In August, a bombshell MIT study rippled through venture capital.
The survey suggested that generative AI pilots are failing 95% of the time, a jarring proposition at a time when VCs, startups, and incumbents are plowing billions into “deploying AI.” Samir Kumar, general partner at Touring Capital and previously a CVC veteran, is well-equipped to parse what’s happening here.
“The reaction is: ‘Oh my God, this is all hype’,” said Kumar. “‘This stuff doesn’t work. We’re wasting our time.’ Disaster, right? But if you dig into it, the real issue—and this is pervasive—is about evaluations. What are you trying to accomplish, and how do you evaluate it? And that’s an organizational issue and a process issue. You have to understand the limitations of where we are with what AI can do, effectively benchmarking and evaluating from there: Is this effective or not?”
This is a question that, on some level, Kumar, Nagraj Kashyap, and Priya Saiprasad expressly started Touring in 2023 to answer. The group came together over decades, weaving across each other in the realm of corporate venture capital—Kashyap and Kumar were at Qualcomm Ventures together, while Kashyap, Kumar, and Saiprasad all connected at Microsoft’s M12, and Kashyap and Saiprasad synced up at SoftBank Vision Fund II. This background, doing venture capital for corporate giants, gives Touring a unique set of touchpoints.
