---
type: meeting
title: NovaMind — YC W25 Demo Day
tags:
  - demo-day
  - yc-w25
---

# NovaMind — YC W25 Demo Day

Date: March 15, 2025
Location: YC HQ, San Francisco
Format: W25 batch Demo Day presentations + 1:1 meetings

## Attendees

- Sarah Chen (NovaMind CEO, presenter)
- Priya Patel (NovaMind CTO, in audience)
- Marcus Reid (Threshold Ventures GP)
- ~200 investors in main audience
- Full W25 batch presenting

## Summary

Sarah Chen presented NovaMind's autonomous agent platform. The live demo was the
highlight of the batch: an AI agent completed a 47-step procurement workflow in under
4 minutes with zero human intervention. Steps included vendor discovery, RFQ
generation, bid comparison across 5 vendors, approval chain routing, and PO creation.

The agent handled two deliberate failure injections during the demo — a vendor API
timeout and a budget threshold violation — recovering gracefully both times through
the supervisor agent re-planning mechanism.

## 1:1 After Presentation

Had a 20-minute 1:1 with Sarah after the main presentations. Key discussion points:

- She described their architecture as "compiled procedures" rather than prompt chains.
  Agents learn reusable sub-routines from successful task completions.
- The multi-agent coordination layer was designed by Priya Patel based on her Stanford
  PhD research on emergent communication.
- Current team is 4 people. Looking to hire 3-4 senior engineers post-fundraise.
- Go-to-market is vertical-first: procurement and supply chain initially.

## Key Decisions

- Follow up with Sarah for a deeper technical dive on the agent architecture.
- Intro Marcus Reid (Threshold) to Sarah if he has not already connected — he focuses
  on AI/ML investments and this is squarely in his thesis.
- Track NovaMind as a potential portfolio company or collaboration partner.

## Action Items

- [ ] Schedule follow-up call with Sarah Chen for architecture deep dive
- [ ] Send Marcus Reid intro email if needed
- [ ] Research procurement automation market size for context
- [ ] Revisit agent memory architecture discussion (ran out of time)

---

## Timeline

### 2025-03-15 — Event Notes

Arrived at YC HQ at 9am. NovaMind presented in the second block around 10:30am. Sarah
was polished and the demo worked flawlessly. The failure injection moments drew audible
reactions from the audience when the agent recovered. Marcus Reid approached Sarah
immediately after the presentations. Had my 1:1 around 11:15am in the side room. Sarah
was energetic but focused — she clearly had a plan and knew exactly what she wanted
from the fundraise.
