Are you really an AI startup?

AI research has long been the domain of universities, public institutions, and large corporations. Thanks to some amazing developments in the field over the past few years (and a whole lot of hype), every startup, VC, agency, and hot dog cart is scrambling to find a way to get on that bandwagon -- to be AI-powered, AI-adjacent, or just faking-until-we-make-it-AI. The typical VC is not set up for long-term research; any research really worth doing is typically a multi-year effort that could last longer than a fund's lifespan. Raising future rounds requires clear traction on core KPIs, and I'm not sure most VCs count p-value and f-score as such. Revenue growth is not easy to show when you need years to bring a product to market.