Lisa Chen

Operations at @BasisSet / Mom of 3

[Wilson Kyi @WilsonKyi]

We invited the best storytellers to our first Taste & Distribution Dinner at Mister Jiu's Moongate Lounge, and asked everyone for their most tasteful idea?

1) Launch videos are a commodity, but capture the value before and after.

It's a YC checkbox now, and the spike is the easy part. Even before the dinner, we were able to identify the most talented folks, and afterwards the guests asked for a GTM Slack channel. Everyone intros one thing they can help with and one thing they need help with. If they're not active, we kindly ask them to leave to keep the community active :)

@retttx from @clay joined the community to advise on GTM engineering.

2) Physical experiences build a memorable brand.

@reve ran a prompt to print booth (where we discovered our videographer), and 200 totes were gone in 20 minutes. @vizcom ran design challenges with real manufacturers, 500+ submissions, then actually 3D printed the winners. @openart_ai bought NYC subways and AMC cinema ads, and made the cinema ad with their own product.

3) Relationships organically become customers.

@basata_ai runs mastermind customer dinners that open with "if you could wave a magic wand in your practice." @runpensar runs the largest engineering community in NYC and it doubles as their pipeline. Pensar and Noso Labs run their podcasts as a customer acquisition channel, because the guest can be their next customer, and each guest's credibility leads to the next lighthouse guest and customer.

4) Founder voice cannot be replaced by ghostwriting.

Writing is a forcing function to think, and once a founder delegates the writing they also delegate the thinking. If you do use a ghostwriter, it has to be someone who has fully mastered your voice, and it's often someone in the company who has all the context and knows your taste.

Reply "taste" or tag folks who should be in the next dinner and our AI GTM Slack community.

@BasisSet design and swag by the incomparable @Rachel_S_Wong @Monkeythehuman, videography by @efrancisworks

@escgreene @willyhopps @taranjeetio @cocokechun @richardwzhang @Jackyhuang @princeboucher @MelisaSeah @thenuka_k @karine_hsu @kylebhiro @SilvSoph @ChristinaAKehoe @EmilyLonetto, Andrea Wong @rho , @yangsu_13 Winston Chi and Kaled Alhanafi

[Simular @SimularAI]

Today marks an important milestone in the history of @SimularAI, the autonomous computer company.

Our open source computer-use agent, 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐒, scored 72.6% on the OSWorld benchmark, surpassing the human baseline (72.36%) for the first time ever.

This milestone matters because it shows AI can now use computers the way humans do, and, in many cases, do it better.

This is a glimpse of a future where work becomes faster, more accessible, and more empowered for everyone.

#AI #Automation #Simular #AgenticAI #ComputerUse

[Chang Xu @_changxu]

We turned @NeurIPSConf 2025 into 11 podcast episodes.

Some things that stuck:

[Navvye Anand @navvye]

We raised $6M to discover new pesticides with AI.

Seed co-led by General Catalyst and A Capital, with participation from SV Angel, Paul Graham, Character Capital, Liquid 2, Basis Set, and others. We’re YC W25.

Little-known fact: farmers today use 2x more pesticide than they did in 2000, just to get the same results. Pesticides are getting worse over time because pests develop resistance faster than industry can do R&D.

Humanity can’t afford to lose a race with evolution, so we’re applying proven drug discovery AI to design safe, working pesticide molecules orders of magnitude faster than traditional R&D.

In this year alone, we’ve:
1. Trained unified foundation model for proteins and small molecule interactions with generalized uncertainty quantification
2. Made a 4x faster protein-folding model than AlphaFold for pesticide targets.
3. Identified and validated lead compounds for our first proprietary pesticide in less than 3 weeks after setting up our wet lab in San Carlos.

If our mission resonates and you want to ship real science with us, we’d love to connect: https://t.co/uDS0Wbpgp1

[Chang Xu @_changxu]

The best part of @NeurIPSConf isn’t the papers—it’s the people building what’s next.

On December 3 in San Diego, just steps from NeurIPS, we are hosting an evening with our portfolio founders who are turning cutting-edge research into real products.

[Vizcom @Vizcom]

We’re excited to announce our $27M Series B led by @RadicalVCFund with continued support from @IndexVentures, @Unusual_VC, @BasisSet + our incredible angel investors.

At Vizcom, we believe in amplifying the human spark behind every object in the world.

Thank you to the community, the team, customers and many more for your trust and support.

The best has yet to come 🚀

[Basis Set @BasisSet]

Basis Set has hosted various events this year alongside @imbue_ai, @nvidia, and @OpenAI to name a few. We’re looking forward to hosting more exciting events this year at CVPR, NeurIPS, and many more!

Interested in learning more? Subscribe to our events calendar here: https://t.co/LHLRiy4cwM

[Lisa Chen @_Lisa_Chen_]

Extremely thankful and thrilled to continue to learn, build, and grow alongside our amazing Basis Set team, LPs, communities, and last but not least - our incredible founders!

@xuezhao @_changxu @JohnMannes @WilsonKyi @Rachel_S_Wong Ingrid

[Basis Set @BasisSet]

📣 Announcing: Basis Set Fund III

It’s a collective effort and we’re thankful for our Founders, LPs, and community who work selflessly to build the future with us. 6 years in, it’s still day 0 -- In good times and bad, we’re here to build, learn, and grow together with you! 🚀

Thank you to @maddierenbarger and @EricNewcomer for spending some time with us!

https://t.co/IBujWr5uQx

[John Mannes @JohnMannes]

Still get goose bumps regularly that we get to wake up every day and work together @xuezhao @Rachel_S_Wong @_changxu @WilsonKyi @_Lisa_Chen_ & Ingrid to do our part to help support amazing people bringing AI to every corner of the economy!

[Eric Newcomer @EricNewcomer]

Exclusive from @maddierenbarger

Basis Set Raises $185 Million Third Fund, Doubling Down on AI & Automation

https://t.co/hVGjekfcyb

[Thenuka Karunaratne @thenuka_k]

I'm super excited to announce daydream's $2.5M pre-seed today along with our feature in Axios. https://t.co/qxcVhWMSmN

[Lan Xuezhao @xuezhao]

Can LLMs predict the future for startups? Sounds impossible, but is it?

We've experimented with using LLMs to try to predict company outcomes, based on founder psychological attributes alone. Wow, it worked much better than anticipated! Read more and see your own results. 👇

[John Nay @johnjnay]

I founded a second AI company.

We're pioneering an empirical, practical approach to AI alignment, leveraging law/policy & LLMs.

Backed by top venture firms and AI researchers in the Bay Area & NYC, we're hiring 5 more Members of our Technical Staff.

DM me your CV if interested

[Lisa Chen @_Lisa_Chen_]

I'm a runner, and I'm playing Run Legends by @TalofaGames because it's turning exercise into a fun game. You can get the game at https://t.co/Xt8KDrOdBs on iOS and Android for free and join me in playing today! #TeamRun #RunLegends #TalofaGames

[Lan Xuezhao @xuezhao]

Congratulations on the most competitive series B I've seen in 1.5 years, it speaks volumes to the team's hard work over the years. We at @BasisSet have been a proud investor since day zero and definitely also the longest LTV customer. @onequince

[Lan Xuezhao @xuezhao]

Join us tmrw for AMA with product leadership (VP/CPO/PMs) from @Instacart @coda_hq @Kraftful @cartainc @YouTube @Google and Snappy.

[Chang Xu @_changxu]

1/ Venture capital has become boring. But generative AI is changing everything, enabling us to challenge fundamental assumptions in how industries have been operating. Now Bad Ideas are Good again 💡. Read on to find out why 👇

[Lan Xuezhao @xuezhao]

Mother day is coming, here’s a little project. 💐

Story - On a difficult day at work recently, my dear friend Janet surprised me with a book titled "Why Does Mommy Have to Go to Work?" It looked familiar, and then it hit me...

[Lan Xuezhao @xuezhao]

What a great (and very weird) time to be alive! Train your own AI models to chat with yourself with #ChatGPT @OpenAI , and look at your own pictures (trained with a set of 20) that you've never seen (!) w/@openart_ai via @StableDiffusion

[Lan Xuezhao @xuezhao]

One of the fastest growing companies! Only 2 years old and the scale is crazy. Congrats @ellazhang516 and the @TrendsiShop team! 🤝 @BasisSet