In the first quarter of 2026, four AI companies raised $188 billion, representing 65% of global venture investment. During the same period, non-AI firms received only 20% of total funding, with the overall deal count dropping by 30%.
BairesDev chairman Nacho De Marco suggests that companies can achieve high valuations by focusing on customer trust and retention. In the B2B SaaS sector, firms with net revenue retention exceeding 110% are valued at 2.4 times the median.
Data indicates that only 22% of B2B SaaS companies perform formal pricing research. De Marco notes that underpricing often signals uncertainty, and founders should prioritize product quality over low costs to avoid a race to the bottom.
BairesDev scaled by hiring the top 1% of talent and automating recruitment through proprietary machine-learning systems. These tools screen applications and deploy teams, which helped the company reduce costs and accelerate project lead times.
Operational discipline and remote-work models provided a competitive advantage for BairesDev during the pandemic. De Marco, who founded BDev Ventures in 2021, emphasizes that financial constraints encourage efficiency through workflow automation.
