Topline How Top VCs Pick Winners In 2026 | Cassie Young, General Partner @ Primary Venture Partners
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Apr 12, 2026 Cassie Young, Partner at Primary Venture Partners who leads seed investing and go-to-market thesis work, discusses scaling a contrarian $625M seed fund. She covers AI-native CRMs challenging incumbents, why AI targets a $6T white-collar market, retention risk for AI startups, and the signals Primary uses when writing checks to early GTM founders.
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AI Targets A $6 Trillion White Collar Opportunity
- Cassie sees AI unlocking massive new TAM by targeting the $6T white-collar labor pool, far larger than current enterprise software spend.
- She expects Jevons-style demand expansion (e.g., legal tech enabling more legal services) rather than mere substitution.
Prioritize JDCE Over Hype For AI Native CRMs
- Prioritize product and the jaw-dropping customer experience (JDCE) when evaluating AI-native CRMs; the best product will win.
- At seed, test design partners, engineering velocity, and early customer feedback to prove up compound platform ambition.
Early AI Startups Show Lower Gross Retention
- Early AI-native startups show lower gross retention versus legacy SaaS, forecasting a potential 'gross retention apocalypse.'
- Cassie expects a reckoning in year one or two, then surviving companies will improve retention and processes.