Rocky Yu

Jazzed for this keynote by Jeff Erhardt at our 12th annual LDV Capital Vision Summit: The Materials Innovation Gap: Why AI Predictions Aren't Enough — And What It Will Take to Transform a $6 Trillion Industry RSVP: https://lnkd.in/eeUHN_m AI is transforming industry after industry, and generating enormous excitement in the world of materials science. Machine learning models can now predict millions of new material candidates with unprecedented speed and accuracy. At the same time, programmable material classes, including those recognized by the 2025 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry, could unlock breakthroughs in some of the most pressing challenges facing civilization, from environmental remediation to the energy transition. But their impact is constrained by something prediction alone cannot resolve: new materials must be physically produced, scaled, integrated, and qualified within the larger systems into which they are deployed, a journey that remains extraordinarily long, expensive, and unpredictable. Jeff will argue that closing this materials innovation gap requires treating AI and physical experimentation as equal partners, and building a new model of collaborative development that connects materials innovators and industrial partners far earlier in the discovery process.

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I had a wonderful time joining Alec Crawford on the AI Risk Reward podcast. We spoke about how AI should enhance rather than replace human creativity, what it means to build ethical, human-centered AI systems, and the future of work. We even discussed how AI acts as a mirror to our collective unconscious. 🎧 Listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/g6Y9b9Yp ▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/grtJ3FC6 #AI #GenerativeAI #Creativity #AIethics #AIinBusiness #Podcast

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CRV Security: Request for Startups I never know if this actually works for our friends over at YC but figured we'd try. Here's what we want to fund in 2026! 1. Golden Artifacts: Think Chainguard but more broad. Artifact attestation exists for open source. Almost nothing exists for internal software — especially the vibe-coded tooling now running in production. We want the company building cryptographic proof of secure software delivered from secure artifacts: who built it, how, and whether it was reviewed. If more things are being yeeted into the world via Claude Code (myself included), this feels like an issue. 2. MCP & Agentic Security: Agents are getting real credentials and taking real actions. The security posture of most orgs around this is basically zero. That changes fast. You'd never give an employee hardcoded API keys or write access to your email without supervision/trust. Why give it to agents? 3. AI Governance: Boards are asking CISOs to account for AI risk. CISOs have no good answer other than "Palo has a module" 4. Next-Gen Endpoint: CrowdStrike was built for a world of static binaries and human operators. AI workloads, cloud-native infra, and AI-assisted attackers need a new architecture. The category is ready to be reinvented. 5. Networking in the AI Era: Zero trust was designed for humans. What does network security look like when the entity requesting access is an agent? Nobody's really solved this. 6. Email Security + Next-Gen Phishing: LLMs have made spear phishing infinitely scalable. I've never truly understood why Abnormal and KnowBe4 aren't one company. Maybe this time it's different. 7. Frontier Security Lab: We'd back a credible, well-staffed lab focused entirely on red-teaming models and setting the evidentiary standard the industry needs as LLM built apps become the norm. 8. Dependency Security: That Actually Remediates Malicious and vulnerable dependencies are a top attack vector. The tooling is mostly noise — scanners that don't close the loop. The winner here ships fixes, not just alerts. 9. Critical Infrastructure Cyber: Data centers, satellites, power grids, undersea cables. The physical backbone of the internet is increasingly exposed and wildly under-defended. We have data centers in space, for God's sake. Surely we need better cyber for critical infrastructure? 10. PAM for the Modern Era Legacy: PAM was built for static roles, human users, on-prem directories. Cyberark was founded in 1999.....Agents, ephemeral workloads, and cloud-native infra have broken all of those assumptions. Is anyone rebuilding this from scratch? If you're building in any of these areas — or something we haven't thought of — reach out. james@crv.com

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Trying something new this week - a studio industry roundup with my take on what matters. The studio model is no longer an experiment being run in a handful of places. It is infrastructure being built across geographies, sectors, and institutional types. 5️⃣ stories from the past seven days:  1️⃣ OSS Ventures hit a EUR 40M first close on a EUR 75M follow-on fund -- capital raised specifically to back the 30 companies their studio created since 2019. The "build then fund" lifecycle is maturing. B'More Venture Studio with a similar thesis: studio operations first, then dedicated capital to scale what's working.  2️⃣ Delta40 raised $20M from 54 investors across 13 countries to launch Africa's first integrated venture studio and fund. The LP base is almost entirely DFIs and foundations. Impact capital is discovering the studio model as a deployment vehicle, something I seeing across geographies (conversations with Michael Bob Starr and Damias McDonald this week alone) 3️⃣ Start Holdings launched Start.vc out of NYC and Barcelona after a $200M EV infrastructure exit. Another operator-turned-studio-founder. This is the pattern we see quite often in our work at 9point8 -- experienced operators like Jason Goldsmith who've built and exited deciding the studio model is how they want to build next.  4️⃣ UBC HATCH admitted 10 new deep-tech spinouts for Winter 2026 -- mostly climate tech. University venture builders are quietly becoming one of the fastest-growing segments. Follow Evan Allen and Jaimie Testai to keep track of its rapid evolution.  5️⃣ The INVEST Act is advancing through the Senate. If passed, it expands qualifying VC fund size from $10M to $50M and loosens general solicitation rules for accelerator and university events. For studio-funds -- and for folks in the The Venture Studio Forum community tracking policy -- this could be the most significant capital formation legislation since the JOBS Act. If this roundup format is useful, I'll keep it going. What other noteworthy news hit your desk this week, and what stood out to you?

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