STARTUP X
The F42 brief #030
Here’s your Monday dose of The F42 Brief.
📈 Trending Now
The one thing that’s making all the noise …. with a bit of fact checking.
💸 New Funds looking to give you cash
The Raise Report
💡Innovator Spotlight
Founders that are doing stuff differently.
🛠️ Tool of the Week
Something useful to up your startups velocity.
📌 Note to Self
Stuff I constantly remind myself about, don’t want make the same mistakes again.
📈 Trending Now
AI Eats Venture Capital—Investors Double Down
AI startups grabbed a massive 57.9% of global VC cash in Q1 2025—up from just 28% last year. North America’s investors have gone all-in, with a staggering 70% funnelled directly into AI bets. Call it AI FOMO: investors scrambling to avoid missing tech's next seismic shift. Total AI funding this quarter hit $73 billion, already over half the entire haul from last year. If you're a founder not leveraging AI yet, consider this your wake-up call.
Three AI areas for Investments
Focus:
Models & Generative AI LLMs: GPTs and Generative content
Vertical/Domain-Specific: Healthcare, fintech, robotics, supply chain.
AI Infrastructure & Enablers: GPU/cloud, security, data platforms
If you are not integrating AI into you stack join our AI for Startups track to find out how to.
💸 New Funds looking to give you cash
Look out for the The Raise Report this Wednesday, bring you all the new funds that have raised capital and looking to deploy.
We hope you had an energizing week! As we embark on Week 5, get ready for a lineup of insightful masterclasses designed to propel your startup journey:
Full event calendar: https://lu.ma/Fusion-42
Your feedback is invaluable to us. Please take a moment to share your thoughts by completing our short survey
💡Innovator Spotlight
The AI-Driven Web Is No Longer Coming—It’s Already Taking Over
This week, I’m stepping back to look forward. The web as we know it is dissolving. In its place, a fluid, intelligent, hyper-personalised experience is emerging—shaped not by static interfaces or manual inputs, but by autonomous agents working behind the scenes on your behalf. Think less about websites and apps, and more about outcomes delivered by your business’s digital workforce.
Here’s what’s next:
1. Outcome-Driven Execution: No Dashboards, Just Results
Forget static interfaces and dashboards. Over the next 12–18 months, AI agents will dynamically build experiences around your business goals. You won’t be logging in to check reports—you’ll simply define what you want to achieve, and your agents will go off, do the work, and report back.
Imagine this:
Launching a campaign? Your agents identify the right audience, write the copy, set the budget, optimise in real time, and come back with results and next steps.
Preparing a board update? Your agent gathers metrics, flags risks, drafts the slide deck, and even preps your talking points.
Want performance insights? You won’t check a dashboard. You’ll get a message: “Sales velocity dropped 17%. Your GTM agent has already launched variant B with revised messaging.”
You’re not browsing for answers anymore—you’re getting outcomes already in motion. You’re not the operator; you’re the orchestrator.
2. Goal-Based Interfaces for Enterprise Execution
AI will ensure that every business interaction—internal operations, team collaboration, customer engagement—is outcome-led. Interfaces will collapse into goals and actions.
Operations: Want to open a new regional hub? Your agent will sort suppliers, legal structure, local compliance, and payroll.
Go-to-Market: Looking to enter a new vertical? Your GTM agent will analyse demand, pinpoint prospects, create the pitch, and trigger the outreach.
3. Emotionally Responsive Business Systems
AI won’t just automate tasks—it’ll sense how your team is coping.
Spotting burnout? It’ll defer low-priority meetings and buffer incoming comms.
Sensing momentum? It’ll raise stretch goals, bring forward key projects, and adjust team priorities on the fly.
This is adaptive workflow design, based on signals—not assumptions.
4. Digital Twin Workforces
Every core team member will have their own digital twin—an AI agent that learns how they think, decide, and communicate.
Your twin will handle internal updates, investor comms, and routine decisions.
Over time, it’ll reflect your tone, priorities, and judgement—scaling your leadership without adding more hours to your week.
You’ll extend your influence without multiplying your meetings.
5. Autonomous Agent Collaboration
Agent ecosystems will replace traditional integrations. Agents will talk to each other, align goals, and execute cross-functionally—without your intervention.
Finance flags a runway issue, HR adjusts the hiring plan, your founder twin updates investor messaging.
Legal syncs with compliance to rewrite contracts before the regulations even hit.
Coordination happens behind the scenes, so you can stay focused on what matters.
6. The Legal and Regulatory Wildcard
Legal is about to get proactive. AI agents will monitor changes in regulation, auto-adjust contracts, and ensure you're always ahead of compliance.
Contracts rewrite themselves in line with the latest rules.
Term sheets adapt to regional differences.
Investor updates come pre-loaded with regulatory context.
Legal becomes continuous, not reactive.
MCP: The Protocol Powering This New Era
Just as HTTP made the web readable, MCP (Multi-Agent Communication Protocol) makes it actionable. MCP allows AI agents to work together—sharing goals, exchanging data, and coordinating execution—without human input. It's the backbone of this shift from static software to dynamic agent ecosystems.
In the same way HTTP transformed documents into web experiences, MCP transforms AI from isolated tools into fully collaborative digital workforces.
Preparing to Thrive
The businesses that thrive will treat AI not as a tool, but as a team. Founders who can clearly define outcomes, manage AI agents like teams, and measure results like KPIs will unlock extraordinary leverage.
This is the new execution stack: outcome-led, agent-powered, real-time. It’s not about whether you can code—it’s whether you can command.
You’re not managing software anymore. You’re managing impact.
If you have not joined the Fusion42 Community on Telegram — A space for Founders, Framers, and Funders who show up to get **it done,
it is probably time to do so.
For the ❤️ of Startups
🛠️ Tools of the Week.
🧠 Strategic Planning & Research
Consensus
AI search engine for academic research and evidence-backed summaries.
https://consensus.app
Perplexity
Real-time AI answer engine combining search and citation-based research.
https://www.perplexity.ai
Elicit
Research assistant that extracts insights from academic papers and data sets.
https://elicit.com
💬 Communication & Content Creation
Lavender
AI email coach that improves outreach performance and writing quality.
Tome
AI-powered storytelling and presentation tool with rich visual output.
Jasper
AI content generator for marketing teams with brand consistency tools.
🏗️ Product Development & Automation
Builder.io
Visual site builder with AI-driven page generation and CMS integration.
Dust
Platform to build AI agents connected to your company data—without code.
Make
No-code automation tool for building smart workflows with AI integration.
🧾 Pitching & Presentations
Decktopus
AI tool that builds structured, investor-ready pitch decks and presentations.
Upheal
Turns meetings and interviews into structured insights, summaries, and notes.
Yoodli
Real-time AI speech coach to improve presentations, pitches, and team communication.
📊 Market Intelligence & Data Analysis
Browse AI
No-code tool for scraping and monitoring website data.
Clay
AI-powered data enrichment and outreach automation platform.
Glasp
Highlight and summarise web articles and PDFs with AI-powered social annotations.
These tools can help streamline various aspects of startup operations, from research and communication to development and market analysis.
🛠️ 🚀 Fusion42 GSA: Share Your Tools & Resources
Help us build the ultimate toolbox for founders, framers, and funders. Please share your favorite tools and resources (you will have to do this process for each submission, but don't worry only takes 1 min).
📌 Note to Self
Thank you for reading. If you liked it, share it with your friends, colleagues and everyone interested in the startup Investor ecosystem.
If you've got suggestions, an article, research, your tech stack, or a job listing you want featured, just let me know! I'm keen to include it in the upcoming edition.
Please let me know what you think of it, love a feedback loop 🙏🏼
🛑 Get a different job.
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For the ❤️ of startups
✌🏼 & 💙
Derek
Thank you for featuring Glasp, Derek!