Series A has never been harder as VCs rotate into hardware and data/RL plays
manosaie · x · 2026-11-05
DanielChesley argues that after the first wave of AI-app winners was "kingmade", many VCs rotated out of software into two company types: hardware-heavy plays (capital as key ingredient, massive contracts) and data/RL plays (revenue can go vertical overnight). These have squeezed software founders and rewritten what "good growth" means; no market-clearing metric guarantees a Series A anymore.
manosaie agrees but adds that the data/RL opportunity space is massive and will open a new wave of software reinvestment, with more capital deployed than all previous software categories — software will accrue more leverage, not less.
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