Investment Insights and Trends

Below, we explore nine areas where artificial intelligence will accelerate progress and reshape healthcare by 2035. Along the way, we highlight several Alumni Ventures portfolio companies helping advance these changes. Some ideas may sound like science fiction, but they build on real-world efforts underway across research labs, startups, and industry.

Alumni Ventures’ U.S. Strategic Tech Fund exists to back the builders and technologies shaping America’s future security and competitiveness. Biotechnology is no longer confined to medicine — it’s becoming infrastructure. It’s reshaping national defense, industrial resiliency, and human performance. That’s why we hosted Defying Darwin Night in San Francisco: to gather founders, operators, and national security leaders at the bleeding edge of this transformation.

Sports are often seen as entertainment, but beneath the surface, they are driven by innovation and substantial financial returns. Billions of fans engage with sports, supporting an ecosystem of products, services, and investments that can yield massive rewards. This blog explores key segments of sports investments, highlighting successful ventures and emerging opportunities that are shaping the future of the industry.

“The Zepbound trade” is shorthand for the GLP-1 seismic shift. What started as a targeted diabetes treatment has evolved into a profound therapeutic breakthrough. GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound aren’t just changing waistlines — they’re reshaping healthcare and creating a universe of opportunities for visionary investors.

At Alumni Ventures (AV), we don’t just follow market trends — we strive to anticipate them, helped by our extensive community. Our 2021 investment in Groq perfectly demonstrates this approach: a calculated bet on revolutionary AI hardware that has positioned our investors at the forefront of computing’s next paradigm shift: Inference computing.

Tough markets don’t stop great ideas — some of the most game-changing companies were born in downturns. Venture capital isn’t about chasing headlines; it’s about staying patient, focused, and investing in real innovation over time. At Alumni Ventures, we play the long game, backing visionary founders and building portfolios built to thrive through all market cycles.

Seed-stage investing involves high risk and high reward, where bold ideas evolve into products with the potential for significant growth. Investors at this stage focus on assessing key factors such as founder expertise, market potential, product differentiation, and scalability. A diversified approach, thorough due diligence, and strategic involvement with founders can enhance the chances of success in this high-stakes investment space, despite challenges like high failure rates and unproven business models.

There’s a dark side to AI that’s underreported. It’s not deepfakes, mass surveillance, job displacement, or AI takeovers but rather every CISO’s (Chief Information Security Officer’s) worst nightmare. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, employees have been feeding code, emails, and sensitive documents into generative AI tools, opening the floodgates to data leaks and security risks.

As a relatively new father (the oldest of my three being six years old), I’ve come to appreciate the African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.” I’m fortunate to have a strong support system, including a remarkable spouse who somehow holds “dual PhDs” in organic chemistry and parenting. But even with these advantages, I’ve seen firsthand the challenges parents face to keep a household running smoothly and provide the care and attention our children need to thrive.

The best investments share one key trait: patience. The longer your
time horizon, the fewer competitors — and potentially the greater the rewards.

The landscape of artificial intelligence is changing. For years, the industry has been captivated by Large Language Models (LLMs) — behemoth AI systems with massive datasets and billions of parameters. But there’s a seismic shift underway: Small Language Models (SLMs) are emerging as a smarter, more efficient alternative for businesses, and savvy investors are taking notice.

“The best venture investors can see things before they are consensus. They can imagine how the world will be different in 5-10 years.”