January Ventures co-founder Jennifer Neundorfer stopped by the Equity Podcast during TechCrunch Disrupt to speak about fundraising in this AI-powered marketplace.
Founders and investors alike are obsessed with AI, and even Neundorfer said her company is looking at ways to make use of AI to make their work more efficient, comparable to helping with market and competitive due diligence. When it involves firms being built, I prefer founders who wish to create something completely recent.
“I usually get excited when I see someone using AI to do something that isn’t 10 times better. It’s actually about creating a completely new experience, workflow or behavior,” she said. “That’s what we’re looking at. Less incremental changes and more completely new behaviors.”
This is becoming more and harder for founders because, she said, fatigue sets in as more and more AI ideas begin to sound the same.
“I think founders break through when they can communicate to investors why what they’re doing is truly different from the dozens of other startups that are doing it, and why they’re the team that can keep it going,” she said.
Whether we’re in a so-called AI bubble or not, Neundorfer says a market correction is prone to come and many firms now receiving windfall returns on investor money may not survive. Winners will navigate this moment by building “truly category-defining companies” by capturing the future direction of technology. “Founders who can stay ahead of the curve, build on the edge of what is possible today, and build for what is to come,” she listed. “Founders who can really read the market and understand what their customer wants, rather than just building what’s possible. It’s the founders who will have the advantage.”
Elsewhere in the pod, she talked about her life before the enterprise, where she worked for YouTube and twenty first Century Fox.
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“I was largely exposed to people who had great technology,” she recalled of her time at twenty first Century Fox. Meeting and talking to people about technology was the a part of the job she enjoyed the most and helped her realize how much she would probably love working with early-stage founders.
However, there was a steep learning curve when she decided to change to investing. In the starting, she assured that she would always contact the founders and provide them with detailed information about their firms.
“In some cases it’s appropriate, but it’s really about the relationship with the founder, supporting not only their impact on the company, but also supporting them as a person,” she said.
Now he feels comfortable in this job. She serves as a mentor for various organizations comparable to Techstars, and in line with PitchBook, she has revamped 50 investments in January Ventures, having fun with several exits along the way.
Throughout the conversation, Neundorfer talked about the changing enterprise capital market, funding levels for minorities and women, and successful enterprise capital markets outside of San Francisco. Her biggest piece of recommendation for diverse founders applies to many founders building businesses in this climate today: ignore the noise and focus on building a good company.
“Everything else becomes something they can’t control and the worries aren’t worth it.”