My 3 favorite startups from a16z Speedrun that are raising right now
+ Link to apply to Speedrun
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A little bit ago, I was invited to the a16z Speedrun demo day, where the Speedrun fund from Andreesen shows off the startups they invested in this year.
To cut a very long story short, I came across a few startups that I really liked, and I’ve spent the last month or so studying the media/entertainment landscape to assess which of the startups I personally liked a lot.
The following selection represents my final picks after extensive analysis. My criteria include:
Total addressable market (TAM)
Quality and vision of the founding team
Domain-specific advantages or disadvantages
Strategic importance to their overall ecosystem
I’m excluding certain exceptional startups b/c they’d completed fundraising prior to us talking. The goal here was to highlight only exceptional opportunities rather than provide an exhaustive list. We will cover the others in the future as appropriate.
But first, a quick intro to a16z Speedrun and why you might be interested in it (especially as a founder)-
Why You Should Apply to a16z Speedrun
a16z Speedrun is Andreessen Horowitz’s flagship accelerator, created specifically for ambitious founders building in tech, AI, gaming, entertainment, XR/VR, and creative tools.
What Founders Get:
Investment and Support: Up to $1M in funding, no fees, and standard early-stage equity terms.
Intensive 12-week Program: Full-time, in-person sessions alternating between San Francisco and Los Angeles, packed with mentorship, expert guidance, and resources.
Direct Access: Work closely with a16z partners, top industry leaders, and gain introductions to investors and experts.
Community: Join a tight-knit group of driven founders who will inspire and challenge you.
Lifetime Benefits: Continuous support in hiring, product development, business strategy, fundraising, plus lifelong membership in a global alumni network from a16z.
Who Should Apply?
You don’t need a finished product or large team. Speedrun values bold ideas, relentless ambition, and determination. If you're building something innovative in tech or creativity, this accelerator is designed for you.
Apply to a16z Speedrun now and give your startup the advantage it deserves.
PS- List me as a referral for style points. Email- devansh@svam.com for anyone applying.
PPS- I’m a huge idiot and had the deadline wrong. It’s on May 11th (in 2 days). Chop chop.
Now onto the startups (these are not ranked, presenting in the order I had written them down)-
My Top 3
Darwin
From the founders- “Darwin lets creators integrate AI directly into their audience’s viewing experience. Today’s fully generated AI videos lack the consistent stories, characters, and worlds that people love — while traditional video remains static and non-interactive. Darwin bridges this gap by providing infrastructure to create and serve videos where viewers can personalize and control content as they watch it.
Using our in-house controllable video editing models alongside external foundation models, creators can transform their existing content into a dynamic experience — where fans can insert themselves into scenes, rewrite dialogue, or shape what happens next in real time.
Since launching our proof of concept on March 5th, we’ve attracted over 100K users to our site, generated 145K+ user generations, and earned over $30K in generation-based revenue. We’re now working with major studios like Universal and Netflix, AI-native filmmakers building personalized feature films, and top YouTubers with millions of subscribers, among other creators to develop the next wave of ai-native entertainment.
We’re backed by A16Z Speedrun and top angels across the video AI space. You can access our deck here.”
They have a bunch of cool video demos you can check out here-
Chocolate Milk Cult Notes- Initially, I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about Darwin's space, which influenced my initial negative outlook. However, the exceptional quality of their founding team, clarity of vision, excellent technical insights, and their thoughtful approach to solving problems significantly elevated my opinion. Darwin represents the kind of startup that fundamentally transforms industries thanks to the strength and vision of its founding team. It’s a risky play b/c of the space, but Darwin is as good as anyone else.
Sunflower
Sunflower is on a mission to create 1 billion days sober, one day at a time. We're working to build the absolute best product for Addiction. We raised a strong pre-seed in October of 2024 and currently building our MVP + hiring our initial team. Backed by a founding team with experience from Y Combinator, Tech Stars, and Rupa Health. We've scaled companies to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, and nine figure acquisitions - now it's time to do it again.
Chocolate Milk Cult Notes- Look at their mission and their results. They’re doing meaningful work.
LayerPath
Chocolate Milk Cult Notes- LayerPath was in my top picks from a16z’s Demo Day this year. Their pitch went Viral on Demo day, getting them lots of interest from investors and prospective clients, a good testament to the CEO, Vinay, and his excellent communication skills. Vinay has a good understanding of the problem (demos suck) and a clear understanding of how to solve it (make them more interactive), a good technical team to make things happen, and tons of experience in Tech Sales to ensure that the product never loses focus. All ingredients for good success.
I’ve spoken to the LayerPath team about their approach and their roadmap to understand their AI chops, and I was pretty satisfied with how they’ve done things/their future roadmap.
Email Vinay here- vinay@layerpath.com
Along with these, here are 2 Bonus ones, that I thought were interesting, but wasn’t sure how to factor/price properly in.
Double Dusk
“Double Dusk is building character-based 2 player games that combine breakout concepts with viral loops. Co-op games are taking over the market and we are targeting blue ocean live service with 2 player experiences designed to last and grow with your friendships.
We’re a team of repeat founders who have built lean venture game studios (Gamelynx), scaled Silicon Valley startups (Freckle), and been in the trenches leading content for billion dollar games (VALORANT, Sky: Children of Light).
Alexander Mistakidis: was a key VALORANT game designer, second time games founder & CEO
Alex Kurilin: CTO & serial entrepreneur, co-founded Freckle which exited and hit $50M ARR
Reika Yoshino: the lead 3D artist on Sky Children of Light (thatgamecompany, >35M downloads)
Ray Bruwelheide: only concept artist on Slime Rancher 2 (98th percentile Steam game)”
Nilo-
“Nilo enables players to create 3D worlds in seconds.
Nilo is a social, generative AI-native 3D sandbox that runs in the browser (desktop, mobile, Discord, Telegram). With Nilo, Generation Alpha has fun creating and sharing 3D experiences together (30 second video although better to share the linkedin post).
Founded in April 2024, Nilo is backed by A16Z Speedrun, Flex Capital, Script Capital, Essence VC, Earthling VC, Next Tier Ventures, Andreas Klinger, Logan Kilpatrick and recently won the most creative award at SF Demo Day hosted by Product Hunt.
Founder’s Background (LinkedIn):
· 15 years in the games industry, contributing to AAA titles such as Fable and Fortnite.
· Created and led the optimization team for Unreal Engine 5 at Epic Games.
· First engineer at Polystream (acquired by Mythical), helped raise a $12M Series A round from Intel.
There's more information on the investor memo if you'd like to add to this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mF8fMDVGrbXqaf5a5eBl6pwxNgY_Wgv4xI_nlj-Ev3Y/edit?usp=sharing
And some posts from our investors:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pauldavidjohnson_flex-capital-just-invested-in-nilo-technologies-activity-7312923498971111425-AYkP
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rubencolomer_were-excited-to-announce-our-investment-activity-7317820523617386496-OLJL”
Thank you for being here, and I hope you have a wonderful day.
Dev <3
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Thanks for sharing! I hadn’t heard of four of these.