VCs use AI for deal sourcing

Venture investors are starting to use AI on themselves, not just on the startups they fund. Business Insider reported on May 20 that investors including Floodgate co-founding partner Ann Miura-Ko and Uncorrelated Ventures founder Salil Deshpande are using AI for deal sourcing, pattern analysis and internal workflows. The shift, as described by the investors, is less about handing over investment decisions than about compressing the time it takes to gather context before a meeting. That changes the pace of early screening, benchmarking and memo prep for founders entering fundraising conversations. ### Which investors said they are already doing this? Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate was identified by Business Insider as one of the investors using AI in day-to-day investing work. The report said she uses AI to analyze field notes and surface patterns across AI startups. Salil Deshpande, founder of Uncorrelated Ventures, was also named in the report as part of the group using AI for investment insights, deal sourcing and internal tools. Business Insider’s summary said investors are applying the technology across research and firm operations rather than only to portfolio-company support. Craft Ventures’ Jeff Fluhr was also cited in secondary coverage of the report as using AI to prototype startup ideas and test viability. (businessinsider.com) ### What are they actually using AI to do? Business Insider described three main uses: sourcing companies, generating investment insights and building internal tools. In Miura-Ko’s case, the report said AI helps sort through notes and identify recurring patterns among startups she is tracking. Those uses fit a broader workflow that many firms have been trying to speed up for years: collecting market maps, pulling comparable companies, summarizing meetings and organizing internal knowledge. (businessinsider.com) A 2025 Harvard Business Review article based on interviews with seven venture capitalists said generative AI was already beginning to shape how firms structure work, evaluate startups and prepare investment materials. ### Does this mean AI is picking the deals? The available reporting does not say investors are delegating final judgment to software. The tools described are being used to narrow search, organize information and generate faster first-pass analysis. Business Insider framed the technology as support for market research and investment analysis, not as a replacement for partner decision-making. (hbr.org) That distinction matters because venture investing still depends on reference calls, founder meetings and conviction about markets that are hard to reduce to a prompt. Even vendors selling AI tools into venture capital describe the process as “augmented,” with human partners still making the call on founder quality, market timing and pricing. (businessinsider.com) ### What changes for founders in a fundraising process? Founders should expect faster benchmarking and less tolerance for fuzzy metrics. If an investor can use AI to pull comparables, summarize adjacent categories and scan prior notes before a meeting, a company’s claims on growth, margins or market position can be checked more quickly than before. That is an inference from the workflows investors described, rather than a direct quote, but it follows from the use cases in the reporting. (cdn.prod.website-files.com) Segmented retention, clean cohort data and clear explanations of pricing or customer mix become more useful in that environment. Generic market-size slides or loose analogies are easier to test when investors arrive with machine-assisted prep already done. ### Where does this go next? Business Insider’s May 20 report suggests the near-term change is operational rather than structural: more AI in sourcing, memo prep and internal research, with named investors already using it inside established firms. (businessinsider.com) Floodgate, Uncorrelated Ventures and Craft Ventures were among the firms cited in current workflows. The next data point will be whether firms start formalizing those tools into standard diligence processes. For now, the clearest public marker is the growing list of investors willing to say, on the record, that AI is already part of how they look for the next deal. (businessinsider.com)