Jim Benton

I’m thrilled to officially announce our $3M seed investment in Propel People, a company we built inside the 1848 Ventures studio to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the #construction industry today: the skilled #labor shortage. For small and medium-sized contractors, hiring isn't just a challenge. It's the number one threat to their growth, profitability, and safety. With 94% of contractors struggling to find qualified workers, it’s clear that traditional hiring methods aren't built for the trades. That’s why we built Propel People. It’s a mobile-first, AI-powered hiring platform designed for how construction actually works: in the field. By leveraging smart candidate ranking, instant #SMS-based screening, and a fully #bilingual interface, Propel helps contractors build great crews faster and more efficiently. I’m also thrilled to formally announce that industry veteran Dexter Bachelder is at the helm as CEO. Having worked with Dexter and the team over the last few months, we've already seen the impact of his leadership. His 25 years of experience scaling construction tech companies will be instrumental as Propel People enters this initial stage of growth. This investment reinforces our core thesis at 1848 Ventures: building AI-native companies that solve fundamental pain points for the #SMBs that form the backbone of our economy. A huge congratulations to Dexter and the entire Propel People team on this milestone. We are incredibly proud to partner with you to support the people who build our world. Read the full announcement below. #constructiontech #venturecapital #seedfunding #ai #skilledtrades #smb

144

14 Comments

The Headline family is experiencing incredible momentum, and today our portfolio company DeepIP is announcing a $25M Series B, bringing total funding to $40M.  This is the kind of company that doesn’t just add AI to a workflow, but it sets the standard for an entire category. The momentum speaks for itself: 1️⃣ 10x ARR growth in < 18 months 2️⃣ Trusted by 400+ law firms and leading corporate IP teams globally 3️⃣ 2M+ chats on the DeepIP platform We’ve had the chance to back FX (Francois-Xavier) L. and Edouard D., leading their Seed round with Headline. Watching them take on a problem as complex and high-stakes as patent work has been genuinely impressive. And working with them has been an absolute pleasure: these 2 are coupling very high ambition and humility. Tech built in Europe, but opening the US office very early and FX starting a life in NYC with his family with 0 hesitation in order to build a global category leader in the IP industry. What convinced me early is still what stands out today: patent teams don’t need another standalone AI tool. They need something that fits the way the work actually happens: documents, long-running matters, multiple stakeholders, and zero room for sloppy context handoffs. Big congrats to the whole DeepIP team + Korelya Capital, Balderton & Serena Proud that we’re doubling down at Headline and continuing the support for what’s next!

124

10 Comments

Seth Levine nailed it! The concentration problem isn't just a GP pain point... it's choking innovation. When capital pools around the same 20 funds, emerging managers and founders get shut out. Love that he's using his platform to call this out. Foundry has backed 50+ emerging managers. That's the diversification the ecosystem needs. This is exactly why Carta exists — making capital allocation visible and accessible. Capital Evolution hits at exactly the right moment. Thanks for having us Daniel Dart. Team Carta loves the community of FUTURE TITANS you have built 🚀

41

6 Comments

Samsara, ServiceTitan, and Procore Technologies have a combined valuation of $40B+ —and founders with wildly different industry experience. Yet VCs still debate whether it's needed to build great vertical software. As always, my stance is: It depends. The better question is: What type of founder are you, and what's your path to understanding your customers deeply? Some investors are adamant that you must have deep industry experience to build successful vertical software. Others claim outsiders have the advantage. Both camps love to cherry-pick examples that prove their point. But I've been advising and investing in vertical software companies for over two decades, and I think that's enough exposure to confidently conclude that founders of all backgrounds can be successful. Take these 3 examples (Samsara, ServiceTitan, Procore). They're some of the most successful vertical SaaS companies today. Some of the founders come from deep industry experience, but others have a background that would surprise you. → Procore's founders came from construction backgrounds and built a $10B+ company selling to their former industry. They'd lived the pain points they were solving for. → On the opposite end of the spectrum, Samsara's founders had zero experience in trucking or heavy industries. These MIT grads had just sold Meraki to Cisco for a billion dollars and were looking for their next challenge. They picked fleet management and transportation—two industries they knew nothing about. Today, Samsara is worth more than $20B. → Then there's Service Titan, which charted a middle path. The Stanford-educated founders didn't work in the trades themselves, but they grew up watching their parents run HVAC and painting businesses in Southern California. They bonded over their shared background and built a $10B+ company serving those same trades. So it's unreasonable to say that a founder's experience is the determining variable of success. Instead, what all 3 of these stories have in common is founders who deeply understood customer problems and built exceptional products to solve them. Industry outsiders often bring fresh perspectives and aren't constrained by "how things have always been done." Industry insiders have instant credibility and know which problems matter most. Those with adjacent experience can bridge both worlds. As an investor, I back founders regardless of their industry background. What matters most to me is their ability to build, learn rapidly, and maintain fanatical customer obsession. Where do you stand on the industry experience debate? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

34

10 Comments

⏩ Change is accelerating, rewarding those who operate with velocity. AI is compressing what used to take years into weeks. I'm watching founders and operators navigate this shift in real time with successes and challenges. The ones who are winning aren't necessarily the most technical or the most experienced. They're the ones who stay curious and keep adapting. Some things that are working - Treat learning as infrastructure, not an event. The skills that got you here won't automatically get you there. Build time into your week to understand what's changing in your space and compound those learnings. Match your capabilities to the moment. This isn't about chasing every new tool or trend. It's about honestly assessing where you are, where the market is going, and closing that gap deliberately. In hockey terms, skate to where the puck will be. Stay close to the problem. AI is creating new solutions, but the fundamental problems your customers face are still very real. The teams that keep that human context front and center while leveraging new capabilities are building something durable. We're in an unusual period where being adaptable with velocity expands the opportunity sets. This velocity is more valuable than being right. The playbook is being rewritten as we speak. The question isn't whether to embrace this change. It's whether you're building the muscle to keep pace with it amd compound your capabilities with AI.

3

Maybe you didnt catch that- for every 10,000 employees that is $3-5M in GUARANTEED cost savings. 60-80% cheaper per scan than traditional health networks, just for those of you guys in the back. Join us for this weeks episode of the Digital Health Heavyweights Podcast with Elan Adler 🩻 the founder and CEO of OneImaging. Learn about their mission, integration, how they impact patients and employers! Stick around to hear how our team at MVP Growth Partners partnered up with them, and more! Watch Here: https://lnkd.in/d5AnVx8n Listen here: https://lnkd.in/ga_TNNnZ

26

1 Comment

Let’s Celebrate Customers, Not Just Capital! Every week, my feed is filled with founders celebrating fundraising milestones. “We’ve raised $5M pre-Series A.” “We closed a $10M round led by X, joined by Y.” 👏 The community applauds. VCs repost. Other founders cheer. But raising capital is not the finish line — it’s just the starting gun. And sometimes, a large round can actually make the race harder. Why? Because big rounds bring big expectations: - Unrealistic growth targets imposed by investors. - Premature scaling before product–market fit is proven. - Pressure to spend rather than build sustainably. - Distraction from users — the story shifts from solving problems to “managing burn and runway.” The truth is, many investors see through the cracks. They read pitches and quickly recognize when a founder’s focus is skewed toward fundraising headlines instead of customer validation and execution. For those investors, the red flags are obvious. 👉 And this is where experience matters. Over the past decade, I’ve sat on both sides of the table — building investor networks while working directly with founders on strategy, fundraising, and growth. Through close work with leading private equity investors, I’ve gained a clear understanding of why they often prefer to enter at the pre-IPO stage: it offers proven growth, clearer visibility on returns, and management teams tested under pressure — all with a defined liquidity path. That combination of investor rigor and founder empathy is what I bring to any role. I’ve seen founders raise aggressively, only to find themselves under crushing pressure to deliver unrealistic metrics. Others stay disciplined, put users first, and build companies that endure — which in turn attract the right capital at the right time. What should we celebrate instead? - The first 100 loyal, paying customers. - Expansion into a new market with real traction. - Retention rates that prove customers love the product. - Products that solve problems so well they become indispensable. This is why my work today focuses on helping founders align fundraising with customer validation and sustainable growth. With a network spanning founders, operators, and investors, I see both sides: where capital amplifies success, and where it becomes a burden. So here’s my invitation; let’s shift the narrative. Don’t just clap for capital. Clap for customers. Because in the end, what mattered most wasn’t the seed round — it was the trust and loyalty of our users, which became the true driver of growth and scale. That’s why I pause when I see awards handed out to founders while no customers are in sight. The only prize that really matters is earned from the people who choose to use your product. #VentureCapital #PrivateEquity #Startups #Leadership #CustomerExperience

21

5 Comments