Rebel Alliance: Agentic Stack
Michael Mignano
@mignano
· 11
+21.1%
since Jul 10 · after money added
The idea
Based on USV's Rebel Alliance thesis. I don't think the AI stack ends up owned top to bottom by one or two model makers; I think value settles in the layers between the models, so I'm not betting on any single lab. The portfolio holds neutral infrastructure that gets paid no matter who wins, plus the rails for agent-driven payments and identity, chip diversification away from any one model architecture, and a few application companies rebuilding around agents.
What it owns
- Infrastructure that routes agent traffic and state regardless of which models or agents dominate. · CloudflareRuns agent execution through Workers and an agents SDK, then monetizes agent traffic directly through its pay-per-crawl model., MongoDBIts document model and vector search make it the default database for storing agent state and memory in production systems., DatadogObservability becomes critical when millions of composed agents operate across modular services, extending its monitoring franchise naturally., ElasticSearch and retrieval grounds agents in enterprise data, and its hybrid search embeds in regulated deployments where modularity beats single-provider defaults., TwilioAgents acting in the world need channels to reach humans through voice, messaging and verification, and it serves as the neutral communications harness.30%
- Payment and identity systems built for agent-to-agent commerce and authentication at scale. · CoinbaseBuilt the x402 protocol specifically for agent-to-agent micropayments and controls the on-ramp from crypto rails into commerce., OktaIdentity for non-human actors becomes essential as agentic traffic exceeds human traffic, pivoting its neutral platform directly at securing agents., CircleAgent micropayments require programmable, instant, near-free settlement through stablecoins, making USDC the native money of agent commerce., VisaIts Intelligent Commerce initiative builds agent-initiated payments on existing card rails, hedging the bet that agentic commerce lands on incumbent infrastructure.24%
- Compute and chip vendors that benefit when buyers refuse single-vendor lock-in at the silicon layer. · Advanced Micro DevicesGains share when inference workloads shop on price-performance rather than incumbency, benefiting from compute layer diversification., BroadcomSells custom accelerators to buyers seeking independence from single vendors, plus the networking fabric for distributed agent infrastructure., Arm HoldingsCollects royalties on every edge device running local inference, capturing a toll on the proliferation of smaller models., QualcommOn-device AI commoditizes models by running them locally rather than through frontier APIs, and its NPU franchise wins as capable models shrink to the edge.22%
- Platforms where agents integrate into real business workflows and commerce. · SnowflakeEnterprise agents need governed, compliant data access with audit trails, and it remains deliberately model-agnostic inside its governance perimeter., ShopifyBuilds the infrastructure for merchants to sell to and through agents, letting independent merchants participate in agentic e-commerce., GitLabCoding agents need a harness for repo, CI/CD, review and deployment, and its platform integrates them into real software workflows model-agnostically.14%
- Cash10%