The gatekeepers of capital used to block out two hours for a preliminary analysis of a pitch. Now they do it in 13 seconds.
A new peer-reviewed study has analysed five years of deal-flow from German deep-tech fund Freigeist. The results are a stark warning to anyone relying on ‘founder intuition’.
The human analysts screened 2,746 startups. The AI agent did the same.
- The humans took 5,492 hours.
- The AI took 10 hours.
But it wasn’t just faster. It was better. The AI flagged higher potential winners and was less easily swayed by charismatic founders with weak fundamentals.
Venture Capital has always sold its ‘intuition’ and ‘network’. But what happens when that intuition can be codified and run at scale?
The ‘warm intro’ is dying. In its place: exhaustive data mapping of every newly registered company, analysed in milliseconds. The firms that win won’t be the best schmoozers; they will be the best orchestrators of algorithmic due diligence.
