Pat McGovern - Bowery Capital - Where Vertical AI Wins
Our Guest: Pat McGovern is a Principal at Bowery Capital, an early-stage B2B fund investing primarily at pre-seed. He focuses on vertical AI and writes the newsletter Capital Efficient.
Episode Topics:
- How Bowery approaches pre-seed in 2026 and what “first institutional capital” looks like today.
- The shift from “SaaS contracts” to outcome-driven and services-driven models.
- Pat’s vertical AI playbook.
- Case study on Enata and how voice-first AI gives field sellers time back while improving CRM quality and sales insights.
- Why more startups may compete directly for industry spend rather than selling tools to incumbents.
- What Pat wants in founders.
- The new definition of technical in the AI era.
- How to run customer pilots well, including shorter timelines, mid-point check-ins, proof-of-value gates, and prioritizing referenceable logos.
Resources:
https://x.com/pw_mcgovern?lang=en
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pwmcgovern
https://bowerycap.com/
https://capitalefficient.substack.com/
About Cloud Returns by Cloud Ratings:
Cloud Returns covers ALL types of software investing, whether seed, venture capital, growth equity, private equity, debt, and the public markets.
Our host - Matt Harney - is active on Twitter @saasletter and writes "SaaSletter", an investing-oriented SaaS newsletter on Substack.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pwmcgovern
https://bowerycap.com/
https://capitalefficient.substack.com/
About Cloud Returns by Cloud Ratings:
Cloud Returns covers ALL types of software investing, whether seed, venture capital, growth equity, private equity, debt, and the public markets.
Our host - Matt Harney - is active on Twitter @saasletter and writes "SaaSletter", an investing-oriented SaaS newsletter on Substack.
About Cloud Ratings:
Cloud Ratings is a customer outcomes-focused, data-driven software research analyst firm. We exist to allow organizations to make more confident, lower-risk software purchasing decisions.
Our Cloud Ratings Category Reports combine user reviews with verified vendor data to impartially identify leading software products. Recent report examples include: Subscription Management Software, Session Replay Software, Sales Compensation Software, and Digital Sales Room Software
Built upon investigative customer interviews, our True ROI Reports quantify and provide 3rd party validation of a software product’s business value.
