LvlUp Ventures Reports 78% of Applying Founders Now Use AI Somewhere, and 82% of One-Year Survivors Had a Go-To-Market Story in the Deck

Crunchbase News (contributed piece by the investor; figures are self-reported from LvlUp's own pipeline)·medium signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

Aaron Golbin, co-founder and general partner at LvlUp Ventures, published a September 18 breakdown of reviewing more than 2,500 inbound applications last month against roughly 25,000 over the past year for the firm's funds and accelerators. More than 78% of applying founders are using AI in at least one part of the startup, and close to 82% of companies still operating a year later had a strong go-to-market foundation in the deck, not a technical differentiator. His read is that 'a disciplined system design often matters more than flashy tooling,' with the two approaches that work being rapid prototyping to find signal before a full build and designing agents directly into revenue-generating workflows.