Mid-2026 funding conversations on Sand Hill Road increasingly center on infrastructure plays—GPU orchestration, compliance tooling and vertical agents—rather than consumer-facing companions that dominated headlines in prior summers.
Bankers hosting informal briefings said crossover rounds remain available for companies showing disciplined burn rates amid export-control uncertainty affecting frontier model access.
Analysts note the shift mirrors earlier cloud transitions when platform layers captured durable margins after application hype cooled.
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Sources:
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/sundar-pichai-stanford-commencement-22304888.php