VC18z

Roadmap

What the desk is building next.

Each stream carries three commitments: the work in progress, the next release with a date on it, and the piece sitting further out. Dates slip in public here rather than quietly.

Artificial intelligence

Note →Blog →
● In progress

Serving-cost teardown

Rebuilding the unit-cost model per completed task rather than per thousand tokens, across the eight products we track most closely.

○ Next · Q2 2026

Agent renewal cohorts

A month-twelve retention panel for enterprise agent deployments — the first honest read on whether workflow ownership actually holds.

Later · H2 2026

Evaluation as a market

Sizing the trust-and-evals layer once agents take actions: who buys it, at what budget line, and whether it stays a feature or becomes a category.

Crypto & onchain finance

Note →Blog →
● In progress

Corridor-level volume map

Separating genuine payment volume from collateral rotation, corridor by corridor, so the growth charts mean something.

○ Next · Q2 2026

Bank versus non-bank issuance

Tracking issuer share as regulation hardens, and what it does to the float-yield share of issuer revenue.

Later · Q4 2026

Tokenised collateral in practice

A working note on repo and treasury collateral moving onchain — who bears settlement risk and where the fee actually lands.

Robotics & embodiment

Note →Blog →
● In progress

Payback-period database

Assembling installed-fleet payback periods including integration, downtime and remote-operator load — the numbers vendors leave out.

○ Next · Q3 2026

Intervention-rate benchmark

A standard way to compare autonomy claims: interventions per hundred task completions, sourced from operators rather than demos.

Later · H2 2026

Second-generation bill of materials

Whether the cost curve on gen-two hardware supports the price point the business model assumes.

Energy & compute

Note →Blog →
● In progress

Interconnect queue tracker

Site-by-site queue positions and energisation dates in the major datacenter corridors, refreshed monthly.

○ Next · Q2 2026

Contracted versus utilised capacity

The cleanest early tell on overbuild: what the largest buyers have contracted against what they are actually drawing.

Later · Q4 2026

Behind-the-meter economics

Underwriting on-site generation and thermal management as infrastructure credit, not as a technology bet.

Bio & health systems

Note →Blog →
● In progress

Trial cost decomposition

Where the money actually goes in a phase-two programme, and which line items software has any claim on.

○ Next · Q3 2026

Procurement evidence bar

What health systems require before signing: documented cost or risk reduction, and who is producing it credibly.

Later · H2 2026

Tooling multiple review

Testing whether discovery-tooling valuations are priced on candidate volume or on clinical outcomes.

Defense & resilience

Note →Blog →
● In progress

Conversion tracker

Following prototypes-to-programme-of-record conversion rates rather than contract announcements.

○ Next · Q3 2026

Accreditation cost curve

What it actually costs a venture-scale company to clear the accreditation boundary, and how long it takes.

Later · Q4 2026

Dual-use supply mapping

Domestic supply for the components that gate attritable systems, and where export control could remove a market.

Frontier software

Note →Blog →
● In progress

Uncategorised watchlist

A rolling list of companies that do not fit the other six streams, each with a four-quarter clock on producing a category name.

○ Next · Q2 2026

Simulation replaces iteration

Where physical prototyping budgets are being displaced by simulation, and which industries pay for it first.

Later · H2 2026

Coordination software audit

Industries still running on email and spreadsheets, sized by the cost of the coordination failure rather than by seat count.

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