Three junior VCs from last year's "Next General Partner" watch list just made partner, and their ticket was writing checks to AI and defense tech companies that actually shipped.
The Summary
- Three of 16 finalists from The Information's 2025 "Next General Partner" list got promoted, riding investments in AI startups Mercor and Skild AI to full partner roles
- Defense tech darling Anduril and expense software Ramp also boosted finalist profiles with rising valuations
- The promotions signal what gets you promoted in VC right now: AI automation plays and companies building real infrastructure, not consumer apps
The Signal
The venture capital promotion ladder just sent a clear message about what matters in 2026. Writing checks to AI agent companies and defense infrastructure is how you make partner now. Mercor and Skild AI, both in the automation and robotics space, became career accelerators for the VCs who backed them early. This isn't about meme stocks or consumer social apps. It's about betting on companies building the machinery of Web4.
What's striking is the combination. AI gets the headlines, but Anduril's rise matters just as much. Defense tech is having a real moment because governments finally figured out that software-defined warfare isn't a nice-to-have. When a junior partner's portfolio company starts landing nine-figure defense contracts, that partner stops being junior fast. The same logic applies to Ramp. Boring? Maybe. But expense management software that actually gets adopted at scale proves you can spot companies that solve real problems for real businesses.
The subtext here is about pattern recognition. The VCs who advanced weren't just lucky. They identified a specific type of company: ones building foundational infrastructure for how work gets done, whether that's AI agents handling hiring (Mercor), robotics doing physical tasks (Skild AI), or software managing corporate spend (Ramp). These aren't "maybe this changes everything" bets. They're "this is already changing everything" bets.
The rest of the 2025 finalists who didn't advance? Either their companies haven't hit inflection points yet, or they backed consumer plays in a market that stopped caring about consumer plays. Venture capital follows the money, and right now the money follows companies building tools, not toys.
The Implication
If you're trying to read the VC market, watch where junior partners are getting promoted. Those promotions telegraph where capital is actually flowing, not where partners say it's flowing in Medium posts. Right now, that means AI infrastructure, defense tech, and boring enterprise software that makes money.
For founders, the message is simpler: build something that makes other companies more capable or more efficient. The "consumer social for X" era is over. The "agent that automates Y" era is here, and the VCs advancing their careers know it.
Source: The Information