AI-Native Services: The Definitive Guide

Frameworks, data, and hard-won lessons from the companies defining AI-native services

Our Thesis

Read the Playbook

What Founders Say

No one in venture has thought as systematically about AI-native services as Jake Saper and the Emergence team. I make sure that we meet at least quarterly so I can learn what we could be doing better. They've done the hard work of turning pattern recognition into an actual playbook. For founders building here, they're the go-to resource.

Ryan Daniels, CEO

Emergence backed us in 2023, before anyone was talking about AI-native services. What's set them apart since is how seriously they've studied the model. They're not pattern-matching from SaaS -- they've done the work to understand what's actually different, from how we set KPIs to sourcing the perfect product leader for this business. For founders building in this space, there's no one better.

Rob Mee, CEO

Emergence was my first call when we started building our pricing model to be outcome-based. The depth of their thinking on AI-native pricing -- built from real experience across startups to public industry leaders -- has been invaluable to how we operate at Pace.

Jamie Cuffe, CEO

The AI-Native Services Playbook

Operational frameworks and hard-won lessons from the founders defining AI-native services - updated every six months.

Go to Playbook

Team

Domain Expertise is Not Optional

Product-Market Fit

Beware Mirage PMF

Delivery

Sleep at Your Customer’s Office

Product Roadmap

Navigate the Important vs Urgent Tradeoff

Go-to-Market

It’s the Demo, Stupid

Pricing

Outcomes-based

Defensibility

Forge a Data Flywheel

Metrics

Track Productization Maniacally

M&A

Beware of Acquiring Too Early

Our AI-Native Services Portfolio

Stage Partnered: Series A

A veteran team solving the hardest mainframe migration challenges for the Fortune 500 at 10x the speed of the Big 4.

A significant portion of the economy still runs on aging mainframe systems, with $13T of U.S. GDP and the majority of the Fortune 500 dependent on them. Mechanical Orchard uses AI to migrate critical data from mainframes to the cloud, safely modernizing legacy systems without disrupting operations.

Rob Mee

CEO

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Stage Partnered: Seed

An AI-Native TPA where a dozen engineers process claims more accurately than 1000-person incumbents.

Incumbent TPA systems like Duck Creek and Guidewire have poor API/MCP coverage, limiting effective LLM interaction and necessitating a massive service layer to work atop the software. Strala’s CMS is built agent-first, enabling automation of workflows that previously required hours of manual adjuster effort.

Timon Gregg

CEO

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Stage Partnered: Series A

An AI-Native fund administrator that rebuilds core accounting systems to be LLM native, and sleeps at their customers' offices to make sure it’s deployed right.

Fund administration relies on armies of humans operating on legacy infrastructure, giving rise to bloated incumbents generating tens of billions in service revenue. Hanover Park rebuilt the full stack, including the general ledger, waterfall engine, investor portal, and portfolio layer, so AI can operate natively and dramatically reduce total labor required.

Chris Hladczuk

CEO

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Stage Partnered: Seed

An AI-Native commercial insurance brokerage that supercharges brokers with AI agents to give SMBs radically better policy placements at a fraction of the time.

The U.S. commercial insurance market is large, fragmented, and still runs on manual workflows. Harper rebuilds brokerage around AI, automating intake, underwriting coordination, and carrier matching to deliver coverage in hours, not weeks.

Dakotah Rice

CEO

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Stage Partnered: Seed

An AI-Native RCM that uses voice AI to turns hours of hold time into lightning-fast patient experiences.

Nearly a third of the healthcare workforce is dedicated to administrative work, much of it tied to the inefficient medical billing process known as revenue cycle management (RCM). Prosper replaces these manual, phone-based RCM workflows with voice AI agents that secure approvals and resolve claims in real time - helping providers move fast and focus on patients.