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In this episode, host Michael Marchuk sits down with Melanie Nabar, Principal at Volition Capital, a growth equity firm known for backing capital-efficient, founder-led software and internet businesses. With a decade of experience investing in growth-stage technology companies, Melanie offers a rare double perspective: how AI is transforming the portfolio companies being invested in, and how it's transforming the investment firms themselves.
From AI agents running sourcing and diligence workflows inside Volition, to a candid assessment of today's AI valuation bubble, to what actually makes a company "AI-native" versus "last gen," this conversation goes deep on the practical realities of growth investing in the AI era, including the risks that don't make headlines.
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 — Introduction & Melanie's background in growth equity
02:45 — AI inside PE/VC firms: agents, sandbox laptops, and scheduled tasks
05:15 — Why contrarian thinking still beats AI's "regression to the mean"
06:30 — Using AI as a sparring partner in investment diligence
08:15 — The AI valuation bubble: 50x revenue multiples and their consequences
10:30 — Growth equity vs. venture capital: why concentrated portfolios change the game
11:30 — Diligence on hyper-growth AI companies: churn, usage data, and product-market fit
16:35 — Regulated industries vs. SMB: how sector changes risk tolerance
18:40 — Retention benchmarks: consumer vs. enterprise standards
19:55 — What makes an AI-native investment firm (hint: it's culture)
21:40 — Managing AI budgets, token usage, and model selection
24:40 — Platform risk: will foundation models eat vertical software?
27:10 — Data moats, stickiness, and the switching-cost flywheel
29:20 — Vendor lock-in, open source models, and orchestration layers
31:00 — Leadership in the AI era: change management as the core skill
33:40 — How to spot AI-forward companies (and where the market really is)
35:00 — Wrap-up and key takeaways
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