SaaStr tldr: Battle of CRMs

Happy Tuesday Brex Community,

Was in SF last week, it was a blur and had amazing weather thankfully. Was mainly hanging out with my colleagues, doing some strategy sessions, meeting with some candidates (I’m hiring asap), we hosted four events (padel, Barry’s, sauna/cold plunge & healthcare AI meeting) , cruised by the Corgi Cafe to try the new Brex drink and spent one day at SaaStr !

At SaaStr, there was clearly a lot of interest in Native AI CRMs, those taking on Salesforce ($147B market cap), Hubspot ($11B market cap) and tools such as Gong ($4.5B valuation). The three busiest booths were clearly those of Monaco, Reevo and Lightfield. They all have a lot of common: all three are SF HQ’d, are early stage , backed by top investors and more of revenue software play than just a CRMs. It’s going to be really interesting to see how this plays out, my sense is that only two of the three are going to make it ultimately, as the space is getting more crowded with additional players not mentioned & doubt that there is room for more than two $10B+ outcomes. A possible breakout will be one that isn’t just focused on the SF & startup market but expands to additional geos aggressively, which is a counter trend to having everyone work in one office.

Have a great week!

Shai Goldman

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Worldbuild's $30M Bet and Why Solo VC Funds Are Having a Moment

Sumeet Singh isn't the loudest name in venture. He DJs, used to run a custom clothing line, and is a New Yorker whose parents ran electronics shops in Manhattan in the 90s. But last week he put a marker down worth paying attention to: $30M for Worldbuild, a thesis-driven fund he started after his time at a16z.

The fund's already a year in. Portfolio includes SF Compute (the AI compute marketplace that raised a $40M Series A co-led by Wing last November), space energy startup Aetherfux, AI hardware company Truffle, and Browserbase. Singh backed Browserbase founder Paul Klein IV at his prior company, Stream Club, before Browserbase even existed. That's kind of the whole pattern. He's the first call for founders who've worked with him once.

The thesis play

What's interesting isn't the fund size. $30M is normal for a solo GP. What's interesting is the strategy.

Singh writes theses. Long, public ones, on platforms like Every. Founders pick them up and use them to raise from Sequoia and Founders Fund. The pitch to LPs is basically: be the leading indicator for what bigger platforms should pay attention to six to twelve months out.

Ben Casnocha from Village Global, an LP in the fund, framed it well. When you meet a founder and can hand them four PDFs you've already written on their exact space, the dynamic shifts. That's the move that scales for a solo GP. You can't out-network Sequoia. You can out-think a generalist covering five sectors.

A bigger trend

Singh's launch fits a broader shift. Partners at multi-stage firms have been peeling off to start their own shops. Vijay Pande left a16z's biology practice to start VZVC. Arianna Simpson left a few months back, planning to focus on seed-stage crypto and widen into other verticals. Bryan Kim announced in April, focused on consumer and prosumer AI. Anj Midha is building AMP, which calls itself an independent system operator for global compute, structured more as a holding company than a traditional fund. Satish Talluri is working on something in AI infra.

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