A week in AI is like a year in other industries. I hope these issues become your weekly source of AI information, inspiration, and ideas. If we haven’t met before, I’m Amanda Smith. I write about AI and the fascinating folks who are building in this brave new world.
Good morning. We all love hearing stories from new AI companies who are growing at breakneck speed. But the companies who have been building in AI before it went mainstream are equally as interesting, if not more.
This week, I talked to a founder who was bullish on AI before anyone even knew what the acronym was.
Enjoy the read.
Trending in AI right now:
AI data center backlash
More counties and states are banning these big AI centers in their backyards.
Ex-Google CEO shouted off-stage
For his stance on AI.
Gen Z is going analog
The youth are rejecting AI.
🤝 In partnership with Mode Mobile
Imagine turning down Uber at a valuation of $10 million, only to watch it go public at over $80 billion.
That’s exactly what happened to Mark Cuban… a 799,900% return, gone.
But original Shark Tank investor Kevin Harrington built his career doing the opposite: spotting asymmetric opportunities before they go mainstream.
Like Uber turned vehicles into income-generating assets, Mode Mobile is turning smartphones into income streams.
They were named the #1 fastest-growing software company by Deloitte and have already helped their users earn and save over $1B.
Kevin Harrington invested early.
And at just $0.50/share, you can still get in before their potential IPO. But this window will not stay open for long.
Company background: Merge
Founded: June 2020
Team size: 125 employees
Funding to date: $75 million from seed, Series A and Series B
ARR: Not disclosed
Growth metric:Personally handling sales calls and working closely with initial customers when launching new products.
Shensi Ding, Merge
Shensi Ding started her career in banking in New York City before moving to Silicon Valley to join the Silver Lakes Growth Equity Fund. It wasn’t long before she realized she wanted to work in operations, so Ding took a Chief of Staff role at a cybersecurity startup working with Fortune 500 companies.
Every time an issue was detected, Ding was perplexed by how difficult it was to export that data. This was back before integrations weren’t popular and companies stayed within one ecosystem such as Oracle. With a software engineering background, Ding started digging into this problem and co-founded Merge to meet changing demands.
Merge builds the infrastructure that SaaS companies and AI labs rely on to ship AI products faster – handling the integrations, agent infrastructure and model routing. “Whenever people are trying to add connectivity, whether it’s to third-party systems or LLM providers, we’re the default provider,” Ding said.
In short, Merge is the connective infrastructure for production AI.
Build philosophy & go-to-market
The team spent six months doing research before they started building anything because they didn’t want to develop in the wrong direction. Ding spoke to a ton of people to deeply understand the problem and get conviction.
They launched their second product in October 2025. “We did two months of research and the vibe coded a demo that we could use to get feedback, then spent three months with their head down building.
Merge just launched their third product in April 2026 which was an even more compressed timeline, thanks to AI. If you can show a live demo, you can ship fast. That live demo build used to be the bottleneck.
While Ding admits it’s harder than ever without brand recognition and all the copycats, teams can now bypass VC funding.
Growth mode
Ding personally handles sales calls for strategic deals and invests in relationships with executives who require trust to want to bet on new companies. It’s a tough strategy for a sales team to reverse and founder-led sales have a big impact on their business.
Merge also does a mix of direct sales, paid ads, conferences, and field marketing. “We do a lot of the traditional things,” Ding said.
Branding, customer relationships and an open-minded team are critical for success, she added.
Merge’s revenue streams depend on the product, but the majority is usage-based and a platform fee. If they’re developing specific deployment models or any connectors, that’s a different type of customer commitment.
Takeaways
Trends can support your growth, even if adjacent. While no-code isn’t Merge’s niche, these providers will start moving towards enterprise. When that happens, they’ll start adding integrations and connectors in order to have sticky usage.
Every function in your company needs to be AI-native – not just in your products, but in your team, too. For individuals, this is the most important time in history to continue learning. Carve out time to protect your career.
People are starting to get repelled by AI content. Taste must come from humans. Set your limits as a company.
How's the depth of today's edition?
If one of these stories stuck with you, I’d love to hear which one.
Speak soon,
Amanda
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✢ A Note From Mode Mobile
Potential Uber return for Marc Cuban does not take into account dilution.
The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period in 2023.
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