Costanoa Ventures

Big day for Muon Space! Congrats on today's Series B announcement and hitting $100M in customer contracts this year, including a landmark deal with Sierra Nevada Corporation leveraging next-gen Halo™ satellites for their pioneering Vindlér™ RF constellation! 🛰️ 🌌 🙌 Read more on TechCrunch: https://bit.ly/4fBOyWv #space #spacetech #defensetech #startups #venturecapital

Big thanks to the VamosVentures team for having us at their annual Founder Summit! Greg Sands and Marcos Gonzalez covered a lot of ground during the fireside chat, including how founding teams and the venture capital landscape have changed over the past 3 decades. Thanks again to Marcos, Valeria, Maya, & the entire VamosVentures team for hosting a great event! #startups #venturecapital #founders

We're excited to share the latest edition #BuilderOpsBlueprints featuring Muon Space's VP of Growth, Tracy Morgan! 🌌 Being one of the fastest companies to go from inception to orbit 🛰️ , Muon makes Earth intelligence accessible through space technology to help protect our people, climate, and ecosystems. Tracy shares advice for early-stage startups trying to break into established industries (like Space!), what it takes to win deals, and more. P.S. Muon Space is hiring across several departments! If you’re passionate about space and innovation, check out their open roles👉https://bit.ly/4c7jcUz -- #BuilderOpsBlueprints is a newsletter on company building foundations for early-stage startups by the BuilderOps team at Costanoa Ventures, highlighting learnings from founders and startup leaders. Make sure to hit the subscribe button!➕📫 #space #spacetech #defensetech #climatetech #startups #venturecapital #newsletter #womeninstem #womenleaders

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲: 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗟𝗟𝗠𝘀 We expect LLMs to increase the surface area and value of the software industry. For the first time, applications can live in the space between structured and unstructured data. Read the latest from Greg Sands & Nicole Seah, outlining characteristics of these AI applications and implications for builders based on what we’ve experienced in successful AI startups to-date, like Vannevar Labs, Vic.ai, AKASA, and Zentist. Link to the full article 👉 https://bit.ly/3A4DmkR If you've got a business problem you want to solve or AI-native application that you want to build, we'd love to hear from you! #startups #artificialintelligence #venturecapital

Does location for an AI startup matter? How much of an edge does being in Silicon Valley give founders building GenAI native companies? We're surveying founders to find out and will share all that we learn. If you're a founder of an AI startup, we want to know what you think. This is a 2 minute survey 👉  https://bit.ly/3XIzzDx #artificialintelligence #genAI #startups #AI

🤐 VC Secrets! How can you improve your board meetings as a founder or VC? Our recent guest, Amy Cheetham of Costanoa Ventures, sits on 8 boards and shares her secret of the 1 trait that makes a board successful. https://lnkd.in/gf98nbcw

Do AI startups need AI co-founders to succeed? What did your team do? We'll share what we learn to help founders calibrate with peers. Results of this quick survey will be shared with all who participate: https://bit.ly/3XIzzDx

📣 HUGE news: The The New York Times' Ceylan Yeginsu put three AI platforms to the test to plan a trip to Norway and — spoiler alert — her favorite was Mindtrip! 🎉 “Overall, Mindtrip — with its polished, dynamic interface that allowed me to cross-check details with maps, links, and reviews — was my favorite.” Check out the NYT article, then check out Mindtrip. https://lnkd.in/gJeER-7N #MindtripAI #TravelYourWay #TravelDifferently #TravelTogether

Two things I can't recommend more highly: 1) travel to Norway to explore the fjords, the hikes (bring a rain jacket), and night/street life when the days are *long*; and 2) Mindtrip, Inc., which is already revolutionizing travel planning with so much more to come. In the words of the Ceylan Yeginsu from The New York Times who evaluated multiple new #AI #travel products, "Mindtrip — with its polished, dynamic interface that allowed me to cross-check details with maps, links and reviews — was my favorite." She loved the way it incorporates reviews, maps and links into the experience - and is looking forward to the release of the Mindtrip app soon. Me too.  https://nyti.ms/3Lsj7A9

𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜’𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱. Various sources (including the recent Emergence Capital “Beyond Benchmarks report”) estimate OpenAI with ~70-80% market share of LLM deployments today, with Google Gemini a distant second at ~10%. We’re <2 years since ChatGPT launched the LLM era, and I thought it would be interesting to compare this to other platform shifts at a similar point in history and how it evolved over time. 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗶𝗰 𝟬.𝟵 𝗶𝗻 𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟰. By 1996, Netscape had 86% of the web browser market share, with Internet Explorer at 10%. But by 2004 (and many lawsuits later), IE had 94% market share. The battle was far from over though--30 years later, Chrome dominates with 65% market share, Safari sits second at 20%, and the successors to IE (Edge) and Netscape (Mozilla) own just 5% and 2.8%! 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗝𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗣𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗤𝟮 𝟮𝟬𝟬𝟳. And by Q2 2009, the leading mobile operating system by units shipped globally was....Symbian at 38%. By Q2 2011 (4 years after iPhone), Symbian was still leader in mobile OS with market share at 32% and iOS / Android each at ~20%. But 10 years later (2017), no mobile OS other than Android or iOS had >1% market share. 𝗔𝗪𝗦 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝗖𝟮 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟬𝟴. By 2010, AWS still had <10% of the IaaS market, which was fragmented with legacy vendors like AT&T, Verizon, Rackspace, and Terramark noted as “leaders” in the Gartner 2010 IaaS magic quadrant! AWS market share grew rapidly from this point and peaked in 2019 at ~33%. Today AWS still owns ~1/3rd of the market, with Azure second at 25% and GCP third at 11%. None of these analogies are perfect, but it's instructive to look at how each played out and what it could mean for the future of AI. In the browser wars, the early leader (Netscape) lost to incumbents who had 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 (𝗠𝗦𝗙𝗧, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲) 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 (𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗲). The risks to OpenAI on both of these fronts are obvious. In cloud infrastructure, 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 made it impossible for any but the biggest tech companies in the world (AMZN, MSFT, Google) to compete. And in the case of mobile, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗮 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 (iOS) and Google 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 (Android). How the “LLM wars” will ultimately play out is anyone’s guess, but looking at past platform shifts, it’s notable how little we knew 2 or even 4 years in about who the dominant players would ultimately be. #startups #ai #innovation