Latest news with #BessemerVenturePartners
Forbes
3 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Matching The Pace of AI Innovation To Maximize ROI
Michael Meucci is President and CEO of Arcadia, a healthcare data platform that helps payers and providers put their data to work. AI innovation is accelerating at a pace unlike anything we have seen before. Ethan Mollick, a well-known Wharton professor and thought leader on AI, put it best when he said that today's AI tools are the worst they will ever be. Meaning, while we've already seen AI tools advance significantly, AI is only getting better, faster and smarter, and we need to get ready for the AI capabilities of the future. In today's AI era, organizations are participating in a massive delegation exercise, trying to figure out which tasks can be fully delegated to AI and which tasks require human oversight. However, leaders and AI decision-makers must keep in mind what AI's future potential could look like when strategizing today. New research conducted by Bessemer Venture Partners, Amazon Web Services and Bain & Company shows that over half of healthcare organizations are seeing material ROI in 12 months of AI implementation. For even more healthcare organizations to maximize ROI, leaders must recognize that they should not simply replicate their existing workflows with AI. AI implementation must instead be a redefining process where leaders take a daring and holistic approach to match the pace of AI innovation. While some solutions may not be possible today, they may be in the future. Through this exercise, teams will identify where human intervention is necessary and establish appropriate guardrails and AI governance mechanisms. Organizations that take this approach will stay ahead of the AI innovation curve, enabling teams to build more effective workflows that allow employees to focus on high-value work that drives business growth. Enable employees to activate the AI strategy. AI is most powerful when organizations use it to redefine operations. Big organizational shifts are driven by small, incremental changes. Leaders should enable teams to think creatively about AI implementation and encourage employees to envision what a completely automated workflow could look like. If teams do not imagine what is possible without restrictions, they are unintentionally putting up barriers and stifling innovation. By coaching employees to imagine a blank canvas and design a fully automated workflow, organizations can uncover new opportunities for AI. For example, at my organization, Arcadia, an employee noticed colleagues asking similar questions across internal Slack channels, recognizing an opportunity to use AI to automate a process where humans were not needed. He created an AI tool that connects to multiple internal sources and provides automated answers to employees' questions in seconds, reducing the amount of time employees spend finding answers for each other and enabling them to remain focused on higher-value tasks. These types of low-risk, high-reward tools deliver an efficiency improvement of approximately nine orders of magnitude and underscore how AI-powered innovation is possible when leaders encourage teams to think outside the box. Once teams understand how fully automated workflows might operate, they can then start building the foundational requirements for optimization. A great example of an organization that is leaning into AI implementation is Kaiser Permanente, which recently published a case study on their AI-powered scribe rollout—including lessons learned. Among those takeaways, Kaiser surprisingly changed vendors between the initial pilot and final rollout of their AI scribe because they wanted the tool to be better integrated into their electronic health record system. As I have written about before, when AI is integrated into existing workflows, the outcomes are always better. At Kaiser, providers liked the initial AI scribe, but agile leaders pivoted quickly because they wanted the tool to work even better. They saw the full potential of this technology and decided to drive more meaningful impact for their business. To build the foundation for automated workflows, connecting tools that use various types of AI is key. In the Kaiser example, the AI scribe tool they ultimately chose uses agentic AI, which autonomously makes decisions and solves multi-step problems without human assistance, to transcribe a patient visit. Generative AI, which requires more human intervention as it solves less complex problems while relying on prompts to produce specific outputs, is layered in to produce a summary from the transcript. By stitching together tools that leverage different types of AI, teams are able to lay the foundation for the fully automated workflows of the future, while also helping eliminate administrative, time-consuming tasks and enabling employees to focus on the highest value work. Understand where human intervention is critical. For now, leveraging a more holistic AI implementation strategy does not mean that humans are fully out of the loop. I intentionally write 'for now' because it's difficult to predict how dramatically AI could transform our world. But today, this means that organizations have better insight into instances where a human touchpoint may need to be more heavy-handed. Many still look at integrating AI from an extreme perspective—either humans do everything or machines do everything. But I view the degree of human intervention as a spectrum. In healthcare, primary care delivery is an area where doctors should not be out of the loop (for now), but AI can help automate administrative tasks, like developing patient summaries. However, with many large pharmacy chains struggling financially, an example of an area primed for automation is pharmacy workflows, where automated prescription drug dispensing can help reduce the potential risk of error. When organizations have a deeper understanding of where human intervention is needed within workflows, they can establish more effective AI systems. Leaders and AI decision-makers must take teams out of their comfort zone and encourage them to think differently about AI implementation to match the unstoppable pace of AI innovation. Real transformation will take place when organizations implement AI tools holistically and stitch them into a cohesive system. This way of thinking will empower companies to make more strategic AI investments and harness the power of AI, driving more efficiency and growth for their business. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
Mint
15 hours ago
- Business
- Mint
PharmEasy co-founders enter home improvement space with new venture
Bengaluru/Mumbai: PharmEasy co-founders Dharmil Sheth, Dhaval Shah and Hardik Dedhia have started a new venture called 'All Home' to capture the growing home improvement and interior design market, months after exiting the online pharmacy company. The Mumbai-based company has raised an undisclosed capital from Bessemer Venture Partners at a valuation of over $120 million, its co-founder Dharmil Sheth told Mint. It also saw participation from prominent angel investors including Siddharth Shah (PharmEasy), Niket Shah (Motilal Oswal), Shalibhadra Shah (Motilal Oswal), Kabir Narang (B Capital) and Ankur Gulati (Warburg Pincus). All Home will offer brands across categories including furniture, sanitary ware, kitchen and wardrobe and home hardware to build an omni-channel platform, Sheth said. The platform is already operational and features brands such as Colour Coats and House of W and Fiamarc. Also read: Why is a $2.7 bn construction materials startup betting big on home decor? 'After roti and kapda, India's next consumer boom lies in 'makaan'. At All Home, we are building trusted brands for the way India lives, builds, and renovates—across homes, offices and urban infrastructure. Consumers are increasingly willing to invest in their living and working spaces, yet often lack access to the appropriate channels and products. Our platform aims to address this gap," the co-founders said in a statement. In January, the three executives stepped back from day-to-day operations of PharmEasy to build the new venture. This came at a critical time for the health-tech firm which has seen a steep drop in valuation in recent years. PharmEasy counts Temasek, TPG, Prosus, B Capital, GSV and Think Investments among its backers. The market for home improvement and organized furniture has been booming in India in recent years. A report by Deloitte from September 2024 noted that the country's home and household sector is expected to touch $237 billion by 2030 at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10% bolstered by shifting consumer preferences and focus on convenience. Also read: Marks & Spencer scales back its home decor business in India According to Anant Vidur Puri, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, the home infrastructure and interior design sector in India is at a pivotal inflection point, driven by rising aspirations and disposable incomes across the country. 'Despite its size, the market remains highly fragmented and underserved, with consumers and designers facing persistent challenges around quality, transparency, and efficiency." Also read: Vedantu eyes $10–15 million from existing backers via convertible equity All Home aims to introduce a transparent procurement methodology to facilitate access to products at competitive prices. The founders have identified significant inefficiencies in the current procurement process—such as the need for designers to coordinate with multiple vendors, prolonged turnaround times, lack of design cohesion and insufficient after-sales support—which they intend to address using internet-led manufacturing and distribution, Sheth said.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How Israel's startup community is impacted by the Iran conflict
The ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran is creating a disruption of daily life for millions of people. Bessemer Venture Partners managing partner Adam Fisher is in Tel Aviv. He spoke to Market Domination Anchor Josh Lipton about how the conflict is impacting the business community in Israel. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime here. Could Israeli innovation be under fire as escalating tensions between that nation and Iran continue? And what does this conflict mean for the economy, tech industry, and of course, its well-known startup community? Earlier, uh, today, I spoke with Adam Fisher, managing partner at Bessemer Venture Partners with a strong background in early-stage investing in Israel, and he spoke with me from Tel Aviv. I think we've been much more affected by a macro slowdown in in tech spending and and fundraising for for venture funds than any real impact related to the war on tech. Where it has affected companies and people is on just the personal side. Obviously, a lot of people, uh, have been called up for reserve duty at various points over the last 18, 20, 24 months. Uh, there are people who have also been affected, uh, personally in horrible ways. Uh, of course, that is also a relatively small percentage of the overall population that comprises Israel's tech community. If you look at funding, if you look at acquisitions, you look at new startups, honestly, it feels like, uh, we're kind of still at the top. Um, there's nothing that, uh, is visibly, uh, uh, impacted negatively. Um, and I know that sounds like a little bit of a of a strange, um, kind of juxtaposition of of of war and reserves. Uh, but, you know, people, humans, they they they keep going. They move on. They need to, they need to provide for themselves. They've got dreams. Uh, they study, they continue. And, uh, in a strange way, the longer it is, the more we, I wouldn't say get comfortable with it, but we we become accustomed to, um, this is the way it is. We deal with it, and you carry on. You know, Adam, last time we spoke, I remember I asked you about whether there was, in your opinion, a risk that some meaningful number of Israeli founders, entrepreneurs, technologists would leave Israel because of the conflict, because of the war. There would be this, uh, this brain drain. And I remember you told me, Adam, you you didn't see that as a big risk because you said at the time, you know, Israelis just feel more unified than ever, more connected to their country than ever. Is that still your feeling? Absolutely. Uh, even more so. Uh, there's tremendous, uh, solidarity, uh, and patriotism. And also, you know, as strange as that may seem, also, you know, love love for your fellow citizens here. Yes, we have, uh, issues that at times feel like they're tearing the country apart, internal politics, but there's a lot of admiration, uh, for the people who dedicate themselves to defending the country and also building the country from an economic perspective. Uh, although Israel is a place where it produces lots of entrepreneurs and lots of companies, you can't really easily transplant them to another country or city and assume they're going to build the same great company. A lot of the company building relies on local relationships on on understanding how you build a company in Israel. And so I have not seen people relocate except for the usual reasons of being close to the customers of certain sectors. Do you think, Adam, these wars, could they potentially impact what those Israeli founders and entrepreneurs are are curious about? You know, for example, do you think there could be even more interest by Israeli entrepreneurs and technologists in in fields like cybersecurity or defense tech? I can't imagine any more interest than there is right now in cybersecurity. Uh, we're at an all-time high where I'm I'm guessing by something like a third of new startups are in that sector. That may be a bit much. Defense tech has been another area that has grown tremendously, uh, over the last 18 months. However, most the entrepreneurs who are starting those defense tech companies are not coming from from mainstream, uh, tech companies. They're still coming a bit more from the defense sector, the kind of old defense sector. And after this current conflict ends, yes, I assume that that the interest level now will remain high because there's a tremendous demand from various governments and militaries around the world who are seeing, uh, a lot of this being used in action. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NVCA Appoints Vineeta Agarwala as New Board Chair
WASHINGTON, June 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) announced that Vineeta Agarwala, MD, PhD, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, will serve as the Chair of the NVCA Board of Directors for the 2025-2026 term. "Vineeta brings a powerful perspective as both a venture investor and physician — someone who understands firsthand how innovation plays out in the real world, and how policy can accelerate or obstruct it," said NVCA President and CEO Bobby Franklin. "Her experience at the forefront of tech and investing gives her a lens on how smart policy and long-term capital can enable American startups. At a time when policy and innovation are deeply intertwined, she'll help NVCA champion a policy environment where innovation can continue to flourish." "As AI and technology reshape every sector — from healthcare and energy, to education and infrastructure — the role of venture capital has never been more critical," said Vineeta Agarwala. "As NVCA Board Chair, I'm honored to help bridge innovation and impact by working with investors, startup founders, and policymakers to ensure that the U.S. remains the best and most competitive environment to build the future." Agarwala succeeds Byron Deeter, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "What set him apart was his deep interest in how policy shapes venture capital—and his determination to ensure our industry is fully engaged and impactful. Under his leadership, the board traveled to D.C. more in pursuit of building strong relationships with policymakers and reinforcing the critical connection between entrepreneurship and national competitiveness," said Franklin. NVCA also announced the appointment of eight new directors to its Board of Directors, each of whom will serve a four-year term from 2025-2029: Adam D'Augelli, True Ventures Alex Doll, Ten Eleven Ventures Alyssa Jaffee, 7wire Ventures Andrew Adams, Oak HC/FT Amy Wu Martin, Menlo Ventures Graham Brooks, .406 Ventures Navid Farzad, Frist Cressey Ventures Sandy Grippo, Bessemer Venture Partners The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) empowers the next generation of American companies that will fuel the economy of tomorrow. As the voice of the U.S. venture capital and startup community, NVCA advocates for public policy that supports the American entrepreneurial ecosystem. Serving the venture community as the preeminent trade association, NVCA arms the venture community for success, serving as the leading resource for venture capital data, practical education, peer-led initiatives, and networking. For more information about NVCA, please visit View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE National Venture Capital Association
News18
04-06-2025
- Business
- News18
Bessemer Venture Partners appoints Pankaj Mitra as partner
Mumbai, Jun 4 (PTI) Bessemer Venture Partners on Wednesday announced the appointment of Pankaj Mitra as a partner in its India practice. Mitra joined the VC firm from Cisco and will be focusing primarily on investments in enterprise tech, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, according to a statement. *** HDFC Bank to implement solid waste management systems in over 1,000 villages * Largest private sector lender HDFC Bank on Wednesday announced that it will implement solid waste management systems in over 1,000 villages and establish material recovery facilities in 15 urban local bodies this year. It also launched an awareness campaign aimed at customers, employees and the general public against plastic use, a statement said. *** Rohini Nilekani emerges as top woman philanthropist in India * With a donation of Rs 154 crore in FY25, Rohini Nilekani has emerged as the top woman philanthropist in the country, as per a report released on Wednesday. The top-10 givers spent Rs 464 crore on social upliftment during the year, as per the 2025 Candere Hurun India Women Leaders List, 2024. PTI AA SHW
