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Read on for a crisp articulation of CX2's urgent mission, vividly illustrated by a video from 8VC's Design Lab.
Hey everyone, Monday marks a major step for CX2, and for what we’ve been building toward: giving operators the tools to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum. We’ll share the full announcement in The Spectrum Imperative, along with the story behind it and where we’re headed next.
Get on the list to join us Nov 4th for rare perspectives from the frontiers of healthcare innovation!
AI is one of the few potential deflationary forces in healthcare, a sector that badly needs costs contained and access improved. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) directs over $1.9T in annual spending through Medicare and Medicaid. How will CMS promote innovation? What role will AI play? What problems have been solved and what barriers are on the horizon? And what role does the SF tech ecosystem have to play? Join me for a fireside chat with Abe Sutton, Director of the CMS Innovation Center, on November 4th at the 8VC office. Slots will be limited, join the waitlist here: https://lnkd.in/gVCe2Bhi Priority given to patriots who are passionate about using technology to make Americans healthier!
Calling all NYC designers and creatives... we’re hosting our final New York Design Meetup of the year next Thursday, October 23 at 6PM. Our last event had an incredible turnout, so space will be limited — RSVP is required. Don’t miss it! https://lnkd.in/gqVUJEyK
8VC reposted this
We’re announcing $6M+ in funding co-led by 8VC and Slow Ventures, with participation from Guillermo Rauch, and the launch of MeritFirst. My partners Joe Lonsdale, Drew Oetting, Sam Lessin, and I are committed to this mission: opportunity promised, outcomes earned. That’s what the American Dream originally meant: broad, equal access to meaningful opportunity, with merit determining advancement. Our country needs that today. We’ve been heads‑down laying the foundation for something we believe needs to exist in the world: a platform where people can demonstrate real capability, not just credentials. Hiring is in rough shape. Proxies (schools, logos, buzzwords) drown out signal. Great people get filtered out; companies miss out and the world is worse off for it. We’re building a skills‑first platform that gives every candidate a real shot to demonstrate capability and helps teams evaluate consistently, fairly, and fast. Our promise to candidates: you deserve a fair chance to compete, irrespective of background - where the effort you put in goes further and opens more doors. Our promise to companies: stronger signal, faster cycles, better teams, happier customers. America thrives when merit does. We’re here to keep the American Dream alive. Thank you to our early partners and all of those who have supported our mission from the start. Back to work! #hiring #futureofwork #meritocracy #AmericanDream
Talent is destiny. We’ve seen it building companies like Palantir Technologies and Addepar, and backing many more. Unfortunately, hiring often favors outdated credentials over the ability to do the job, depriving employers of great people who don’t fit the mold, and vice versa. What’s needed isn’t just a mindset shift—it’s infrastructure for auditable, dynamic assessments that solve for the ability to do the work, and let companies get back to doing it. We’re partnering with Sam Lessin and Zack Ganieany to build MeritFirst: adaptable work samples that measure core abilities like planning, problem solving, etc, and role-based skillsets. The more companies and candidates participate, the more efficiently talent and opportunity come together. Today, MeritFirst announced its $6mm seed funding, co-led by 8VC and Slow Ventures with participation from Guillermo Rauch. In our latest blog, Drew Oetting, Joe Lonsdale, and Gabe Rosen reflect on the promise of meritocracy at scale: https://lnkd.in/dpnPhRYZ This round builds on a groundswell of early customer enthusiasm, and will support deeper simulations, expanded roles, and new programs and partnerships. On that note, the 2026 8VC Engineering Fellowship, now utilizing MeritFirst, is live! https://lnkd.in/dCmYt_JN CC: Will Quist Jack Raines Asanka Jayasuriya Bela Becerra Vivek Gopalan Veronique St-Germain Luke Bugbee Alex Cohen
Fabrion, the latest company from 8VC’s Build Program, is transforming how industrial manufacturers and suppliers engage with complex, multi-tiered global value chains. Fabrion's full-stack, AI-native platform transforms data from pre-production, production, and post-production systems into real-time insights and actions. 8VC’s internal Design Lab is proud to partner with Fabrion’s world-class founding team - Roy Ng, Christian V. Jordan and Kunal B. - to create the company's brand foundation. Here’s a glimpse of our brand aesthetic exploration work with the team.
In the latest episode of American Optimist, Joe Lonsdale is joined by repeat founder and logistics pioneer Harish Abbott. Harish was a key figure in the next-day shipping revolution, initially at Amazon, then Deliverr, which became one of the foremost proofpoints for the 8VC logistics thesis and portfolio. Now, he's leading the charge for industry-wide AI transformation with Augment. Augment's flagship product, Augie, is the AI teammate for logistics operators. Six months since emerging from stealth, Augie already manages $25 billion in freight. Listen as Harish and Joe dive into - Lessons from Amazon and Jeff Bezos, as well as Harish's founder journey. - How AI will power the biggest logistics revolution yet, and the enormous opportunity it's already unlocking. - The AI talent race. - Reasons for optimism! And much more: https://lnkd.in/dTAhztEi
In 2017, we were the first investors in Deliverr. This past March we had the privilege of leading Augment’s $25mm seed round, once again backing Harish Abbott and Artur Rivilis, along with former 8VC EIR Justin Hall. Today, Augment announced their $85mm Series A, led by Redpoint. To mark the occasion, Joe Lonsdale and Alex Kolicich reflected on our long partnership with Harish & Art, and a new era of American efficiency: https://lnkd.in/d4q32ynF Logistics famously suffers from fragmented systems, busywork, and slow tech adoption. Harish & Art were undeterred, recognizing that LLM advances could erase the innovation gap and catapult the industry forward. Enter Augie, the AI teammate for logistics operators. Augie takes aim at ~$320 billion/year in US logistics waste, with workflows around invoicing, load tracking, carrier calls, emails, driver support, and fleet management. Echoing the Palantir Technologies & Addepar playbooks, Augie relies on a deep, domain-specific ontology to map complex relationships, encode permissions and reasoning, and enable AI learning and execution to work in tandem with human expertise. This future won’t be achieved with agents alone, however, and Augment is hiring aggressively in engineering, GTM, and more! https://lnkd.in/g-uj-sQr. CC: Bela Becerra Vivek Gopalan
The surest way to invest in a unicorn...is to build it. In this can't-miss Sourcery episode, 8VC Founding Partner Drew Oetting joins Molly O'Shea to discuss how the firm’s founder DNA has shaped the journeys of OpenGov Inc., Saronic Technologies, Affinity.co, Resilience, and more—as well as such big-picture topics as AGI, the economy, and, of course, aliens 👽.
With $6B+ AUM, 8VC has redefined the venture playbook: they don’t just fund companies—they build them. Some outcomes speak for themselves: Palantir Technologies ($370B) Addepar (managing $7T+) OpenGov Inc. ($1.8B acquisition) On Sourcery, Founding Partner Drew Oetting breaks down 8VC’s infamous Build Program—where nearly 30% of the fund’s capital goes into startups they co-create. To date, 8VC has co-founded 28 companies, including Affinity, Saronic Technologies, Epirus, and Resilience—all rooted in the firm’s builder DNA (see: Joe Lonsdale)