AI Agents Fuel a New VC Model — 75% of InReach Ventures’ Deals Come From Algorithms

In Europe’s venture capital scene, investors usually spend their days bouncing between airports, conferences, and crowded networking events. But Roberto BonanzingaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, cofounder of InReach Ventures, has taken a very different path. While thousands of investors gathered at Slush in Helsinki this year, Bonanzinga stayed in London — not because he’s avoiding the industry, but because he’s betting his entire firm on a new kind of colleague: an AI agent named Anna.

Bonanzinga built InReach in 2015 to solve a problem he felt firsthand. Finding great founders often depends on luck — meeting the right person, at the right moment, in the right city. Instead of relying on serendipity, he wanted a systematic, data-driven way to find startups earlier and with more precision. Over time, his team trained machine learning models to scan the internet for signs of emerging companies, evaluate their traction, and even generate analyses to support investment decisions.

What started as an experiment has now become the core of the firm. InReach no longer hires the junior analysts or associates that most VC firms rely on. The AI agents handle sourcing and early screening at far greater scale, and according to Bonanzinga, they’ve already driven roughly €50 million of the €65 million InReach has deployed across two funds. Every single investment from their latest fund was sourced by artificial intelligence rather than humans.

This shift is controversial. Critics argue that removing junior roles cuts off an important entry point into venture capital — a field already known for its exclusivity. Others point out that AI systems can make mistakes, misunderstand context, or reflect biases in their training data. Even Bonanzinga acknowledges this: during his interview with Bloomberg, the AI transcriber repeatedly misinterpreted his Sicilian accent. That’s why, despite automating much of the front end, InReach’s partners still personally review AI-suggested deals and spend significant time with founders before investing.

Still, Bonanzinga believes this is where the industry is heading. With AI automating the heavy lifting of deal sourcing and analysis, he thinks it’s only a matter of time before a solo investor, empowered by powerful agents, can raise and manage a €1 billion fund. If he’s right, AI won’t just reshape startups — it will reshape venture capital itself.

Source:
Bloomberg

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