January Ventures co-founder Jennifer Neundorfer stopped by the Equity podcast during TechCrunch Disrupt to chat about fundraising in this very AI-driven market.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Founders and investors alike are obsessed with AI, and even Neundorfer said her firm is looking at ways to use AI to make their work more efficient, such as helping to do due diligence on the market and competition. As for companies being built, she has a preference for the founders looking to create something entirely new.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere I tend to get excited is when I see someone who is using AI to do something that\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a010x better. It\u2019s actually to\u00a0create a whole new experience or workflow or behavior,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re looking at. Less of the incremental changes and more\u00a0totally new\u00a0behaviors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is getting harder for founders because fatigue, she said, has hit as more AI ideas start to sound the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u00a0I think founders\u00a0are breaking through is when they can communicate to investors why what they\u2019re doing is\u00a0really different\u00a0than the other dozens of startups that are doing that and why they are the team to go after that,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whether we are in the so-called AI bubble or not, Neundorfer says a market correction is probably coming, and a lot of the companies getting windfalls of investor money now might not survive. The winners will navigate this moment building \u201ctruly category-defining companies,\u201d capturing where the tech is going next. \u201cFounders who can stay ahead of that curve, build at the edge of what\u2019s possible today, and build for what\u2019s coming,\u201d she listed. \u201cFounders who\u00a0are able to\u00a0really read the market and understand\u00a0what it is\u00a0their\u00a0customer wants\u00a0versus just building what is possible. Those are the founders that will have an advantage.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Elsewhere on the pod, she spoke about her life before venture, where she worked at YouTube and 21st Century Fox.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much of what I did was meet with people who had great technology,\u201d she\u00a0recalled of\u00a0her time at 21st Century Fox. Meeting and talking technology with people was the part of the job that gave her the most joy and helped her realize how much she would probably love working with early-stage founders.<\/p>\n
But the learning curve was steep when she decided to transition to investing. In the early days, she said she would constantly check in with founders and give detailed input on their companies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s\u00a0appropriate\u00a0for some cases, but it\u2019s really about the relationship with the founder, supporting not only weighing in on the business, but supporting them as a person,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0comfortable in the job. She serves as a mentor for various organizations, such as Techstars, and has\u00a0made more than 50 investments at January Ventures, according to PitchBook,\u00a0nabbing\u00a0some exits in the meantime.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Throughout the conversation, Neundorfer spoke about the changing venture market, funding levels for minorities and women, and about venture markets outside of San Francisco that are seeing success. Her biggest advice to diverse founders right now actually goes for many founders building in this climate: ignore the noise and focus on building a good company.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything else becomes something they can\u2019t control, and the worry isn\u2019t worth it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"January Ventures co-founder Jennifer Neundorfer stopped by the Equity podcast during TechCrunch Disrupt to chat about fundraising in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,6847,61,60,77623,77624,6846,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-148991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-disrupt-2025","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-january-ventures","15":"tag-jennifer-neundorfer","16":"tag-techcrunch-disrupt-2025","17":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}