Venture with Grace

Cheryl Cheng is a Managing Partner at M12, where she invests in early-stage companies from seed through Series B across enterprise AI, applications, and vertical SaaS. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~She has spent 16 years investing in early- to growth-stage software companies spanning healthcare, enterprise applications, developer tools, and consumer opportunities. Before M12, Cheryl founded and ran Vive Collective, a healthcare investment platform, and previously served as a General Partner at BlueRun Ventures. Earlier in her career, she worked in brand management and marketing at The Clorox Company and The Sharper Image, as well as technology mergers and acquisitions at Broadview International, covering enterprise software and semiconductors. Cheryl holds a B.A. in Public Policy from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.Topics

• Evaluating early-stage enterprise AI, applications, and vertical SaaS companies from seed through Series B
• How AI is changing healthcare and creating new opportunities for founders
• What Cheryl looks for in technical founders building enduring companies

#ArtificialIntelligence #Healthcare #VentureCapital #SaaS #DigitalHealth

Saurabh Sharma is the Chief Product Officer at You.com, where he leads product strategy for enterprise AI tools and Web Search APIs designed to power AI agents. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Previously, he was Head of Search Products at OpenSea, leading search, discovery, trust and safety, web, and mobile platforms. Before that, he spent more than a decade at Google, rising to Group Product Manager and leading products across Google Assistant, Gmail, Google+, Family Link, identity, and monetization, while managing teams of 12+ PMs and 100+ engineers. He also led strategic seed and Series A investments in voice, AI, and assistance companies and holds both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon.Topics

• How AI agents are changing the future of search and discovery
• What it takes to build search products for the agent era
• Lessons from scaling AI products at Google to building enterprise AI at You.com

#Youcom #AISearch #AIAgents #EnterpriseAI #ProductManagement

Jonathan Pearce is Co-Founder and Microprocessor Architect at AheadComputing, where he is developing new approaches to processor architecture for AI and high-performance computing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~He spent 22 years at Intel across computer architecture, research, and CPU architecture roles, most recently serving as a Principal Engineer focused on advanced CPU microarchitecture. During his time at Intel, he worked across multiple generations of Intel Core SoCs in both pre-silicon and post-silicon roles and led research into novel microprocessor architectures for AI, ML, and HPC workloads. He has authored more than 19 patents spanning CPU, AI, and GPU architecture and previously served as a Research Scientist at Intel Labs focused on accelerator architecture. Jonathan holds both an MS and BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.Topics

• Why AI workloads are forcing a rethink of traditional CPU architecture
• What the next generation of processors needs to deliver for AI and HPC
• How startups can challenge decades of assumptions in semiconductor architecture

#AheadComputing #AIChips #CPUArchitecture #Semiconductors #AI

At STEP Summit in San Francisco, Grace Gong moderates a conversation with Michel Tricot, Co-Founder and CEO of Airbyte, Vijay R. of Mayfield, and Dan Klein of Scaled Cognition on how AI agents are reshaping the way companies are structured and how work gets done.The discussion explores what happens when AI agents move beyond being tools and become permanent digital teammates, from who an agent reports to and who is accountable for its decisions, to which roles emerge and disappear, and what happens to middle management when the layer they once managed becomes software.The conversation examines how companies are rethinking reporting lines, roles, and organizational design as AI becomes part of the workforce, and what leaders need to consider as they build teams for the agent era.#ai #step2026 #stepsf #step #vc

Spiros Xanthos is Founder and CEO of Resolve AI, which builds AI agents that run and troubleshoot production software, reducing MTTR and freeing engineers to focus on building. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Previously, he was SVP and the first General Manager of Observability at Splunk, where he led the company’s entire Observability business across product and engineering. Before Splunk, Spiros founded Omnition, a distributed tracing company acquired by Splunk in 2019, and co-created OpenTelemetry. He also founded ezhome, which grew to more than 150 employees and raised Series A and B funding within 18 months, and previously founded Log Insight, which was acquired by VMware. Spiros and his longtime collaborator Mayank Agarwal have built companies together with two successful exits.Topics

• Why AI agents could become the first responders for production software
• How AI is changing the role of engineers in building and operating software
• What two successful exits taught Spiros about building infrastructure companies

#ResolveAI #AIAgents #SoftwareEngineering #Observability #AI

Jordan Tigani is the Co-Founder and CEO of MotherDuck, a company building around DuckDB to make analytics simpler and more accessible. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Previously, he was Chief Product Officer at SingleStore, where he helped transform the company from an on-prem database business into a cloud-first company. Before that, he spent more than 10 years at Google, where he was a founding engineer and later led product and engineering for BigQuery. He also helped use BigQuery to predict World Cup matches.Topics

• Why the era of Big Data is over and what companies should be building instead
• How AI agents are changing the way data infrastructure needs to work
• What building BigQuery and SingleStore taught Jordan about the future of analytics

#DuckDB #DataAnalytics #AI #DataInfrastructure #Startups

Ajay Kulkarni is the co-founder and CEO of TigerData, the company behind TimescaleDB and a high-performance PostgreSQL platform for transactional, analytical, and AI workloads. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~He co-founded Timescale in 2017 and has since helped grow the company to more than 2,000 customers and a 200-person fully remote team. TigerData has raised $180 million and serves organizations including Mistral, Hugging Face, NVIDIA, Toyota, NASA, and Schneider Electric. Ajay previously studied computer science at MIT and worked at early-stage startups, focusing on infrastructure, developer products, and AI-augmented engineering.Topics:

• How PostgreSQL is evolving to support real-time analytics, transactional workloads, and AI agents on a unified data infrastructure
• Building TigerData from Timescale into a company serving 2,000+ customers, with a 200-person team and $180 million raised
• How AI agents are changing software development, data infrastructure, and the interfaces developers use to build the next generation of applications

#ArtificialIntelligence #PostgreSQL #AIInfrastructure #Database #AIEngineering

Bryant Chou is the founder of Ploy, an AI-powered growth platform that turns company websites into active growth engines. Prior to that he was the Co-Founder and CTO of Webflow. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Ploy launched out of stealth in 2026 with a $27 million seed round backed by First Round Capital and Y Combinator. The platform uses autonomous AI agents for web design, copywriting, SEO, CRM data syncing, advertising, and site optimization. Previously, Bryant co-founded Webflow, where he served as CTO for more than 12 years and architected the technology platform that powers more than 1% of the most active websites on the internet. Webflow grew to more than 600,000 users.Topics

• How AI agents are transforming marketing from a collection of manual tasks into an autonomous growth system
• Has AI made software execution cheap enough that strategy is now the real bottleneck?
• Lessons from more than 12 years building Webflow

#ArtificialIntelligence #AIAgents #MarketingAI #Webflow #GrowthTech

Rissa Cao is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fish Audio, an AI voice generation and text-to-speech company building audio infrastructure for the next generation of AI-native applications. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Before Fish Audio, she co-founded PixAI at Mewtant, helping scale the platform to more than 10 million creators and 1 billion artworks generated. She previously worked on the product team at Meta Reality Labs and held earlier roles at Amazon Alexa. At Fish Audio, Rissa has helped scale the company to more than 8 million users and $21 million in ARR in its first year, with a focus on multilingual voice generation, low-latency inference, voice cloning, and a large community-driven voice library.Topics

• How AI voice is evolving from text-to-speech into a foundational layer for AI-native applications.
• Building Fish Audio from zero to $21 million in ARR and more than 8 million users in one year, and the product and growth decisions that enabled that pace of scale
• The technical challenges behind voice AI, including inference cost, training efficiency, latency, and accent preservation.

#ArtificialIntelligence #VoiceAI #GenerativeAI #AIAgents #AIInfrastructure

Boris Sofman is the co-founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics, an SF-based company building fully self-operating heavy machinery to improve the cost, schedule, safety, and predictability of construction projects. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Before Bedrock, Boris spent five years as an engineering executive at Waymo, where he led the company’s autonomous trucking efforts and technology teams that helped launch and scale the Waymo One autonomous network. Earlier, he spent a decade as co-founder and CEO of Anki, a consumer robotics company that shipped more than 3.7 million devices and robots across entertainment and smart-home categories and reached as much as $100 million in annual global revenue. His experience spans taking robotics from consumer products to large-scale autonomous systems operating in the real world.TopicsHow autonomous heavy machinery can transform construction by improving project cost, schedule, safety, and predictabilityWhat it takes to move autonomous robotics from controlled environments into real-world commercial operations, and the lessons Boris brought from Waymo to BedrockThe path toward fleets of autonomous machines that can coordinate, plan, and execute complex construction projects with less human intervention#ArtificialIntelligence #Robotics #AutonomousVehicles #ConstructionTech #PhysicalAI