Jay Jamison

Just read a piece from the team at Camber Creek portfolio company Proof on the evolving state of authentication…and it hit home. For years I’ve been thinking “passwords are dead,” but also lamenting the difficulty navigating the labyrinthine world of advanced security. This blog lays out exactly what’s replacing passwords in a way that’s practical, not just theoretical. Five methods stood out: - App-based authenticators finally killing SMS (good riddance, SIM-swap nightmares) - Continuous authentication that watches behavior during the session (the “someone stole the cookie but can’t act like you” protection we’ve all been missing) - Adaptive authentication that doesn’t treat grandma on her usual iPad the same as a login from a Tor exit node in a new country - MFA done right (and then taken further with verified digital certificates) - Biometrics with actual liveness + document tying, so it’s not just “a face” but your verified face What really resonated was the reminder that the strongest systems aren’t about piling on more factors; they’re about using the right factor at the right moment. Risk-based, context-aware, and (crucially) user-respecting. I’m biased but Proof’s angle of anchoring everything to high-assurance digital certificates feels like the missing glue. It’s one thing to authenticate someone at login; it’s another to carry that verified identity forward through the entire session, signature, or transaction. This one is worth the read. Link in comments. #venturecapital #cybersecurity #fraud

23

6 Comments

A lot of banks do nCino right at first. Then lending volume grows. Teams evolve. Policies change. But the configuration stays mostly the same. That’s when you start seeing • Credit memos taking longer • More manual handoffs • “Temporary” workarounds becoming permanent It’s rarely a platform issue. It’s usually a sign the system hasn’t been re-aligned to how the business operates today. This is exactly why we’re offering a focused 1-hour strategy session with our nCino experts, just to pressure-test where friction exists and what to do about it. Link in the comments if it’s helpful. #nCino #CommercialLending #DigitalBanking #BankingTransformation

19

2 Comments

The world has never felt this uncertain. Great companies have lost half their value in a year. Entire org charts are getting rewritten by AI. We just lived through the SaaS-pocalypse, where “durable” stopped meaning what people thought it meant. Which is why this moment at Plaid feels so special. Plaid just raised additional capital at an $8B valuation to help support employee liquidity. I’ve been here for 8+ years. Long enough to see hype cycles come and go. Long enough to live through multiple “this is the end of fintech” narratives. Long enough to learn the difference between a company that looks strong in a screenshot and a company that stays strong when the weather turns. When I joined, maybe 1 in a hundred Americans had ever used Plaid. Today, well over 1 in 2 have. Back then, I had to explain to friends and family what it even meant to “link your bank account to an app.” Today, a lot of new grads joining Plaid have never managed money online without seeing Plaid in the flow. For them, paying for daycare, buying a car, and applying for a mortgage, is digital by default. And Plaid has quietly been the network making it work. Durability doesn’t always make the headlines, but I’m proud of it. Proud of the team that kept building through the hard parts, grateful for our customers who trusted us, pushed us, and held us to a higher bar, and to our investors who believed in the long term vision. This has never been a flash-in-the-pan company. Trust is earned slowly and lost quickly. And yet, year after year, Plaid got stronger. In a time when the rug is getting pulled out from so many companies who were darlings of industry just a few years ago, it’s been amazing (and honestly, still a little surprising) to be part of something that I can truly say will be around for decades to come. Next play!

612

80 Comments

Layer is tackling one of the most overlooked pain points for SMBs: accounting. They’re gaining real traction doing so. Emergence is leading their seed round to bring embedded, AI-powered accounting to the SMB software stack. Kevin Spain highlights what makes this team and product so compelling. 

18

2 Comments

Latest from me and the team at Self Labs. We've closed $9M in funding from Greenfield Capital, SCVxSBI, Spearhead, Verda Ventures, Fireweed Ventures to expand our technical roadmap and grow our identity document support beyond biometric Passports, IDs, and Aadhar. Also announced today in our latest application v2.9 is Points a new way for our most active users to earn points for using their favorite apps: Aave Labs, Velodrome, ENS, Lemonade, Espresso, Karma, Talent Protocol, and soon Google Cloud Web3's Testnet faucets. https://lnkd.in/gtWRQguc

140

18 Comments

🔐 Thrilled to share a major launch from boldstart ventures portfolio company Keycard - Keycard for Coding Agents. Every coding agent right now is running in god mode. Your credentials. Your permissions. No guardrails. Developers click "Allow" 50 times an hour until they stop reading...or use dangerously-skip-permissions and pray. Static API keys in .env files. Agents with admin access when they need read on one endpoint. Keycard fixes this: 🔑 Four-part identity: user, agent, runtime, task - for every session ⚡ Short-lived, scoped credentials gone when the session ends 🛡️ Step-up approval for sensitive ops, autonomous for routine 🔗 One command across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenClaw Agents aren't humans and they aren't workloads. The identity layer has to be rebuilt from the ground up. That's what Keycard is doing. Proud to have backed this team at inception. Early access live → keycard.ai 🚀 Congrats Ian Livingstone, Jared Hanson, Matthew Creager and team! Full post in comments: "Announcing Keycard for Coding Agents: Unlocking Autonomy without Sacrificing Security"

91

7 Comments

At Nymbus, we value innovation that removes friction, not add to it. This partnership with Allen Osgood and Eisen will simplify processes and help our clients focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional experiences to the banking industry. This isn’t just about technology — it’s about confidence in navigating a challenging landscape with tools and expertise that make it easier, faster, and smarter. #NewStartsNow

53

2 Comments

📣 This is a call out to early stage enterprise infra/security/dev focused founders. And/or if you have a friend who is starting to build, pls forward 📣 Back by popular demand - we're excited to hold office hours again at 🤠 Cowboy Ventures 🤠 for founders building in enterprise infra, dev tools or security - joined by some awesome VC/operator friends . If you haven’t yet raised a seed round - come join office hours with friends like Shomik Ghosh from boldstart ventures, Kevin Crosby from GitHub Fund, Leigh Marie Braswell from Kleiner Perkins and Tim Tully from Menlo Ventures, CISO Michael Coates, head of ML&AI Kartik Khanna, plus OFC your friendly Cowboy Ventures investors. Get feedback from folks who have been involved at the earliest stages with companies like Codeium, Drata, dbt Labs, Lightstep, Neon, Pinecone, Protect AI, Scale AI and more... We're excited to spend time with founders & share confidential feedback on your product plan, technical approach, business model, fundraising story, or whatever you want feedback on. How to sign up: ✅ Rolling applications thru Mon, June 2. Teams will hear back by Fri, June 6 ✅ Office hours date: Wednesday afternoon, June 18, 2025 ✅ In-person at the Cowboy office in Palo Alto, CA ✅ Founders will get a get a meeting slot that afternoon, then join for a mixer with founders / investors / operator friends at the end of the day. If you’re tackling core enterprise challenges and planning to raise VC, please apply. This will be a great opportunity to refine your idea in a safe space with experts, and we’d love to meet you! How to apply: Please fill out the short form linked in the comments. Thanks for reading & sharing! #EnterpriseInfra #DevTools #Security #AI #VC #startups cc Rohan Puranik Caroline Duffy Tyrone Anderson

158

11 Comments

One of the most misunderstood frameworks as it relates to the A-player, B-player, etc. framework - here's some ready to re-familiarize yourself https://lnkd.in/gMTT2p3T Only more experience people are A-players, right? Here is a summary - A Players (10-20%): High performers who exceed expectations and solve problems proactively - found at any level, including driven juniors who learn rapidly - B Players (70-80%): Reliable performers meeting expectations, forming organizational backbone - includes experienced staff, some with A-player potential - C Players (10%): Persistent underperformers requiring excessive oversight - not about inexperience but ongoing performance issues despite feedback Key differentiators: A players seek feedback (constantly), take risks, mentor others, and achieve goals resourcefully - traits that transcend seniority Talent implications: Invest in A players, develop B players, address C players decisively - junior A players often outperform senior B/C players. Whats critical to understand is how this relates to hiring - since the frameworks lends itself better to evaluating existing teams Here are some things to think about - A player does NOT mean senior- someone straight out college can be an A player - A track record of past performance and going above and beyond is a good indicator of future behavior and results - Time spent on C players is time poorly spent - over and over again this is the biggest mistake that managers and leaders make. The data tells you that it's not a good use of your time - spend time with the A and B players and get acceleration. Spend time with C players and get lower productivity How do you think about hiring and talent?

7

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