World Congress 2026 North America • Sep 25, 2026 • Session details

What AI Startups Are VCs Actually Funding in 2026

Mariane Bekker , Eric Bahn , Jeremiah Owyang , Suman Natarajan

Technical novelty is no longer a defensible moat for AI startups. To secure funding in 2026, founders must master aggressive distribution. Discover exactly what VCs demand beyond the code.

Starting at 21:27 · Watch from the beginning

What AI Startups Are VCs Actually Funding in 2026 thumbnail

Checking access…

Playback and chapters load privately for Free videos.

Matching moments

5:23 min

Evaluating venture capital value and AI sustainability

Frank Seehaus Frank Seehaus +3 · World Congress 2026 Europe

6:25 min

Autonomous agents and unusual startup pivots

6:31 min

Evolving venture capital strategies amid artificial intelligence democratization

Christian Nagel Christian Nagel +3 · World Congress 2026 Europe

5:29 min

Navigating the hype and realistic expectations of artificial intelligence

Romano Roth Romano Roth · World Congress 2025

1:56 min

Navigating investor pressure for AI in product development

Simon Müller Simon Müller · World Congress 2024

57 sec

Balancing buy-side and sell-side perspectives in artificial intelligence

Anita Ganti Anita Ganti · World Congress 2026 North America

Upcoming sessions on this topic

Open session

Engineering AI Strategy: Beyond the Hype

  • Omkar Srivastava

    ADSK

    Engineering Leader

Open session

Beware of Strangers Bearing Code: Open Source Trust in the Agent Era

  • Vikram Vaswani

    Consultant

Open session

AI Is the Easy Part: Why Faster Engineers Don't Make Faster Businesses

  • Bharat Sharma

    Booking

    Senior Engineering Manager

Open session

From Agentic AI to Enterprise Ready: Building Agents That Scale, Secure and Deliver

  • Nagendra Bangalore

    IBM

    Director of Engineering

Open session

The Dream Team You Didn't Know You Had - Multi-Model, Multi-Agent, One Software Lifecycle

  • Aditya Dua

    GitHub

    Senior Manager, Field Services, SAARC

Open session

Your AI Wrote the Code. Who Vouches for It?

  • Siddharth Joshi

    GitHub

    Senior Customer Success Architect