Connect Ventures

@Nik_Quinn Sekai $20M Series A co-led by Khosla Ventures and Connect Ventures axios.com/2026/06/01/sek…

Most products fight for 5 minutes of consumer attention. 📱 Sekai customers are spending well over an HOUR/day creating AI apps…. and 15 million apps have been created since they launched 5 months ago. That's the signal we hunt for at @ConnectVentures. Thrilled to co-lead the Series A with Khosla. The future of joy. 🚀 h/t @kerrymflynn / Axios

Our newsletter, The Greats, interviews extraordinary individuals who have human-career fit and reveals their blueprint for success. In this edition, @ConnectVentures @Nik_Quinn and @mblank interview #CAA Bryan Lourd and Jim Burtson. connectventures.beehiiv.com/p/the-greats-b…

5/ LPs Need Exposure to Consumer Now. The power law doesn't care about consensus. You have a 7-10 year window to capture 90% of the value. That window is now.

4/ 6 of the Mag 7 launched as Consumer companies. AAPL. 
AMZN. 
GOOGL. 
META. 
MSFT. 
TSLA. Buyers today have leverage in Consumer •Better entry prices.  •Better terms.  •Less deal competition

3/ VC is governed by the power law and nowhere is this more true than in Consumer.  In Consumer you have:  •Network effects and •Low marginal costs and •Winner-take-most dynamics and •Nearly 5 billion addressable consumers If you get Consumer right, you get it very right.

2/ Where can you invest today that is out of consensus? AND right? 1/16 of VC dollars go into consumer today (very out of consensus). But more consumer unicorns were created last year than any time in the past decade (very right). That's an opportunity.

1/ Our newsletter, The Greats #2 is out on why LPs now need to allocate to Consumer. And interview Bryan Lourd & Jim Burtson on how @CAA became one of entertainment's most powerful agencies. connectventures.beehiiv.com/p/the-greats-b… @ConnectVentures #VC #ConsumerTech #Consumer #TheGreats #CAA

This analysis on VC returns is missing the most important fact. Yes, VC returns underperformed on a 2, 5 and 10 year view. They outperformed on a 15, 20, 25 and 30 year view. What’s the difference? Innovation. We had the internet wave 1993-2001 We had the cloud wave 2006-2014 We had the mobile wave 2007-2014 We had no commercial innovation for a decade so why are we surprised the returns were lower? We have the AI wave now. This will be the biggest value creation of any wave in history. Love you @danprimack but VC didn’t underperform, innovation did. Now it’s back so I would not be underweight venture.

“Consumer is dead” is the laziest take in tech. If you believe it, you’ve already missed the next cycle. Consumer doesn’t die. It reboots with new technology and then you have a 7–10 year window to invest to capture 90% of that value. That window is now, so.... Today we announce our VC fund, Connect Ventures, backing the most exceptional Consumer founders.

10/ We may be entering a cycle where: Software gets commoditized. AI infrastructure consolidates. And Consumer captures the upside. That’s not consensus yet. But the rotation has started.

9/ Our view @ConnectVentures AI increases productivity → Which increases disposable time → Which increases consumer spend. Time is upstream of consumption.

8/ Public investors are also asking: "If intelligence is abundant, what becomes scarce?" I can tell you.... Taste. Attention. Trust. Distribution.

7/ Consumer moats aren’t just product features. They’re: • Emotional attachment • Habit • Identity • Cultural relevance • Trust • Community Those don’t get replicated in “a matter of moments.”

6/ Meanwhile, Consumer looks different. Why? Because AI doesn’t replace desire. It amplifies it.

5/ Another investor said: "SaaS TAMs will shrink. If AI agents replace seats, you don’t expand ARPU — you eliminate users." Seat-based pricing looks fragile in an agent-based world.

4/ One investor said it plainly: “Software margins aren’t durable if intelligence is commoditized.” Let that sink in.

3/ So what is defensible? Public market investors kept coming back to: • Distribution • Brand • Data network effects • Community • IP • Regulatory capture • Ecosystem control

2/ Their biggest fear? AI can replicate most software products in moments. If your product is just workflow + UI… what’s the moat? For 15 years, SaaS moats were: • Switching costs • Data lock-in • Workflow embedding • Multi-year contracts AI is compressing all of that.

1/ The pullback in software is real. Capital is rotating. And it’s flowing to Consumer + AI. After speaking with 20 public market investors this week, the message was consistent — and blunt.