Cowboy Ventures

✨ Announcing Cowboy Ventures Consumer AI Office Hours ✨

Back by popular demand, we’re hosting office hours again on 📍 September 25th in Palo Alto , for early-stage founders building the next wave of Consumer AI products.

This is your chance for 🤝 1:1 conversations with the Cowboy team plus investors and operators from @ForerunnerVC , @CRV , @pearvc , @sasmith4, @ww_us, and @Reddit to get feedback on your fundraising story, product strategy, or growth plan.

📌 Event Snapshot

📝 Applications: Wed, Aug 27 – Wed, Sept 10 (decisions by Fri, Sept 12)

🗓 When: Thurs, Sept 25 from 1 – 5PM PST

💡 Format: 45-minute small group sessions designed to cover anything from your product roadmap to fundraising.

🍸 Mixer: Stay after for drinks and networking with investors, operators, and fellow founders

f you’re building in consumer and planning to raise venture capital, we’d love to hear from you.

🔗 Apply via the link in comments

#Consumer #AI #Startups #Venture

🚀 The Model Context Protocol (MCP) promises to let LLMs seamlessly connect to all our tools - from GitHub to Salesforce.
But there's a 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝗴𝗮𝗽 between 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲 and 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁.

At Cowboy Ventures, we see 3 barriers creating major opportunities for builders ⬇️

1. 𝗟𝗟𝗠𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻'𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄𝘀 - They generate text, not orchestrate systems.
2. 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗴𝗮𝗽𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸𝘀 - Direct backend access means prompt injection could execute actions, not just leak data.
3. 𝗦𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗱𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - JSON configs kill mainstream use.

The eventual future is AI-defined workflows - telling Claude "prepare our GTM metrics for Slack" and watching it orchestrate everything automatically. But we need to solve these challenges first. Want to learn more?

🔗 to the full blog below.

👀 If you are building or have any additional thoughts, we’d love to connect: arman@cowboy.vc or aileen@cowboy.vc

Are you an early-stage founder (haven’t raised seed yet) building an enterprise infra, developer-focused or security solution? If so, apply to join us for Office Hours: Enterprise Infra, Dev Tools & Security hosted by Cowboy Ventures on June 18th. Link here: airtable.com/app28iVigV1Pmo…

Come get targeted feedback on your fundraising story, product roadmap, technical stack, go-to-market plans, or whatever topic is top of mind for you from @Cowboy partners, plus a curated group of top-notch investors and operators from @MenloVentures, @kleinerperkins , @Boldstartvc , @github , @GustoHQ , and @X .

Applications: Rolling from Thurs, May 15 to Mon, June 2 (decisions by Friday, June 6)
Event: Thurs afternoon, June 18, 2025
Location: In-person in Palo Alto, CA
Format: 45 min. kndividual sessions with Cowboy Ventures partners and partners from Kleiner Perkins, Menlo Ventures, Github Ventures, Boldstart & more; and technical experts from leading infra, dev tools & security teams.
Mixer: After office hours, hang out for drinks & networking with fellow founders, operators & investors

If you’re tackling core enterprise challenges and planning to raise venture capital, please apply!
#EnterpriseInfra #DevTools #Security #AI #VC #startups

bit.ly/4fRGSj0

We @cowboyvc continue to be excited about AI opps in “unsexy tech”. Find a deeper dive for some areas to modernize manufacturing written by our intern @LAMediorreal

Hats off to team @DrataHQ for another incredible Drataverse🤙