Liam H. Mulcahy

Today, @tryprofound is excited to announce our $96M Series C at a $1B valuation, led by @lightspeedvp with participation from @sequoia, @kleinerperkins, @mattevantic, @saga_ventures and @southpkcommons. When we started Profound 18 months ago, we had two fundamental beliefs about where marketing is heading: 1. Every company will care deeply about how AI talks about their brand. 2. Every marketer will use AI Agents to do their best work, faster. Those beliefs are becoming reality faster than we imagined. Now, we serve more than 10% of the Fortune 500 and are the number 1 leader on the G2 grid for AEO. To double down on that momentum, we’re taking two big swings: 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀: AI workers that take marketing teams from concept to execution. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆: certifications and cohort-based learning for marketers who want stay at the forefront of AI marketing. Reply with 𝗔𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗧 for free access to one of our most popular agents. No account required and no strings attached.

@heyrimsha @p0 👀

BREAKING: Claude is insane for market research. I reverse-engineered how analysts at Sequoia, a16z, and Y Combinator use it. The difference is night and day. Here are 10 prompts they don't want you to know (but I'm sharing anyway):

@vipul_1011 Interested Might be the exact opposite of an AI engineer, but have a PHD in the strategic extraction of cash, aka sales.

NYC has insane AI talent density, but barely any high-quality AI events. Meanwhile, SF has 5–6 every week. That gap doesn’t make sense. So we are trying to change it. We are hosting a curated meetup for serious AI builders & startup enthusiasts. First one is on Feb 27! We are starting small and will slowly scale it up. Comment or DM if you interested. Share it with your NYC AI friends!

“Do we really need someone with a sales background to sell? Can’t we just hire a smart person from consulting or banking? How hard could it be?” “Well, do we really need more engineers to build the product? Isn’t Claude / Cursor doing most of the work anyway?” 🙂 I don’t agree we either statement, but hear the first one a lot. Engineering is a craft. Sales is a craft. Don’t make simple things hard, recruit people who are great at their craft.

@jaltma Congrats 🤝

I’m really excited to share that I’m joining Benchmark. The past two years as a full time investor have been the most rewarding of my career. I really love venture capital, which is not something I ever imagined I’d say when I was kid, but here we are. I love new ideas and being part of a team with a mission. I love getting to be there for people who are struggling towards goals they really care about. I love learning from people who are better CEOs than I ever was. I love the texture of the work, the competition, and the way the job lets you invest in relationships. I love it so much that I’ve even turned into a little venture nerd with a podcast who goes around harassing great investors and founders, trying to learn as much as I can as fast as possible. I’ve certainly learned what I care most about, and what kind of investor I want to be. What I’ve realized is that I love investing at the Series A, when there’s enough going on that an investor can be useful but not so much that you can’t have an impact. I think there are many amazing ways to practice venture, it’s just the way that most speaks to me. And as I came to realize that, I started to think about how to best set myself up to do that craft as well as possible. It became clear to me there is nowhere better for this than Benchmark; the way they’re structured, their principles, their overall approach to investing, and their track record all create an environment that I believe will let me do my best work as an investor and help founders the most I possibly can. As I’ve gotten to know the team at Benchmark I’ve come to admire so much about each of them. Peter is truly playing his own game. A lot of what he says sounds like poetry at first, but as the ideas roll around in your head for a while you realize how much depth they have. I first heard about Eric many years ago from my friend Saji at Benchling while I was building Lattice, who described him as the most amazing board member and attributed him with a lot of the company’s success. That’s the kind of partner I want to be one day. Chetan is brilliant and truly thinks for himself; I’ve realized over time what a courageous guy he is. And then there’s my friend Ev, whose skills complement mine and who I just love to be around. I can’t wait to have him as a partner in crime. When given the chance to work with this group I just knew I had to go. One of my motivating north stars with Alt Capital was to build a firm and be a partner that I most would have wanted as an entrepreneur. Although I haven’t gotten everywhere I want to be yet, I’m proud of the work so far. And now I’m excited to build on that work at Benchmark, where I hope to increase my rate of learning and get armed with the power of a partnership so I can help founders reach their dreams even more. Thank you to the companies who’ve let me invest with them at Alt Cap. I’m keeping all my board seats and supporting everyone just the same as before. Thank you to the LPs who’ve backed me as well. I am so excited about the portfolio we have and am grateful I can stick with all those companies. And finally thank you to my teammates, Bala, Vivek, and Nate. Bala took a bet on me and started investing with me before it was remotely obvious, and we’ve been able to grow so much figuring it out together as investors. I credit Nate with helping Alt start feeling like a firm. He joined us from First Round over a year ago and made everything run smoothly. And while Vivek joined just a little while ago, even in the short time we’ve worked together he’s had a meaningful impact on how we think and invest. They’re all joining Benchmark with me. So pumped for this chapter.

@martin_casado Funny, was thinking about this analogy over the weekend. My best attempt.

We're very much in the electric scissors phase of AI software development ...

@bgurley @dittycheria 🐐

Masterful CEO run. World class.

"Behind Frenemy Lines" would be a good title for a book about venture capital

@lennysan @tryprofound 👀

Wow ChatGPT now drives more traffic to my newsletter than Twitter.

For those that can’t live without their @WHOOP but are’t crazy about stacking both wrists. @willahmed thoughts? Am I breaking ground here?! 😅

@EverettRandle 😂

How I feel wearing my normal SF outfits in NYC

@khushkhushkhush @kleinerperkins This is a totally non-Cheugy VC event. Its giving AMA vibes, focusing on actionable GTM approaches and no sus theoretical pontificating. You'll be glad you told all your friends and went together. Bet.

calling all early stage founders based in nyc - @kleinerperkins is hosting a founders hang on june 14th to help with all things GTM! we'll have KP legend @stuffliamtweets leading the charge sign up + share with founder friends :) events.kleinerperkins.com/nycfoundershang

@LM_Braswell @Joubinmir So tempted to make a value add joke, but I'll leave that to others 😅

shoutout to @StuffLiamTweets @Joubinmir Lauren & Suzanne (kleinerperkins.com/people/special…)

There's VCs being theoretically helpful, and then there's the fact that for a recent enterprise portfolio company, KP made 16 executive-level customer introductions over the past 3 months. We have a truly incredible GTM/BD team & network! 🙏

@LM_Braswell Living on the edge 🍋 ⚡️

If your investors aren’t fueling with Panera charged lemonade, you don’t want them

I was terrified by the scariest costume @kleinerperkins today... The Ghost of Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) Behavior 😂

@LM_Braswell @kleinerperkins *Ghost-to-Market 👻

@meghalexander @MacConwell @Taytus Thanks @meghalexander ! Happy to connect with them

@MacConwell @Taytus @StuffLiamTweets

Hey Community, One of my founders @Taytus is currently looking for a B2B sales mentor. He is a technical CEO that is looking to learn how to do sales and just wants a little help. Any ideas for him?

Brutal chart tracking the demise of 3AC. Breaks down all assets/liabilities of 3ac’s publicly known eth wallets. Stark reminder of why it's important to only work with authentic, self aware, thoughtful people who want to push crypto forward. Credit: The chads at @AlliumLabs

@dfkoz @adamn @amishjani @loganbartlett +1 for PTC, I'd also include BMC/BladeLogic/AppD in there as well (all branches of the same tree)

@micahjay1 redwoodempirewhiskey.com/whiskey/lost-m…

Best whiskey (as a gift) <$200?