AI agents and the future of small business: HubSpot Ventures...

• After 5 years and 50+ investments, the fund is doubling down on startups bringing autonomous AI to SMBs
• HubSpot Ventures Managing Director, Adam Coccari, shares the fund's vision that AI agents will help every small business play big
• HubSpot Ventures announces new investments in AI startups TwelveLabs, Agency, 11x, and Artisan

HubSpot has always championed SMBs by giving them access to innovative technology that helps take their growth to the next level. That mission is what makes me so excited to join HubSpot Ventures at this pivotal time and help to build a future where SMBs thrive.

While AI has been used in enterprise for years, SMBs haven't been able to take full advantage. Today, that's changing. Advancements in generative AI mean platforms can now bring that same powerful intelligence to SMBs. At the heart of this transformation are AI agents: autonomous software that can understand, plan, and execute complex tasks.

Today, we're sharing our expanded investment focus and introducing four investments that bring this vision to life.

AI agents for SMBs

How SMBs run their businesses will fundamentally change. Across marketing, sales, and service, HubSpot customers are already using AI agents to build hybrid workforces to scale in new ways. They're using our Prospecting Agent to find high intent buyers and build a sales pipeline; the Social Media Agent to write content that resonates with their audience; and the Customer Agent to run 24/7 customer support.

At HubSpot Ventures we believe AI agents will change how businesses of all sizes operate, but especially SMBs. And it isn't just go-to-market: agents can provide small businesses with critical expertise across other disciplines that were once out of reach. Think legal reviews, contract writing, bookkeeping, or creative design-all handled by AI agents at a fraction of the cost.

But most importantly, agents free up the time for teams to focus on the high value work that drives business growth-serving customers and building great products.

HubSpot Ventures focus for 2025 and beyond

Our investing approach is grounded in HubSpot's mission: make powerful technology accessible to SMBs so they can grow better. At HubSpot, we're not only embedding AI agents directly into our products, we're investing in and building an ecosystem of innovative startups that build on our platform. It's a dual approach that maximizes impact and choice for customers. Many of our portfolio companies are already or become part of HubSpot's thriving app marketplace, and are vital to our customers' businesses.

Building on our strong foundation of over 50 portfolio companies, we're focusing our future investments on four core areas:

• Agentic Applications for SMBs
• Core AI & AI Agent Development Tools (voice & vision models, agent frameworks, tool use)
• Data infrastructure
• FinTech and B2B Commerce

We're closing out 2024 by sharing four investments from the past few months in companies that are building AI applications and infrastructure to help SMBs grow better: 11x, Agency, TwelveLabs, and Artisan.

At HubSpot Ventures, we're just getting started. We're committed to founders who share our vision of accessible, powerful AI agents that enhance the teams who use them.

If you're a company building in one of our focus areas, get in touch with us by reaching out to [email protected].

Originally published Dec 18, 2024 9:03:50 AM, updated December 18 2024

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