Mark Fernandes

�� Announcing our investment in Veridox 🤖 We're very fortunate to have met Dan, who reached out completely cold to a few of us at Outward VC on LinkedIn. It was obvious from the first meeting that he’s a pretty unique individual. He's a Founder with a relentless appetite for building (regardless of the sector or challenge - hospitality, recruitment, car rental, you name it and he's been there!) and an instinctive ability to figure things out. It’s not rocket science to recognise that fraud is one of the biggest second-order consequences of the rise of generative AI. While the attack surface has grown exponentially, most fraud detection still relies on basic rules engines and manual review. Veridox is building something different.   A forensic-grade engine that doesn’t just flag suspicious documents, but shows why they’re problematic.    ✅ Actionable 💡 Explainable ⚙️ Built from first principles for the insurance and investigations world. More on the thesis, timing, and Dan’s journey in our “Why We Invested” post below 👇 #fraud #AI #insurance #funding

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🦄 $150M to improve tutoring and education globally. Preply just announced a new round, putting the company on a clear trajectory to become an iconic global marketplace. In a world obsessed with fast wins and volatile growth, some companies quietly beat their goals year after year — for more than 6 years in this case (as long as we’ve at Acurio Ventures been partners). A few learnings from this journey, relevant for founders and investors: Pick a growing market with an unsolved problem. 2 out of 8 billion people globally are learning a second language. Despite many options, outcomes are still poor. Our original thesis was simple: if you build the reference platform, everyone who wants to learn will eventually come to you. Category leadership matters. When we backed Kirill Bigai and Dmytro Voloshyn back in 2019 (together with Rob Kniaz), there were dozens of similar startups. Small details showed Preply had already built a superior tutor base and a scalable growth engine. Build a product customers love. Speaking a language and teaching it are very different things. Preply transformed the learning experience by combining a motivated base of +100,000 tutors with tools that actually drive outcomes. Never stop experimenting. Few companies maintain a strong experimentation culture as they scale. Preply’s DNA reminded me of Booking.com — enabling them to execute 10x better than most marketplaces. Great companies turn every change into an opportunity. From riding the post-COVID shift to online learning, to betting early and heavily on AI as Dmytro Voloshyn has excelled at. What once sounded like sci-fi is now reality. Great companies become talent magnets A company maturity can't be addressed only by looking at the revenue, profit or product. I like to see how much better they become at attracting talent and retaining it. Proud that Acurio Ventures made this possible and the WestCap team saw things as bullish as we do and are now supporting the next phase of Preply’s journey. Huge congratulations to the entire Preply team!!

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Slingshot Insights acquires Noble Insights Exciting to see consolidation in the expert network space. This will likely lead to more innovation, more proprietary content via transcripts and surveys and the opportunity to see a bigger expert network emerge.

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As AI workloads eat up global computing supply, DRAM prices are surging like never before—creating major challenges for teams trying to plan out their data center spend. One of my portfolio companies, Mext, is addressing the largest cost component in the datacenter: server memory (DRAM). From being on the board of Redis for the last twelve years, I’ve learned a lot about the various aspects of this problem and approaches to solving them. Mext found a breakthrough, using new AI techniques, for dramatically reducing the amount of server-DRAM required to run applications, all while maintaining performance. It intelligently manages the server’s memory, keeping hot pages (i.e., those in use by applications) in fast DRAM and offloading cold pages (i.e., those less used) to a much less expensive memory tier (e.g., NVMe Flash). Key to the approach is ensuring cold memory pages that are about to be accessed by an application are back in DRAM before the application needs them or notices that they were gone. This is done without modifications to the application or the OS – so it can run in the cloud or on-premise. Mext thus allows applications to either run using less DRAM or keep their DRAM footprint but do more with it. They're hosting a webinar along with Fred Weber (former CTO of AMD) on Jan 22nd at 10am pacific time. You can register here: https://lnkd.in/gXe9GCeE

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AI in R&D is finally showing up in the numbers. Not through lower headcount. Through higher output from the same teams. As engineering adopts AI for coding, testing, and QA, delivery velocity increases. The result: Sales has more ammunition to win deals. One simple way CEOs and CFOs can measure this: R&D Efficiency = GM × (Revenue this year − Revenue last year) / R&D expense last year Assuming ~12 months for R&D output to translate into revenue (adjust to your cycle). The chart below shows how this metric improves as AI adoption increases across a cohort of 100 companies. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eMiRyTBW #AIinEngineering #RDProductivity #SaaSMetrics #CFOInsights #CEOPerspective #ARRGrowth

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San Diego-based Manifold (AI Detection and Response platform) has raised $8 million in seed funding; lead backer Costanoa Ventures, along with several institutional investors including Cherry Ventures, Rain Capital, Modern Technical Fund, and angel investors.

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Excited to be heading to the CNCF Observability Summit North America in Minneapolis this week. https://lnkd.in/e37YNMES Observability is one of the most interesting spaces in infrastructure right now, OpenTelemetry just graduated, AI-driven root cause analysis is moving from demo to production (so many cool things going on in SRE-world!), observability pipelines have finally become mainstream, and starting to see real "observability data lake" customer implementations. There so much happening. If you're a founder exploring an idea in the observability space or you're running a pre-seed or seed-stage company here, I'd love to connect while we're both in town. Drop a comment, message me here, or lets find each other at the venue in MSP. #ObservabilitySummit #CNCF #OpenTelemetry

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At RAIVEN CAPITAL we’re seeing enterprise value shift toward companies building infrastructure for autonomous decision-making. Dr. James Baty, our very own Executive in residence and Advisory Board Member, as well as my co-founder, Supreet Singh Manchanda made a deep dive to offer our their perspective on the implications of moves being made to position for the medium term. #agenticAI #AI Please read our blog: (click though the post) Supreet Singh Manchanda James Baty Trey Reasonover Joa Dugsin

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Container security has reached a critical inflection point. Engineering teams face an impossible choice between adopting minimalist proprietary systems that sacrifice compatibility or accepting endless vulnerability backlogs. Which is why I'm excited to share that N47 is leading Echo's Series A! Echo delivers true zero-CVE images for enterprises without any operational disruption. What makes this architecturally significant is their AI-native automation, operating at the speed and scale required to counter attackers who are already weaponizing AI to exploit vulnerabilities faster than human defenders can respond. I have been incredibly impressed by co-founders Eilon Elhadad and Eylam Milner, and am excited about what’s to come. We're confident they're building something generational. Welcome to the zero-CVE future! Learn more about our partnership here: https://lnkd.in/eBsmWFxz

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GPUs have gotten faster, and models have gotten larger. But storage is still stuck in the past. Modern AI workloads need instant access to huge datasets. Instead, teams waste time on slow retrieval, idle GPUs, and costly pipelines. Archil is changing this. It delivers object-storage scalability at block-storage speeds. The platform allows for seamless, high-performance access to massive datasets. By eliminating cold starts and accelerating throughput 30X, Archil enables teams to fully utilize their infrastructure and move faster on training, analytics, and AI deployment. Archil’s founder Hunter Leath brings rare technical depth and operating experience from building Amazon EFS and optimizing Netflix’s cloud performance. This is a team building the foundational layer that AI workloads desperately need. I’m thrilled to lead Archil’s seed at Felicis with Nancy Wang and support their mission to reinvent cloud storage for the AI era. https://lnkd.in/gWueXhzz

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We are thrilled to be part of the Syntracts journey with Douglas Bemis, Christopher Martin! Syntracts is solving the crucial industry paradox of how enterprises can harness the "magic of AI" without compromising data security. We are deeply impressed by their fundamentally different and innovative approach: building secure on-prem legal AI infrastructure at scale. Syntracts utilizes thousands of experts—small language models fine-tuned with synthetic data—to provide reliable, accurate, structured data for complex legal documents. This is the purpose-built, privacy-first data layer the legal industry desperately needs. We are excited to support Syntracts as they scale trust and performance in enterprise AI. Top Harvest Capital is pleased to join Hyperplane, Myriad Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Fortitude Ventures, and Point72 Ventures and other respected firms in backing Syntracts. Adam Ghobarah M Waleed Kadous Top Harvest Capital

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AI is changing what “scale” actually means. In CTech by Calcalist’s 2026 VC Survey, Haim Bachar and Lee Ben-Gal share how we’re seeing the scaling metric shift - from headcount growth to output per person. This isn’t about doing more with less. It’s about building companies differently from day one - and rethinking how success is measured. See the full article below 👇

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In 2024, 966 US-based startups shut down, a 25.6% increase from the year before, according to Carta. AngelList recorded 364 winddowns in the same period, up 56.2% year over year. And the mix is shifting. According to SimpleClosure's 2025 State of Startup Shutdowns, deep tech sectors — biotech, climate, energy — are now showing up disproportionately in failure data. This isn't a coincidence. Deep tech companies have to build both a product AND a market. Educating your target customer base on why they need what you have created is expensive and challenging. It requires unique skill sets, deep pockets, and a steady combination of urgency with patience. The workforce that can bridge science and commercial reality — who understand both the technology and how value moves through ecosystems — is one of the most critical and scarcest resources in deep tech today. That's exactly what we'll be talking about at Seattle #DeepTechWeek on June 10th. Join Máire S., Kathryn Kearney, Neha S., and me for #QForce — a conversation about building the deep tech and quantum workforce culture to fuel discovery. And if you want to go deeper on the commercialization challenge — I write about it regularly in Ecosystem Entanglement™ on Substack.

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Yesterday, two DCVC-backed companies raised about a half billion dollars. In today's funding environment, that's not that exceptional... Together, the two companies just happen to enable gigawatt-scale AI compute, except in the unprecedentedly small space of only about 40 shipping containers, no exotic cooling required. You have to wonder what the US military might do with a gigawatt-equivalent of compute they could fit in a few C5 flights... or a 100MW-compute platform that fits in a single rocket launch... Even that, in DCVC's world, isn't that exceptional. We like to say we help make the impossible and essential, profitable and available. But what is exceptional, and this is a theme with us folks, is that they are each only two of many of our companies delivering robustly on outcomes considered impossible on VC dollars or in reasonable time, at the point when we backed each company from very early on: - a safe, cost-effective, meltdown-proof, truck-portable 1 megawatt nuclear reactor (Radiant, see https://lnkd.in/gF3JAHwS) for American energy dominance - American-made AI semiconductor chips that match or outperform everything else at 100x the energy efficiency, on off-the-shelf models (Mythic, see https://lnkd.in/gWFdvZFT) We were able to make the calls on these, and how they could work together, along with similar calls on all of their brother and sister impossible companies, because of a very deep bench of unified scientific, engineering, operational, and business building experience considered passé by a lot of other folks. It's how we make the exceptional routine.

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17 ELITE DC-BASED VCS 1) Red Cell Partners: venture studio that builds, launches, and scales tech companies in healthcare, cyber, and national security. Portcos: Zephyr AI, DEFCON AI, Valinor, Epirus. cc Grant Verstandig. 2) NQB8: incubation firm founded by Auren Hoffman 📚 from Flex Capital. Portcos of Flex: Chime, Gusto, Carta, Replit. 3) Construct Capital: early-stage venture investing in foundational industries. Portcos: Hadrian, Amca, Veho. cc Rachel Holt, Dayna Grayson. 4) AE Industrial Partners, LP: multi-stage private investments in aerospace. Portcos: Firefly Aerospace, Bigbear.ai. cc Beckett Jackson. 5) Columbia Capital: multi-stage private investments in digital infrastructure, enterprise technology, and mobility. Portcos: CloudSherpas, Cologix, Mesh-AI. cc 6) Lavrock Ventures: early-stage venture investing in enterprise software, cyber, and national security. Portcos: Castelion, ID.me. cc Alex Poulin. 7) Shorewind Capital: multi-stage private investments in frontier technology. Portcos: Fleetzero, Poolside, Synthesia. cc Jake Poliskin. 8) Washington Harbour Partners LP: private investments in enterprise tech and national security companies. Portcos: Northwood, Raft, Anduril Industries, APEX, UiPath, OpenAI. cc Patrick Foley. 9) Shield Capital: early-stage venture investing in AI, autonomy, cyber, and space. Portcos: HawkEye 360, Vannevar, Armada, Obviant. cc David Rothzeid. 10) Point72 Ventures: multi-stage venture investing in AI, enterprise software, and defense. Portcos: Apex, Adonis, Cape, Overland AI. cc Chris Morales. 11) Leonid Capital Partners: private credit for government contracts. Portcos: Zeno Power, N5 Sensors, Zero-G. cc Samuel MacGregor. 12) New Vista Capital: early-stage venture investing in frontier technologies. Portco: Chariot Defense, Castelion, Regent. cc Kirsten Bartok Touw. 13) Sands Capital: mid and growth-stage investing in AI, cyber, healthcare, defense. Portcos: Anduril, DataRobot, Ramp, Rippling. cc Chris Eng. 14) NextEra Energy, Inc. Ventures: venture and growth in cyber, energy, and data companies. cc Mitch Gainer. 15) Overture Ventures: early-stage venture investing in AI, energy, and industrial technologies for the national interest. Portcos: Blue Energy, Crux, Alta. cc Michael O'Neil. 16) The New Industrial Corporation: private investing and project development at the intersection of venture and infrastructure capital. cc Austin Bishop. 17) StepStone Group: early, growth, and secondary investing in tech and tech-enabled companies. Portcos: Chewy, Anduril, SpaceX, Cloudflare. cc Stephen West. There are a lot more investors locally than this - and I have more lists to share (stay tuned) - but please comment who I missed !

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The old SaaS pricing playbook doesn’t work for AI. Madhavan Ramanujam and I partnered with Emergence Capital and Jake Saper to write a new one—built for where AI is going, not just where it is today. We lay out what state-of-the-art AI pricing looks like now—and what it will look like: ✅ Hybrid pricing (seats + usage) is the current best practice 🎯 Outcome-based models are the future—pricing tied directly to impact 💰 The best AI companies already capture 25–50% of the value they create As autonomy and attribution improve, outcome pricing will go from rare to expected. Founders who move early will win. Full read here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gwp6tDtp

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I’m lucky to work alongside colleagues like Richard Fruehauf, who constantly push my thinking. His latest piece unpacks why U.S. robotics and drone manufacturing faces uphill economics, and how public policy can help turn the tide. One key takeaway: 232 tariffs on robotics imports could help reset the economics that are holding back U.S. investment and production. It’s a sharp perspective on how policy can shape the future of advanced tech here at home. Well worth a read: https://lnkd.in/edMPTQPQ Richard Fruehauf, Robert J. Szczerba, Michael Lutzky, Edward Ovando, Karl Sanchack, Herman Herman, Jeff Legault, Phil English, Richard Fruehauf, Ryan Aument, Michael Guido, Sheila Fitzgerald Sterrett, David McCormick

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When I first met Kevin Surace, I immediately understood why his reputation precedes him across Silicon Valley. He’s been building at the frontier of technology for decades and is deeply respected by people across the industry. Kevin was working in AI long before the world caught up to it—pioneering early voice AI technology, building multiple companies, and consistently seeing around corners before the market arrives. He also ‘grew up’ in Silicon Valley with my former co-CEOs, Ben and Marc, from Andreessen Horowitz which made the world feel very small very quickly in the best possible way. 🌎🚀 I was introduced to Kevin by David P Bovenzi at Grand Oaks Capital when I was asked to help bring Token— a company that has spent more than a decade building cryptographic biometric identity assurance technology— into the market in a whole new way… In one conversation I knew I wanted to work with him— and Token, where Kevin is Chairman and CEO. AI has fundamentally changed the identity landscape. Attackers no longer need to “hack in.” They log in—using AI-generated phishing, deepfakes, and automated attacks at global scale and unprecedented speed. AI attacks will continue to be faster and cheaper than anything enterprises and governments have had to defend against before. In Gov and highly regulated industries, identity failure means more than compromised accounts… It’s ransomware attacks on hospitals, critical infrastructure disruption, supply chain shutdowns, financial system compromise, and nation-state intrusion. Identity assurance has become a defining infrastructure challenge of the AI era (Gartner is tracking this emerging category closely). Since joining Token’s mission earlier this year, we’ve relaunched the brand, launched the TokenCore product line, rebuilt the GTM engine, assembled a world-class team, and are bringing a twelve-year innovation into the hands of enterprises, the U.S. government, and allied global organizations who need it most. And I’ve had the privilege of working alongside Kevin every day. In just a few short months I’ve learned an incredible amount from him as a leader, inventor, and operator. As investors we talk about how the biggest breakout companies happen when the technology, the market timing, and the right team all come together at once. That’s what this mission feels like. 🚀 A great read on Kevin’s journey through the early days of AI, finding joy in the process, and lessons on leadership from decades in the trenches: https://lnkd.in/e-iy5iWY Dianne Liu Albert Yanez Khamvong Thammasouk Dan Van Ostrand Paul Wazowicz Christopher DeBaggis Johnny Lam Marcus Yanez Jack Jackson Michael Okland Kortney C. Steve Hunt Ann-Marie Klein FCMA, MBA Ever Wonder The Juno Group Elevate Talent Ventures Torrell F. Elevated Value Partners Monique Shivanandan Robert C.

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