After hundreds of pitches, Deedy lists the good, bad trends in AI startups this year
deedydas · x · 2026-09-15
Investor deedydas has heard hundreds of startup pitches this year and summarized the recurring trends:
The good: Higher raise amounts and valuations, especially inflated for strong pre-revenue teams in hot areas (robotics, bio, personal agents); insane topline growth with many companies growing >10x this year; tons of M&A.
It is what it is: Revenue run rate = last month x 12; small teams; billing moving from seat-based to platform fee to usage-based; tranched rounds; the best teams iterate extremely fast; SaaS products repositioning as AI tools to appeal to investors.
The bad: Low or negative gross margins from reselling tokens with non-standard accounting; high "contracted ARR" not yet live; revenue concentration; expensive, scarce compute and excess compute reselling; many thin wrappers ("self-improving harness", "multi-model router", "agent swarms", "computer use"); overworked employees with AI-generated resumes; every space hyper-competitive and hype can vanish quickly.
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