on (from least to most defensible):   1. Workflow   Pre-Claude, getting humans to do their jobs inside your software was a powerful moat. But if agents are doing the work, who cares about the human workflow? Cursor vs Claude Code is the canary in the coal mine: one owns the workflow, the other just executes—and developers are increasingly choosing execution over process.   2. Integrations   MCPs are rapidly commoditizing the glue between systems. Being the connector used to be a moat. Soon, it'll be a utility.   3. Data repository   Static repositories are table stakes. Owning customer data matters less than understanding what to do with it.   4. System of action   Now we're getting somewhere. If your software touches money, customers, or real-world outcomes (think Gusto or Shopify), ripping it out is genuinely painful.   5. Full context   The most important new moat in AI. Understanding how a full task gets done across systems, knowing what a user needs across many different sources. This is what agents need to be useful, and the companies that own it become indispensable infrastructure. But it's young and unproven. If context becomes portable (the way integrations are being commoditized now), this moat could erode too.   6. Brand   The moat that survives every platform shift. Trust compounds over time and can't be replicated by a new entrant with better tech. When everything else gets commoditized, the vendor you trust still wins.   7. Network effects   The most underappreciated moat in AI, and potentially the most enduring. But not all network effects are equal. Workflow-based ones (more humans in the tool) are vulnerable. Data and trust-based ones (every user makes the product smarter) actually accelerate with agents. LinkedIn, Doximity, and Slack all still have this. Relatively few AI native companies have prioritized it...yet.   --   The bottom line: Seat-based pricing and workflow stickiness were the backbone of the last era. Both are eroding. The next era rewards companies tied to outcomes, context, and trust.   If you're a founder, stress-test your moats against this spectrum. If your primary defense is "our users do their jobs in our software," you have work to do.   Because the world is moving towards selling outcomes, not software.

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So honored to be featured on the Startup CPG podcast this week. Really enjoyed the conversation on what we’re building at OpenSky Ventures, how we think about early stage investing across consumer and AI, and lessons from my operator journey that continue to shape how I invest today. Appreciate the Startup CPG team for having me on. If you’re building in the space, would love to hear what resonated. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/g_w3nAQ9

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