Picture this: You’re sitting across from yet another venture studio pitch deck, and something feels off. The team has Google and McKinsey pedigrees, they’re targeting a $50B market, and their thesis sounds compelling. But six months later, their portfolio is bleeding cash with no clear path to profitability. Sound familiar? Evaluating a venture studio as
AI wrappers don’t have moats because anyone can call the same APIs you’re using—your entire business model is one OpenAI update away from irrelevance. This fundamental lack of defensibility occurs when startups build thin layers over foundation models without creating proprietary data accumulation, network effects, or meaningful switching costs that prevent customers from jumping to