Rich Freeman in Channelholic has two good ones I noted, here’s the first. Venture capital is increasingly targeting managed service providers, with significant investment flowing into artificial intelligence startups that aim to transform traditional service and labor companies. According to Pitchbook, AI startups accounted for 53 percent of all venture capital investment globally in the first half of 2025, and this number rose to 64 percent in the United States. Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst, noted that companies with established customer bases and substantial data are prime candidates for AI integration, particularly those outsourcing tasks like call centers. Earlier this year, General Catalyst led a $74 million funding round for Titan, an AI rollup focused on managed service providers, which aims to enhance service desk operations and streamline workflows using AI technology. Titan’s approach includes automating ticket resolution and developing sales and marketing technologies to support managed service providers in achieving growth and efficiency. The ambition of Titan is to create a major player in the IT services space, comparable to Accenture or Cognizant, with a vision of building a company worth $100 billion.
Why do we care?
Venture money is chasing MSPs. Over half of all VC dollars this year went to AI startups, and Titan grabbed seventy-four million to roll up service providers. Their pitch? Use AI to run the help desk and scale like Accenture. They’re talking a hundred-billion-dollar company.
That should scare you a little. Not because Titan is guaranteed to pull it off—frankly, service rollups are messy—but because the money says your business model is valuable. And when venture thinks there’s gold, they bring picks, shovels, and a bulldozer.
If you’re just “we fix tickets,” you’re exactly the kind of commodity work they’ll automate and undercut. The safe ground is moving up the stack: vertical expertise, business outcomes, advisory. Let the VCs fight to industrialize the low end—you should be where their AI can’t compete. For clients, this isn’t about replacing IT—it’s about replacing labor costs, and the winners will be providers who advise on how to reshape work, not just provide tools.