Welcome to this month’s recap of Gradient investments, insights, and opportunities from our portfolio companies.

Recent funding announcements

Linkup raises $10 million to build web search for AIs (Gradient)

Sapiom gets $15 million to help AI agents buy their own tech tools (TechCrunch)

News from our portfolio companies

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Gradient perspectives

Software companies need more than a moat

By Clayton Petty

www.gradient.com/blog/posts/the-decay-of-saas

Upcoming events

March 4th: Healthcare Engineers in AI – apply to attend on Luma (New York)

March 11th: Observational Memory for Agents w/ Mastra – apply to attend on Luma (San Francisco)

Featured Jobs

Lambda – Head of GTM Technology, SF (View and apply)

Spade – Senior Data Scientist, NYC (View and apply)

Arva – Head of Product, SF (View and apply)

Writer – Software Engineer, agents, NYC (View and apply)

Welcome to this month’s recap of Gradient investments, insights, and opportunities from our portfolio companies.

Recent funding announcements

Benepass raises $40 million in Series B funding to help employers redesign benefits (Benepass)

News from our portfolio companies

Krea co-founders Victor Perez and Diego Rodriguez Prado featured in Forbes 30 under 30 (Forbes)

Cloudflare acquires Astro to fuel the future of high-performance web development (Cloudflare)

Gradient perspectives

Environments for LM agents: from agentic RL to context optimization

AI agents can write production code but can't reliably file an expense report. Why? It's not the models. GPT-5 and Claude 4 reason just fine. The gap is optimization infrastructure – specifically, the environments that generate the trajectory data agents need to learn real workflows. Our investor, Denise Teng, maps the emerging stack: high-fidelity environments, context optimization vs. RL, and where the infra layer is headed. The core bet: whoever controls trajectory data controls how agents perform.

Read the in-depth piece

Upcoming events

February 10th: B2B AI Happy hour w/ Recall - apply to attend on Luma

Featured Jobs

Infisical – Founding Designer, Remote (View and apply)

BackOps – Full Stack Engineer, San Francisco (View and apply)

Clarify – Backend Engineer, San Francisco (View and apply)

Hey there –  Welcome to this month’s recap of Gradient investments, insights, and opportunities from our portfolio companies.

Recent funding announcements

Lambda raises over $1.5 billion to build its Superintelligence Cloud Infrastructure (Wall Street Journal)

Range secures $60 million for its AI-powered wealth management platform (Axios)

Vijil gets $17 million to safeguard AI agents (SiliconANGLE)

News from our portfolio companies

Hostie teams up with OpenTable

Friday night at 7:00 PM is the ultimate stress test for any restaurant. The phone is constantly ringing, DMs and private event inquiries are piling up – all while the floor is at capacity. This forces operators into a zero-sum choice: ignore the inbound demand or neglect the guest standing in the lobby.

Hostie unifies the entire communication stack; think calls, texts, FAQs. Its new integration with OpenTable now advances this capability from automation to execution. By connecting the voice layer to the system of record, Hostie checks real-time restaurant availability and writes reservations directly to the book. With 81% of inquiries resolved autonomously, the platform validates the shift toward agents that execute complex workflows rather than just holding a conversation.

Read more from Hostie

Worth your attention

• Kosmos: An AI Scientist for Autonomous Discovery (arXiv)

• WorldGen: From Text to Traversable and Interactive 3D Worlds (arXiv)

Featured Jobs

• Writer – AI engineer (View and apply)

• Arva – Founding Account Executive (View and apply)

• Infisical – Founding Design Engineer (View and apply)

• Secureframe – Senior Revenue Operations Manager (View and apply)

Happy Halloween! 👻 Here is this month’s recap of Gradient investments, insights, and opportunities from our portfolio companies.

Recent funding announcements

Truth Systems raises $4 million to help companies enforce AI guardrails (Artificial Lawyer)

Mastra raises $13 million to power the next wave of agent development in TypeScript. (LinkedIn)

Anchor raises $6 million to build AI-native browser infrastructure for autonomous agents (Gradient)

News from our portfolio companies

Range Launches Rai, an AI Wealth Advisor

Range has launched Rai, an AI-powered wealth advisor that brings high-quality financial planning to a broader audience. Rai helps users understand and manage their full financial picture by combining advanced AI capabilities with the expertise and standards of a human advisor. This launch marks a major milestone for Range as it builds toward a future where financial guidance is more accessible, adaptive, and aligned with individual needs.

Read more on Fast Company

OpenAI Acquires Roi as Part of Its Push Into Personalized Consumer Applications

OpenAI has acquired Roi, an AI-powered personal finance app, as part of its continued push into personalized, consumer-facing AI products. Roi’s co-founder and CEO Sujith Vishwajith will join OpenAI, while the company winds down operations. Founded in 2022, Roi aimed to make investing more human and adaptive by building a financial companion that learned from each user’s behavior, tone, and goals. That vision of deeply personalized software aligns with OpenAI’s expanding focus on consumer applications and the next generation of AI-native experiences. The acquisition reflects a broader industry shift toward adaptive, personalized AI systems that evolve alongside their users.

Read more on TechCrunch

Ant International Backs R2 to Expand SME Lending in Latin America

For years, R2 has been quietly powering loans for some of Latin America's biggest names like Rappi, Uber Eats, and InDrive, serving over 100,000 small businesses since 2020. But the need is far bigger: only 13% of SME credit demand in the region is currently being met. That gap is exactly what caught Ant International's attention. For Ant, the opportunity looks familiar—Latin America's underbanked population mirrors the conditions that fueled Asia's fintech boom a decade ago. Now they're bringing AI-powered underwriting and their global credit engine to help R2 scale across five countries, just as venture funding in the region hits a seven-year low.

Read more on Bloomberg

Nuvocargo Acquires Mentum to Accelerate Its AI Agent Roadmap

Nuvocargo has acquired Mentum, a Gradient-backed startup specializing in AI-driven procurement and vendor operations, to integrate its agent workflows into Nuvocargo’s logistics platform. The acquisition enables Nuvocargo to embed “agents” that manage RFQs, vendor workflows, spend-insights, and execution tasks into its operating system, allowing greater automation with human-in-the-loop precision across North American supply chains.

Read more on FreightWaves

Featured Jobs

• Axle – Customer Solutions Engineer (View and apply)

• Clarify – Staff Product Engineer (View and apply)

• Lambda – Engineering Manager, HPC Deployments (View and apply)

• Infisical – Developer Relations (View and apply)

Welcome to this month’s recap of Gradient investments, insights, and opportunities from our portfolio companies.

Recent funding announcements

Freckle raises $4 million to make data enrichment effortless for RevOps teams (Gradient)

Formly secures $2 million to revolutionize medical device compliance using AI (Formly)

News from our portfolio companies

Axon acquires Prepared

Every year, 240 million Americans call 911, but dispatchers work with outdated tools while juggling voice, location, and video data during life-or-death moments. When we first met Prepared, they saw an opportunity: AI could transform this complexity into clarity through real-time translation, automated transcription, and unified data streams.

Since then, Prepared quietly built to 1,000+ agencies across 49 states, proving that emergency centers were ready for AI-powered tools. Axon's acquisition creates a full-stack public safety platform: body cams and tasers generating data, Prepared's AI making sense of it all in real-time. It's the integrated system emergency response has needed for decades.

Read more on Axon

Gigs Powers OnePay's Super App Ambitions

Americans pay twice what they should for wireless plans while juggling dozens of apps for basic services. When we backed Gigs, they believed any company could become a wireless carrier through APIs, cutting out customer acquisition costs that currently inflate phone bills. Gigs just landed Walmart-backed OnePay, enabling them to offer $35 unlimited 5G plans (half the typical cost) activated with three clicks, no credit checks. This follows deals with Klarna and Nubank.

Gigs turns wireless from a standalone product into an embedded feature. As OnePay looks to build America's super app, Gigs becomes the infrastructure layer powering connectivity across fintech.

Read more on CNBC

Anaplan acquires Syrup

Modern retailers face a brutal challenge: predicting what will sell across thousands of SKUs while navigating supply chain volatility, rapidly shifting consumer trends, and seasonal complexity. Most are still piecing together spreadsheets and relying heavily on intuition.

James and Ferdinand built Syrup: an AI forecasting engine that synthesizes granular sales data, product imagery, and external signals like social sentiment to drive precise inventory decisions. Beloved brands like Reformation and Faherty achieved 5-10% margin improvements and over $20M in annual savings per $1B in revenue.

Now Anaplan has acquired Syrup, bringing this technology to 300+ of the world's top retailers. Excited to see what’s in store next!

Read more on Anaplan

Lambda Makes Forbes Cloud 100

What started as the Balaban brothers trying to escape AWS's crushing GPU bills has become the infrastructure powering AI development at Intel, Microsoft, and the DOD. Sometimes the best companies emerge from founders scratching their own itch.

From photo editing app to $2.5B GPU cloud serving 15,000 customers—Lambda proves that in the AI gold rush, selling shovels still works. Their timing was perfect: they built GPU clusters right before everyone realized they needed them. Now they're one of the few alternatives to the hyperscalers for serious AI compute.

Check out the full list on Forbes

Worth your attention

• GDPVal: Evaluating AI model performance on real-world economically valuable tasks

• Qwen3-Omni Technical Report

• Lyra: Generative 3D Scene Reconstruction via Video Diffusion Model Self-Distillation

Featured Jobs

• Spline, ML Research Scientist (View and apply)

• Writer, Customer AI engineer (View and apply)

• Openly, VP of Analytics (View and apply)

• Arva AI, AI Research Engineer (View and apply)

Welcome to this month’s recap of Gradient investments, insights, and opportunities from our portfolio companies.

Recent funding announcements

Jitty raises $3.8 million to bring AI-search into the home-buying process (Jitty)

News from our portfolio companies

Krea lands a spot in Forbes Next Billion Dollar Startups

Krea AI just landed on Forbes' 2025 Next Billion Dollar Startups list—and if history is any guide, that's a big deal. More than half the companies that have made this list went on to become unicorns. Krea has hit some impressive milestones: 20 million users now use their platform to create AI-generated images and videos without needing to code, and revenue has jumped 20x in just over a year. Fresh off an $83 million funding round, Krea is already being used by creators at Pixar, LEGO, Samsung and more. Co-founders Victor Perez and Diego Rodriguez are laser-focused on making AI actually useful for designers and artists who need professional tools, not just cool demos.

Read more on Forbes

Range co-founder discusses why AI will replace financial advisors

Range, a wealth management startup, is making a bold bet that human financial advisors will become obsolete. CEO Fahad Hassan believes the 300,000+ personal financial advisors currently employed in the U.S. will be out of work within five to ten years, replaced entirely by AI. The company, which currently manages $270 million for nearly 400 clients with just 18 human advisors using AI tools, plans to launch a fully autonomous AI advisor within the year. While traditional wealth managers argue that human relationships and emotional intelligence can't be automated, Hassan sees a generational shift: younger clients who already trust AI with medical advice and self-driving cars won't hesitate to trust it with their money. The startup's revenue is reportedly growing 300% year-over-year, and they're already using AI-generated deepfakes in their advertising—which customers haven't even noticed aren't real humans.

Read more on Barron’s

Clarify Named to Madrona's 2025 Intelligent Applications 40

Clarify snagged a spot on Madrona's 2025 Intelligent Applications 40 list, joining an elite group of private AI companies that collectively have raised nearly $120 billion. The recognition places Clarify in the “Early” category alongside promising AI-native companies that are fundamentally changing how work gets done. This comes at what Madrona calls a pivotal moment—the "Reasoning Revolution"—where AI is shifting from basic assistants to intelligent agents that can actually reason, adapt, and execute complex workflows. The IA40 has a strong track record of spotting winners early: previous honorees include companies like Figma and Wiz (acquired by Google for $32 billion).

Check out the entire list 

Gradient Perspectives

How AI Transforms Product Feedback, Analytics, and Prototyping

Our partner Denise explores a fascinating shift happening in software development in her latest blog post. Modern software teams run on four essential roles:Engineering, Product, Design, and Research (EPDR), all working in sync to ship software that actually matters. Engineers write the code, designers create what users see, researchers figure out what people actually do with the product, and product managers wrangle all these insights to make sure everyone's building the right thing.

But as Denise points out, AI tools are fundamentally changing this dynamic. Whether it's IDE copilots, automated PR reviews, or platforms that go straight from prompt to working app or design, teams are shipping code 10x faster than before. The game isn't about technical bottlenecks anymore, it's about how quickly and accurately teams can figure out what users really want and turn those insights into action.

Read Denise's full analysis

Worth your attention

Learning without training: The implicit dynamics of in-context learning

Evaluating Large Language Models Towards Improved Human Health

Featured Jobs

• Axle – Product Engineer, NYC (View and apply)

• Rad AI – Director of Communications, Remote (View and apply)

• Lambda – Manager, HPC Design, San Francisco (View and apply)

• Labelbox – Technical Writer, San Francisco (View and apply)

Recent funding announcements

Cerebrium Raises $8.5 million (Business Insider)

Behind every surreal voice and video AI experience are engineers managing complex computational resources at massive scale. Michael Louis and Jono Irwin built Cerebrium to solve the infrastructure headaches they experienced firsthand while scaling AI at OneCart (acquired by Walmart's Massmart). Like most developers, they were stitching together countless tools for experimentation, deployment, and debugging. Even after success, costs were high and maintaining sprawling infrastructure was problematic. Today, Cerebrium powers companies like Tavus, Deepgram, and Vapi, orchestrating hundreds of millions of computation seconds monthly.

More Portfolio News

Cursor Acquires Clarity

Cursor just announced that the Clarity team has joined their AI-powered code editor platform, bringing their expertise in AI-driven development tools into Cursor's growing ecosystem. The acquisition includes Clarity founders Rohan and Austin, who will help accelerate Cursor's mission to transform how software is built with AI assistance. The combined expertise promises to accelerate Cursor's development as developers increasingly rely on AI to enhance their coding workflows and build software faster than ever before.

See the post on LinkedIn

How Restaurants Are Using AI Tools Like Hostie

Anyone who's worked in the service industry knows it's a brutal marathon. The manual labor, the constant demands, the sheer exhaustion adds up quickly, making high staff turnover less of a surprise and more of an expectation. It's a tough environment where employees often feel stretched thin and unappreciated.

Restaurants are now turning to AI tools like Hostie to fundamentally change how their teams operate. This means taking the mundane tasks off their plates, freeing up staff to focus on what truly matters: delivering exceptional service and building genuine connections with guests. Hostie effortlessly manages restaurant calls, texts, and emails, can schedule reservations and even place orders or answer guests’ dietary questions.

Watch the video on CNBC

Opportunities Across the Portfolio

Sona – Regional Sales Director (View and apply)

Krea – Machine Learning Engineer (View and apply)

Prepared – Engineering Manager (View and apply)

Airspace Intelligence – Frontend - React Native Engineer (View and apply)

P.S. - If you're building something new in AI, we'd love to hear from you.

Recent funding announcements

Clarify launches with $22.5 million in funding for its autonomous CRM (GeekWire)

The Signal: Most CRM startups promise to "revolutionize sales." Clarify actually did it by making the CRM disappear entirely. Instead of forcing sales teams to learn another interface, their AI agent works invisibly across existing tools—updating Salesforce, scheduling follow-ups, and qualifying leads without human intervention.

BackOps raises $6 million to bring AI to logistics (FreightWaves)

The Signal: BackOps is tackling a $100 billion inefficiency by leveraging AI to reduce error-prone processes and manual work. BackOps is able to automatically handle routine order updates as well as complex, multi-system workflows like claims resolution and cross-platform coordination.

More Portfolio News

Payload Joins Figma

Figma just announced that the Payload team has joined Figma, bringing their "leading open-source headless content management system" into the design platform's ecosystem. The timing aligns with Figma's launch of its own CMS at Config 2025, designed to make life easier for marketers and designers who need to update website content. Payload brings the developer firepower: "a powerful, customizable backend for building scalable websites and apps, plus an intuitive admin panel for editors."

Figma CTO Kris Rasmussen noted that "as AI has made it easier to generate more code and content, the ability to control what you deploy across channels and fine tune your end users' experiences becomes even more important." The combined platform promises to bridge the traditional gap between design intent and deployed experiences.

Read more on Figma

Gigs Powers Klarna's MVNO Launch

Klarna's launch of a $40 unlimited mobile plan is impressive execution, and it also showcases something bigger: Gigs' ability to make any company an instant telecom provider.. Klarna can offer mobile service by leveraging Gigs' infrastructure and carrier relationships, which includes AT&T's network and its 25 million existing U.S. users. This allows Klarna to expand into a new vertical with strong fundamentals. Gigs is the engine: they've become the "operating system for mobile services" that lets any tech company become a carrier in weeks, not years.

Read more on The Verge

Worth Your Attention

AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms

Sequential Diagnosis with Language Models

Opportunities Across the Portfolio

ELSA – Director of Design (View and apply)

Niva – Senior Software Engineer (View and apply)

Secureframe – Partner Account Manager (View and apply)

Range – Chief of Staff (View and apply)

P.S. - If you're building something new in AI, we'd love to hear from you.

Hey there! Big funding rounds, launches, and acquisitions from across the portfolio this month 🚀 

Recent funding announcements

Hostie is now answering the phone at your favorite restaurant (SF Standard)

Conduit raises $36 million to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper and more reliable for businesses worldwide (Fortune)

StackAI gets $16 million to help enterprises deploy AI agents at scale (StackAI)

Prepared secures $80 million to expand its AI emergency response platform (SiliconANGLE)

News from our portfolio companies

Outgo gets acquired by DAT Freight & Analytics

Outgo has been acquired by DAT Freight & Analytics, integrating the freight payment platform into DAT's existing marketplace infrastructure. The acquisition addresses a persistent cash flow problem in trucking, where carriers typically wait weeks for payment on completed loads.

Outgo's platform processes payments in as little as 15 minutes, compared to traditional factoring services that can take days or weeks. The integration means loads with DAT's blue checkmark are now pre-approved for factoring through Outgo, creating a streamlined experience for carriers booking freight.

The freight industry handles over $800 billion in annual transactions, but payment infrastructure has remained largely unchanged for decades. Outgo eliminates common friction points like hidden fees, annual contracts, and minimum requirements that characterize traditional factoring.

The acquisition demonstrates how financial infrastructure companies can find significant opportunities in established industries by solving fundamental operational problems. As AI reshapes logistics and supply chain management, the underlying payment rails need to evolve alongside them.

Read more on DAT

Fileread Launches Standalone Platform

Fileread has launched Platform, a standalone document intelligence solution that extends beyond its existing Relativity integration. The product addresses workflow limitations in legal tech, where specialized tools are often locked into specific ecosystems.

Platform offers unlimited document analysis, multimodal intelligence for text and visual content, and automated work product generation including character lists and case summaries. The standalone version maintains the same functionality as Fileread's Relativity integration while expanding accessibility to teams using different eDiscovery platforms.

Legal document review represents a significant cost center for litigation teams, with much of the process still relying on manual analysis despite advances in search and categorization tools. Fileread's approach focuses on comprehensive work product generation with direct citations to source documents addressing the gap between document discovery and actionable case preparation.

The platform launch reflects a broader trend in legal AI - moving from point solutions embedded in existing software to standalone platforms that can integrate across different workflows. As AI capabilities mature, the ability to deploy tools flexibly across different legal tech stacks becomes increasingly valuable for enterprise adoption.

Read more on Fileread

Where we’ll be

Gradient Summit – June 5, NYC

We're hosting our annual founder summit and an invite-only event at Pier 57 featuring candid conversations on pushing the limits of humans and AI with Dwarkesh Patel, Soumith Chintala, and Alex Honnold.

What we’re reading

Darwin Godel Machine: Open-Ended Evolution of Self-Improving Agents

Featured Jobs

Sona – Sales Manager (View and apply)

Lambda – Senior Software Engineer - Compute Performance (View and apply)

LastMile AI – Staff Backend Engineer - Infrastructure (View and apply)

Unit21 – Solutions Engineer (View and apply)

Hey there! New milestones, funding rounds, and momentum from across the portfolio.

Recent funding announcements

Krea gets $47 million in fresh funding for its generative AI creative platform. (FastCompany)

Toku secures $39 million in new funding to modernize how Latin American businesses collect and manage digital payments (Forbes)

News from our portfolio companies

Lambda lands a spot on the Forbes AI 50

Training large models is still bottlenecked by access to reliable, high-performance infrastructure. Lambda is building GPU clusters, cloud services, and hardware purpose-built for deep learning teams — from researchers to early-stage startups. Lambda’s inclusion in the AI 50 signals that as AI scales, infrastructure matters just as much as the models themselves.

Read more on Forbes

Writer named to Forbes’ AI 50 for helping enterprises turn generative AI into real operational gains

While many companies are still figuring out how AI fits into their workflows, Writer is already helping teams automate high-volume, repetitive tasks like product descriptions, customer support responses, and marketing copy. Its platform offers a suite of customizable AI tools built for enterprise functions including marketing, HR, and operations.

Read more on Forbes

What we’re reading

Welcome to the Era of Experience

Featured Jobs

BackOps – Founding Full Stack Engineer (View and apply)

Fileread – Senior Software Engineer, Backend & Test (View and apply)

CentML – Account Executive (View and apply)

Patlytics – Head of Growth Marketing (View and apply)

Hey there! Some big milestones and well-earned recognition this month—let’s get into it.

Recent funding announcements

Niva secures $5.5M to revolutionize global business identity verification with AI. (Niva)

Silverstream launches with $1.2M to make autonomous web agents more precise (SiliconAngle)

News from our portfolio companies

How Range is Using AI to Revolutionize Wealth Management

​In a recent Inc. article, Range CEO and co-founder Fahad Hassan predicts that private wealth managers may become obsolete within a decade due to advancements in AI. Founded in 2021, Range aims to revolutionize investment management by automating services traditionally reliant on human relationships. Range plans to launch its first client-facing AI tools mid-year, while maintaining human advisors for clients who prefer personal interaction. ​

Read more on Inc.

Gigs, Lambda, and Quilt—have been recognized in Fast Company's list of the World's Most Innovative Companies of 2025

• Gigs is quietly reshaping how businesses offer mobile services, letting anyone—from fintech startups to travel platforms—become their own telecom provider. Its partnerships, like the one with Nubank, are turning what used to be a headache (finding an affordable international data plan) into a seamless, built-in experience.

• Lambda is tackling one of the biggest challenges in AI: raw computing power. By building a cloud infrastructure designed specifically for large-scale AI training, Lambda is giving researchers and companies the horsepower they need to push the limits of machine learning.

• Quilt is reimagining home climate control with a heat pump that’s not just energy-efficient but also beautifully designed. Traditional heat pumps are bulky, clunky, and often an afterthought in a room. Quilt’s approach is different—it’s built to be seen, blending aesthetics with cutting-edge engineering to make homes more comfortable and more sustainable.

Read more on Fast Company

How Paladin’s Drones Are Giving First Responders a Critical Head Start

For first responders, every second counts during critical situations. Paladin, founded by Divyaditya "Divy" Shrivastava, is making sure they have eyes on the scene before they even arrive. Paladin’s autonomous drones can be piloted remotely via web browser—even from thousands of miles away—giving emergency teams a real-time aerial view when they need it most. Already deployed across the country, Paladin is rethinking how technology and public safety.

Watch the video on Forbes

What we’re reading

Efficient and Agentic LLMs for Therapeutics

Featured Jobs

Arva – AI Product Engineer (View and apply)

Range – Vice President of Growth/Marketing (View and apply)

Openly – Senior Product Manager (View and apply)

Venn – Account Executive (View and apply)

Hello! Lots of exciting news from the portfolio and our team – let’s get into it:

Recent Funding

• Lambda secures $480 million to scale its AI cloud (Reuters)

• Venn gets $15 million in fresh funding to expand its all-in-one financial platform for Canadian businesses (Axios)

• Patlytics raises $14 million for its AI-powered patent technology (TechCrunch)

• CTGT lands $7.2 million to help enterprises build AI they can trust (Business Insider)

• Firstwork raises $5 million to revolutionize frontline workforce management (Axios)

Portfolio Spotlights

Lambda co-founder and CEO, Stephen Balaban discusses the growing demand for AI infrastructure on Bloomberg:

Gradient in the news

Eylul Kayin discusses investing in AI startups with TechCrunch

Featured Blogs

Market Perspectives

What Does it Take to Win in Enterprise AI?

Cloud rewrote the enterprise software playbook. Now, AI is doing the same – but faster. In Gradient Partner, Eylul Kayin’s first post in a three-part series, she shares key insights from our portfolio companies and the market on building and scaling AI applications for the enterprise. She explores why complexity isn't always your friend in enterprise AI solutions, how the "Forward Deployed" model is making a comeback (and why that's a good thing), why being first-to-market isn't enough in the AI era, and how successful companies are navigating the reliability challenge in enterprise AI. We're seeing a fundamental shift in how AI companies need to approach building for and selling to the enterprise. The winners won't just have access to the best models, they'll excel at translating abstract use cases into production-grade solutions that deliver real business value.

Read more on Gradient

Investment Theses

Our Investment in CTGT

Despite the promise in introducing foundational models across an enterprise software stack, studies have shown that 91% of enterprises don’t feel very prepared to do so responsibly and 71% of senior IT leaders are concerned with generative AI safety risks. Some undesired outcomes for foundation model response generation can potentially be gated with guardrails, firewalls, and prompt engineering toolkits but the combination of interpretability and control presents an exciting opportunity to invoke a new first line of defense. A second problem that interpretability could help with is in reducing the compute cost for models which 63% of executives cite in a recent study as a top concern during adoption.

We were fortunate to meet Cyril Gorlla and Trevor Tuttle at last year’s PyTorch conference. They shared with us details on the research they had been doing at UC San Diego inspired by the path forged in model interpretability. Their newly formed company CTGT had started to build a model toolkit to customize, train, and deploy AI models in a safe and cost effective manner. The team has made significant progress as we’ve known them and have landed enterprise customers who rely on CTGT software to leverage Foundation Models within their organization.

Read more on Gradient

Our Investment in Concierge: Unifying Tool Fragmentation through its AI Assistant

Most knowledge work today is fragmented across countless SaaS tools. We’ve grown to accept constant context switching and manual effort to complete simple tasks. Need to follow up with a prospect? That means bouncing between CRM, old email threads, Slack conversations, and maybe an internal team wiki. Want to create a new feature ticket? That requires diving into API docs, past engineering discussions, and project management platforms. Concierge is the first connected AI assistant that can read and write to users’ favorite SaaS apps in real-time. Concierge talks to various tools (like Gmail, Jira, Notion, Slack, Linear, Confluence, Hubspot, Attio, or Google Drive), conducts deep research on the web, and leverages customizable "skills" to craft the perfect deliverable for users. We can finally delegate complex tasks to AI.

Read more on Gradient

Our Investment in Firstwork: Workforce Ops for the Industries that Keep the World Moving 

We’re thrilled to announce our investment in Firstwork, a company that’s tackling the chaos of frontline workforce management with the kind of efficiency that makes you wonder how we ever survived without it. At the heart of Firstwork’s approach is a simple but powerful belief: well-designed components build well-designed systems. Every feature, every module, and every line of code is crafted with precision and purpose, ensuring that the platform isn’t just functional but smart, scalable, and resilient.

Read more on Gradient

What we’re reading

Simple test-time scaling (arxiv)

Portfolio opportunities

• Benepass is on the hunt for a Design Lead who is eager to play a pivotal role in building the product’s future. Apply here.

• CentML is looking for a highly-driven Enterprise Account Executive to join its sales team. Apply here.

• Collective wants a Senior Software Engineer who will be a key player in building their product and internal system. Apply here.

• Gigs is hiring a Founders Associate to the CEO who will help scale the company post-Series B. Apply here.

See you next month!

Gradient

Hey there! This newsletter is being sent from the slopes at Jackson Hole, Wyoming with our founders. ⛷️ 

2025 has gotten off to a hot start in the AI world; let’s dig in.

Recent Funding

• Fazeshift raises $4 million to bring AI agents to accounts receivable (Axios)

• Kerna emerges from stealth to enhance mRNA therapy precision (Endpoints)

• Arva secures $3 million for its AI-enabled platform for automating AML and KYB verification (Axios)

• Backline emerges from stealth with $9 million for its AI security agents that automatically remediate security vulnerabilities (TechCrunch)

Portfolio Spotlights

Writer’s May Habib discusses AI agents with Axios

FlutterFlow, Rad AI, and Stairwell featured in Business Insider’s next unicorns

What do an app-building platform that's revolutionizing mobile development, an AI reshaping how doctors handle medical documentation, and a cybersecurity innovator have in common? They're all Gradient-backed companies that just made Business Insider's list of future unicorns. 🦄 

Read the entire article in Business Insider

Spline launches Spell, a model to generate 3D worlds in a matter of minutes

Read more on X

Paladin Drones has transformed emergency response capabilities in the Southwest area through their innovative partnership with the DeSoto Police Department. Together, thye’ve implemented an advanced first-responder drone program that significantly reduces response times to emergencies. Paladin’s sophisticated DJI 30T system operates autonomously from its docking station and can navigate beyond visual line of sight, allowing for rapid deployment in critical situations. Through Paladin's comprehensive training and technical support, the DeSoto department leverages the system's thermal imaging capabilities to locate missing persons and provide crucial aerial assistance during structure fires, positioning DeSoto PD at the forefront of public safety technology.

Read more on Metro News

Featured Blogs

DeepSeek R1 on CentML

CentML has demonstrated the value of deep parallel computing optimization by rapidly deploying DeepSeek's R1 model with industry-leading performance metrics. While DeepSeek's breakthrough came partly from hardware-level optimizations—including custom PTX compiler code and mixed precision training—such expertise is typically limited to a small number of specialized teams. CentML's platform makes these advanced optimization capabilities accessible to all developers, enabling optimal performance across major models and chips without requiring expertise in low-level hardware optimization.

Read more on Gradient

What we are reading

DeepSeek-V3 Technical Report (arxiv)

Portfolio opportunities

• Rootly wants a Senior Product Manager who can help make global enterprises more reliable through world-class incident management. Apply here.

• Infisical is looking for an Enterprise Account Executive to help grow its customer base. Apply here.

• Cake is on the hunt for a Principal Solutions Engineer who can help bring cutting-edge AI accessible to every business. Apply here.

• CentML is hiring a Machine Learning Systems Engineer to further its mission to massively reduce the cost of developing and deploying ML models. Apply here.

See you next month!

Gradient

Hey there!

This December, we're highlighting Spade's founders making Forbes 30 Under 30, deep-diving into GTM Sprints, recapping the latest fundraises, and spotlighting roles at a few of our portfolio companies.

Recent Funding

• Cake raises $13 million to make open-source AI more accessible (TechCrunch)

• Gigs gets $73 million to power mobile network services for any company (TechCrunch)

Portfolio Spotlights

Spade’s co-founders Oban MacTavish and Cooper Hart featured in Forbes 30 under 30

Behind every bank transaction is a string of cryptic codes and abbreviations – a legacy problem that makes it surprisingly hard for banks to track where money is moving. After founding Spade and developing technology to turn this confusing data into clear merchant names, Oban MacTavish and Cooper Hart were named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 Finance list.

The value of accurate transaction data extends across multiple areas of banking operations, from fraud detection to customer insights and operational efficiency. This need is particularly relevant given the scale of financial crime – Nilson reports that credit and debit card fraud alone resulted in $39.62 billion in global losses in 2023.

Spade has gained early traction, processing over $1 billion in monthly transactions for more than 20 customers, including established companies like Stripe and Corpay. Their growth reflects the financial sector's increasing focus on improving transaction data clarity.

Read more in Forbes

Featured Blogs

The GTM Sprint - A Framework for Testing Early Stage GTM Hypotheses

At the early stage, you need to iterate on your go-to-market (GTM) as fast, if not faster, than you’re iterating on your product. Here’s why: before investing a ton of engineering resources into building a product, it’s critical that you validate there’s a market for what you’re building. Customer feedback is crucial. That’s where GTM Sprints come in. This agile methodology forces early-stage companies to embrace experimentation and quick iteration to validate product-market fit and generate sales leads faster.

Read more about GTM Sprints

Portfolio opportunities

• Krea is looking for an AI/ML Engineer to develop and optimize generative AI models for image generation and processing. Apply here.

  Spline is looking for a Graphics Engineer who can help solve Spline’s app technical/graphic challenges. Apply here.

• Gynger is hiring a Business Development Representative to drive sales growth. Apply here.

• Range is seeking a talented Product Designer with 5+ years of experience to own the end-to-end design process for their cutting-edge wealth management platform. Apply here.

See you next month!

Gradient

Hey there — It's time for our monthly update on the latest AI investments, insights, and opportunities.

P.S. Catch us at NeurIPS 2024 with Lambda and Weights & Biases. RSVP here.

Recent Funding

• Writer raises $200 million and hits $1.9 billion valuation in latest funding round (Bloomberg)

• Oura reaches a $5 billion valuation and gets $75 million in fresh funding (Bloomberg)

• Range secures $28 million for its AI-powered wealth management platform (Axios)

Portfolio Spotlights

How Air Space Intelligence saved Alaska Airlines 1.2 million gallons of fuel

When Air Space Intelligence's CEO Phillip Buckendorf walked into Alaska Airlines' operations center in 2018, he was shocked to find flight dispatchers using technology barely more advanced than DOS — a pivotal moment that transformed his startup from a self-driving car company into an aviation AI powerhouse. His team's Flyways platform now processes everything from wind patterns to Super Bowl airspace restrictions, revolutionizing flight planning for Alaska Airlines, which has become the second most punctual U.S. carrier while saving 1.2 million gallons of fuel in 2023. Flyways' AI suggestions now affect half of Alaska's flight plans, showing how a fast-moving startup can change even the most complex industries.

Read the entire article in Business Insider

What we are reading

Cut Your Losses in Large-Vocabulary Language Models (arxiv)

Portfolio opportunities

• Secureframe needs an Account Executive who can transform technical security conversations into meaningful partnerships with C-suite executives. Apply here.

• Stack AI wants an Enterprise AI Deployment Engineer who can architect enterprise-grade RAG pipelines and LLM workflows using their innovative no-code platform. Apply here.

• CentML is hiring a Senior Developer Advocate to build and nurture the developer community around their ML optimization platform, bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI technology and practical implementation. Apply here.

• Gigs wants a Strategic Account Manager who can help tech giants embed telecom capabilities into their platforms using their innovative operating system for mobile services. Apply here.

See you next month!

Gradient

Hey there! Happy Halloween 🎃 👻 

It's time for our monthly update on the latest in AI investments, insights, and opportunities.

Recent Funding

• Paladin raises $5.2 million for its drone-as-first-responder technology (TechCrunch)

• Cascade raises $3.75 million to bring AI to human resources (GeekWire)

• BackOps.ai secures $2 million to modernize the logistics industry (BackOps)

• Tildei emerges from stealth with $6 million to help brands build conversational AI experiences (Tildei)

Portfolio Spotlights

Writer’s May Habib discusses leveraging synthetic data on CNBC

Cambrium featured in WIRED’s hottest Berlin startups

Berlin’s tech scene has become a growing hub for many startups in Europe. It's becoming a center for cutting-edge science and artificial intelligence, which is making it more appealing for innovative startups like Cambrium to make it their home base.

Read the entire article in WIRED

Featured Blogs

Bringing AI to Emergency Response

Law enforcement and emergency services face a critical breaking point, with 87% of police departments understaffed while handling an overwhelming 240 million emergency calls annually. Enter Paladin, founded by Divy Shrivastava after a friend's house fire, which deploys AI-powered autonomous drones to provide real-time aerial views of emergencies, helping first responders arrive faster and better prepared. The impact has been remarkable — cities using Paladin's platform report response times under 90 seconds, with over 12,000 missions completed and the ability to resolve 30% of calls without dispatching ground units, while new features like Payload Drop allow drones to deliver critical medical supplies directly to emergency scenes.

Read more about our investment in Paladin

Simplifying HR for all Enterprises

In large companies, HR teams are overwhelmed every day with thousands of employee questions about benefits and policies. These questions often come during important life events like pregnancy or health issues that need both quick answers and privacy. A recent BCG survey shows that 95% of companies are actively seeking to transform their HR departments through automation, as current manual processes frustrate both employees and HR teams. Enter Cascade, an AI assistant that seamlessly integrates with enterprise systems to provide immediate, personalized answers to employee questions, already handling over half of routine queries at companies like OneOncology and Boomi while enabling HR teams to focus on more strategic work.

Read more about our investment in Cascade

What we are reading

Simplifying, Stabilzing, and Scaling Continuous Time Consistency Models (arxiv)

Portfolio opportunities

• Lambda is looking for a Senior Brand Designer who can help build the brand behind the world's best deep learning cloud. Apply here.

• Air Space Intelligence is on the hunt for a Full-Stack Engineer in the Boston area. Apply here.

• FlutterFlow wants a Front-End Engineer who is eager to build the next best thing. Bonus: you get to work with the founders. Apply here.

• Rad AI is looking for a Director of Machine Learning. You’ll play a key role in shaping Rad AI’s future. Apply here.

See you next month!

Gradient