January Ventures bets AI's biggest winners won't come from Silicon Valley

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While everyone's chasing the next AI infrastructure play in San Francisco, some of the most defensible AI companies are being built by founders with deep expertise in legacy industries — and they're not getting funded. January Ventures aims to fill that gap, writing pre-seed checks for underrepresented founders transforming healthcare, manufacturing, and supply chain with AI. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Dominic-Madori Davis sat down with Jennifer Neundorfer, Co-Founder and General Partner at January Ventures, for a live episode of Equity. The pair dug into how early-stage investing is changing in the age of AI and why building different networks matters. Listen to the full episode to hear about: How AI is enabling pre-seed founders to do far more with less capital, and what that means for proof points at the earliest stages Why January looks for founders building for where the technology is going, not where it is today, and how market expertise is becoming a critical moat The state of funding for underrepresented founders in 2024, why progress has stalled despite increased awareness, and where the real opportunities lie Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a paid ad by Fidelity Private Shares.
0:03.2	A messy or missing cap table might not just slow you down.
0:05.8	It could cost you your next fundraising round.
0:08.3	Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
0:12.5	I'm Rebecca Ballon, and this is the episode where we bring on industry experts to help us explore a trend in the tech world and dive deep.
0:19.2	Today we're bringing you a live conversation from TechCrunch Disrupt 2025,
0:23.0	where senior reporter Dominic Majori Davis sat down with January Ventures co-founder and general
0:27.7	partner Jennifer Noondorfer.
0:29.5	The two talked about how early stage investing is changing in the age of AI, what it takes
0:34.0	to spot founders building beyond Silicon Valley, and why expanding networks can uncover the next generation of breakout companies.
0:40.9	Let's take a listen.
0:47.1	Hello. Well, thank you so much, Jennifer, for coming on the pod and coming for TechCrunch Disrupt this year.
0:55.7	Before we dive right into questions, can you just tell our audience a little bit about you and your work? Yeah, Dom,
1:00.0	thanks for having me. It's great to be here at Disrupt and it's great to sit down with you.
1:04.2	At January Ventures, we invest primarily at the pre-seed in software companies for legacy industries.
1:10.1	So we do a lot in healthcare, supply chain
1:12.5	and manufacturing, climate, energy transition, think tech to very traditional industries. And we started
1:18.9	January because we felt that there was just a lot of friction at the early stage around that first
1:24.1	check. And so, you know, one of the reasons I appreciate sitting down with you is we are
1:27.8	committed at January to demystifying the early stages of venture and tech crunch and equity. And you
1:34.0	have been such great partners in doing that. So it's great to sit down. Yeah. I mean, that goes to,
1:38.1	I guess my first question of what are some misconceptions people still have about fundraising,
	...

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