Cameron Peake

Joining @financialstudio as a partner to invest in & support great fintech founders! @ryan_falvey techcrunch.com/2022/02/08/fi… #helloworldagain #fintech #fintechnews #VC

Token fraud is bigger than most people realize… glad @MattLenhard is working on it!

Thanks to everyone for coming out for our AiFi happy hour in Austin! @Nationwide

Excited about this! If you are building in this space you should come out to join us

Shout out to @HarborAI_ and @vectoral_labs for building in this trend

View from the firing squad! Thanks to @Shannon_Sibold for organizing the @AustinTech pitch panel alongside @MegBaldini Gavin Myers, and Anthony Marfisi. And to @TowItApp, Inevitable, @tomchepucavage, Manolo AI, @Mulgacloud, and @GlidTech

As agentic systems scale, the stakes become higher. Understanding agent identity will become one of the most important things we can do support this evolution. For anyone interested or curious, check out Beltic and our why we invested memo restive.com/blog/why-we-inve…

When AI was first taking off, there was a lot of hand-wringing (and falling stock prices) around the belief that the tech was a disruptive innovation for Google and the other tech giants. Three years in, these companies have embraced AI and it more accurately is a “sustaining innovation” according to Christensen's definition (and as evidenced by their recent growth rates). It seems to me that the industry more under threat is retail.  The latest example of this is Amazon blocking Muse from their platform this weekend. Muse threatens Amazon’s $68B+ ad business and its ability to influence cart size and checkout.  Retail in general has been cautious when it comes to agentic commerce. And the threat of disintermediation is real. However, Christensen's insight was never that incumbents fail to see disruption coming, it's that responding rationally to today's customers and today's profit pools is what sinks them. It feels inevitable that agents become more central in purchasing as we think about consumer preferences. The question is: Will this caution on the part of retail incumbents open the door to new entrants? Will those that optimize for agentic discovery and checkout pull ahead? Or will retailers slowly build in the right tools to take advantage of this consumer shift? Right now, it feels like the threat is coming faster than ever. Retailers have a chance to influence strategy, but that window is rapidly closing. gizmodo.com/amazon-brings-do…

There is no shortage of buzz around agentic payments, but the consumer war is what gets the attention. The bigger prize is in business payments. The volumes are bigger (over $100 trillion moves between businesses globally every year), no one likes their provider, there is massive fragmentation with little innovation, and businesses are actually willing to pay for efficiency. The proof is already out there. Ramp's AP agents flagged more than $1 million in fraudulent invoices in their first months, Mercury now issues cards directly to agents, and in our own portfolio, Natural is building the payments layer for B2B agents. A few takeaways for founders building here: - Don't just be the tollbooth. The work around each payment is a labor pool worth hundreds of billions a year. - Controls are a big part of the product. Humans set the bounds, agents operate inside them. - Given how early this space is, start with the early adopters, but look to find your path to where the money actually sits. - Ramp has been able to see volume because they own their environment. Building out agentic systems within an external org is starting from square 1. This will catch up, but if you own a network you have an advantage right now. In other words, the consumer battle will keep the headlines (for now), but the B2B version will mint the next payments platform. If you're building here, check out the deeper article and be in touch! restive.com/blog/the-real-pr…