Augment Ventures July 2025

Fund IV Investment Spotlight: Mundo.ai

“Data Engine Powering Global-Ready AI”

We are excited to announce our latest investment out of Fund IV, Mundo.ai! Mundo removes the biggest bottleneck in frontier AI: a shortage of high-quality training data beyond English. By letting builders’ source, structure, and label audio, image, and video across more than 150 languages on demand, the platform produces better models, faster—and makes “global-first” performance the new default.

We invested because Mundo turns three stubborn constraints into competitive advantage. First, it breaks English-centric data silos, curating multilingual, bias-aware datasets in days instead of months. Second, it collapses a fragmented vendor landscape into one self-serve workflow that covers collection through annotation and QA. Third, it delivers verifiable lift: the team shipped the world’s largest high-quality Bengali speech set in just 30 days, earning early adoption from Google DeepMind, a unicorn AI lab, and several top startups.

The founders have the pedigree to execute at speed. CEO Jason Liao is a former Tsinghua AI researcher and ex-quant at a $60 billion hedge fund. CTO Garreth Lee built production systems at Hugging Face and Cohere. COO Naijide Anwaer — an ex-Binance product leader fluent in six languages—brings first-hand experience with global-scale deployment. They are joined by Kenneth Wu, an AWS-trained engineer and quant who anchors technical execution.

Mundo’s multilingual data infrastructure is foundational to Augment’s broader thesis. It equips every applied-AI company in our portfolio—across supply chain, manufacturing, and logistics—to reach new markets without rewriting their models from scratch. The network effects are powerful: each additional language and domain makes Mundo’s engine more valuable, positioning it to become the “Stripe for multilingual data” in a data-ops market already north of $10 billion.

We’re thrilled to welcome Jason and the Mundo team to the Augment family. If you’re a portfolio founder looking for early access to their platform, reply to this newsletter and we’ll connect you. Together we’re building the rails for a truly global AI stack—one language at a time.

Comment from Mundo Founder & CEO, Jason Liao, on the Round:
“75% of the world does not speak English. At Mundo AI, our mission is to unlock the full potential of global AI by making high-quality, multilingual data accessible at scale. Today’s models are powerful—but they’re still largely limited to English.

We’re changing that by building the infrastructure to source diverse data across every modality, from any region in the world. With Augment Ventures as a partner, we’re excited to accelerate our vision of a truly inclusive AI ecosystem—one that reflects the voices, knowledge, and contexts of all people.”

New legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), was signed into law this month. The act has meaningful impact for investors and founders across various asset classes. After reviewing the Act, we wanted to relay to the Augment Community how it will impact our network of LPs and founders. Here’s what matters most to us: 

QSBS Expansion
The legislation increases the QSBS capital gains exclusion from $10M to $15M per issuer. It also introduces tiered exclusions—50% after 3 years, 75% after 4, and 100% after 5—offering flexibility for earlier exits. The asset threshold for eligible companies also rises from $50M to $75M. Nearly all Augment-backed companies qualify for QSBS. These updates enhance after-tax outcomes for both LPs and founders, strengthening the case for early-stage investment. To read more click here.

R&D Expensing Restored
U.S.-based research and development expenses are once again fully deductible in the year incurred. For startups, this boosts runway and makes capital go further—supporting more efficient growth. To read more click here.

AI Regulation Moratorium (Proposed, Not Passed)
A 10-year pause on state-level AI laws was proposed in the original House version of OBBBA but was removed by the Senate before final passage. As a result, states retain full authority to regulate AI, and startups must continue navigating a state-by-state compliance landscape. To read more click here.

While the bill covers a broad range of issues, certain provisions—such as adjustments to QSBS treatment, R&D expensing, and AI regulatory frameworks—are particularly relevant to our work at Augment. As with any major legislation, the impacts will vary across sectors and stakeholders. Our focus remains on helping our portfolio companies and LPs understand and adapt to the evolving landscape.

We’re excited to welcome Tyler Jensen to the Augment Ventures team as a Venture Fellow this summer.Tyler is a second-year MBA student at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Prior to Ross, he worked in strategy consulting at McKinsey and in private equity at Cerberus, advising portfolio companies across tech, healthcare, and industrials. At Ross, he’s a member of the Wolverine Venture Fund, a Zell Venture Fellow, leads Venture Capital Club at Ross, and advises multiple early-stage startups. Originally from Charlotte, Tyler brings a builder’s mindset, sharp operating instincts, and a founder-first approach—anchored in asking the critical questions that drive clarity, focus, and long-term advantage. See below for a quick Q&A to get to know him better!

What drew you to venture capital? Venture capital is the driver’s seat for the future. I’m drawn to founders who see the world not just as it is, but as it could be—and are bold enough to build it. The role of a VC is to spot those people early, back them with conviction, and help turn that vision into reality. I also love the competitive aspect of the work. Earning the right to partner with top founders is high-stakes and high-reward.

What sectors or technologies are you most excited about right now? Autonomous systems, especially drone platforms operating across air, land, sea, and space. What excites me most isn’t just the software layer, but the symbiotic relationship with hardware. Charging infrastructure, edge compute, navigation, and real-time ops are all part of the puzzle. These systems will not scale through code alone. They require deep integration, regulatory buy-in, and trust in real-world performance. That combination creates defensibility and unlocks infrastructure-scale opportunity in logistics, defense, and industrials.

Do you have a favorite book that’s influenced your thinking on innovation? Launchpad Republic reframes American history through the lens of entrepreneurship. It reinforces how central venture capital has been to U.S. innovation, from semiconductors in the 1960s to the internet in the 1990s to AI today. It also highlights a core belief I hold: progress often requires taking on incumbents and backing outsiders. Understanding how the venture ecosystem started gives you more appreciation for its role in American dynamism and the importance of funding big, bold ideas.

ConverSight’s Athena wins 2025 AI Agent Product of the Year
ConverSight has been recognized by TMCnet as the winner of the inaugural 2025 AI Agent Product of the Year Award for its intelligent agent, Athena. The award honors AI-powered agents that deliver exceptional user experience and measurable business impact—Athena stood out for enabling fast, natural conversational insights and decision making across supply chain and ERP contexts. This recognition highlights ConverSight’s leadership in unified decision intelligence platforms that translate complex data into actionable outcomes via conversational AI. To read more click here.

Kody Kinsley Joins Pair Team as Advisor
Pair Team announced the addition of Kody Kinsley, former North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services, as an advisor. Kinsley brings deep expertise in Medicaid expansion, health equity, and behavioral health policy, having led transformative initiatives that expanded coverage to over 600,000 people and secured $835M for mental health services. His federal and state leadership across HHS, the White House, and the Treasury positions him to guide Pair Team’s mission to deliver people-first, community-based care. To read more click here.

Med Ninjas Expands Partnership with Adni
Adni is extending its collaboration with Med Ninjas to launch a white labeled clinician portal that elevates engagement across Med Ninjas’ healthcare workforce. This new portal enables clinicians to connect with job opportunities, access rewards, and engage within a branded experience tailored by Med Ninjas. The expanded partnership underscores Adni’s growing role as a super app platform for healthcare professionals, helping partners build stronger clinician communities and streamline talent engagement. To read more click here.