Allied Venture Partners

Hello Partners,

As a current or prospective partner, this newsletter provides exclusive insights into our investment strategy, portfolio companies, and industry trends.

Thank you for your continued trust and support,

Matt Wilson

Founder & Managing Director | Allied Venture Partners

Not an LP? Click here to join the Allied Venture Partners syndicate.

Team Updates

• Our core team includes Steve, Melinda, Brendan, and Leia.

• The Allied Scout and Advisory programs continue to expand with several new members each week, providing quality diversified deal flow from across Canada and the United States.

• If you know a great startup that we should meet, please introduce us!

New Deals

• We closed one new investment in Blended Blue – a luxury tequila brand from the co-founder of Clase Azul. Allied is thrilled to have been the first check in, leading the seed round. Thanks to everyone who participated.

• We have two more investment opportunities in the pipeline. Stay tuned.

• New LPs can join the Allied syndicate and gain access to our dealflow at no cost by clicking here.

Portfolio News

• Tiliter Vision Agents are now live on Zapier, allowing seamless integration of intelligent AI vision into enterprise workflows within minutes.

• Ediphi won the Best Use of AI at the 2025 Global Youth Travel Awards.

• Roqad acquired Zeotap-Data, making Roqad the leading identity aggregator and data onboarding partner in Europe.

• RetinaLogik continues to expand globally and is now live in multiple countries.

• I had a great time catching up with founders and LPs in Tokyo last month – thank you for the warm hospitality!

• I’m currently in Los Angeles for LA Tech Week. Tomorrow night, I’ll be guest judging at the Pitch Lift competition – if you’re in LA, come say hi.

• We’re also celebrating the official launch of Blended Blue with a rooftop party in downtown LA. If you participated in the deal and would like to join, please let me know, and I’ll put you on the guest list.

• Lastly, Allied turned five this month! Thank you to the many founders, investors, and partners who’ve made this possible. I look forward to many more years of great work together.

Industry Insights

After more than two dozen founder conversations this month, a striking pattern has emerged that reveals where we are in the AI investment cycle—and it's more nuanced than the familiar narrative of "AI companies flush with capital vs. everyone else struggling to fundraise."

We're now witnessing a bifurcation within AI itself. The market has split into two distinct camps: founders raising multi-million dollar pre-seed rounds, versus those strategically raising smaller amounts because they believe AI's leverage allows them to build more with less capital.

For example, this week perfectly illustrated the disparity. I met one San Francisco startup that oversubscribed a $2.5M pre-seed round at a $25M valuation with no product or revenue. Yet I met another (non SF) startup that is struggling to raise $500k at $5M—despite having a working prototype, six beta customers, $10K MRR growing 20% MoM, and a team with 10+ years of deep domain expertise.

Simply put, geography and narrative carried the day over fundamentals.

If AI truly is the great productivity unlock that it’s believed to be, and startups can accomplish more with less, then technical leverage should outweigh overcapitalization. The fundamentals will eventually assert themselves.

This capital flowing toward hype over substance feels uncomfortably familiar—echoes of the 2021 fintech and crypto frenzy when FOMO trumped diligence.

When charisma and buzz-generation become more valuable than founder-market fit and execution capability, we're watching a misallocation that will inevitably correct through mass consolidation.

Our approach remains deliberately contrarian: back the scrappier teams with domain expertise who view capital as a tool rather than a scorecard. These founders understand their customers' problems intimately and use AI as leverage, not theater.

As the market separates signal from noise, this discipline positions us to capture value others have overlooked while chasing the loudest story in the room.

As a reminder, our Core Investment Values since Day 1:

Read our investment thesis one-pager, available here.

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Disclaimer: The information provided herein is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Individuals should consult their own professional advisors before making any investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.