Index Ventures

“Talent is really what’s going to drive the difference. We will always back a phenomenal team in a crappy market, rather than the inverse.” In a wide-ranging conversation, Index’s Danny Rimer talks talent, AI, regulation, and our “scaled artisan” approach with John Thornhill of the Financial Times: 💯 At the earliest stages of a startup, the team more than anything else drives “table-pounding” conviction. 🎨 Our “scaled artisan” approach to VC, an oxymoronic concept that VC is a craft to be nurtured but also deployed at scale. 🌎 Insights from our experience taking startups from seed to multibillion dollar outcomes on both sides of the Atlantic.

Storytelling is a core piece of the human experience, and video is one of the most compelling ways we bring stories to life. As AI seeps into our day-to-day tools, the next opportunity in video storytelling is cracking open. And while there’s no shortage of platforms for anyone to become a content creator or storyteller today, access to and understanding of the technology needed to produce the best-quality video have been expensive, time intensive, or required a steep learning curve. Captions is opening up creative storytelling for all. Its CEO Gaurav Misra first saw the potential in short-form video while at Snap, where he spent five years shaping a product that hundreds of millions of people use to tell stories daily. He and co-founder Dwight Churchill launched Captions in 2021 to reduce the barrier to entry for video creators. Today, after the company’s momentous year unveiling several new incredible AI-powered video editing tools like AI Edit and Lipdub, we’re thrilled to share that we’re leading Captions’ $60M Series C. As the team sets its sights on growing its team, further investing in research efforts, and continuing pioneering breakthroughs in video technology, we couldn’t be more excited to play a part in their story. As Index Partner Damir Becirovic sees it, while AI is moving fast, Captions has consistently set the pace of innovation in content creation: “In the past year, the company’s breakthroughs in video generation haven’t just had an impact on the company’s success, but the AI community at large, further cementing Captions as a market leader.” See Captions’ technology in action and learn more about why we’re excited about the team’s creative solution to the opportunity at hand. 📽️

For the lawyers, management consultants, stock analysts and other knowledge workers, plowing through high volumes of content to get to the bottom line of a task is no small feat. Think immense amounts of time + high-stakes effort. Hebbia is working to address this challenge, operating as a neural search engine that uses cutting-edge AI to accelerate efficiency and accuracy of recurring workflows that often hinge on a significant amount of documents. Today, we’re excited to continue investing in this business as they announce their latest round, a $130M Series B, and look to expand their team and conduct further research. Congratulations, Hebbia team!  https://lnkd.in/gwcrgSfX 

It’s no secret that AI innovation is driving demand for high-powered compute infrastructure. But there’s another critical issue at play: the immense energy required to power and cool these systems. This may be the most important AI challenge few are talking about. Data centers — the backbone of AI — are extremely energy-intensive, consuming 10-50 times the energy per floor space of a typical office building. In northern Virginia, the world’s largest data center market, only 0.2% of grid capacity is available. In Ireland, data centers are projected to account for 32% of national electricity consumption by 2026. The key to sustainable AI growth lies not just in scaling up hardware but in developing better solutions for how we manage the massive energy consumption that comes with it. Generating enough power to run the machines is one thing, but equally important is finding efficient ways to cool them, as this process consumes an enormous amount of energy. That’s why we’re excited to announce our investment in Phaidra, an innovative company whose AI-based control systems use reinforcement learning to help mission-critical facilities like data centers optimize their cooling systems and reduce energy costs. Phaidra is led by Jim Gao, Vedavyas Panneershelvam, and Katie H.. — an experienced team whose work at DeepMind reduced energy usage in Google’s data centers by 40%. They bring a vital mix of engineering know-how, AI research credentials, and dedication to solving the global problem of energy usage in data centers. Learn more about our investment in Phaidra and how this impressive team is powering the future of sustainable AI innovation and growth.

Congrats to Tomáš Čupr and the Rohlik Group team on the raise, the continued growth and reaching profitablity in multiple markets. Their unique approach in the grocery space shows that if a) you get the customer proposition right, b) have the tech to deliver on it and c) the best team in business leading the execution, you can build a great business in a sector where many tried and failed. Kudos Rohlik! 🚀 Ingrid Lunden from TechCrunch has more on the story 👇 https://lnkd.in/eGVvRs7h

What are the two atomic units of a great startup? ⚛️ 1. Solving a meaningful customer problem in a high-quality way.  2. Having an exceptional team that is deeply attached to the mission and the customer. According to Shoaib Makani, founder and CEO of Motive, everything else is “window dressing.” Index partner Nina Achadjian recently chatted with Shoaib about how AI is transforming the physical economy at this year’s Startup Grind Global. They touched on: 🚛 The early days of identifying an underserved market and conducting a value-chain research deep dive, prior to launch. (Spoiler alert: hanging out at truck stops to really understand the future customer paid off for Shoaib.) 🌎 How an app for a single transportation industry has grown into an AI and computer vision platform for countless physical world applications.  🤖 The future of computer vision + hardware agents. Shoaib and Nina talk about the tensions of leading a fast-track growth startup and how it often presents a prioritization problem – but, as Shoaib says, “a fun one.” Check out the full session 👇 https://lnkd.in/g3DQqQ8J

Online shopping is due for a makeover. As a consumer, it’s hard to get inspired when you’re relying on rigid keyword searches and clicking through pages of ads, irrelevant results, and dead inventory. It’s not much better for brands who depend on ad platforms like Google and Meta, with no visibility into customer preferences or behavior. Imagine instead a world where discovering brands online is as easy as walking into your favorite store. You see carefully curated tables and racks of new and familiar labels. You talk to a sales associate and get personalized recommendations just for you. We believe AI has the power to make this dream a reality, and to make online shopping not just easier and more streamlined, but more inspiring, personalized and enjoyable. That’s why we’re excited to invest in Daydream, a new AI-powered online shopping platform that allows users to describe what they’re looking for in natural language, delivering personalized results from a vast catalog of women’s and men’s fashion brands. Daydream is co-founded and led by industry veteran Julie Bornstein, who brings a proven track record of scaling large organizations (Sephora, Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters) and thriving in startup environments (Stitch Fix, THE YES). Julie is joined by an impressive founding team that includes Matt Fisher, Dan Cary, Lisa Yamner Green, and Richard Kim. They bring diverse but complementary skill sets, ranging from deep expertise in generative AI from past roles at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to vital connections across the global fashion industry. We’re excited to partner with Daydream and support their vision of AI-powered search and discovery in fashion.

📣Wordsmith AI raises $5 million to empower lawyers to scale themselves with AI. 🤝We’re excited to back cofounders Ross McNairn, Volodymyr Giginiak and Robbie Falkenthal to build a new kind of lawyer-in-the-loop AI to transform the working lives of in-house legal teams. With experience at Meta, Travelperk, Skyscanner and in law firms, the founding team has a clear, compelling vision for how AI can augment the capabilities of legal teams. 💫Wordsmith is at the vanguard of a fundamental shift in how professional services are delivered and we’re excited to support them at the beginning of their journey.

Reducing cloud costs is a significant and expensive struggle for any enterprise given poor visibility, limited tracking, and minimal context for engineering activities. PointFive is taking a unique approach to solving this problem. While most existing services simply tell customers what they are spending and deliver limited recommendations around inefficiencies, PointFive transforms analysis into action. 🤝 A team of repeat entrepreneurs, co-founders Alon Arvatz, Gal Ben David & Amir Hozez have been working together for over a decade. The idea for PointFive emerged when they experienced the difficulty of reducing cloud costs across the enterprise firsthand. 📈 The PointFive platform creates real value for customers, typically helping customers map out saving opportunities between 15-30% of their total cloud spend. 💬 As co-founder and CEO Alon Arvatz shared, “We founded PointFive to equip engineers and FinOps leaders with tools that enable them to move from reactive fixes to proactive optimization, which is vital for long-term resilience and adaptability.” Congratulations PointFive on the $16m seed round. Onward! https://lnkd.in/gZEzDEA2

“Talent is really what’s going to drive the difference. We will always back a phenomenal team in a crappy market, rather than the inverse.” In a wide-ranging conversation, Index’s Danny Rimer talks talent, AI, regulation, and our “scaled artisan” approach with John Thornhill of the Financial Times: 💯 At the earliest stages of a startup, the team more than anything else drives “table-pounding” conviction. 🎨 Our “scaled artisan” approach to VC, an oxymoronic concept that VC is a craft to be nurtured but also deployed at scale. 🌎 Insights from our experience taking startups from seed to multibillion dollar outcomes on both sides of the Atlantic.