Mark Peter Davis

Venture studios are quietly becoming one of the most effective models for company creation, but most people still don't understand what happens inside one. For this podcast episode I sat down with @AndyBilinsky, Partner at Interplay leading our Studio, to break down exactly how we build companies from the ground up. During our conversation, we covered: - What a venture studio actually is and how it differs from traditional VC - Why we research industries deeply before ever writing a business plan - The role of operating partners as true co-founders - Why second- and third-time founders are choosing to build with a studio instead of going solo - How Interplay went from 3 new companies in Q4 2025 to targeting 10+ in 2026 Big thanks to Andy for pulling back the curtain on how we build. Grateful to have him here at Interplay.

"VC is back" is a misread. Q1 2026 hit an all-time record — and 43% of it was one round (OpenAI, $122B). Strip out four AI labs and the other 5,996 startups split what was left. There are two venture markets right now. Most founders live in one of them. interplay.vc/blog/two-ventu…

B2B procurement is getting a complete overhaul. Not incremental improvement. A full rebuild of the stack, from the agents executing purchases to the ERPs integrating them to the payment rails settling transactions. @navya_prab breaks down where the opportunity is for investors and builders: interplay.vc/blog/the-futur…

Most founders treat fundraising like a finish line. It isn't. It's a pit stop. You stop racing for a few weeks. Fresh tires, souped-up engine, the right advisors on board. If the raise doesn't make you faster after, you ran the wrong play.

You can have a great team, a real problem, and a working product — and still fail because you're not in a big enough market. Market size isn't just a slide in a pitch deck. It's the single biggest factor that determines whether a startup can return a venture fund. We covered the key criteria for evaluating whether your idea is big enough — market size, scalability, venture potential, and whether the pain is real: lnkd.in/eQmHkhrk

Most VCs fund <1% of what they see. That means 99 of every 100 founders hear no — and founders take their company personally. It's their baby. A successful VC has to tell 99% of parents their baby isn't the one. Don't take the no personally. The math forces it.

The biggest mistake founders make with their board: they treat the meeting like a status update. Good board meetings flip the ratio. 45 min on KPIs, two hours on the one strategic problem you're actually wrestling with. That's where boards earn their keep.

We’re excited to announce that @KnotAPIs is now live with @CashApp. The Cash App Card is one of the largest debit card programs in the United States. With Knot's CardSwitcher™, Cash App cardholders can instantly add their card across the merchants they use most, including Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Uber, and 100+ more, without ever leaving the app. Cash App has always focused on creating intuitive financial experiences. Knot builds on that by driving activation and spend for Cash App, reducing churn and abandoned carts for merchants, and giving users a frictionless way to use their Cash App Card. We’re proud to power an even more seamless Cash App Card experience and excited for what’s ahead. More to come.

Keep in mind - they'll only be better tomorrow. Humanoid robots have arrived.

Don't lose sight of the rate of change. Perfection is right around the corner.

If 1) Full Self Driving (FSD) is safer than human drivers (see chart) and 2) FSD is only available in Teslas. Then is choosing to buy a non-Tesla comparable to choosing to buy a car without a seat belt? cc @elonmusk @Tesla

Humans keep most of their attention focused on the short-term stories (gossip, politics, conflicts) that will largely be forgotten in time. We tend to pay very little attention to the long-term narratives that will define mankind. The scaling of humanoid robot production is one of the most significant developments to be watching. Check it. Your world is changing. 👇 cc @adcock_brett @Figure_robot

@maddiehalla @zsims Sounds like a recipe for a good marriage.

@mpd @zsims I'd say the same thing about him :)

This is extremely cool. It seems to be one of those moments when all of the incentives align and good happens… cc @zsims - you married up…

Some of the more aggressive estimates project that half of the world's population will speak English by 2050. There are ~7,000 languages spoken today, with four languages that are spoken by more than 5% of the global population. The Lingua Franca Ratio (the ratio non-native to native speakers) is probably one of the greatest indicators of the spread of the language. The English language currently has a ratio of 3:1.

A lot of startup advice boils down to "scale fast." But the best founders do the opposite early on. They hand-deliver the product. They personally onboard every customer. They do things that would never work at 10x the size. Paul Graham called it "doing things that don't scale"