Nir Leibovich

Recently, an e-commerce company based here in Louisiana reached out because they wanted a UI/UX audit of their site to improve sales. We started the audit by recommending the obvious improvements, such as compressing images to enhance load speeds and adding alt texts and meta descriptions. But as we dug deeper, we had a powerful insight. 💡My ah-ha moment: With Google now using Core Web Vitals as ranking signals, these measurements look at loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability, all of which overlap with many accessibility best practices in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). What else I found: • Adding accessibility features can 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗯 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝟭𝟬–𝟭𝟱%. • Data from Mixpanel shows that WCAG-compliant websites had 𝟯𝟳% 𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀. • Analytics company Contentsquare reported 𝟮𝟱% 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 on accessible websites within the same industry. Adding accessibility measurements like using sans serif fonts, high-contrast color palettes, clearly labeled buttons, and accessible navigation not only makes your site easier to use for people with disabilities (and meets ADA digital accessibility requirements), but also increases your web conversion. It all makes sense! Since search engines and screen readers access the same kinds of digital elements, when you make your website more accessible, you’re also making it more search engine-friendly. I’d love to hear from others. What is your experience in making your website more inclusive and effective? https://lnkd.in/ghuhWxGD

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The Headline family is experiencing incredible momentum, and today our portfolio company DeepIP is announcing a $25M Series B, bringing total funding to $40M.  This is the kind of company that doesn’t just add AI to a workflow, but it sets the standard for an entire category. The momentum speaks for itself: 1️⃣ 10x ARR growth in < 18 months 2️⃣ Trusted by 400+ law firms and leading corporate IP teams globally 3️⃣ 2M+ chats on the DeepIP platform We’ve had the chance to back FX (Francois-Xavier) L. and Edouard D., leading their Seed round with Headline. Watching them take on a problem as complex and high-stakes as patent work has been genuinely impressive. And working with them has been an absolute pleasure: these 2 are coupling very high ambition and humility. Tech built in Europe, but opening the US office very early and FX starting a life in NYC with his family with 0 hesitation in order to build a global category leader in the IP industry. What convinced me early is still what stands out today: patent teams don’t need another standalone AI tool. They need something that fits the way the work actually happens: documents, long-running matters, multiple stakeholders, and zero room for sloppy context handoffs. Big congrats to the whole DeepIP team + Korelya Capital, Balderton & Serena Proud that we’re doubling down at Headline and continuing the support for what’s next!

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💥 Metropolis Technologies Raises $𝟭.𝟲𝗕 💥 Funding comes in 2 rounds: $500M equity round led by LionTree and $1.1B from J.P. Morgan. Metropolis is now 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 $𝟱𝗕. With the fresh funding, the plan is to take their "recognition and payment-automation" tech beyond parking assets. This would include retail stores, drive-throughs, gas stations, hotels and partnerships with real estate/asset owner. Congrats to Alex Israel, Peter Fisher, Courtney Fukuda, Travis Kell, Ryan Hunt,Chris Sherman, Robert Bland, Paul Rooney, Lookman Olusanya and the rest of the Metropolis family. #fundraise #parkinginvestment #parking #parkingindustry #metropolois Parking Today Media Parking Network B.V. National Parking Association International Parking & Mobility Institute (IPMI) Tim Maloney Advisory Tim Maloney Reservations Lab

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Aragorn AI just made a move that's hard to ignore, $4.3M in fresh seed funding led by LiveOak Ventures, with Dallas Venture Capital joining the charge. Not bad for a Dallas startup that started as two siblings trying to fix HR's biggest headache: chaos disguised as "data." Ed Adjei and Gladys Adjei looked at the brittle integrations holding HR together with digital bubblegum and said, "nah, this isn't it." What came next was Aragorn AI, the #PeopleOps Operating System built to make HR data make sense. This isn't another #HRtool pretending to be a revolution. Aragorn AI is the connective tissue for the systems that keep employees paid, trained, and thriving. Their #nocode platform ties #payroll, #benefits, #ATS, #LMS, and performance systems into one unified layer, syncing real-time data and deploying agentic AI assistants that actually do something. Think analytics dashboards that build themselves. Think assistants inside Slack or Teams that handle #reporting, #policy lookups, and #audits without a single support ticket. HR finally gets to play offense, not cleanup. Ed Adjei, who once scaled YourCause from Blackbaud from 25 to 500+ enterprise clients before Blackbaud scooped it up, knows how to grow with precision. Gladys Adjei, ex-Raytheon engineer, knows how to build secure systems that don't blink under pressure. Add Eric Adjei as CTO, and you've got a founding trio who mix speed, security, and scale like seasoned producers building a platinum record. With #SOC2TypeII compliance, full #encryption, and AWS-backed infrastructure running Kubernetes, this is enterprise-grade from top to bottom. Aragorn AI's early traction says a lot, enterprises with 500 to 10,000+ employees, clients like Plaid, The Friedkin Group, and Oak View Group, and integrations rolling out in days, not months. They're tackling a $34B HR integrations market and doing it with quiet confidence. No hype, just results. The $4.3M round brings their total raise to $5.5M and sets the stage for expansion into EMEA and APAC. Funds will accelerate #AIdevelopment, #gotomarket, and #customersuccess, plus a hiring spree of 25 across #engineering, #sales, and support by mid-2026. The roadmap's built around smarter, proactive AI that doesn't just analyze workforce data but anticipates it. This is what happens when technical depth meets lived pain. Aragorn AI isn't chasing trends; it's engineering the next baseline. HR Tech has been waiting for its operating system, Ed, Gladys, and Eric Adjei just built it. LiveOak Ventures and Dallas Venture Capital saw the signal through the noise. The rest of the industry's about to hear it loud and clear. #Startups #StartupFunding #EarlyStage #VentureCapital #SeedRound #AI #AgenticAI #HR #HRTech #Data #DataDriven #Compliance #Infrastructure #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosystem #StartupEcosystem #Hiring #TechHiring If software engineering peace of mind is what you crave, Vention is your zen.

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Growth doesn’t always mean progress. Sometimes, it just masks the flaws a little longer. In tech I've seen it in every category of business. I’ve seen it as a builder, a fractional exec, and many times as the mentor guiding start-ups in the Houston ecosystem. Startups hit a spike. Users show up. Investors get hyped. And suddenly, everyone talks about “scale.” But here’s what often goes unsaid: Scaling a product that’s not built on solid ground? That’s just speeding towards entropy. Because: → A feature roadmap isn’t a product strategy → Revenue bumps don’t prove product-market fit → More headcount won’t fix fundamental misalignment What I’ve learned (and had to unlearn): Some startups don’t fail because they move slow. They fail because they move fast in the wrong direction. That’s where fractional CTOs and CPOs become game changers. Not by building faster, but by asking the tough questions early: ✅ What are we really scaling...value or volume? ✅ Do we have clarity, or just velocity? ✅ Are we solving a core problem or just chasing attention? If any of those questions make you uncomfortable, good. That’s usually where the real work begins. Don’t let your growth be a smokescreen. Ask the hard questions. 👋 If you’re new to my page, I’m Ram. I work with founders and growing tech companies to help them build, scale, and operate smarter by placing high-impact fractional CTOs and CPOs exactly where they’re needed most. Recently, I had the chance to speak on Masala Radio about leadership, growth, and what it really takes to build a tech product. Here’s a short clip from that conversation.

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Putting unchecked AI in front of customers is the fastest way to damage your brand. That's why we built Guardrails as a core part of EvoAI.   We're using production-grade controls that make AI predictable and auditable. Because even one hallucination can kill trust.   A customer asks about your return policy. Your AI says "30-day returns on all items" when you actually exclude final sale items. That customer now expects a refund you can't give. Now you've lost trust and created a support nightmare.   Here's how EvoAI Guardrails are fixing that:   → Grounded answers only: Responses come strictly from your catalog, KB, and policies. No guessing. → Policy enforcement: Clear rules for claims, refunds, legal language, competitor mentions. The AI knows what it can and can't say. → Confidence gating: When it's not certain, EvoAI doesn't improvise. It routes to support or creates a ticket automatically. → Testing + monitoring: Red-team test suites, eval benchmarks, live monitoring. We catch failure modes before they hit customers.   A customer asks, "Will this charger fast-charge an iPhone 15 Pro safely?" EvoAI checks USB-C PD wattage and certification from specs. If it's not explicitly confirmed, it says so and routes to support. No risky claims.   If you're evaluating AI for support or sales, DM me. Happy to connect you with EvoAI GM Rehan Asif.

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Skipping your studio fundamentals? Prepare to struggle. We developed the 9point8 Collective Foundations program with a simple premise based on years of studio operations. 🏗️ Before a studio scales, raises, or launches publicly, its core assumptions need to be explicit and testable. Why it matters: 🚄 Venture studios accumulate decisions quickly. 🔹 Governance, economics, staffing, venture pacing. Each choice narrows future options. 🛑 When those choices are implicit or borrowed from other models, you lose adaptability without realizing it. Corrections later are possible, but they’re slower, costlier, and more disruptive. Go deeper: Foundations is designed to slow teams down at the right moment. The program focuses on structural clarity: 👉 what kind of studio this is 👉 how it actually creates value, 👉 what success looks like across ventures 👉 how decisions get made when tradeoffs appear. What’s been encouraging is the mix of participants. Early-stage teams who want to do this right from the start, but also more established studios who recognize the drag that unclear foundations have already introduced. Monthly cohorts are filling up and the signal is clear: This work is uncomfortable, but critical. If you’ve built, or are building, a studio, when did you realize foundations mattered more than speed? And comment or DM for the link to our sign-up page

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“VC is dead.” “Founders walk away with $0.” “Term sheets are traps.” There’s been a lot of chatter lately about how venture deals can leave founders empty-handed—even after a successful exit. So I decided to put our own fundraising docs to the test. I uploaded two SAFEs—one from AngelList, the other from Carta—into ChatGPT, alongside some “VC red flags” terms from a recent viral post by Gerald Duran (linked in comments) The result? Surprisingly encouraging. Let’s take the Carta SAFE as an example (Post-Money Valuation Cap + Discount SAFE): Here are the red flags I checked for—and how it held up: 🚩 2x Liquidation Preference? Nope. The Carta SAFE is non-participating preferred with a 1x liquidation preference—which is standard and founder-friendly. Here’s what that means: If there’s an exit (like an acquisition) before the SAFE converts in a priced round, the investor is entitled to receive the greater of: 1. Their original investment back, or 2. The amount they’d receive if their SAFE converted into common shares (based on either the valuation cap or discount) This is very different from a 2x liquidation preference, where investors get double their money back before anyone else gets a dime. And it’s also not participating preferred, which is the dreaded “double dip” scenario where investors first get their money back and then ALSO share in the remaining proceeds alongside founders and employees. 🚩 Overbearing Dilution? It’s a post-money SAFE, so dilution from future SAFEs is on the founder (me!). But it’s clear, expected, and standard. 🚩 Exit Below SAFE Valuation Cap = Founder Gets Nothing? Not by default—but it’s something to model carefully. In a standard Post-Money SAFE, if there’s an exit before a priced round, the SAFE holder gets the greater of their money back, or conversion into equity using the better of the discount or cap. If the exit price is lower than the post-money valuation cap, the investor still converts at a favorable price—so they get a larger slice of the pie. It’s not sneaky—it’s just how the math works. 🚩 Board Control or Voting Rights? None. No seats, no voting power. No sneaky governance grabs. 🚩 MFN or Side Letters? None included. Verdict: Clean. Clear. Founder-friendly. Then I fed in a custom note + warrant we signed as part of an accelerator: Let’s just say: very different vibes. Custom instruments = custom risk. Multiple founder-unfriendly terms that I wish we’d negotiated prior to signing (even though I did run them by a lawyer) As an early-stage founder, here’re a few tips: ✅ Stick to industry-standard docs like the YC SAFE 🧠 Use AI tools to break down legalese into plain English ⚠️ Be extra cautious with custom side letters, warrants, or notes 📑 Always get legal eyes on anything non-standard—even if it’s a one-hour consult The term sheet is not the win. The terms inside it are what matter.

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Zynga sold for $12.7 billion. Its founder says startups fail due to this: They try to innovate too early (unless its deep tech). Mark Pincus calls it the “All new fails” rule: 1/ Don’t start with “new”: Start with what’s already proven to work. Copy it legally, study it deeply. 2/ Proven means 10 out of 10 users say: “Yeah, that works.” If they don’t, it’s not proven. 3/ Founders fail because they skip the proven phase: They chase novelty before they’ve earned the right to innovate. 4/ The Zynga story began with poker: Same table, same felt, same gameplay, nothing original. 5/ Then they made it better: No downloads. Just click and play. Friction cut in half. 6/ “Better” means 10 out of 10 users agree: Not your team, not your investors, real users. 7/ Only after proven and better do you earn “new”: That spark that surprises and delights users emotionally. 8/ Zynga’s “new” was showing your friends’ faces: It made games social, not solitary. 9/ Forget MVP, build a minimum viable idea: A concept that hits emotional resonance before metrics. 10/ Seek true signal: You’ll feel it viscerally before you can measure it. 11/ Silicon Valley worships originality: But originality without resonance is noise. 12/ Better founders are great students first: They copy what works before they try to change it. 13/ Most products die from founder ego: They’re “new” before they’re useful. 14/ Users don’t care about novelty: They care about ease, trust, and delight. 15/ “Proven → Better → New just works. And it built a $12.7B company. 📩 Get ai + vc intel in your inbox via my newsletter Startup Riders, link under my name ☝️ 📌 Source: Mark Pincus on Why Most Startups Fail a16z #ai #llms #agent #startups #founder #vc

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🚀 Every.io partners with Capital Factory The Texas startup ecosystem is thriving, and I'm excited to announce Every.io's partnership with Capital Factory to support their growing community of entrepreneurs. Through this collaboration: - Every's back office platform integrates with multiple CF's incubation programs. - We'll be bringing workshops, office hours, and constant founder back-office support. - Our team will support the CF community at upcoming events. - We will reduce the barrier of entry and provide special offers on formation, banking, payroll, accounting, taxes, and much more. These founders need the back-office infrastructure that scales with them. Want to learn more about what we offer? Chat with us here: https://lnkd.in/ggjPP43x Looking forward to supporting thousands of companies annually across Capital Factory's communities. #CapitalFactory #TexasStartups #Austin #BuildWithEvery

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VCs don't need more deal flow. They need better access to the best deals, the best rounds, and the best founders. If all you offer is money and you don't have a network or distribution, Your odds of getting into the best rounds are lower. Every venture fund will need to build a distribution moat, or the best founders will work with those who have distribution. It's the same reason why most founders want to get into YCombinator. The culture they've built is insane. 

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