We're at the halfway point of 2025, and AI is evolving faster than ever.

In this solo episode, I share Untapped Ventures’ first Request for Startups. It’s a detailed breakdown of the core areas where we’re actively looking to invest. If you're a founder building in AI or exploring ideas, this is the roadmap for what we want to fund next.

I walk through the key themes that reflect our thesis across both Agentic AI and Convergence AI. These are the ideas we believe will drive the next generation of breakout companies.

Inside the episode:

• Why service-as-software will replace traditional SaaS

• How full-stack agentic platforms are reshaping vertical industries

• The rise of outcome-based pricing and what it unlocks

• Where lean AI teams are gaining massive traction

• Why we’re excited about AI converging with biotech, neurotech, energy, defense, and more

• The profiles of founders we love to back

At Untapped, we invest from stealth and pre-salt through seed, writing checks between $500K and $2 million. Whether you're actively raising or still in the idea maze, we want to meet you.

Let’s connect!

George Bandarian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebandarian

Explore further:

1. If in Stealth, let’s chat: https://bit.ly/UntappedE18podS

2. If raising, pitch us: https://bit.ly/UntappedE18pod

Is your AI startup built to survive the next wave?

In this episode of Agentic, Will Manidis, the co-founder of ScienceIO, shares how he built for resilience from day one developing LLMs for healthcare and the frameworks that helped him scale before the world caught up.

He shares how local model training on office gaming PCs laid the unlikely foundation for ScienceIO’s reach across millions in digital health.

We also discuss:

• why OpenAI’s API continues to dominate Gemini

• the hidden fragility behind $500M fast scaling AI companies

• Will’s belief that founders must prove value before overbuilding for scale

Not often do you get to learn from someone who built an LLM before ChatGPT. Tune in now.

If you’re in the early innings of building something in AI, especially if you’re figuring things out from first principles—click here, we'd love to hear from you.

Connect with us here:

1. Will Manidis- https://www.linkedin.com/in/willmanidis/ 

2. George Bandarian- https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebandarian/ 

3. Untapped Ventures- https://www.linkedin.com/company/untappedventures/

00:00 Trailer

01:41 Introduction

02:45 Thiel Fellow

07:40 Pre-ChatGPT LLMs

10:27 Biggest lessons

12:37 Contrarian takes

13:56 Difficult to sell

15:59 First exit

16:38 Getting world-class talents

23:20 Risk mitigation strategy

25:48 Defensibility and moats

37:10 Basic MVP

44:01 Q&A

50:35 Outro

Most no-code tools give you an MVP. Woz wants to give you a business.

On this episode of Agentic, I was joined by Ben Collins and Brad Eckert, co-founders of Woz, an AI platform that lets anyone build real, scalable web and mobile products with zero coding. Think Shopify, but for launching operational SaaS startups.

If you’re in the early innings of building something in AI, especially if you’re figuring things out from first principles—let’s chat.

Connect with us here:

1. Woz: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/withwoz/

2. Ben Collins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bentcollins/

3. Brad Eckert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chefeckert/

4. George Bandarian: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebandarian

5. ⁠⁠Untapped Ventures:⁠ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/untappedventures

They break down:

• Why shipping your MVP is just 1% of the journey—and what the other 99% really looks like

• The difference between vibe coding, AI engineering, and real startup durability

• What they learned from going through Y Combinator (twice), taking 80+ investor meetings, and raising a breakout seed round.

• Why automation means more software businesses and not fewer jobs

00:00 Trailer

01:07 Introduction

02:29 Empowering entrepreneurs

04:27 Woz's Vision

10:32 Success stories

13:38 The origin story

15:27 AI code generation evolution

17:29 Technical insights

19:44 The Role of AI

30:31 Job markets

31:20 Entrepreneurial mindset shift

32:56 Business building challenges

34:54 Creating a successful platform

37:45 Y Combinator experience

43:41 Fundraising insights

49:29 Advice for AI Entrepreneurs

56:31 Closing

What happens when the former Chief Scientist at Salesforce builds a search engine for enterprises?

In this episode, Richard Socher (CEO) and Bryan McCann (CTO) of You.com reveal how they’re reinventing enterprise search and agentic workflows with their latest product, Ari—a deep research assistant that goes far beyond fast facts.

We explore:

• How You.com is going deeper than Google and faster than Perplexity
• Why consumer LLMs aren’t enough for serious enterprise work
• How a Stanford summer project led to one of the most important AI research breakthroughs
• Where Socher and McCann see AGI actually emerging—and why simulation may be the next frontier

00:00 Trailer

01:56 Introduction

03:41 Richard and Bryan's Meeting

09:52 Foundations of search

12:33 Deep research agent

13:49 How You.com stands out

16:03 Custom agents

18:15 ARI use cases

19:43 Going slow to go fast

24:00 Models under the hood

26:00 AGI workflows

29:11 Adoption

33:34 Complicated workflows

36:45 AGI - are we there?

46:20 How to compete as a startup

53:32 Being right

56:23 Outro

Everyone has opinions about founder equity, funding timelines, and valuations—but Peter Walker holds the data. 

In this special live Agentic session, I sat down with Peter, Head of Insights at Carta, to unpack what’s actually happening beneath the surface in early-stage AI startups. 

Peter’s team has a privileged vantage point—cap tables, valuations, and hiring data across 45,000 startups and 83% of U.S. unicorns. 

We explore:

• a common equity mistake that’s quietly killing fundraising chances
• why AI founders are raising bigger rounds… and keeping more of their companies
• how lean teams are pushing out serious ARR—and what that means for hiring
• the valuation delta between AI and non-AI startups—and why that window may be closing

If you’re raising, hiring, or advising an AI startup in this market, this one’s for you.

If you’re in the early innings of building something in AI, especially if you’re figuring things out from first principles—let’s chat.

Connect with us here:

1. Peter Walker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjameswalker/
2. George Bandarian: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebandarian/⁠
3. Untapped Ventures:⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/company/untappedventures

00:00 Trailer

01:26 Introduction

02:44 Untapped Ventures

08:39 Carta

10:34 Early Equity

25:05 Venture Context

34:47 AI Story

51:04 Questions

54:48 Outro

I brought Ben Collins of Woz and Dakotah Rice and Tushar Nair of Harper for a special episode of Agentic–our AGM!

Ben’s Woz lets non-technical founders build scalable apps with no engineering team—think Shopify for software while Dakotah and Tushar’s Harper quotes 476 complex insurance deals with voice AI, turning family brokerage chaos into a data goldmine. 

On the docket:

• ​Harper’s logged-call advantage for scalable precision
• ​compute’s brewing storm (NVIDIA’s got rivals rising)
• ​how reasoning models cut months off build times

Connect with us:

1. ​ Ben Collins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bentcollins
2. ​ Dakotah Rice: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dakotahrice/
3. ​ Tushar Nair: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tushar-nair-b08988222/
4. ​ Woz: https://www.linkedin.com/company/withwoz/
5. ​ Harper: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harperinsure/
6. ​ George Bandarian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebandarian/
7. ​ Untapped Ventures: https://www.linkedin.com/company/untappedventures

00:00 Trailer

02:06 Introduction

02:20 Ben Collins

04:02 Dakotah Rice

04:37 Tushar Nair

05:21 Agentic AI hot takes

11:59 Deep dive on Woz

17:05 Deep dive on Harper

24:15 Y Combinator and the founders community

28:21 Non-technical business side of software

30:30 Agentic demand, Elon's Grok/xAI

32:27 Outro

As AI races forward, one question looms large—who decides what’s right and wrong?

Behind the breakthroughs and multi billion-dollar valuations, a power struggle is unfolding. Big Tech is quietly shaping AI policy in the shadows, and governments are stuck playing catch-up.

In this episode, I speak with Wendell Wallach, a foremost expert on AI ethics and governance, to break down the challenges and power dynamics steering the course of AI.

Co-author of Moral Machines and a key figure at Yale and Carnegie Council, Wendell has spent decades thinking about how to align AI with human values.

We cover:

• why rogue superintelligence isn’t the biggest threat

• how Big Tech is quietly shaping AI policies

• AGI vs. ASI: When AI starts making its own rules

Connect with us here:

1. Wendell Wallach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendell-wallach-246ba69/

2. George Bandarian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebandarian/

3. Untapped Ventures: https://www.linkedin.com/company/untappedventures

00:00 Trailer

00:55 Introduction

01:59 AI uplifting humanity

04:09 Moral machines

09:58 Big tech oligopoly

16:00 Cold War

18:59 AI will take over the world?

29:57 Nefarious purposes

34:32 Trade-offs and safeguards

38:11 Data security

41:00 Finding product market fit

43:25 Human dangers

47:46 Outro

He built AI-powered lunar rovers at NASA.

He was in the room when GPT launched.

Now, Logan Kilpatrick is helping developers push the boundaries of AI at Google DeepMind.

In this episode, Logan shares his front-row view of AI’s most pivotal moments—and how they hint at the next paradigm shifts.

We also get into:

• inside Open AI on Launch day

• how Google DeepMind’s Gemini 2.0 Flash is flipping the script on AI economics

• the open-source vs. proprietary AI debate, and

• why AI’s next frontier is deeply integrated, multimodal agents

Plus, Logan unpacks his insights as an investor—where he sees opportunity in AI, what founders keep getting wrong, and why the most successful startups won’t look like today’s incumbents.

00:00 Trailer

01:19 Introduction

02:41 Inspired by Floppybird

03:53 OpenAI Developer Relations

08:55 Where AI is heading

14:41 Google DeepMind

17:47 As an AI founder, B2B and GSuite customer

21:29 Better model, low cost

27:12 Agentic AI and Google Gemini

29:32 AGI and DeekSeek

35:55 Investor and AI founder perspectives

44:43 What's next from Google

48:38 Outro

Bigger AI models dominate the headlines—but what if the real breakthrough lies in making AI smaller?

In this episode, I sit down with Ramin Hasani, Alexander Amini, and Daniela Rus—who are at the helm of Liquid AI—to discuss how their approach challenges conventional architectures and unlocks new frontiers for AI deployment.

Also on the docket:

• Ramin explains how insights from a microscopic worm led to a novel AI model.

• Alexander breaks down why Liquid AI operates efficiently on local devices—without compromising modality.

• Daniela exposes a critical flaw in today’s AI incumbents and why efficiency is the next major battleground.

We also unpack all things DeepSeek—its implications for OpenAI, Meta, and enterprises scaling private AI.

00:00 Introduction

02:03 Meet the Co-Founders

03:01 The Birth of Liquid Neural Networks

06:28 Applications and Impact of Liquid AI

09:38 The Worm Model and Its Significance

16:05 Mathematical Foundations and Breakthroughs

24:29 Scaling AI for Real-World Applications

28:05 Edge Computing and AI

29:58 Future Prospects and Use Cases

31:36 The Commoditization of AI Models

32:22 Liquid AI: Reducing Intelligence Costs to Zero

32:53 Diverse Applications of AI

33:43 Case Studies and Real-World Examples

38:05 The Impact of Deep Seek on the AI Ecosystem

44:13 Advice for Aspiring AI Founders

45:40 The Importance of Technical and Non-Technical Collaboration

51:03 Ramin's Journey from Scientist to Entrepreneur

53:31 Liquid AI's Vision for 2025

55:10 Conclusion and Future Prospects

For years, $7.2B in U.S. government-backed neuroperformance research sat untouched—proven cognitive enhancements with no commercial application.

David Bach saw the gap. Optios is bridging classified IP with market demand, transforming military-grade neuroscience into real-world performance gains.

The upside? Monumental. The imbalance? Even bigger.

We dive into:

• how declassified DOD research is unlocking a new frontier in neurotech

• the hidden psychology behind winning investor buy-in

• what $600M+ in exits taught him about product-market fit

Connect with us here:

1. David Bach:https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-bach-md-0b81b29/

2. George Bandarian:https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebandarian/

3. Untapped Ventures:https://www.linkedin.com/company/untappedventures

00:00 Trailer

01:20 Introduction

01:46 David Bach

04:46 Journey to Harvard

10:26 Founding Optios

16:08 Tech Transfer and Market Research

22:09 The Future of Neuro-Performance

28:33 Key Lessons for Founders

33:34 Fundraising Insights

37:29 Closing Thoughts