A former Spotify executive is using artificial intelligence to help venture capitalists work out which startups are, in his words, mostly noise, as reported by Sifted. The tool aims to separate companies with genuine traction from those whose story outpaces their substance. Set the headline aside and the underlying idea is one every investor and acquirer recognises: the hardest part of any deal is telling a real business from a well-told one.
What this means
Applying AI to early-stage screening is a sign of where diligence is heading. The volume of data available on any target, public and private, has grown faster than the human capacity to read it. AI can triage that material, flag inconsistencies, and surface the questions worth asking. What it cannot do is exercise judgement, sit across the table from a management team, or decide what a finding actually means for value. For investors and corporate buyers, the lesson is to use the technology to widen the funnel and speed the first pass, while keeping experienced people on the decisions that carry the risk.
The wider picture
The same forces are reaching diligence well beyond venture capital. Mid-market acquirers and lenders face the same problem at larger ticket sizes: too much information, compressed timelines, and a need to be certain before committing capital. The firms that handle this well are not the ones that automate everything, nor the ones that ignore the tools. They are the ones that build a clear division of labour, letting software do the gathering and the pattern-spotting, and reserving senior human attention for interpretation, negotiation, and the judgement calls. That balance is becoming a competitive advantage in itself.
How we think about it
At Blash we install governed AI automation, building auditable workflows that remove manual bottlenecks without removing control. In a diligence or evaluation context that means using automation to assemble and cross-check the evidence, while a senior team owns the analysis and the conclusion. Every step is logged, every data source is known, and the output can be explained to an investment committee or a regulator. The point is not speed for its own sake. It is better decisions, reached faster, with a clear record of how they were reached.
Where we can help
If your team is drowning in information at the evaluation stage, or running manual processes that slow every deal, we can help you design automation that lifts output without sacrificing oversight. You get a faster, cleaner first pass, and senior judgement where it counts.
If you want your team's productivity lifted without losing control, book a consultation.
