Data Is the Next $1 Trillion Market
Speakers
Michael Kim
— Managing Partner, Cendana Capital
Nikhil Basu Trivedi
— General Partner, Footwork
Summary
A venture capital roundtable discusses secondary market frictions and the Anduril/USVC blowup, the growing power-law concentration in startups, and why the SaaS apocalypse may be overblown. Michael Kim argues that data-rich public SaaS companies are undervalued and will benefit from AI, while Nikhil Basu Trivedi highlights the emerging importance of data as the next AI substrate. The conversation also covers risks of an AI-driven market correction, with Michael Kim warning the NASDAQ could fall 20% if AI capex stalls.
- Secondary markets face transparency issues, highlighted by the Anduril/USVC dispute over SPV share provenance.
- Venture capital is more power-law-obsessed than ever, concentrating capital in a handful of AI and defense startups.
- Michael Kim believes the SaaS apocalypse is overblown; public enterprise software companies with proprietary data and workflows are undervalued.
- He names Monday.com, Box, HubSpot, and Salesforce as examples of attractively priced data-rich SaaS stocks.
- Nikhil Basu Trivedi argues data is the current hot layer in AI, with fewer public pure-play data companies, creating investment white space.
- Michael Kim warns that a stall in AI infrastructure growth could trigger a 20% NASDAQ correction due to financing risks and leverage ETF contagion.
- Startup M&A is picking up, driven by large companies using overvalued equity to acquire talent and proprietary data assets.
Ideas
Legacy SaaS with data moats are undervalued.
The SaaS apocalypse is overblown. Many public enterprise software companies with proprietary data, established customer workflows, and strong customer relationships are trading at depressed multiples (e.g., Monday.com at 2x revenue, Box at 3.4x, HubSpot under $10B on $3B+ ARR, Salesforce down 40%). AI will help these companies leverage their data moats to create more economic value, making them attractive alpha generators.
NASDAQ could drop 20% on AI stall.
The NASDAQ could easily fall 20% over the next 12–24 months if AI infrastructure growth stalls. Catalysts include a semiconductor earnings miss, financing issues for major AI buildouts (e.g., Oracle/OpenAI projects), private credit hiccups in data center funding, and a leverage ETF crash causing contagion from retail to hedge funds.
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