Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology · Riding Unicorns Productions

AI, Infra vs Apps & Spotting Red Herrings with Akash Bajwa, Principal @ Earlybird

October 8, 2025·46 min·3 clips

Akash says many AI wedges disappear when Anthropic or OpenAI adds the feature themselves.

1. Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology speaks with Akash Bajwa about AI, infrastructure versus applications, and spotting red herrings in venture. 2. Akash Bajwa is a Principal at Earlybird, and James and Hector use the interview to unpack how his firm evaluates AI companies and founders. 3. The episode asks what Earlybird is really for in 2024: how to invest early, how to judge founders, and how to tell durable AI opportunities from temporary ones. 4. Akash says his venture career began at Barclays private bank, where a rotation into corporate venture exposed him to founders, former VCs, and the fintech ecosystem in London. 5. He says his first full-time venture role was at Augmentum Fintech, a Series A and Series B fintech fund based in London. 6. Akash says he joined Earlybird in early 2022 as the London office was being set up, and he notes the London team has grown to five investors. 7. He says Earlybird was founded in 1997 and describes it as Europe’s longest-standing early-stage fund, still focused on being the first money in or first institutional investor. 8. Akash says Earlybird has an eight early-stage fund and an opportunities fund, letting it keep backing companies toward exit. 9. He says Earlybird thinks in two dimensions, product and go-to-market, and looks for companies that move from single-product to multi-product and from one channel to multiple channels. 10. He says the firm’s European network helps with early hires, design partners, customers, and expansion to the East Coast and West Coast. 11. Akash says the team deliberately mixes data-driven sourcing and screening with qualitative judgment and relationship-based founder assessment. 12. He says empirical data can describe unicorn founders, but that is backward-looking and can miss breakout AI teams that break old patterns. 13. He says younger AI founders often learn “what it is to be AI native” faster than experienced operators can adapt. 14. He says the speed of AI adoption matters because ChatGPT reaching 1 billion monthly active users within three years would be astonishing compared with prior consumer apps. 15. He says repeat founders still get a high premium, but first-time founders are not automatically penalized if they show the right learning rate and go-to-market insight. 16. He says vertical AI companies need domain knowledge, while infrastructure companies still need strong developer relations, good docs, and fast, aimed execution. 17. Akash says the episode’s tone is practical and analytical, with James and Hector pushing him on founder traits, platform shifts, and AI investment traps. 18. He answers in a framework-heavy interview style, using examples such as Granola, Whisperflow, MCP, Claude, and vector databases to test the ideas. 19. Best for venture investors, AI founders, and product strategists. 20. Less useful for listeners wanting light banter or broad startup motivation.

As heard by us

A practical AI venture conversation about where product change still gets real.

Akash Bajwa's route into venture is laid out with enough detail to give the episode a steady arc, moving from Barclays to a rotation in corporate venture, then into fintech with Augmentum Fintech and Early Bird.

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Want a clear read on AI infra versus apps without the jargon fog?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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