SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes, Theses, & Outlooks

• The Dawn of the Agentic Commerce Era – Putting Gen AI to Work for Shoppers (Scott Friend, Partner @ BCV)

• 2024 Energy Thesis (Silence VC Team)

• Building the next generation of hardware: Why AI-powered engineering tools matter (Omar Fidawi & Juliette Chevallier, Scale)

• AI Agents Are Stuck in First Gear, but 2025 Will Change That (Jon Turow, Partner @ Madrona)

• From alert hell to AI autopilot (Tobi Coker & Astasia Myers, Felicis)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• The State of Generative AI in the Enterprise (Menlo Venture Team)

• State of Search & AI’s Prosumer Proliferation (Meera Clark, Principal @ Redpoint)

• The Foundational Stage of the Energy Data Ecosystem (Grace Penders & Rick Zullo, Equal Ventures)

• Redefining the Future of the Creator Economy (Jeff Morris Jr, GP @ Chapter One)

• The Siren Song of Services (Euclid Ventures Team)

• Opinionated AI Products (Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird)

• Consumer and Enterprise in the AI era (Nikhil Basu Trivedi, GP @ Footwork)

• Cross-border payments in ~1,000 words (Matt Brown, Partner @ Matrix)

• Collaborative Intelligence (Matt Mandel, VC @ USV)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

• Your guide to the 2024 SaaS benchmarks (Kyle Poyar, Partner @ Tremont)

• Know Your (Operational) TAM (Tidemark Team)

• Advice for the complex sales cycle (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street VC)

• AI and The Role of The SDR (Ellen Terlizzi, Director @ Bowery Capital)

Additional Reads

• The Emerging ‘AI Native’ Playbook (Jacob Shiff, Co-Founder @ Anomaly)

• The New World for Entrepreneurs & Investors (Rick Zullo, MP @ Equal Ventures)

• Our Scoring System at NextView (aka How We Evaluate Companies) (Rob Go, GP @ NextView)

• The Levers of Innovation (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)

• Heroic Assumptions vs. Heroic Outcomes (Dan Kimerling, MP @ Deciens)

• Play It Cool: Chasing Heat vs. Being Contrarian in Venture Capital (Rex Woodbury, MP @ Daybreak)

• ServiceTitan S-1 Breakdown (Meritech Team)

Resources & more

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