Shensi Ding and Gil Feig met during a computer science class in college and quickly formed a close friendship. Years later, they would reconnect and launch Merge. In this episode of Spotlight On: AI, Shensi reflects on their founding story and how Merge has evolved from streamlining product integrations to serving the quickly growing market of AI companies.

Today, Merge is powering the next generation of AI SaaS companies. The journey began in 2015 after Shensi and Gil graduated from Columbia University. They pursued different roles, only to discover a shared professional challenge: building and maintaining product integrations. In 2020, they made the bold decision to leave their jobs and launch Merge. For the first time, companies using Merge could add customer-facing integrations to their product with a single API, saving developers countless hours.

Their goal for Merge was to become the go-to integration platform for all companies. Even so, they could never have predicted the staggering demand from the AI ecosystem. Seemingly overnight, Merge's platform experienced an unprecedented surge in users, as AI startups blossomed and integrations were needed to provide data to power language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT became critical. Shensi and her team navigated the overwhelming demand, and in recent months have even launched their own AI products, like Blueprint.

“We wanted to make sure if we were investing resources into AI products on an already very packed roadmap that it was going to be worth it. You can’t build it just because everyone else is if it is not the right thing for your company” - Shensi Ding

#vc #venturecapital #founder #entrepreneurs #tech #CEO #API #ai #artificialintelligence #startups #ChatGPT

Season 1:
Season 1 focuses on AI. In this season, we’re bringing together a range of company leaders across different industries and stages to discuss how they’re navigating the current AI revolution. Learn from 12 leaders applying AI in all parts of the ecosystem. They have enabled new industries and profoundly influenced productivity, creativity, and the global economy.

Access the episode on Spotlight On: https://www.accel.com/spotlighton/mer...

Spotlight On:
Spotlight On examines the technology shaping our world. Highlighting a new topic each season, company builders at all stages of company growth will share their learnings, challenges, and breakthroughs.

Accel:
Accel is a global venture capital firm that is the first partner to exceptional teams everywhere, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Bumble, CrowdStrike, Fiverr, Flipkart, Freshworks, Qualtrics, Scale, Segment, Slack, Spotify, Squarespace, Tenable, and UiPath are among the companies Accel has backed over the past 40+ years. We help ambitious entrepreneurs build iconic global businesses.

Host: Ben Fletcher, Partner at Accel
Featuring: Shensi Ding, CEO and Co-Founder of Merge

Conversation highlights:
00:00 - Intro
00:10 - Merge's founding story and @AccelVC's investment
04:10 - Advice for cultivating a strong early company culture
11:55 - The decision-making process behind launching their first AI product and its impact
17:21 - Advice for building a resilient business, how to incorporate AI and when not to
21:00 - How to distinguish genuine threats from AI and the importance of human involvement

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Shensi Ding | Powering The Next Generation Of AI SaaS Companies | Spotlight On: AI | S1E4 | AccelVC
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