Inside the VC Roll-up Craze That Has Taken Silicon Valley by Storm

Venture capitalists borrowed liberally from the private equity playbook this year, and nowhere was that more evident than in roll-up strategies built on the idea that AI tools can make old-school small businesses far more efficient.

We wrote back in June that the “AI roll-up had officially gone mainstream.” Since then, major firms including General Catalyst, Lightspeed, Thrive Capital, and 8VC have doubled down on the strategy, which generally involves acquiring multiple companies in a service sector like accounting, IT services, insurance, or law, and then remaking them with AI tools. READ MORE