Naomi and Derek, Investors at Menlo Ventures, On Generative AI Businesses That Are Getting Investor Dollars

Naomi Ionita and Derek Xiao are investors at Menlo Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's most successful and storied venture capital funds. Menlo has backed over 80 public companies, manages over $5 billion in assets, and has been a pillar of the VC community for an astonishing 47 years. You likely know many of Menlo's recent high-profile investments in companies like Anthropic, Chime, and Harness and historical investments such as 3Com, Hotmail, and Roku. Naomi and Derek recently led the firm's publication of a 3,500-word report chronicling the state of generative AI in the enterprise.

In this episode, we discuss

• How they decide what to invest in 
• The tripling of budgets for AI projects by 2025, according to a report from ISG and Glean
• Enterprise leaders face challenges in proving ROI and building trust in AI solutions.
• The top use cases for AI investment include customer service and enterprise search
• Menlo Ventures' perspective on the current state of VC and the opportunities in AI investing.
• Insights from Menlo Ventures' report on generative AI in the enterprise, including barriers to adoption and the potential for transformation
• The broader societal impacts and considerations of AI adoption in business and technology.

Resources

The Menlo Ventures Enterprise AI report
Menlo Ventures website
Fun fact article