🍴🏹 Issue #126: The Need For Quality APIs & The Rise Of Centaur Agencies
How Speakeasy is building the best knives and forks for software to eat the world and why AI-augmented teams will build the majority of all venture-backed MVPs by 2027.
💬 Welcome to issue #126 of StoryHouse Review
Good morning & happy Thursday. From helping startups build MVPs at a fraction of the cost and time to enabling API creation and deployment with one line of code, the advancements in AI continue to amaze and enable rapid startup development.
This week, Claremont entrepreneur Joey DeBruin shares how centaur agencies are transforming the product development landscape, and StoryHouse portfolio company Speakeasy announces its $15M Series A round as they continue to make it easy for every developer to build great APIs.
It’s a Claremont world out there. 👇
~ Josh, Miles, Matthew, Pat
🚨Claremonster Call-Out: Sagar Batchu & Speakeasy’s Series A
Sagar Batchu (HMC’15) started his career as a software engineer for IoT proptech startup Enlighted, where fellow Claremont alum Joe Costello was the CEO. After Siemens acquired Enlighted, Sagar left to join LiveRamp’s new London office and grew into a Director of Engineering role, helping build and scale the company’s London engineering team. Now, Sagar is the CEO and co-founder of Speakeasy — a developer-first API DevEx platform that enables developers to offer best-in-class self-service experiences for API consumers. They emerged from stealth last year with a Seed round led by Google Ventures and Quiet Capital, along with StoryHouse Ventures, Flex Capital, and Firestreak Ventures.
This week, Speakeasy closed its $15M Series A round, led by Wesley Chan and Pegah Ebrahimi from FPV Ventures, who have previously invested in notable unicorns like Canva, Dialpad, Flexport, Robinhood, Plaid, and Gusto.
If software is eating the world, APIs are the knives and forks. They're not just connecting systems: they're fundamentally reshaping how we build, deploy, and scale software.
Slack aside, service-based architectures are how engineering teams are communicating with one another internally. Meanwhile, every B2B SaaS is working to transform into an API-based company and offer programmatic access to their products.
These trends have made APIs the #1 source of web traffic and they’re growing faster than any other type. With the rise of AI, we're on the cusp of an even more dramatic surge in traffic as machine-to-machine communication explodes.
But against this backdrop of rapid API growth, the tools and practices for building quality, reliable APIs haven't kept pace. This growing gap is creating a bottleneck that could choke the next wave of software innovation. Unless we invest in better API development solutions, we risk stifling the very progress that APIs have enabled….
“The Speakeasy team’s past experience building enterprise APIs has given them profound insight into, and empathy for, the struggles engineering teams are facing. They are building a platform that will not only address existing inefficiencies in API development but anticipates future challenges in the ecosystem. But what ultimately convinced us to lead their round was the overwhelming feedback from their user base. Teams aren't just using the platform; they're enthusiastically championing it, which speaks volumes about Speakeasy's ability to deliver real value and an exceptional experience."
- Wesley Chan, Managing Partner at FPV Ventures
This year, Speakeasy has seen nearly 3,000 users generate 7,250 SDKs, a 575% increase in companies investing in their API’s tooling. From fast-growing innovators like Vercel and Mistral AI to established giants like Verizon, to hobby projects by solo devs, engineers are using Speakeasy to accelerate their API development and adoption.
Check out the full announcement on the Speakeasy website for more details. 👇
👤 Community Spotlight: Joey DeBruin & Grids
Claremont alum Joseph DeBruin (PO) is a neuroscientist turned product builder with a knack for innovation. He is the co-founder and CEO of Grids, a company dedicated to helping founders build their initial products without the typical costs and headaches associated with agencies and freelancers. Joey previously co-founded Backdrop Build, a large-scale program that supports teams in kickstarting new projects, recently acquired by Seed Club.
Joey recently shared his thoughts on the rise of centaur agencies, which combine AI with human expertise to revolutionize product development. He highlights how these innovative teams can dramatically reduce costs and improve efficiency in building minimum viable products (MVPs), making it easier for non-technical founders to enter the market and test their ideas.
Centaur Agencies Are Coming for Your MVP
Last week, I talked to two founders — one that spent $200k to get an MVP built in 8 months, and another that got a similarly sized MVP built for $10k in 20 days thanks to AI. Welcome to the era of centaur agencies.
Those types of dramatic efficiency gains aren't just random outliers. They're early signals of a massive shift in how products get built. And while it's true that AI is making code more accessible to everyone, this won't kill the agency model — it will reinvent it. In fact, I'm betting that by 2027, the majority of venture-backed MVPs will be built by a new breed of AI-augmented teams available for hire.
What is a Centaur Agency?
A centaur agency scales through technology, not headcount. Think of DesignJoy, where a single designer (Brett Williams) makes millions yearly by “productizing himself.” Or Marble, which is revolutionizing legal services by automating immigration and family law processes, reaching hundreds of millions in revenue in just two years.
This isn't entirely new — companies like Deel and Pilot have been productizing services previously billed hourly (HR and accounting) for years. But AI changes everything because it can now handle creative work where quality is subjective. That means centaurs can now disrupt creative industries that have been the most resistant to automation: design, content marketing, legal services, and now, product development.
Centaurs in Product Development
The more creative the work, the smaller and more specialized the centaurs. While Marble can scale quickly by automating routine legal work (immigration and family law), product development will be different – expect a sea of specialized and highly augmented teams, each compounding leverage on their unique expertise.
Why aren't these centaurs dominating the product outsourcing market yet? The simple answer is that AI coding tools are still maturing. Devin or Cursor might make good engineers 2X more productive, with rare cases hitting 10X or 100X. But watch the buzz around Replit Agent, where people are building in 15 minutes what used to take days. That’s where we're headed.
Won't this automation reduce the need for engineers? Paradoxically, no. History suggests that when resources get dramatically more efficient, demand increases. And as AI makes basic development accessible to everyone, standing out by hiring experts will be even more important.
Read Joey’s full article about centaur agencies transforming the product development landscape. 👇
🤝 Claremont Introductions: Rachael Swenson & Arc Growth
Rachael Maltiel Swenson (CMC '09) is an analytics and product growth leader turned executive coach with an experienced career at Meta, Intuit, eBay, Pinterest, Expedia, and Bain & Company.
She now partners with startups and fast-growing companies to unlock the full potential of their product and analytics strategies. With her expertise in analytics, data storytelling, and product-led growth, Rachael helps businesses grow faster by optimizing conversion, prioritizing product roadmaps, and improving decision-making through data and experimentation, saving time and resources.
In addition to advisory work, Rachael offers executive coaching and development workshops that empower leaders and teams to enhance their decision-making, communication, and performance. Whether you're looking to refine your product strategy or invest in leadership development, Rachael would love to help out other Claremont folks and startups. To connect with Rachael, email below. 👇
💼 Who’s Hiring?: Speakeasy & Norm AI
Sagar Batchu (HMC ‘15) is the CEO and co-founder of Speakeasy – an API DevEx platform that instantly creates SDKs that make API integration easy for your users. Their platform takes the heavy lifting out of providing a great API experience by integrating directly into your GitOps and propagating changes. Speakeasy is leveraging platform engineering, code gen, and LLMs to provide a platform that unburdens teams who are creating, maintaining, and constantly evolving their APIs. Speakeasy recently completed their $15M Series A round led by FPV Ventures, with participation from GV and Quiet Capital. They’re hiring for several open roles on their growing team.
Founding Designer(SF/London): our first design hire! We’re looking for someone with a high bar for intuitive user experiences and a passion for technical products.
Product Engineers (Remote/SF): especially with experience in platform engineering, developer tools, developer productivity or infrastructure products.
Solutions Architect (Remote/SF): responsible for ensuring key accounts have an amazing post-sales experience with Speakeasy
Product Marketing Manager (SF): end-to-end product marketing for some exciting new products we’re launching. Experience with developer tools required
Norm AI automates compliance processes to make them more efficient, cost-effective, and accurate while ensuring democratic guardrails for AI in autonomous roles. Norm enables teams to operate with unprecedented speed and precision by converting complex regulations into intelligent AI programs. Norm AI closed a $27M Series A over the summer with investors including Coatue, Bain, Citi, Blackstone, and New York Life. Bryn Edwards (CMC ’20) is the Chief of Staff, and Erin Burke (CMC ’22) is a Member of the Technical Staff. They are hiring across multiple functions:
Full Stack Product Engineer (Hybrid, NYC) - looking for someone with 4+ years of experience, especially with React/TypeScript, Next.Js, and Python-based backend APIs. They should be excited to work on product and iterate directly with customers.
Director of InfoSec & Compliance (Hybrid, NYC) - looking for someone with at least 5 years of experience, specifically with leading SOC2 or related certification processes. They should have experience with SaaS and AI software and experience leading and building information security programs.
Legal Engineer (Hybrid, NYC) - looking for someone with at least 3 years of experience in a relevant legal or regulatory field and interested in LLMs. You do not need to know how to code, but a JD is required.
Engagement Manager (Hybrid, NYC) - looking for someone with at least 5 years of experience in client success, engagement, or account management roles within compliance, legal services, or technology. JD or AI background is a plus.
Check out the other ~2,000 open jobs at 280+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 300+ remote jobs, 200+ internships, or 500+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention, Claremonsters!
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention StoryHouse Review. Or, if you are an employer looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s top read 🔥
StoryHouse portfolio founder Dashell Laryea was recently featured in an article by Inc. Magazine, discussing how they are building the 401(k) for the working class. Dash and Claremont alum Micah Berman (PO ‘13) are the co-founders of Ezra Financial, an employee benefits platform that helps companies retain their hourly workers by supporting their financial security, starting with emergency savings. Ezra recently raised a Pre-Seed round from Better Tomorrow Ventures and StoryHouse.
This week’s must-watch 📺
Claremont grad and tech innovator Jose Moreno (HMC ‘09) shares his philosophy behind building next-generation edtech companies. He sat down with Elijah Murray on The Long Game to talk about his journey from Netflix to EdTech, how AI can empower educators, the importance of data-driven decisions in schools, and the challenges facing education today. Jose is the founder and CEO of Neulight, a startup working to supplement education with AI-powered software.
This week’s Claremont financing 💸
Congratulations to Claremont entrepreneur Ben Colman (CMC) and Reality Defender on securing $33M in their recently expanded Series A round. The round was led by Illuminate Financial, with additional participation from Booz Allen Ventures, IBM Ventures, and Accenture. Ben is the co-founder and CEO of Reality Defender, a premier deepfake and AI-generated media detection platform.
Everything else you need to know💡
Groundlight AI, founded by Claremont grads Leo Dirac (HMC ‘95) and Avi Geiger (HMC ‘99), recently released its open-source ROS package, enabling robot builders to integrate visual intelligence into robotic systems easily. By merging machine learning with real-time human oversight, Groundlight's ROS package makes robots more perceptive and adaptable to real-world environments. Groundlight is a computer vision platform that enables users to interpret images using simple English natural language and minimal code. They are backed by Madrona, Greycroft, Founders Co-op, and StoryHouse.
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🍽️ BTL Snacks:
🩺 Transforming Patient Engagement For Healthcare Providers….. Claremont grad Jung Park (HMC ‘89), Eric Mao, and Aaron Lee are the co-founders of healthcare startup Parakeet Health. They recently launched their AI platform, improving how healthcare providers handle patient communication at scale. The company secured $3M in seed funding from Canvas Ventures, CoFound Partners, StoryHouse Ventures, and others, including former One Medical CEO Tom Lee, MD, and former Twitter CTO Adam Messinger.
🤖 AI And The Evolution of Creative Industries….. The creative industry is facing new challenges and opportunities with the rise of AI. Claremont alum David Carroll (PO) explores how embracing AI can enhance artistic expression rather than replace it, drawing parallels to past technological revolutions in film and music. David is currently the Chief of AI Research & Development at Spotter, a platform that provides services and software designed to accelerate growth for the world’s best content creators and brands.
🔋 Unlocking 24/7 Renewable Energy….. As we push towards a low-carbon future, the need for reliable energy storage solutions has never been more critical. Claremont grad Ethan Greenberg (HMC ‘21) highlights how flywheel energy storage systems are changing the landscape, enabling renewable energy integration, stabilizing the grid, and supporting industries reliant on consistent power. Ethan is the co-founder of RotorVault, a market-competitive grid-scale flywheel energy storage system. They are working on a sustainable solution to store MWhs of energy at future-proof low costs.
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