Cracking the AI and consumer code with early Zoom-backer Maven Ventures

#Sara Deshpande

Maven Ventures General Partner Sara Deshpande has been investing in the consumer tech space for a decade.

Over time, the seed-stage venture firm has backed the likes of Zoom, Cruise, Hello Heart, Perplexity and x.AI and has grown to over $200 million in assets under management.

Now, with a new $60 million fund — and plans to write six to eight checks of up to $1.5 million each year — Deshpande joined TechCrunch senior reporter Mary Ann Azevedo on Equity to discuss the changes in the consumer landscape, how her firm is doubling down on artificial intelligence and what makes a startup stand out.

“After a decade at Maven and 15 years working with startups, I’ve seen this ebb and flow … consumer does tend to go in and out of vogue,” she said. “But it’s such a great time to be a consumer investor … there is less competition and less noise from others.”

When it comes to AI, Deshpande thinks that at the seed stage, AI’s ability to improve life for consumers “is going to get here much more quickly than people think.” At the same time, she thinks that the peak AI frenzy was about 12 months ago.

She also acknowledged that there is naturally going to be some “tumult” around the sector. Perplexity, for example, has been under fire amid plagiarism and web scraping charges.

“It is a technology that is bound to bring controversy and opinions on every side,” Desphande said. “My perspective is we are still so early that the rules are being written right now … We’re going to be on a roller coaster for a while.”