StrictlyVC Download Uncork Capital on 21 years of venture cycles—and what's different about this one
Aug 26, 2025
Jeff Clavier, founder of Uncork Capital, and partner Andy McLoughlin chat about their aggressive investment strategy in today's venture landscape. They discuss the significance of unique datasets and how their recent investment in AI chip maker Groq exemplifies this. The duo shares insights on advising companies to adapt to AI, investing in traditionally overlooked sectors, and the revival of San Francisco as an AI innovation hub. With AI funding reshaping the venture capital scene, they ponder whether this trend is sustainable.
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Late-Stage Money Flows Into Seed
- Seed stage faces renewed pressure as late-stage and multi-stage firms move earlier to secure ownership.
- Finding and building conviction before companies become obvious remains the seed specialist advantage.
Opportunistic Groq Investment
- Uncork made an opportunistic, small later-stage investment in Groq because of founder connections and a late chance to buy shares.
- Jeff treats production and revenue timing in chips as long-term industry dynamics rather than immediate failure signals.
Training Vs Inference Compute Split
- GPUs excel at training while specialized silicon and inference-as-a-service target inference efficiency.
- That split creates room for companies like Groq to compete without needing to displace NVIDIA on training.