Molten has been fostering investments into AI across its portfolio companies for several
years now and its portfolio includes several so-called ‘AI native’ businesses (whose
core product or service is fundamentally powered by AI) and ‘AI enhanced’ businesses
(which proactively embed AI into their existing product offering). Where software
is in the portfolio, it is often deeply embedded, domain-specific and critical for
an enterprise, limiting the potential of workflow penetration by AI. Some of Molten’s
holdings benefit from deep moats such as proprietary data (eg RavenPack, 2.7% of GPV)
or deeply embedded operating infrastructure in regulated operations (eg ThoughtMachine,
5.0%, and Form3, 4.1%). Another Core holding that is not easily disrupted by generic
AI tools is HiveMQ (1.8%), which offers an internet of things industrial messaging
infrastructure powered by an enterprise-grade message queuing telemetry transport
broker. It was one of the companies presenting during this year’s investor day.
Among Molten’s Core portfolio, we see a few companies that may be at a greater risk
from alternative AI-powered solutions, including Coachhub (digital coaching platform,
5.3% of GPV), Aircall (cloud-based phone and communications platform, 5.7%), FintechOS
(low-code product engine for banks and insurers, 2.1%) and Aiven (managed open-source
data platform, 5.0%). However, these companies also embrace AI to further innovate
and in turn to remain relevant in the market.
Coachhub has been addressing the competition from conversational AI agents by combining
its own AI coach (AIMY) for always-on, scalable day-to-day support with human coaches
focused on higher-profile leadership coaching.
Aircall launched its AI voice agent (with a pay-as-you-go model) designed to answer
inbound calls 24/7, handle frequently asked questions, capture caller details, qualify
and hand off complex queries, and plug into Aircall call flows and existing integrations.
Its roadmap includes expanding the AI voice agent’s capabilities with seamless call
transfers (intelligent routing of complex enquiries to live agents, while providing
full conversation context), outbound call automation and deeper CRM and helpdesk integrations
(to automate functions such as post-call workflows and customer data entry), which
may result in higher customer stickiness. Aircall reported annualised recurring revenue
of $204m in FY25 (up 26% y-o-y) and the seventh consecutive quarter with positive
EBITDA. Importantly, the company reported a net retention rate of 104% across its
small and medium-sized enterprise-focused software-as-a-service solutions.
FintechOS first introduced GenAI functionality directly into product design according
to its December 2023 announcement. Although the company’s solution sits on top of
the system of record (rather than being the system of record itself like in case of
ThoughtMachine), it may still benefit from a certain defensive moat from deep integrations
with the system of record and the client’s regulatory and compliance framework, especially
if is deployed as the bank’s standardised change-and-release layer across multiple
products.
Finally, Aiven faces pricing pressure and risk of managed service commoditisation
as AI makes it easier for engineering teams and hyperscalers to run open-source data
services themselves. Therefore, Aiven positions itself as a ‘data and AI platform’
with emphasis on data sovereignty/control and managed reliability/operational simplicity.
It has launched an AI database optimiser to improve performance and optimise cost
(ie unit economics of running data infrastructure). Its multi-cloud neutrality allows
its customers to avoid the hyperscaler vendor lock-in and once Kafka/Postgres/OpenSearch
become mission-critical for a client, the risk of outages and migration mistakes creates
practical switching friction and in turn a defensive moat and greater customer stickiness
for Aiven.
