Elad Gil, an early investor in the promise of artificial intelligence, is in the news. Now, he’s in the even more exhilarating world of AI-powered rollups. Recognized nationwide for his foresight with tech investments, Gil started betting on AI long before the technology came into focus on a global scale. He’s put together a small but mighty team. Their deep engineering and maker backgrounds equip each member with the tools to explore the most promising front-end AI startups together.
Gil’s team conducts ongoing experimentation with the new AI front-end companies, measure their potential and capabilities. During the last few months, he has met with about two dozen teams that write scripts and run performance and tooling audits. So far, though, he has chosen to look outside of these two teams. He says they need to solve some fundamental challenges before realizing their full promise.
His interest in AI certainly predates the release of GPT-3. In truth, Gil was already playing around with its precursor, a sign of his willingness to try out new technologies before they went mainstream. As he navigates the rapidly evolving landscape, he believes there are currently three or four promising companies per vertical that warrant attention.
In the past two months, a sub set of those markets has become incredibly clear. Gil admitted that the fast-moving and ever-changing nature of the industry has made it difficult these last two quarters.
Gil’s investment strategy entails supporting innovative new startups that operate using AI tech. One such company, Harvey. It’s the first company truly focused on building powerful large language models tailored for law firms and in-house legal departments. Plus, Harvey is said to be in talks to raise new funding at an eye-popping $5 billion valuation.
In addition to Harvey, Gil co-led a $250 million Series D funding round for Abridge, a healthcare AI company focused on enhancing patient communication through advanced technology. Another investment of interest is Sierra AI, which helps companies deploy AI agents for customer service use cases.
I would say that the more I learned about AI, the less I learned, he remarked. “The markets were so dynamic, the technologies were so dynamic,” emphasizing the fast-paced changes within the field.
Gil’s portfolio includes other startups such as Perplexity and Character, reinforcing his commitment to being at the intersection of two significant transformations: AI and its impact on various industries.
He expresses excitement about the current state of AI development, stating, “I just think it’s a really fun period of time, because so much change is happening, and there’s just a ton to do.” He’s excited that so many of the companies are coming through as strong and fierce competitors. He believes the best days of innovation in transit are yet to come.
Gil has an impressive track record of supporting up-and-coming players, with early investments in today’s household names like Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe. His vision for the technology future has made him an invaluable asset to all the VCs and tech innovators who respect his judgment and opinion.
As Gil moves forward to find new opportunities both within AI-powered rollups and outside of them, he’s constantly on the lookout for the next big technology. His approach emphasizes understanding the underlying assets to effectuate rapid transformations, stating, “If you own the asset, you can [transform it] much more rapidly than if you’re just selling software as a vendor.”